Mr. Speaker, I rise today with very strong concerns regarding Bill C-6. We heard earlier how this bill has come back to haunt this place on several occasions. It began in the other place where it was first introduced, on May 16, 2005, if I recall correctly. At that time the Senate Speaker withdrew the bill because it had funding implications which of course were not appropriate. The government of the day subsequently followed with Bill C-62.
The current bill that is before this place today, rather than improving safety standards, the safety management system will allow the airlines to decide what level of risk they are prepared to take. Each member of the House travels regularly. I wonder how members are going to feel as they board the planes knowing that a lot of the accountability is no longer there and that the industry itself, an industry that is under extreme financial pressures, is going to decide what maintenance to do and when to do it. For myself that raises some very tremendous concerns.
Almost daily in this place we hear government members talk about accountability and in various areas we agree with them. We hear about accountability that has to do with a violent offender and whether people have a right to know when the violent offender is in their community and things of that nature.
Section 7 of Bill C-6 flies in the face of all of those statements. We hear the Conservatives going on ad nauseam about accountability, but section 7 takes away the right of Canadians to have access to information. Let us think about that for a moment.
Recently at the Hamilton airport there were two incidents where planes that were set to fly overseas had to return to the airport. The very next day in the Hamilton Spectator and other news media across the country, there was a story which told what had gone on and what was being done to account to the passengers and allow them to have some peace of mind as they set about their journey later on.
If that company had not understood that somewhere behind the scenes there was a sense of accountability, where the company knew that whatever decisions were made regarding those flights would come back and rest on its shoulders in the near future, perhaps those stories and the accounts from that company might have been less forthcoming with the information as to what had happened and what went wrong.
It is amazing to me that the government would actually entrust the safety of Canadians to this industry. It is not that the industry has proven to be irresponsible, and I am not suggesting that, but on the other hand when they are looking at the balance sheet and they have shareholders and people with great interest in the bottom line where, is the cut-off point? Where does it become truly in the interest of the public as opposed to the interest of the company when they are trying to decide the cuts?
I often refer to a very wise, I would even go so far as to call him a sage, writer. His name is Kris Kristofferson. He wrote songs in the 1960s and 1970s and still is a well-known performer around the world today. In fact, he is an activist on many fronts. By the way, he is no relationship to the member for Hamilton Centre. He wrote in the 1970s that the law is for the protection of the people.
In my experience, and I think of many members of the House as we review the legislation that has evolved through this place over many years, we would agree with that statement, that the law is for the protection of the people, but in this case with Bill C-6, is that truly the case? We have to ask ourselves that. I am not so sure. In fact, I cannot quite understand how they could get to this place.
Many members present will likely remember the confrontation in the United States in the 1980s between President Ronald Reagan and the air traffic controllers. At the time, Mr. Reagan took what I think was an amazing stand when he actually had all the air traffic controllers in that country fired. How inconsiderate, to say the least, to the safety of the public, but following that there was the deregulation of the airlines in the U.S. and the number of air crashes and near misses went up tremendously. I am very concerned that we are facing the same thing in this country.
There are all kinds of problems when we look at the various information that comes to us. We talk about Jetsgo's problems and how it was ignored and the probe into the death of the discount airline not that long ago and how it revealed shortcomings in existing legislation and here we are talking about weakening the legislation that protects people.
The NDP in committee put forward a number of amendments and one was a requirement for the minister to maintain a program of oversight and surveillance of aviation safety in order to achieve the highest level of safety, and that was passed. I cannot imagine a person in this place who would disagree with something as fundamental as the government having accountability and authority over the airlines to ensure they follow safety practices.
Coming from the labour movement, I will give an example that I use quite often. We have worker health and safety committees throughout the workplaces in Ontario. I will use a hospital as an example. Many hospitals are moving to offloading or contracting out the health services because they see it as a fundamental work and that it is easy for someone to come in to do. Today, when a CUPE member or an SEI member is doing the work, when people go to the hospital and see a problem they take it to their health and safety committee which carries it to the company where it gets a response. Hopefully, in due course, whatever the issue is it gets resolved.
If workers are there earning minimum wage, that worker will see that same thing but because they are under the gun of the low wage, the lack of accountability and not having that health and safety committee to protect their interests, they will simply keep their head down and keep working. Whatever the problem is remains and grows and grows. In the hospital systems throughout this country we are fighting varying forms of bacteria and other things that are taking residence in the hospitals.
Let us take that same view of health and safety to the airline industry. When we are flying at 35,000 feet we want to be sure that the person who has worked on that aircraft has followed every bit of due diligence and has had no directives to cut corners or the benign neglect that can come from legislation like this where the employer will tell employees that they have so many minutes to get that aircraft ready.
I do not know if members are aware of this but the people who put the aircraft in the air and the ticket people who pass us on to the airlines are not well-paid. Air Canada has contracted out that work and if the aircraft is late in leaving they are not even paid. The emphasis is on getting the plane into the air. If we transfer that same kind of thinking to the mechanics, the pilots and the ground crews, we will be putting the airlines at risk, which is precisely what Bill C-6 does. It opens a door at all levels and puts the Canadian public at risk, and we cannot have that. I assume and expect that the members present will totally disagree with Bill C-6.