Debates of Oct. 4th, 2005

Remote Sensing Space Systems Act

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)]

I agree with you that he is allowed to if he so wishes. Questions and comments, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I understand the member's way of approaching this by way of the dialectic, asking a number of questions and I hope to be able to provide a response to each one. As convoluted as it may be, I want again to thank the member from Gander for his comments.

The costs are $1.3 million a year. With respect to the member's questions as to the issue of delegation, clause 21 of the bill states that the minister may delegate only to his or her deputy minister the exercise of the minister's powers. It is not wide open. The member will see that in the bill at page 17 in the English version.

The hon. member pointed out his concern as it relates to the application of the act to RADARSAT 1. In this case and applicable to Her Majesty in right of Canada or a province, the government seeks a single law applying to both private and public sector satellites. The government will seek to treat federal and provincial systems equitably.

As the hon. member has quite rightly pointed out, an amendment by his party which I think satisfied most of us as it relates to provincial jurisdiction found its way into paragraph 4(3)(c) of the bill in which provincial interests would also be weighed.

I am pleased that the member's party is supporting the bill. I think it is important. This is going to be a trial effort by us all to try to make the public-private formula work, in particular in recognition of the great opportunities that exist beyond our borders, to continue to allow Canada to be a leader in terms of satellite technology, not just developing with our own initiatives through the government but also since 1999 working on the latest advancements in the private sector.

The hon. member himself has some opportunities to provide us with some of his ideas as to the kind of potentials that exist down the road with this new technology. I think I speak for all of us on this side in saying that we cannot delay much longer on this bill to get this thing launched in 2006.

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the parliamentary secretary's questions and his good comments. He has reflected on some of the areas I raised. His last comment, however, does not satisfy the question I had in terms of delegation of powers.

I was talking about the powers under clause 12, which are the powers for a minister to actually order that a certain service be performed and are not the powers referred under clause 21. In answer to my question the parliamentary secretary was quite correct. He referenced clause 21 but he referenced paragraph 21(1)(a) which says that the minister “may not delegate the exercise of the Minister’s powers under subsection 4(3) or 14(1)”. It goes on to say he or she may delegate to his or her deputy minister. That is understood. The question I raised was on paragraph 21(1)(c) which says “may delegate to any officer or class of officers—or, with the consent of the Minister of National Defence, a member or class of members of the Canadian Forces—the exercise of any other powers of the Minister under this Act”.

In fact, the way it reads, clause 12, which is the minister's power to tell a satellite operator what service he or she has to perform, that appears to be able to be delegated even to a member of the armed forces. That is the question I have in response to his very good question. I do not know if he is able to comment on that in my question about his question to my question.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask two questions of the member, the Conservative Party critic for foreign affairs, who, to my surprise, supports this bill.

First, nothing in this bill provides for the licence to be revoked if the satellite operator ever becomes a foreigner. Does this not worry him a little, especially in view of the fact that MacDonald belonged to the Americans for a few months? Would it not have been better to state very clearly that RADARSAT-2 and any other satellites that the Canadian Space Agency might design must be operated by companies that are 100% Canadian-owned? That is my first question.

Second, in view of the fact that this is a private operator, should they not also have ensured that federal departments, provincial governments and departments as well as the scientific community have priority access to the remote sensing images? Since this is a private company, it will obviously try to sell the images to whoever offers the most. What was standard procedure with RADARSAT-1, namely a certain priority in the use of the remote sensing images for the federal government, the provinces and the scientific community, no longer applies. Nothing in the bill ensures this priority. I think there should have been a provision like this in it.

I want to ask the member what he thinks about these two concerns of the Bloc Québécois.

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his questions. I do not want to defend the federal government's bills, but I can answer his questions all the same.

In the case of a company like this, or other companies, there are no regulations at the present time in Canada requiring the company to be fully owned in all cases. There is other legislation in Canada on the ownership question. Knowing who owns this company is therefore not a big problem. The company must comply in any case with the other laws in cases like this.

