Mr. Speaker, this has gone through some amendment process and some of the amendments have satisfied the concerns of the opposition. I was somewhat surprised to hear the sentiment expressed by the parliamentary secretary in relation to the member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor who was doing an adequate job of responding to the questions. He suggested that he had done a good job fending off the attacks of the opposition on this issue.
I have heard colleagues from other parties rise and address certain issues and amendments to make the bill even better. It is unfortunate that it was seen as fending off an attack, when in fact, on issues such as this we are always offering suggestions on how to improve what has been begun.
In case people have forgotten why this whole bill was required, it began as an agreement back in June 2000 between Canada and the United States related to the operation of remote satellite systems. This has been a work in progress. Some of the progress has been good for something that is necessary to have in place in terms of legislation.
We did raise the issue of provincial interest. It is very important, as we have been discussing this lately in the House, that anything to do with legislation affecting provinces, certainly international treaties affecting provinces, must have a bona fide and conscientious pursuit by the federal government of provincial interests in all cases such as this. If the provinces are affected, that is an area of paramount concern to us and one that would continue.
In reflecting on third reading, I will also have questions in my remarks recognizing that we are reflecting on the principle of the bill. I am not going to parse it into individual phrases and clauses, other than to refer to a phrase or a clause. That would be a reflection on the broader principle and I still have some questions here.
We raise a question about retroactivity for systems that are either already in place or about to be developed. Would the member from Bonavista please reflect on retroactivity? As he knows, it is a general principle in law that if a business or something is being developed and legislation comes out, we want to ensure there is no retroactive effect that is going to bring costs on the developer of those systems.
Would the member from Bonavista also reflect on something we have raised, continuing in this process, and that is the cost of the regulatory process itself? We have been informed that to put the system in place, and recognizing the high degree of sophistication here, there are going to be costs involved. There was a figure at one point that this would be somewhere in the area of just over $1 million or $1.3 million.
Obviously, in this House we accept what a member says at face value until we have evidence to the contrary. We do have other regulatory regimes that have been established, and I am talking for instance about the gun registry where we were told in this House that at first the registry would be a revenue generating system for the government. Then, when it appeared that was not going to be the case, we were told it was going to be revenue neutral. Of course, the gun registry is far from revenue neutral. Then, we were told it was going to be about a million dollars a year to administer. Now, of course, costs are up around $2 billion.
What can the member from Bonavista tell us to assure us that there is going to be some kind of constraint on the cost, so that when we look at this through the next budgetary cycle we are going to see that in fact costs were fairly much in the range of what had been discussed?
Regulatory systems are necessary at times for the government to put in place. It should always be done with great fear and trepidation because government easily gets out of control in its desire to over regulate. This puts huge impositions in terms of costs on the private sector. The CRTC is another case where Canada in fact has been shown in a number of situations to have fallen behind technological development because of an oppressive regulatory regime.
Would the member comment and give us some assurance, and a little peace of mind that the regulatory aspect of this is not going to be a runaway and so heavy on the cost side that it will actually be a deterrent to systems like this being developed in Canada?
A question we had related to the powers of a minister and the fact that a minister can suspend or cancel a licence. We recognize the necessity to have that. There is a provision, which I appreciate seeing, that if there is to be a suspension or cancellation of a licence, there has to be an appropriate warning and the ability of the company or the individual to appeal. I am recognizing that as a good thing, the appeal process and the notice process.
However, I do have a question and it would save interrupting the member at another moment if this could be addressed. I am reflecting on the broader principles of the bill. This would be the regulatory power of the minister to delegate. Clause 15 says that the minister may require the operator, the owner of the system, to actually perform a certain service, maybe for national defence reasons. That could impose quite a financial burden upon an operator of a system. There is this requirement in clause 15 which says that a minister could intervene and say to somebody who has developed a multi-million dollar system, “We want your satellite system to do something for the government”. That is a significant power to have.
If the member would look at the bill itself, in terms of regulatory power the minister can delegate some of that power. It lists areas where the minister cannot delegate, but then it goes on to list where the minister can delegate. As a matter of fact, it even says that the minister can delegate some of this power to the armed forces or a member of the armed forces. I would like to sense there is some kind of framework within that so that a member of the armed forces is not simply delegated the power to ask the operator of a system to perform a service for the government. Could we have a little bit of reflection on the intent there and is there some curbing of that particular power?
I was also pleased that a five year review has been put in. We are talking about sophisticated systems, some which have not been discovered yet but which will be discovered over the next couple of years. The five year review is absolutely necessary.
In principle, we have recognized from the beginning that this legislation is necessary. We have raised some cautions and I would hope that at the appropriate time the member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor could reflect on some of them.