Debates of Sept. 19th, 2006

Presence in Gallery

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

I would also like to draw to the attention of hon. members the presence in the gallery of Her Excellency Eva Kjer Hansen, Minister for Social Affairs and Gender Equality for Denmark.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The House is ready to take the recorded division on the ways and means motion before the House that deals with the softwood lumber agreement. I think if you seek it you would find agreement among all four parties to have the bell ring for only 15 minutes as opposed to 30.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Is there unanimous consent to proceed in this way?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Motion No. 6

[David Emerson, Conservative, Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Pacific Gateway and the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics]

moved that a ways and mean motion to introduce an act to impose a charge on the export of certain softwood lumber products to the United States and a charge on refunds of certain duty deposits paid to the United States, to authorize certain payments, to amend the Export and Import Permits Act and to amend other Acts as a consequence, be concurred in.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

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

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

All those opposed to the motion will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And more than five members having risen:

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #33

Ways and Means

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

I declare the motion carried.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Canada Transportation Act and the Railway Safety Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Canada Transportation Act

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Order. When the bill was before the House before oral questions, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities had the floor for questions and comments consequent on his speech. There remain two minutes in the time allotted for questions and comments to the hon. parliamentary secretary. I therefore call for questions and comments.

There being no member rising, resuming debate. The hon. member for Burnaby--New Westminster.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on Bill C-11. The NDP finds that there are some aspects of this bill that are worthy of consideration. I will address the aspects that Canadians might consider less interesting a little later.

The principle set out in this bill is that this is a government that listens. However, given the vote that has just taken place and the pressure that was brought to bear in all the proceedings surrounding the softwood lumber agreement, I am not convinced of this. In this corner of the House, we are in fact not convinced that this government is capable of listening to people.

An agreement has been made on softwood lumber that is in almost all respects bad for the Canadian softwood lumber industry. Nonetheless, and notwithstanding all the consultations that were held this summer at the Standing Committee on International Trade, it is clear that the government has not listened to people’s concerns and worries.

With respect to the question of Bill C-11, the same problems arise again, the same questions that arose in relation to transportation. For some months now, we have seen that the government is trying to weaken the regulations governing transportation, whether in relation to railways, aviation or marine transport.

This is what concerns the NDP. What we have is a government that does not listen and that does things backwards. We saw this when it came to the softwood lumber agreement. In fact, we have just had the first of several votes that will take place in the next few weeks. The Senate will then of course have to consider these questions. We are seeing the same thing in relation to transportation.

We therefore have concerns. Even though we are supporting Bill C-11 at second reading, we shall see, in committee, whether the government is capable of listening or whether, after only seven months in power, it is leading us back into the same situation as we had under the former Liberal government: no listening, no genuine consultation, no ability to understand its mistakes. Even though we are supporting the bill now, we are giving notice that our support is conditional on the improvements that we hope will be made to this bill at the next stage.

I would like to speak more specifically about some of the aspects of this bill that we support and some of the aspects of the bill that we are concerned about.

I will start with the issue of railway noise complaints. The legislation provides a mechanism, finally, for individuals and communities to make complaints about railway noise.

I come from the community of Burnaby—New Westminster. There are railway yards around the Westminster Quay area of downtown New Westminster. Many constituents have approached me, including Brian Allen and others, to raise very serious and very legitimate concerns about railway noise in their neighbourhood. They have tried to deal directly with the railways, as have I as their member of parliament, but there has not been a formal, structured mechanism in place to deal with the railway noise complaints.

In urban areas this is a matter of grave concern, when people cannot get the sleep they need. Families are working harder and harder in Canada now for less and less. Most Canadian families have seen their real income decline over the last 15 years and they have seen the hours of work per week increase. Now it is even more important in an urban setting that our constituents from coast to coast get the opportunity to have legitimate sleep when they need it.

Bill C-11 has a section that deals with railway noise complaints. It provides a mechanism for citizens who live in the Westminster Quay area or in South Burnaby who are near railway yards, particularly with railway shunting back and forth. They and their members of parliament will have a mechanism to try to resolve those noise complaints. This is welcomed and is one of the most positive aspects of Bill C-11.

A second element deals with mergers and acquisitions and provides for a public interest review process. This is important as well. We need to have much more public consultation, particularly when we talk about the transportation industry. Canada is a vast land, the world's largest democracy. We are linked together by our transportation modes. If there is any area of interest that unites Canadians from coast to coast to coast, it is in maintaining the safest and best possible transportation facilities in all areas of transport.