Insofar as the access question is concerned, I agree. The bill does mention it. I do not have the section directly related to this in front of me. Once again, I do not want to defend the government, but there are some regulations on the access question. Maybe this section is not clear enough or satisfying enough for the member. But it does exist. Maybe it does not satisfy the member. That is his opinion, of course, and I respect it.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we keep doing things here that are very much along the lines of trying to glean information. I am certainly willing to work with the member for Okanagan—Coquihalla.

There appears to be some confusion about clauses 12, 15 and 21. Clause 21 is on the delegation of the minister, but it only deals with subclause 15(1). The delegation under subclause 15(1) would be instances of priority access, the Minister of National Defence, the Solicitor General, or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and it goes on to instances where there may be those who require the information where this might be a request by any one of those departments and would be made based on a priority.

With respect to the issue of cancellation of a licence, that would only be in the most serious of circumstances. It says very clearly in clause 12, not overridden by clause 21, that in the instance where national security, the defence of Canada, the safety of Canadian Forces or Canada's conduct of international relations might be affected, the minister shall be the first to give a licence. It says only the minister in this case as it relates to the cancellation of the licence.

I would ask the hon. member, is that clear enough for him?

[Stockwell Day, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is helpful. It delineates the differences between subclauses 4(3), 14(1) and 15(1). If the member could assure us, maybe with a nod of assent, that is his reading of it where it says 15(1) and then goes into “and” and subclause (c), I am willing to accept that subclause 15(1) does not apply to members of the Canadian armed forces.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to have the opportunity to speak in this debate on Bill C-25, an act governing the operation of remote sensing space systems. This is an important piece of legislation before the House and one in which the NDP's foreign affairs critic, the member for Halifax, has taken a very keen interest. She participated in the various discussions in committee on this legislation.

The summary of the bill states:

This enactment regulates remote sensing space systems to ensure that their operation is neither injurious to national security, to the defence of Canada, to the safety of Canadian Forces or to Canada’s conduct of international relations nor inconsistent with Canada’s international obligations.

In order to accomplish this, the enactment establishes a licensing regime for remote sensing space systems and provides for restrictions on the distribution of data gathered by means of them. In addition, the enactment gives special powers to the Government of Canada concerning priority access to remote sensing services and the interruption of such services.

It is clear that this is important legislation and covers an important piece of technology that is very sensitive in our world these days.

There are some very important issues that must be raised in relation to this bill. At second reading the NDP did not take a clear position on the bill. We wanted to hear what the discussion was at committee. We wanted to hear from various organizations and individuals about what they saw was important in this legislation, although we did understand the basic underlying need for the legislation. We agreed with some aspects of the bill, but the vagueness of the language in this bill raises alarm bells about how the government intends to use the legislation.

The member for Halifax was impressed by the many arguments and witnesses who appeared before the committee. She believes that had the government truly listened to the many witnesses who raised serious concerns regarding things like transparency, accountability and the privacy of citizens, the NDP would not be voting against Bill C-25 at third reading.

One key aspect of that is the privacy of citizens. Everyone will notice that when I read out the summary of the bill it outlined many of the causes of concern that this bill was intended to address, but the privacy of individual Canadian citizens was not part of that list. We think that is a serious omission from the legislation.

I want to be clear that RADARSAT-2 is a commercially owned satellite. It is billed by its manufacturer, MacDonald, Dettwiler & Associates, as incorporating state of the art technology, featuring the most advanced commercially available radar imagery in the world. That is a pretty dramatic claim and technology that we understand is not over-embellished. This satellite will do what it is billed as capable of doing.

We also want to be clear that the Canadian taxpayers have funded approximately 75% of the development of the satellite. That is $450 million of Canadian tax dollars that were invested in the satellite that will be 100% commercially owned.

I know that raises other serious concerns. What is the involvement of the Canadian Space Agency or why is there not any involvement of the Canadian Space Agency in the control and development of this satellite? I know other opposition members have also raised that concern with regard to RADARSAT-2.

