Mr. Speaker, I am happy to stand today and say a few words about Bill C-23. Canadians are, quite often, self-effacing and never think of themselves as great and yet they are leaders in the world in many ways. I have a vision for Canada where they could be leaders in many more ways. One, of course, would be a vision of modern, efficient, secure ports. We could do that better than anyone else in the world.
I commend the members of Transport Canada who have worked for years on this, the previous Liberal government that brought the essence of this bill forward and the present government for continuing with it. This goes toward that modern, exciting vision of Canada as some of the best in the world. This is so important for our economy. The world has changed in many ways and therefore our ports need to change.
We need just in time delivery. The villains develop new ways of causing problems so we need modern security to keep up. As ports are essential to many industries in Canada, we need to make sure they are operating under all conditions and do not close down. These workers are essential to other industries, such as the grain industry. Canada is an exporting nation and to be competitive with the world we need to get our goods and products out in a timely fashion in order to continue to lead the world in some of the areas that we do at present.
In a modern global village, even diseases are carried much more rapidly around the world and we need to be immune from those. It could be something as simple as a disease that attacks our trees. The forestry industry is huge to Canada and yet if a bug comes in, say, a wooden shipping pallet, we need to protect ourselves against those types of issues.
It is important to invest in our ports and to promote a vision of modern ports as good as anyone.
I appreciate this bill and some of the technical things it would do toward that and I encourage the government to continue to do many other things to achieve that objective. As the parliamentary secretary said, it is good that the government has picked up and continued our Pacific Gateway program and that will continue to contribute toward the efficiency and building of the ports and access to them.
There is no reason Canada cannot be like Singapore, which has huge revenues from its ports. Compared to certain types of factories and other types of emissions, ports can be quite environmentally clean and a good way to create high paying jobs for Canadians. We can then get the benefit of the goods that we are making and the things that we are bringing in so that they do not go to others.
For example, on both the east and west coasts, many U.S. ports are quite able, ready and willing to take shipments and therefore we cannot have delays, we cannot be inefficient or too bureaucratic and we cannot have backlog in our ports. It is important that we modernize and stay ahead because we can do it as well as anyone else.
When I fly into Vancouver twice a week and see the lineup of boats waiting to be unloaded, I sometimes wish that we did not have the delays and that we could do things quicker so we are competitive and shippers do not decide to go elsewhere. Loading and unloading equipment has been modernized and there is no reason we cannot have the best computerized equipment in the world to do that kind of job.
We also should invest in modern scientific equipment for security. We certainly can do it. I will not give the villains any information as to what we are doing wrong but we can invest to ensure we have the best detection equipment in the world so no one is using our ports for nefarious reasons.
My riding of Yukon has a port in Skagway, Alaska that is about an hour west of the riding and it is very important to us. Even though only about 800 people live there, it is one of the biggest cruise ship ports in the world. Sometimes four of the biggest cruise ships in the world are there at any one time. Yukon is probably the only territory or province in Canada where the number one employer, as far as the number of employees goes, is tourism. The tourists get off those boats and come into my riding. If there is an efficient and effective port system, it shows how it can affect the local economy.
I also want to show how an improper investment can also affect a port. About six years ago, one of the docks where these cruise ships dock collapsed into the water. We know these cruise ships carry thousands of people. The dock went hundreds of metres under the water and disappeared.
Fortunately, the accident occurred during the winter when only workers were on the dock but I believe one worker drowned. The tidal wave, which the accident caused, was right in front of the small boat harbour and, as a result, all the small boats sank to the bottom of the ocean. When the wave came back, it hit the other shore and the harbour filled up again and it damaged the ferry dock. It is very important to have proper investments in our ports so we have the best equipment available.
Another example is the gross territorial product. The biggest part of our economy related to production is in mining. We depend on the port at Skagway for shipping ore around the world. It is days shorter to ship from Skagway than it is from Vancouver. It is a very key port for the north and must be efficient.