It is an important step forward to have the protection of a valid review process and public consultations when there are mergers or acquisitions in the transportation industry. That is also an element which we support, although in committee we will perhaps be looking at tightening what is currently stated in the legislation.

Another important component is a framework for passenger rail services. I come from an area which is served through TransLink by the West Coast Express. The West Coast Express is a very well run commuter railway operation that runs from Mission through to Vancouver. However, the West Coast Express has had some real difficulty having the kind of arrangement with the rail operators that allows access to the rail lines that it needs.

Bill C-11 provides a better framework for the kind of negotiations that sometimes take place between commuter rail services in our larger cities and the rail operators themselves. This is important. It is a benefit and an improvement. We would like to see this go further. We need that mechanism to allow the commuter rail services to negotiate directly with the rail lines, but we have to be aware that the public good has to be served as well.

There are cases where rail lines will be discontinued. We have to make sure that there is a public good, a public benefit, for example, urban bicycle paths.

My colleague, the member for Victoria, has raised the issue of ensuring that further to providing access to commuter rail when we are talking about discontinued rail lines, there should also be access to the public in general as another alternative through various facilities, bicycle paths or rail paths themselves. The member for Victoria has been effective in articulating this.

We would like to see something in the legislation to advance that right, that if the rail line is not being used for rail purposes, not being used for commuter rail, there are other alternatives for the public good that must come first. The improved framework is a good first step for that, and another element why at this stage, in any event, we will be looking at supporting the legislation so it moves forward.

In terms of the advantages, the bill itself speaks to greater transparency in advertising airfares. This is an important component. Consumers need to be aware of how much they are paying for tickets. We do not want to see hidden costs. Greater transparency undoubtedly would be an advantage. However, I say that this is an advantage if we are looking at the type of regulation that provides greater transparency.

The unfortunate aspect, something that the transport committee will have to look at in much more detail, is the idea of integrating the complaints function of the Air Travel Complaints Commissioner into the Canadian Transportation Agency. I am not convinced that this provides for the transparency of which the government is speaking. I have some concerns. At committee we will be expressing those concerns, bringing the appropriate witnesses forward to examine whether that is the best mechanism, whether expanding the office of the Air Travel Complaints Commissioner, expanding those powers or providing for other methods of dealing with the same transparency better serves the travelling public.

The principle is there. We in all four corners of the House want to see transparency on airfares so that members of the public know what they are paying when it is being advertised that there are no hidden fees. I should add that hidden fees include the fees that Canadian passengers are paying on airlines for things like headsets, to eat, to get a glass of water, to get a pillow or a blanket. Increasingly there are fees for the simple fact of travelling on that transport and those are fees that need to be taken into consideration.

I was on a flight from Quebec City to Vancouver, back to my riding of Burnaby—New Westminster. One gentleman joked that he was being asked to pay for his pillow and blanket and soon passengers would be asked to bring their own chairs. This is a good point. The situation now is that members of the travelling public are being asked to pay fees that they should not have to pay once they have purchased their tickets. They should not have to pay for a pillow or a blanket. They should not have to pay to get some chips or some water. They should not have to pay these small costs. If the air transporters want the consumers to pay those fees, they have to be front and centre.

One can imagine that with completely transparent advertising it would be very difficult for an airline to say that passengers will have to pay $2 for this, $3 for that and $5 for something else. Those hidden fees would be forced away by having that transparency because it would not be to the competitive advantage of the airline to gouge members of the travelling public once they were on board.

Greater transparency in advertising is a component that we support. We do question whether the best method is through the Air Travel Complaints Commissioner through the Canadian Transportation Agency. Hopefully this will be sorted out during the committee process. We look forward to participating in that.

We have concerns about other areas. We will raise questions and possibly amendments as well.

On the grain revenue cap adjustment, we have concerns about how that might be dealt with. As I expressed at the beginning, we have concerns about the government's ability to listen. Certainly with respect to the Canadian Wheat Board and supply management there have been major concerns about how the government deals with the preoccupations and concerns of rural Canada. Though in principle having that adjustment is important to us, we want to see in very strict details how that would work in practice and whether there would be honest public consultation around it.