We agree with the government that Canadians need to be reassured that information collected by RADARSAT-2 would not be used against our national interest and that is why we agree with the overall necessity of this legislation. However, as I said, we are concerned with the way it has been presented.

We want to make sure that the purchasers of RADARSAT-2 imagery are subject to licensing requirements but within that we also believe some clarity was desperately needed. To that end, the NDP put forward 18 amendments that would have helped clarify the intention of this bill and the requirements of the use of this technology and the information that it provides.

In committee, the NDP proposed that we define vague and unaccountable terms like “international obligations” and “international relations” more clearly and definitively. The NDP supports the government in having priority access to RADARSAT-2 images, but the vagueness of the two terms “international obligations” and “international relations” leaves the door open so wide that apparently even RADARSAT International, which was consulted several years before parliamentarians had access to the bill, requested that these terms be better defined. When RADARSAT International believes that there is a vagueness in the legislation and a vagueness in the proposal it behooves us to be very clear and respond to that concern.

The NDP, as part of our work and our critic's work at the committee, suggested that this required cabinet decisions and not solely ministerial decisions on issues where international obligations and Canada's national interest collide. We wanted to make sure that these decisions around these important issues would be taken at the highest possible and not by individual ministers.

The NDP also proposed that the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of International Cooperation have the same privileges as the Minister of Foreign Affairs since the majority of RADARSAT-2 images would be used in cases of national disasters at home and around the world.

We wanted to make sure that the ministers who had direct responsibility in the situation of responding to a natural disaster had equal call on the information provided by this technology and that they did not have to work through another department an all that it implies.

The NDP also suggested that we subject the sale of RADARSAT-2 images to export control guidelines to ensure that images are not sold to nations that work against Canada's best interest. I think that is a clear and straightforward suggestion and for the life of me I do not understand why it would not have met with some success at committee.

The NDP also put forward an amendment at committee which did not go forward that a detailed annual report on corporations that violate controls on the use of RADARSAT-2 images and the government's effort on an annual basis to prosecute violators be required. In other words, we were pressing for better accountability and transparency on matters of national importance.

Given the sensitivity, the ability of this technology to zero in literally on the everyday activities of Canadians and indeed people around the world, I think accountability and transparency given the national importance and national interest in this was desperately required.

It is important to note that RADARSAT International has sold imagery from RADARSAT-1 to the U.S. military. This information may have been used by the United States in its war in Iraq. I think that is a concern that many Canadians have. This is a war that most Canadians do not support and we want to make sure that Canadian technology is not being used to support the illegal war in Iraq. If the legislation does not address these kinds of issues then it is severely flawed.

Canadians deserve to have an ironclad assurance that the government approved sale of RADARSAT-2 imagery will not be sold to the U.S. for war, for promoting war or for any other military purpose that Canadians do not support. I think this is the bottom line with many Canadians. We do not want to participate in any way in an illegal war like the one that is currently being fought in Iraq.

It is worrisome that the government also saw an obvious link that one can make to the use of RADARSAT-2 as part of the U.S. ballistic missile system. It raised this directly. It is no wonder that the first words out of the mouth of departmental officials were words assuring us that there was no connection between RADARSAT-2 and missile defence.

It is interesting that this concern was the first issue raised by departmental officials when they appeared before the committee to discuss the legislation. It goes to show why we need absolute clarity and detailed assurance within the legislation that this RADARSAT-2 technology would not be used as part of the U.S. ballistic missile system, as part of the star wars proposals that come out of the United States.

Canadians have also been extremely, utterly and absolutely clear that they do not want any part of the star wars program.

The NDP also urged the government that it must be clear in the House and in committee when it states in the priority access clause of Bill C-25 that such access is warranted if “the minister believes on reasonable grounds it is desirable for the conduct of international relations or in the performance of Canada's international obligations”. Those were the terms that were not defined sufficiently to allow us the ability of supporting the legislation.

I mentioned earlier the privacy of citizens. Given the ability of this technology to zero in on individual activities and on individual locations within the space of about a metre and half, I think it is really important that Canadians be assured that their privacy is a high priority within the legislation but there is not a clear delineation of that in the legislation.