I have another example of how a lack of investment can affect an economy. I was at a mine opening a few months ago of Sherwood Copper, a wonderful new mine in Yukon that is quite efficient and environmentally friendly. It produces copper ore and it follows environmental regulations.
The port I was talking about had not been used since the closure of Cypress Anvil and had not been used for ore for some time. It had been somewhat decommissioned and needed new equipment. The port was not quite ready for shipping when the mine was ready to ship. When the mine was ready to ship the ore, I saw dozens and dozens of huge canvas bags about the size of a car that contained the ore. This, obviously, was not an efficient way and not the final way to ship the ore but it had to be done for a few months in the interim while the port was getting ready.
Many parts of Canada are quite dependent on the car industry and what industry could be more competitive than the car industry? The car industry uses just in time delivery, which depends on a few hours in order to be competitive and on tens of thousands of Canadian jobs. It is important that all our transport modes, our border crossings and our ports have the type of investments that enable them to move quickly.
For all those reasons, I am supporting the bill. Canada can be and should have the best ports. All efforts necessary should be made, over and above the bill, to fulfill those objectives.
As I think I mentioned in a previous question, I hope the transport committee calls the pilots association when it discusses the contribution funding. I think the parliamentary secretary has said that the department has consulted with groups. I look forward to seeing the results of those consultations with the pilots association, the longshoremen and the stevedores presented to the committee. Those are the people who work at the ports. The best solutions and ideas for making the ports more efficient, secure and useful usually come from the people who are working right on the ground.
The part of the act that deals with borrowing limits also deals with security. It would allow contribution agreements to ensure that the most modern security is available. I believe that modernizing the borrowing limits is good.
The only caveat, as I mentioned yesterday, is we have to make sure that as the commercial borrowing is allowed and the system is modernized, that it is also protected. There have been some instances recently in Canada where governments or crown corporations have potentially put something at jeopardy or lost millions of dollars because of an investment policy and regulations that were a bit too free.
We would want to make sure that these are secure investments. We do not want the port fees to go up because of bad investments. We want it to be efficient but also to be secure.
Of course the legislation to facilitate amalgamation is important as long as it is agreed upon and worked on by the people involved. Certainly that would help. As well, there are the parts of the act that would improve governance related to the needs of Canadian port authorities so that they can have a long term and stable management framework.
Once again, to ease enforcement, to make sure that the message can get out quickly, efficiently and easily is a good objective of the act. It is human nature that if a penalty comes too late or it is too onerous to administer, people will not bother implementing the penalty. If the penalty comes too late, it really does not get the message across. It needs to be quick, fast and efficient so that people follow the rules.
The last item I want to comment on relates to land management. The preceding speaker from the NDP commented on a number of items. I made the point yesterday about land management that this is a good part of the bill which would allow investment in their lands. It is good that they will achieve revenues so that there is less onus on the users or ultimately on the government, the taxpayers, for funding.
My only caveat is that the conditions, and the parliamentary secretary outlined them, make sure that this is not a permanent other use. They cannot be incompatible. I would not want a lot of money invested in things that ultimately have nothing to do with the port unless they are in a holding pattern. It is very good to be forward thinking and plan for the future and to set aside land that will be needed in the future.
It is a very forward thinking government that would set aside land to invest in it and use the land to get revenues from it. People get concerned if such authorities are using their money from the fees in ways other than the primary purpose, such as empire building or some other type of exercise. I have certainly heard complaints from constituents related to certain airport authorities that may have done that in the past, although I think that has been dealt with.
In conclusion, as in any other area of endeavour, there is no reason that Canada cannot be among the best in the world. We are a water nation. We probably have the longest shoreline of any country in the world. We are an exporting country. It is very important that we get the revenues from our exports and imports, that we do it safely in relation to security and disease, and that we do it efficiently so that people come to us to be the locus of those transport movements. In that way, a lot of Canadians can achieve good paying jobs in dealing with our own goods and services.