I mentioned the question around advertising airfares and the air complaints function. Again the same question is raised, whether the best mechanism for air complaints is through the Canadian Transportation Agency and the Air Travel Complaints Commissioner. It is something that will come out through the committee hearing process in which we will be very pleased to participate.

Finally, in terms of the exact details of Bill C-11, the details that we have concerns about are around the national transportation policy statement, which was very specific on the private sector's contribution to transport policy and mum on the whole impact and the importance of the public sector.

We in this corner of the House are not caught up in the ideology, that it has to be the private sector. There are many things the private sector cannot do as well as an efficiently run, effective public sector. That is why over a 20 year period, the best financial managers in Canada were NDP administrations. Despite the flop of the Bob Rae government in Ontario, which was due a lack of leadership, when we take the actual fiscal period returns of all the NDP administrations from 1981 to 2001, we see that Liberal governments across the country were in deficit 85% of the time. The Conservative governments over that period of time were in deficit 66% of the time. They did not balance the books. NDP administrations, most of the time, balanced the books.

We have the best track record in financial administration and we are proud of that, but we also believe in a very prudently run, effective public sector. Our concern around the national transportation policy statement is that it does not reflect the importance of the public sector working with the private sector to ensure that we have the kind of safe, effective and accessible transportation system that should exist for Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

In no country on this planet is transportation as important as it is in Canada. We are a vast land. We are the largest democracy. Throughout that vast land, transportation infrastructure is of primary importance. We profoundly believe that we need a national transportation policy statement that actually reflects the importance of the private and public sectors working together and that there has to be an effective public sector to ensure that we do get the kind of effective transportation infrastructure that we need to have. That is something we will be looking at as well in committee and it is something about which we are concerned.

I want to say a few words about the general direction. I talked about Bill C-11 and I have talked about some of the elements we support, some of the elements to which we will be looking at providing changes and improvements. Our role in this Parliament is to ensure that we get the best possible policy. New Democrats are not ashamed to work very hard to ensure that we get the best policy process.

Despite Bill C-11, we have concerns over the general transportation thrust of the government. I will raise some concerns that we have raised in the House and that we continue to raise. To date we have not received the response that we believe a prudent and responsible government should give.

The first is the issue of railway safety. Because of self-managed railway systems and a cutting back of that important public sector role to watch over our transportation sector and ensure that it is as safe as possible, what we have seen is railway accidents are on the rise. In 2005 we saw the highest number of railway accidents in nearly a decade, much higher than the 10 year rolling average that existed before.

We have seen an increase in railway accidents. We have seen, tragically, deaths in the Fraser Canyon this summer. We have seen environmental damage such as the Cheakamus Lake in the Squamish Estuary and Lake Wabamun in Alberta. We have seen consistently a greater number of railway accidents over the last few years. This is a matter of some concern.

We have called for an inquiry. The government has not responded. We have called for the tightening of railway regulations and we have seen very little response and activity from the government. That is a matter of very real concern because people's lives are at stake. The well-being of communities is at stake when we see the kind of environmental damage, when we see the lives lost most recently.

It is a tragedy and we need to deal with it. We will be repeating the call for a public inquiry because we do not believe the existing lack of regulations in rail transport is to the public advantage. Obviously, if the number of accidents are on the rise, the number of fatalities are on the rise and environmental damage is on the rise, there is a problem. A responsible government deals with the issue. We certainly hope the government will deal with this issue, and quickly.

Second, there is the entire question of regulating air transportation. We talked about precisely that last June at the Standing Committee on Transport. We talked about the government’s plan, or objective, of reducing the number of flight attendants on Canadian aircraft. This is a major concern. We know very well that a large majority of Canadians are opposed to this measure.

A survey was done on these questions in June 2006. Respondents were asked whether they wanted to keep the existing Canadian regulations or wanted regulations similar to the ones in the United States. And 69% of Canadians wanted to keep the existing regulations in relation to flight attendants. Only 19% of Canadians wanted regulations like the ones in the United States.

When we consider all these questions, that is, whether safety standards have to be lowered so that airlines can continue to be competitive, 72% of Canadians are opposed to it.

Because of how this government seems to do things, we are indeed hoping to be able to change its perspective. We support Bill C-11, but it remains to be seen whether the government will listen to our concerns and make the changes that are called for.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I just caught the last few minutes of the hon. member's speech, but I want to take him to task a bit on one aspect of that, and that is the issue about flight attendants.