A little while ago a colleague from the Bloc Québécois raised the whole question of foreign ownership and whether technology like this should remain 100% under Canadian control. That is an important concern and one that should have been addressed as well in the legislation.

Unfortunately, in working this bill through the parliamentary process and through the committee process, the government chose not to work constructively with opposition members on the committee. In fact, apparently some government members even objected strongly to holding hearings on the bill, which I think is very troublesome. Given the absolute importance of the legislation, the strong implications for privacy and for participation in military actions, I cannot imagine why any government member would try to block holding hearings and hearing from people who know this technology, who know its capacity and who have opinions and testimony to offer about the legislation. Thankfully, that did not carry the day.

Unfortunately, however, a lot of that testimony was ignored by the government, especially when the member for Halifax put some of those concerns into amendments to this legislation. They were turned down and did not go forward, so a lot of that important testimony was ignored.

Some of that behaviour just goes to confirm our concerns about the bill. It goes to show that those concerns perhaps are justified and that there is more going on here than meets the eye. We want to make sure that there is transparency and the attempts to block transparency, even in the discussions on the bill, certainly do not make us rest any easier about the legislation.

The government's refusal to take into account the advice of experts before who repeatedly expressed concerns with the vagueness of the legislation, the lack of transparency and accountability, and the exclusion of the Ministers of the Environment and International Cooperation from having any priority access to images unless they ask the permission of the Minister of Foreign Affairs to act on their behalf, is a very serious concern. That is a bottom line for the NDP. We have many concerns but those things form our bottom line and lead us to not support the legislation at this reading. The NDP will be voting against the legislation.

It is important legislation. It is important technology and very sensitive technology, and the NDP, after the process that we have gone through in the House of Commons and in committee, remain concerned about the legislation. We see many questions unanswered and still much vagueness in the bill which is less than helpful in the long run for Canadians.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I commend the member for his speech, for his thoughtful approach to the issue and for his concern where Canadian sovereignty is concerned in handing over this very critical piece of technology that will have tremendous effect, in ways that we cannot even imagine now, on all of our lives perhaps.

What specifically could he point to that lends him to be fearful and anxious in front of this particular initiative?

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the thing that makes me fearful is just the process. We heard from many witnesses, individuals and organizations at the committee and their concerns were not addressed by the legislation or by the amendments to the legislation. They were not addressed in the original legislation and they were not addressed by the amendment process. Eighteen of the amendments proposed by the member for Halifax, the NDP representative on the committee, were not accepted.

All of that testimony went for naught. All of the concerns, even the concerns of RADARSAT International that were raised about the vagueness of the legislation in key areas did not get addressed through that part of the legislative process. That raises a serious question about the legislation and about the commitment of the government around the legislation. For me that is the most serious failing and that causes me great concern about Bill C-25.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)]

Order, please. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Windsor West, Canada-U.S. Border.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my great honour and pleasure to follow the member for Burnaby—Douglas. He laid before the House some of his concerns and the concerns of others which were raised in a very sincere and thorough fashion by the critic for our caucus in this area, the member for Halifax. She still is very concerned that the government has not listened to the concerns brought to the table by her. These are not her own concerns. These are the concerns of people who she spends a lot of time and energy to be in contact with as she does her job as critic in this place.

I do not think there is anybody in my experience so far who does such a comprehensive job of being in contact with and connecting with those individuals, organizations and groups that follow these kinds of initiatives by government in a very close and concerned fashion. They spoke to her very clearly about what they saw as good in this bill. Most important, they spoke to her about some of its shortcomings and failings.

Alas, at the end of the day the member for Halifax came to the conclusion that the government had not listen. Our experience in this place over the last 16 months is that the government does not listen very often. The Liberals were sent a message by the electorate in the election of June of last year that they wanted things to be different. They wanted this place to be run differently. They wanted more collaboration and cooperation. They wanted more inclusion and discussion with not only members, but with people in the larger society. They wanted a minority government to work differently. They wanted the government to move quickly away from a position of majority and having its way. They wanted the government to drive an agenda, no matter what. They wanted it to start listening, incorporating and taking seriously some of the very important perspectives, thoughts and ideas from all sides of the House, including people across the country. However, time and time again in this place and in committee often that this is not the case.

