Debates of Feb. 7th, 2013

Opposition Motion—Parliamentary Budget Officer

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, what I like about the member for Charlottetown is that he gets right to the core of the issue, and the core of the issue is just that. We need to recognize that we are at a very critical time. Within weeks we are going to see a federal budget, and there is a strong likelihood that we will not have a Parliamentary Budget Officer. The valuable contributions that officer can play in terms of the billions of dollars that will be proposed to be spent are enormous. It would be highly irresponsible for the government of the day not to recognize that. The member is trying to pick up on that. The leader of the Liberal Party has been asking about this same issue in question period in recent days.

We are asking the government to recognize that fact and to provide assurances to all Canadians that we will not be without a Parliamentary Budget Officer at the time the budget itself is released and the weeks that follow. We need the government to come clean on that.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure, on behalf of the official opposition, of concluding the debate on this very important motion.

I would like the backbench members of the Conservative government to pay particular attention because this affects them as much as it affects opposition members.

The office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer is non-partisan and so does research for all parties, particularly in an extremely complex area in which we, as parliamentarians and members of Parliament, have very few resources.

We are well aware that backbench members on the government side are about as much in the dark as we are when it comes time to examine budgets, because all powers in relation to budgets are in the hands of the Department of Finance, which answers to the Minister of Finance. The Department of Finance does not answer to Parliament, it answers to the Minister of Finance, and so to cabinet.

That is why I would like to have the Conservative backbench members’ attention during my speech. These decisions affect them as much as they affect us. We want to have an office, like the office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, that can shed light and force the Department of Finance, the Minister of Finance and cabinet to be a little more accountable and transparent.

I would like to recall what the legislation says:

79.2 The mandate of the Parliamentary Budget Officer is to:

(a) provide independent analysis to the Senate and the House of Commons about the state of the nation’s finances, the estimates of the government and trends in the national economy.

This is a very important element, since we have recently witnessed several attempts by members of the Conservative government cabinet in particular to create confusion regarding the role and mandate of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

His role is not, as some, including the President of the Treasury Board and the Minister of Finance, have claimed, simply to examine the money spent by the federal government and by cabinet. His role is to examine the state of the national economy and provide independent analyses about matters relating to the economy and the budget that he considers to be of significant interest both to parliamentarians and to the Canadian public.

Another part of its mandate is, at the request of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, standing committees of the House of Commons, or the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts, to provide analyses and reports on matters that come to their attention. At the request of any parliamentary committee, it must conduct studies that review government estimates. Lastly, at the request of any parliamentary committee or any member of the House, it must assess the financial cost of any proposed measure within the government's areas of jurisdiction.

Once again, an important role played by the Parliamentary Budget Officer or the PBO's office is analyzing the financial and budget implications of private members’ bills. Unfortunately, the PBO has been unable to achieve this objective because of the lack of resources allocated from the very outset; but I will return to this point later.

After having listened to many speeches in the House from the opposition and the government, what strikes me is the offhanded attitude of government MPs towards this issue.

It needs to be taken seriously. Canada is a G8 economy, but at the moment, I get the impression that we are operating like a banana republic. The hope has been that the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer can counterbalance analyses by the Department of Finance, but at the end of the day, it cannot because it has neither the resources, nor the independence or autonomy required to do so.

I would like to compare the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer to a successful example of how a budgetary and financial analysis tool ought to function; I am referring to the United States Congressional Budget Office. For the benefit of the House, I would like to review the details of how it came about.

The CBO was established in 1974, mainly to counter the growing powers being appropriated by Richard Nixon, the president at the time, who was able to seize powers by hiding information from members of Congress. A mechanism was needed to enable members of Congress, whether in the Senate or the House of Representatives, to obtain the information they needed before it could be concealed by the Office of the President.

The Congressional Budget Office was established at the time for a very specific purpose, one that very closely parallels what we are experiencing at the moment: the need to check the growing powers being assumed by the Office of the Prime Minister and cabinet at the expense of parliamentarians responsible for guaranteeing transparency and accountability.

I would like to compare the establishment of the CBO and of the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer because there are many similarities between the two processes, and between the objectives that those establishing them had in mind.

I would like to quote from Robert Reischauer, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, who was there when it was established—not as the director, but he was there. He described how Congress attempted to weaken the powers of the CBO when it was being established:

What the House wanted [when the CBO was created] was basically a manhole in which Congress would have a bill or something and it would lift up the manhole cover and put the bill down it, and 20 minutes later a piece of paper would be handed up, with the cost estimate, the answer, on it. No visibility, [just] some kind of mechanism down below the ground level doing this...non controversial [work], the way the sewer system [does].

