Mr. Speaker, I want to pay tribute to the commitment my colleague has to this issue. For the number of years that I have known him he has been a tireless champion of the free movement of goods and services across international borders for trade purposes with special attention to national security issues. No one has been more outspoken on this issue. It is fitting then that when someone with his background and expertise blows the whistle on legislation that may be faulty or have shortcomings we should take note.
We as Parliament should be seized of this issue. I am satisfied, given the arguments that I have heard, that this amendment is justified and that the bill should be sent back to committee for the specific purposes of reconsidering at least clauses 7 and 24 which deal specifically with the duty to consult.
No one denies that Bill C-3 was necessary to complete the work that began as Bill C-44 in the previous Parliament to finally put some regulatory regime to the development of new or the expansion and rehabilitation of existing bridges and tunnels which cross international borders. We welcome this. It is overdue.
However, in our haste we should not ignore the basic principle of natural justice, which is the duty to consult. More learned people than I have pointed out that consultation has legal meaning. It means more than simply telling Canadians what we intend to do to them. It means inviting their views and accommodating some of those views when those views have merit.
We have all seen sham consultations where the touring task force blows into town, rents the local town hall and, with a very fancy power point presentation, announces what the government intends to do to people with their tax dollars. Objections are raised at all the microphones as to why this should be done differently and the bureaucrats pack up their books and their power point presentations and go off to the next town. At the end of the process we read in the newspapers that consultation took place in 33 Canadians communities and therefore they are ramming ahead with the legislation. That is not consultation.
My colleague for Skeena—Bulkley Valley just said, “Just ask first nations about the federal government”. I am not critical so much of the current federal government because it has not been in government long enough, but the past record of federal governments in this country in their dealings with first nations have made an appalling travesty of any semblance of true consultation.
My colleague from Windsor West was talking about consultation. He rose today on an issue of principle. He is not arguing about the merits of the bill so much as with the shortcoming in the bill that he cannot live with. I cannot live with it either based on his recommendation.
If the bill is all about the free movement of goods and services, expanding, accommodating and facilitating trade, it should have no barriers in the way of consultation. I cannot imagine the government allowing such an important issue to be tripped up by the denial of such a basic and fundamental right; the right to consult, the duty to consult and the duty to accommodate in the context of what one has heard.
I do not accept the fearmongering that we heard from the parliamentary secretary, that the duty to consult is so onerous, as contemplated by my colleague's amendment, that it would grind the process to a halt even in the event of national security. He said that in the event of a terrorist threat if the minister were duty bound to consult everybody and their grandmother, the terrorists would be running roughshod over us. That is nonsense.
There are other security measures in Canada where the ministers have broad sweeping powers to take what actions are necessary in the interest of national security. That kind of fearmongering trivializes an important debate and it does not do any of us a service to deviate from the issues of the day with that kind of thing.
I thought that the duty to consult all levels of government or interested parties was the norm in any situation like that. I was surprised by the parliamentary secretary's vehement reaction to that idea. Let us look at the language being proposed here. It would be helpful if we all started from the same base level of information in the debate.
What is being proposed is that, “before recommending that a regulation be made...the minister shall consult with the other levels of government that have jurisdiction over any place where an international bridge or tunnel is situated...”. That is not too onerous. That is just common sense. It continues with, “...and with any person who, in the opinion of a minister, has a direct interest in the matter...”.
What if private property is involved? What if a school or a school board needs to be consulted? With the tools and the bureaucracies at the minister's disposal, surely this level of consultation would not grind things to a halt.
We are not talking about the chamber of commerce. The minister used the example that, for heaven's sake, we will have to consult with everybody and their grandmother and that levels of government could mean chambers of commerce. Chambers of commerce are not governments. They are organizations that are part of civil society. The way this is phrased, “...if, in the opinion of the minister, that individual has a direct interest in the matter...”, the minister may decide that he does not have to consult with the chamber of commerce.
Let us be realistic and honest in our debate. What we are talking about, I think, is a basic fundamental principle and the amendment, to which I am trying to limit my remarks, addresses a concern that I certainly share.