Although, there have been some instances where we have been able to get some things done with the government. When that happens, it is so irregular and rare that it becomes a very momentous occasion in the life of the country. I speak specifically of the better balanced budget that was passed last June before we rose. Out of some sense of desperation and its wont to hang on to power, the government listened to the NDP when it brought forward some of its concerns with the budget, in particular the corporate tax breaks which had not been raised during the election. We felt they were not in keeping with the real needs of Canadians. Therefore, we brought to the table some alternatives, options and ways to which the government might respond constructively, and it did in that instance.

We are disappointed that the government was not willing to do the same thing with Bill C-25. It was not willing to sit down with the member for Halifax and others who had some very sincere and genuine concerns about the bill. We might have found ourselves in a different position of being able to support the legislation.

We are here to get things done. We are here as a caucus not to be obstructionists, not to continually be adversarial and not to be critical all the time. We are here to find a way to hammer out legislation in committees, or informally at round tables or over dinners perhaps. We want to find ways to put in place bills, rules, regulations, new initiatives that would serve all who call themselves Canadian citizens and who have some concerns. They want to build a nation that is cognizant, proud and protective of its sovereignty, while at the same time work cooperatively with its partners and neighbours.

This is a very delicate, serious, difficult and painstaking exercise, something that we in the New Democratic caucus have had a lot of experience with over the years. We have tried to bring our perspective and intelligence to this place. We have honed an ability to find ways, places and means to have our thoughts and perspectives heard and considered. At the end of the day, in some instances, they are taken into account become part of bills.

However, in this instance that has not been the case. Therefore, we stand today in opposition to the bill, not because we want to but because we have been unable to find an openness in the government to accept some of our suggestions.

On one hand, we recognize the bill has ramifications in a number of different ways. One is the question of ownership. The government has made a significant investment in technology of which we should have more ownership. With that ownership, we should have more control and more say in how it will be used and how the information gathered will be used. Turning over the ownership of something we have invested in so generously to the private sector will not take us down that road. There are no guarantees in the private sector where something like this will ultimately end up.

At the beginning we may have confidence in the private sector enterprise that takes over this delicate piece of technology. Who knows in a week, or a month, or six months or a year where the ownership of that technology will end up. There are no guarantees, unless someone can tell me differently, that this important new development will not be sold to some foreign interest, an interest whose only interest is the bottom line. The valuable information that has been collected could be sold. We have some real concern about that.

Canada has seen that happen. We have had governments, which lean to the right, involve the private sector in the public affairs of our country. We know from experience that this does not work. Information has disappeared, or has been sold or has ended up in the wrong hands. At the end of the day we have paid a big price for that. Individuals have paid a big price. Our society has paid a big price in terms of our privacy and our concern about where our information goes. We have sincerely and seriously put that concern on the table over the last number of months.

The member for Halifax has worked so very hard on this. She has tried diligently to get the government to listen to the concerns she has brought to the table on behalf of the organizations with which she is in contact. However, we have been unable to get a positive response that would give us the confidence that the government understands those concerns or will do anything about it.

People need to understand that our government has invested a significant sum of money in a piece of technology which cutting edge, some of the best that is available. Why would we not own that? Why would we not continue to retain control over that, the functions it performs and the information it gathers and with whom that information will be shared? I am concerned about information going into foreign hands.

That leads us then to the question of protecting our own interests, our national security and our sovereignty. How will these play out? We are not convinced that the government has really thought this through. We have not been given satisfactory answers. We have not been made to feel confident that our interests, national security and sovereignty will be protected in this piece of work. This is more relevant now than it has ever been, particularly since 9/11.

The new focus now is on terrorism and security. People are concerned about who is coming in or going out of their country. People want to know what action their country will take in response to the fear that has been generated and that so often drives what we do these days, sometimes in inappropriate fashion.