Given the current climate of rampant anti-Americanism promoted by some parties in this House, if we ask Canadians whether they want something more like Canada or more like the U.S., we will get a biased answer. With respect to the question of flight attendants, the question should be: Do we want Canadian airlines to have the same standards as every other air transport jurisdiction in the world when it comes to the number of flight attendants per passenger, or do we want Canadian airlines to simply stick with the Canadian system which is 40:1 versus 50:1?

Does my hon. colleague understand that every other air transport jurisdiction in the world adheres to the 50:1 ratio?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is just not true and the hon. member should know that. In Australia the standards are actually tighter than they are in Canada. It is just not true that those standards are universal. There are other jurisdictions that have safer standards.

He raised the point of what the question was. I raised the comparison of Canadian standards as opposed to American standards. Another question that was asked was whether Canadian airlines should lower their safety standards to stay internationally competitive. Seventy-two per cent of Canadians opposed that: 65% of males and 78% of females. In all the generations, regardless of the age group, Canadians disagreed. In fact, I think most Canadians would be in line with the NDP perspective on this.

We have competitive international airlines because we have the safest standards in the world. If Canadians know our airlines are safer than the airlines of any other country, then our Canadian airlines will have a major competitive advantage. That is something the NDP stands firmly behind. It is not a question of cutting back on safety standards to save a few cents. It is a question of ensuring we have the safest possible transportation structure, and that becomes a competitive advantage.

We have seen over the past few months some of the problems that exist already within the airline industry. The government has been talking about the potential of cutting back on safety standards, of bringing in self-managed systems similar to what we have seen in rail. We have seen the deterioration of safety standards with respect to rail. We have seen a rise in accident rates and fatality rates as well as a rise in environmental damage.

Why would the government act like the previous government and diminish safety standards? People have raised concerns about some of the airlines flying out of Toronto like Air Canada Jazz, and concerns exist now. We should be moving forward to tighten safety standards, not loosening them. Clearly, most Canadians agree with our stand.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his insight into the speech, particularly with regard to the consumer issues.

The member will know that under current section 85.1 there is the provision for the complaints commissioner, which was a temporary post established back in the year 2000 when Canadian Airlines was taken over by Air Canada. As a consequence, since the marketplace has somewhat stabilized, new clause 25 in the bill will effectively eliminate the position of the Air Travel Complaints Commissioner.

The airline industry continues to be a volatile industry. I am wonder whether there is argument still to be made that having a specific travel complaints commissioner for the public to focus its attention to still may well serve Canadians.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is my neighbour in the Confederation Building so I always appreciate him rising to speak on this issue.

I raised this during my initial speech. The question of how most effectively to deal with the issue of air complaints is important to us, so we will be very closely monitoring and ensuring that, through the committee process, we get the best possible witnesses forward to really comment on what would be the most effective route forward.

We want to ensure that there is an air complaints mechanism that is better than what we have now. We want to ensure that passengers, the travelling public, are better protected and have better mechanisms or better ways to follow up if they have concerns.

I would like to read for the record, because I did not get a chance during my speech, an article in the Toronto Star of a few months ago on these increasing violations within the air safety sector. It states:

Transport Canada data show a steady increase in the number of alleged violations of Canadian aviation regulations such as improper maintenance checks and pilots taking off or landing without air traffic control authorization....

According to the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, the number of fatal aircraft accidents was up 48 per cent between 2004 and 2005, from 27 to 40.

These are the kinds of concerns that we are bringing forward. We are seeing the same kind of escalation in air safety as we have seen in rail safety and we do not want to see the government take the same ill-thought, ill-judged routes that we saw on rail safety, where it is diminishing standards and increasing accidents.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the question I wish to put to my colleague is simple.

Bill C-11 is supposed to amend the Railway Safety Act. But the only amendment is that it allows the presence of police officers to supervise the railway companies’ property. So there really is not anything in this bill to make poorly maintained tracks more secure or to increase security.

So I ask my colleague to confirm what I am advancing.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the Bloc transportation critic, for his question. This is indeed a shortcoming in the existing legislation. He is quite right.

Now these are aspects that have to be reviewed in committee. I know that the member will take part to the same extent as I in attempting to improve this bill. There are of course some positive aspects, but also some shortcomings and things to be changed.

Still, the big question is knowing whether the government will agree to listen to the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities and the improvements it proposes. That is the big question. I hope so, but some concerns remain because of what we have seen in the last few months in this House.