When I was the aboriginal affairs critic for the NDP, I remember when we went through a contentious piece of legislation that would have affected the lives of aboriginal people, first nations. At that time, during our research and demanding that true consultation take place, I looked at some of the Supreme Court rulings that made reference to consultation. That was where I learned that the duty to consult meant far more than just engaging in a dialogue. The duty to consult includes some reasonable accommodation. If the other party makes a valid point and there is no compelling reason to ignore that point, then we are duty bound to accommodate that point if we want to claim there was consultation.
Consultation is often one of the stepping stones to infringing on a person's rights. There are times when it is justified to infringe on a person's rights, whether they are human rights, property rights, et cetera, but the courts have held that in such a situation there are two things that must take place in order to justify infringement of a person's rights, and the first aspect of that is the duty to consult in a thorough and comprehensive manner.
I enjoyed listening to the speech from my colleague from Windsor West because he kept bringing us back to the key salient point of what we are debating on two levels. First, he reminded us that we had an obligation to be thorough, complete and to make good laws. Each day in the House of Commons we begin the day with a prayer that reminds members of Parliament how duty bound we are to take every step possible to make good laws.
In the profound and well-defined conscience of my colleague from Windsor West, we would not be making good laws if we passed into law Bill C-3 without clarification on this duty to consult, without the natural justice associated with the obligation of the minister to consult.
He also reminded us of another worrisome trend. This is a theme, almost a motif that threaded its way throughout the entire Liberal regime of 13 years, that almost every piece of legislation that I have had to deal with since I have been a member of Parliament, most of them introduced by the Liberal government, expanded the discretionary powers of the minister and undermined the powers of Parliament to have the final say and, in this case, the powers of various levels of government.
My colleague from Windsor West has drawn our attention to this in the bill. Again, without this duty to consult being folded in and factored into the bill, the discretionary authority of the minister is enhanced once again, where ultimately it will be the minister who will decide what, when, where and how much to do with any new bridge or tunnel on an international crossing, and there are 24 such sites, or even the expansion, renovation or development of an existing crossing.
That should be worrisome. That is a trend that undermines the authority of Parliament. It gives too much power to the executive and not enough power where it should properly reside, which is with us the elected legislators and the legitimately elected representatives of other levels of government.
I am very surprised that the Bloc did not find fault with this. My colleagues from the Bloc Québécois are usually the first to remind us when a minister oversteps jurisdiction. I have heard a great deal of hue and cry from my colleagues from the Bloc when the federal government puts in place legislation that even hints at the fact it may be able to exercise control over another jurisdiction, in their case a provincial jurisdiction, without even the duty to consult. Surely that offends the sensibilities of my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois. It certainly offends mine.
There are bogus arguments abounding throughout this debate. I do not understand the resistance and reluctance on the part of opposition parties to insist that the bill be the best it can be. I found the official opposition members' arguments so vague and nebulous that they have almost no opinion. They do not have any opinion on Bill C-2, the most earth shattering and life changing piece of legislation in this Parliament surely. They have no opinion on that. They have no opinion on Bill C-3. They do not want to take part in pressing the Minister of the Environment to be a better minister of the environment. I do not know what they are doing to earn their keep lately, but they have an obligation to get involved in the debate as the official opposition. They seem to be willing to leave being the official opposition to the NDP. We do not mind assuming that role, but we would expect a little support from time to time on some of these pressing issues.
I will not dwell on that because I feel strongly about this issue. I have been invigorated and inspired by the speech given by my colleague from Windsor West and his dedication to the issue. He reminded us of the critical importance of international crossings. Until today I was not aware that there are 24 such crossing points.
The one we have heard most about is the Ambassador Bridge going from Windsor to Detroit. A lot of Canadians would probably be surprised to learn that the bridge is privately owned. Given that 40% of Canada's trade with the United States crosses at that very juncture, that the Province of Ontario would be the United States' fourth largest trading partner were it a nation, from a national security and public policy point of view or virtually any way we consider this, it is surprising that the bridge is a privately owned enterprise. We would think the jurisdiction and control and the expansion of it would be of such public importance that we would want it to be a public enterprise. It gets to be a matter of Canadian sovereignty, as my colleague pointed out.