Where we might decide to do something in a particular way in response to terrorism and in response to the whole question of security, another country like the United States of America might respond differently. We will be sharing this technology. Who will have access to the information generated by this technology? If a country enters into an activity in response to terrorism, or some security issue or some fear that has been raised, do we have any say or control over how information will be shared? Do we have any control over it being used inappropriately?

We only have to look at our difference of opinion with our neighbours to the south on the question of the Iraq war. The United States went into that war without the sanction of the United Nations. We felt that was not an appropriate thing to do. Canada chose a different path. In choosing that path, we kept to ourselves the information that we needed in order to defend that decision and to do what we felt was appropriate, given what was happening in the world.

If we set technology up now that will gather information that could be taken by another country like the United States and used in an inappropriate way as far as our government is concerned, how does that affect our sovereignty? How does that affect our ability to go our own way or to have our own view? How does that affect the kind of change we feel needs to happen if we are to see the world evolve in the manner that we as Canadians feel it should so we can maximize the impact that we can have as a country on international affairs?

How could we as a sovereign country interact with other sovereign countries? How could we as a sovereign country intervene in another sovereign country's affairs in order to protect human rights for example? How would this affect the organizations from which would take leadership or to which we belong? How would this affect the information we share with others?

Anybody who exercises any leadership in the world today knows that one of the most important elements of leadership is information. If we have information and some other country does not, then we go to the table as a sovereign nation from a position of strength. If we go to the table knowing that the other country has more information or information that we do not know about, then we go from a different position. We would not have the same potential for impact and change that we otherwise would.

Those are some of the things that we as a party are struggling with as we try to participate out there in the international realms of the world, with the new technology coming on stream. The private sector is not going to put up the initial seed money for this kind of technology to be developed. It is usually countries that do that kind of thing, countries that see their own interests served in the long haul by making this kind of investment.

In my view, it is certainly problematic to turn it over almost immediately to the private sector and, by doing so, to make the information it will gather and the effect it will have available to other countries that may not agree with our approach to what should be happening out there. This is something that we need to spend more time thinking about. It is something on which we need to do more work in seeing this through and finding out just exactly what the concerns are.

This is a huge leap of faith. We are being asked to take a huge leap of faith at a time when there are not many others doing so in the world we live in today. We are being asked to believe that the private sector will use the information gathered in the best interests of our country and our citizens and in the best interests of our international relationships at a time when we have seen over and over again, and recently, that the private sector is not always correct.

When it comes to ethics and how private sector companies operate, how they look after our investments, what they do with the money and the information they receive and the business they deliver, they are not always correct. In this country we all know about Nortel and some of the big scandals that have happened out there with regard to some of our huge multinational corporations.

It should give all of us reason to step back and take a sober second look. I served in the provincial legislature at Queen's Park and I remember when Mike Harris came to power. He talked about the discipline of the private sector. He said we needed to impose on government the discipline of the private sector. That was all fine until one day we woke up and read the paper and found out about Bre-X. Bre-X became a red flag for us in terms of the discipline of the private sector.

There are other examples. Martha Stewart got herself in a little difficulty because she walked the line and stepped over it ever so gently at one point in terms of whose interests she was serving.

That is the discipline of the private sector. Should we be taking this leap of faith and handing over this very valuable and important piece of technology to the private sector?

For example, should we be turning that information over to the American government? That is what will happen with this information. We in this country have had the experience of entering into agreements with the United States on all kinds of fronts, most particularly the free trade agreement and North American Free Trade Agreement. Time and time again we have been disappointed when the United States, in its own best interests, made decisions not in keeping with either the spirit or the law of those agreements, to the detriment of this country.

How could anyone suggest for a second that we should, with this new initiative we are working on putting in place, simply turn over that information without any strings attached? How can we simply turn this information over on a handshake or on goodwill or, as I said, in a leap of faith, when we have been disappointed so many times by the United States in terms of agreements we have signed with the Americans, agreements that they did not honour at the end of the day?