So that really gives you an idea of the state of mind of the U.S. Congress, which did not want the Republican party, the party in power at the time, to declaw the office, which was responsible for providing independent, non-partisan financial analysis to which members of Congress did not have access.

However, Mr. Reischauer, like many of his colleagues, opposed the will of the CBO, somewhat as Kevin Page did, to defend the independence, autonomy and non-partisan nature of his office. A few days ago, however, the Minister of Finance said this on Global TV:

—the idea...was that the parliamentary budget officer would kind of work like the congressional budget officer in the United States to report to the elected people in the House of Commons about how the government was doing in its budgeting. Sort of being a sounding board, a testing board.

This clearly shows that the Minister of Finance has no knowledge about the role of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, nor has he given it careful thought. Either that or he really wants to try, five years after it was created, to make it as harmless as the members of the U.S. Congress wanted to make their office when it was established. However, the Conservatives, the Minister of Finance and the members of the former Reform Party have not always thought that way.

What was the original idea in creating the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, according to the Reform Party at the time and the Federal Accountability Act, which we supported in 2006? That idea was clearly stated.

I would like to thank Paul Wells, who managed to find this quotation from Monte Solberg, a prominent former Reform Party MP. In 2004, he expressed the party's desire for such an office as follows:

It would be an independent body that would answer to Parliament and would not be part of the government. It would not be a situation where the government could manipulate the figures to its own ends.

That is not what the government did. By placing the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer under the authority of the Library of Parliament from 2006 to 2008—which meant that the Parliamentary Budget Officer served at the pleasure of the Prime Minister, who could dismiss him if he wished—the Conservative government wilfully restricted the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s independence and autonomy.

The Conservatives thought that, by appointing Kevin Page to the position in 2008, with the constraints that were placed on him, they could guarantee themselves a good little lap dog, a poodle. However, instead of that—and to Mr. Page's credit—they got themselves a pit bull who chose to champion government accountability and transparency.

The office exists today. It is our parliamentary duty, on both the opposition and government sides, to provide it with all the tools, autonomy and independence it needs, along with more resources so that it can do its work properly for the benefit and efficiency of our work as parliamentarians.

There are currently nine to twelve employees who work in the office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, and some positions have yet to be filled. The office has a budget of less than $3 million. By comparison, the American CBO has about 250 employees and has a budget of nearly $50 million. The CPB in the Netherlands, which has a similar role, has 170 employees. The National Assembly Budget Office in South Korea has 135 employees. The office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer has nine to twelve employees to do the work.

Organizations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the OECD, have spoken about and continue to speak about the need for an independent analysis office that answers to Parliament. In a recent OECD document published in 2007 and subsequently updated, the OECD identifies three principles for independent budgetary institutions, such as the office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. It is worth going over these details, because they are at the heart of the difference in interpretation of the role of the PBO that the NDP and the government members have been expressing today.

The first principle for this office is the guarantee of independence and long-term sustainability. The OECD stresses the importance of the office being non-partisan, something that is constantly being challenged by the Conservatives. In their minds, being non-partisan means agreeing with them. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has a very high level of technical expertise. This office performs miracles with what little means it has, but it lacks the resources to do its job properly. The appointment process for an officer is very important. There must be a process, and that is why we are calling for the creation of the position of Parliamentary Budget Officer. The Parliamentary Budget Officer would thereby be an officer of Parliament and not an employee appointed by the Prime Minister who could be fired at the Prime Minister's will. Sure, we could talk about the Library of Parliament committee, but this committee is not non-partisan. The government always has the majority on that committee.

There also needs to be long-term stable funding. I remind government members who oppose enhancing the means and the independence of the office that when the report on the costs generated by our involvement in Afghanistan was released by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the government immediately threatened to reduce his budget from $2.8 million, down to $1.8 million. In fact, at the time, he was only able to preserve his budget and resources by making compromises on his degree of independence and autonomy. These conditions had been imposed on him by the Library of Parliament.

The second principle presented by the OECD, which is also a condition for having a functional office, is the ability to lead truly independent analyses. This includes having access to the information needed to conduct the studies. Let us not forget, and government members are well aware of that, that the Parliamentary Budget Officer must now turn to the courts to obtain the information that he needs to conduct the studies that could shed light on government spending, including the positions that are targeted and eliminated through government cutbacks.