We test the merits of an argument by challenging the argument. We can test the mettle of a piece of legislation by whether it can survive intelligent debate in the House of Commons. All I have heard so far is boosterism for a bill that has a serious, fundamental flaw and has had very little critical analysis. There has been lots of analysis of some of the merits of the bill, with which we do not disagree. There has been lots of analysis of the need for the bill, with which we do not disagree, but no one seems willing to get into an exchange with us, or with my colleague from Windsor West who moved the motions anyway, about the idea of consultation.
Where is the debate in this place? We would think there would be an appetite to have a real exchange on such a fundamental principle as the duty to consult. It is something upon which the Supreme Court has commented on many occasions. I feel duty bound to incorporate those principles into virtually all pieces of legislation that come through here.
There should be a screen through which all pieces of legislation should be viewed, to make sure they pass basic tests of ethics, of fairness, of accommodating basic principles that we as Canadians stipulate ourselves to. We want to be operating at the highest possible standards of ethical practices, of principles of fairness and equity with a duty to consult.
Let us think this through. Taxpayers' dollars can be used to change their atmosphere and environment without an opportunity to have meaningful input as to how that takes place. It is almost taxation without representation. Revolutions have been fought on basic issues like this. Canadians have a right to participate in the way that our tax dollars are being spent, up to and including a bridge being built in their backyard or expanding an existing bridge that is in their backyard.
It is one of those basic things that I would demand as a citizen, the right to full participation. Any government that did not want to listen to my views is not worthy of being my government. That is the way I would view it and I would certainly deal with that at the ballot box the next time around.
Bill C-3 is a component of Bill C-44 which, if we remember from the 38th Parliament, was an omnibus bill that died on the order paper. It was an ambitious omnibus bill that was set out to modernize the entire Canada transportation system really, with a Railway Safety Act and a new Via Rail Canada Act. What we are seeing with Bill C-3 is a hiving off of a section of a complex bill that died because of a lack of support from the rail line companies. It got complex.
The Conservatives opposed Bill C-44. All of these elements of Bill C-3 and others would be in effect today were it not for the Conservatives blocking the previous omnibus bill because they felt that Via Rail should be privatized and not accommodated with its own act. They opposed some of the changes in regard to monopolies and the selling off of rail lines and railcars, et cetera.
When we got Bill C-3 back, it was the most necessary, the most time sensitive component of a much larger and, I would argue, an equally necessary review of the entire Canada transportation strategy. That strategy, we should point out, is incomplete if we do not recognize the east-west dynamic as well as the north-south. I live in Winnipeg where the Red River corridor is a north-south corridor for trade, for the movement of goods and services that we value very much, but we should not value it at the expense of the necessary trade and transportation links, both east and west.
A country that is as geographically challenged as Canada must be seized of the issue of transportation. We would not have opened up the west without that commitment and without enabling the prairie farmers to move their grain with some accommodation by the federal government.
When we heard the member for Windsor West argue passionately for the details of how this affects his riding, I hope Canadians understood the motivation of my colleague. Some of the things he was explaining about the Ambassador Bridge cry out for involvement of other levels of government, of the level of government closest to the people affected.
We do not want to impose change from Ottawa. It fuels resentment of Ottawa when change comes from above without the participation of that local level of government. No one knows the facts on the ground better than the good people who are elected to represent people at the municipal and provincial levels in that area.
There are such complicating circumstances associated with the Ambassador Bridge, with 10,000 trucks per day lined up, idling, belching pollutants all over the school grounds, et cetera. How can we say that we would not consult with the local school board, or bypass that level of government, when some of the very air quality problems that are created by the inadequate Ambassador Bridge affect school children? How can we be so callous as to ignore those legitimately elected representatives?