I look at my own community of Sault Ste. Marie and at northern Ontario and the people who labour up in those parts of the country. I look at the effect that the fight we are having right now with the United States of America on softwood lumber has had on them. The fact is that we bring that debate, that disagreement, to the courts time after time, and the courts decide in our favour, yet the United States continues to act as if it did not matter. It is as if American law trumps our law and trumps the North American Free Trade Agreement law. The United States gets its way.

We have a concern about that for this piece of technology. We have a concern about the information it will gather and the impact it will have in terms of what the United States will in fact do with it. So far we are not satisfied. Nothing in this agreement gives us the confidence or a sense of acceptance that the Americans will in fact live up to this.

In my own backyard, we have farmers who got into the cattle raising business over a period of years because they were told that through the signing of these free trade agreements they could move their beef into the United States. Slowly but surely we integrated our industry with the American industry and we ended up with less and less capacity to process beef here. With the BSE that showed itself a couple of years ago, we saw again the attitude of the United States to Canada, its trading partner, its neighbour, its best friend. When the chips were down, the Americans just shut the border down. They would not let us ship our beef.

I have talked to farmers in my own riding, in east Algoma, close to Sault Ste. Marie. Because of that decision by the United States, which we did not seem to be able to get overturned—the Americans themselves went to court to block our entry into their country—we saw the family farm, which is so fragile these days and so at risk—

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)]

On questions and comments, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I see that the hon. member from the Sault, for whom I have a great amount of respect, has learned a few things from his experience at Queen's Park, and once the light was out, he continued to make his point. I heard it and I hope he is able to make the point a little further on in regard to the questions I have.

The hon. member has raised a number of very critical points. I appreciate the fact that he has not been able to watch the proceedings of the committee. Certainly his party has been very active through the hon. member for Halifax, who continues to do a very good job on this particular file and others.

I want to point out to the hon. member that several amendments took place. Many of them of course were duplicated with the Bloc Québécois. In particular, for his ease of reference I want to look at subclause 36(2) on the recovery of penalties and amounts. It states, “No proceedings to recover such a debt may be commenced later than seven years after the debt became payable”. That is one amendment that the NDP proposed which the committee accepted in a very non-partisan way.

Another one proposed by the NDP had to deal with the archiving of raw data, including public access to the archived data.

It is clear that the committee also, in its own wisdom and in its own extensive and exhaustive consultations, which, we will recall, have been going on since November 2004, almost a year ago, talked at great length about ballistic missile defence. At the beginning, some actually thought this had something to do with ballistic missile defence. At the time, the member's party certainly felt that a remote sensing satellite somehow could be used as a function to help guide one of these missiles. That clearly, in terms of the understanding of technology, could not happen and I am pleased to see that the hon. member is not talking about that.

But the hon. member got it absolutely wrong with respect to how the treaty will work between Canada and the United States. Canada retains its sovereignty. It retains its discretion under the recently signed 2004 treaty to ensure that all information that is Canadian is controlled, regulated and protected in our national interests and will not be divulged.

The hon. member made a point at the end of his speech about his concern for farmers. The hon. member knows that many farmers are now using GPS technology, once owned by governments and then given to the private sector. It is a perfect example of where we see the blossoming of technology once controlled by government, for very military reasons, I suspect, now being used for peaceful reasons. I am sure the hon. member would agree with that.

Since he talked about farmers, he would also know that farmers in his area would understand quite well that the sooner we implement all of this technology, the sooner we can make something out of the $450 million he is so concerned about, quite apart from the defence or national interests of the country, or the concerns we have about the fish stocks or global warming or the decrease in the ice cap and all of these images. We can make value added contributions to help Canadians.

As for this hon. member and his party, when we really think about it, about where they were a year ago and where they are now, we have come a long way, not only in accommodating the concerns of the Bloc and the NDP but also in ensuring that we accommodate above all the interests of all Canadians.

Given all the accommodations that have taken place, given the work that has been done by members of Parliament, does the hon. member now want to stand in his place and support a darn good bill?

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have indeed come some way, but not far enough as far as we are concerned. Because of our recent experiences with the United States of America in terms of its decision to go to war in Iraq, its action where softwood lumber is concerned and its action where BSE is concerned, we know and we have been shown very clearly how the Americans will act. They will act in their own best interest. That interest is not always in our best interest. That is why we think there is more work to be done.

As I said, the member for Halifax worked really hard on this bill and has some very genuine and sincere concerns about it going forward the way it is right now. She agrees that there are some good things and that we have made some progress, but there has not been enough progress.

We put forward 18 solid amendments. They would have helped. They were not accepted. They would have gone a long way to reducing some of our anxiety about this. We are speaking on behalf of our citizens, our constituents. We are speaking on behalf of millions of people across this country who have some really genuine and sincere concerns as far as our relationship with the United States is concerned. They have genuine and sincere concerns about the use of this new technology and, more important, about what the private sector might do, particularly this early on, after being given so much control over this and the information it would gather.

Yes, we have taken technology, information and intelligence developed by government and turned that into all kinds of interesting, very valuable, exciting new products used by all kinds of people in the private sector, but it took us a while. It took us a while to sort out the bugs before we went down that road, before we began to share with and include the private sector in that way, before we entered into agreements with other sovereign countries in terms of the exchange and sharing of that kind of information. We have not done that here.

We are not confident nor are we convinced that we are going to be protected enough with this bill in terms of this new initiative and this technology. That is why I stand in my place today on behalf of my farmers, on behalf of people who work in the forest industry in northern Ontario, on behalf of people who get up every morning and go to work, carry a lunch pail and drive the resource based sector of this economy. Their experience with our neighbours to the south in almost every instance has been that the Americans will serve their own interests first, so we should be really careful where this initiative is concerned.

I would go so far as to say that right now there are a lot of relationships we have with the United States of America, both formal and informal, which we should be revisiting. Maybe we should be finding new ways to frame those relationships and, at the end of the day, actually protect our interests.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Sault Ste. Marie for an excellent speech on this important subject matter. I was particularly interested in his concerns around the private sector and its involvement in this project. I am interested in how that combines with our concerns about the vagueness of this legislation and the fact that the NDP, through our critic from Halifax, was not able to get greater clarity about certain provisions of the legislation, certain key facts in the legislation, especially given the sensitivity of this kind of technology.

I think we only have to look back to the outcry from Canadians when this government moved to let Lockheed Martin take over the census. There we had a situation where another American corporation, one with a connection to the military industry, a private sector corporation, was going to be given access not only to an important task in Canadian society but also to important information and important data. There was a huge outcry from Canadians, including people from Burnaby—Douglas, who found this an absolutely outrageous proposition, yet it does not seem that the government has learned anything from that experience.

Here we are going down that road again, in perhaps a slightly different way, but we are having these discussions about a private corporation controlling very sensitive information and very sensitive technology and we are not being very clear about the requirements around that.

I wonder if the member for Sault Ste. Marie might just comment on the parallels he sees there or expand further on his concerns about the private sector and this kind of technology and information.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are actually a significant number of examples of problems, mistakes and bad experiences where moving public sector activity into the private sector is concerned.

I spoke earlier about my experience at the provincial level, living for eight years under the reign of Mike Harris and ultimately Ernie Eves in Ontario, and the effort they made to turn the delivery of services to the most at risk, vulnerable and marginalized of our citizens over to the private sector. That had a devastating impact on the lives of thousands and thousands of families across this country. It was under Mike Harris and the shift from delivering social services to at risk, vulnerable and marginalized families and individuals that we saw the growth of homelessness and street people in the city of Toronto.

When I got to Toronto, we would see the odd homeless individual living on the street. Most of them were facing other challenges, a lot of them in the mental health area. However, it was only after Mike Harris took over in 1995 when he began to shift the delivery of government public services over to the private sector that we began to see the real increase. More and more people, whole families, were living on the street.

This whole idea that somehow the discipline of the private sector will resolve all of our problems and will take us down a road that will always be good for all of us needs to be challenged.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)]

All those opposed will please say nay.