As parliamentarians, we do not get that information from the government. It refuses to give us that information, and it refuses to give it to the Parliamentary Budget Officer who, if he were an officer of Parliament, would have the necessary authority to obtain it, without having to go to court.

Another aspect related to the ability to conduct truly independent analyses is the maintaining of cordial relations without compromising the independence of his office. We all know that, following all the analyses and reports released by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, several Conservative members have been openly hostile and certain cabinet members have shown a great deal of contempt toward him, which is totally unacceptable.

The third element, which is also a sensitive issue among our Conservative friends, is the fact that this issue has an impact on the public. To a large degree, it means there is a need to have an independent and open relationship with the media, in order to be able to get the information out.

If you recall, when the position was first created, the Parliamentary Librarian tried to muzzle Mr. Page by preventing him from giving the media the information that he had prepared for the benefit of the Canadian people and for use by parliamentarians.

A number of the reports prepared by the Parliamentary Budget Officer or his office spurred healthy debate in the House of Commons. These include the sustainability of pensions, the cost of fighting crime with more jail sentences, freezing or cutting expenditures, security costs at the G8 and G20 summits, forecasts on the eve of the 2008 financial and economic crisis and, finally, the cost of the F-35 fighter jets.

We should remember that many of these reports contradicted what the government said about many issues, including the F-35s. This has been mentioned a number of times today.

It just amazes me to hear them say that we do not need to give the Parliamentary Budget Officer more power because the departments and the ministers provide the information. We have proven over and over again that a number of the debates triggered by the PBO's reports and analyses have brought to light many issues, many weaknesses in the Conservative administration that eventually led to debate in the House. It would not have happened had the departments, ministers and cabinet members been allowed to decide whether to provided the information or not.

I will talk about another curious aspect of the debate on sustainability of pensions. The Parliamentary Budget Officer studied the impact of the aging population, a study that the Minister of Finance had promised with the 2007 budget and that was needed for long-term planning. The study was probably done, but the minister refuses to submit it to Parliament. The Parliamentary Budget Officer carried out his own study—which the minister rejected—but was unable to submit it to Parliament for a debate on this important issue. This report was prepared using public money and it is probably sitting on a shelf at the Department of Finance or in the minister's office.

It is important to note that Canada is lagging behind other OECD countries. As I said, Canada is a G8 country. We should act like a G8 country by ensuring a maximum level of democracy, transparency and accountability when it comes to assessing our public finances.

Earlier I mentioned the conditions imposed by the OECD to ensure a functional PBO office or other similar functions. I can substantiate that with comments made by Dr. Alice Rivlin who was the first CBO in the United States. She faced a similar struggle against the government powers of the day, who were also trying to limit the CBO's authority. In the 1970s, she established the three main principles underlying the work of a good watchdog, from an economic and budgetary perspective.

Here are the three elements. The first is independence, pure and simple. At present, no matter what our Conservative friends may say, our Parliamentary Budget Officer is not independent. He works for the Library of Parliament and reports to a committee—the Standing Joint Committee on the Library of Parliament—on which the Conservatives have a majority.

Secondly, the non-partisan nature of the position is important. The PBO can examine bills put forward by the NDP, the Liberals and the Conservatives, for he is non-partisan.

The third principle is empirical objectivity, which ensures the benefit of technical and financial resources to conduct proper economic studies based on empirical evidence and theories.

At present, the PBO cannot do this. That is why we are asking that this individual be made an officer of Parliament. This position will not be filled in time for his departure, so we are asking that Mr. Page be reappointed to the position. We are not the only ones asking for this.

In all the media, whether left, right or centre, I have heard pundits talking about the importance of the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. There is a general consensus on this within Canadian society and among those who care about these things. The Conservatives do not share this consensus, but they are the only ones who do not want to give the Parliamentary Budget Officer greater powers, more independence and more resources.

In passing, I would like to quote Ian Lee, whom the government often calls on for committee studies. He said that it is very important that the PBO be transformed into an officer of Parliament.

To conclude, I would like to say that the issue is important to backbenchers. Should the NDP replace them in 2015, I can guarantee that if the Parliamentary Budget Officer is not an officer of Parliament, it will be the first request they make as the opposition.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated what I thought was a substantive intervention by the member opposite. It is the first time we heard some of the definition of what he thought would constitute independence and how they were appointed. They are appointed from a pool of nominees from a non-partisan organization. The Prime Minister makes the appointment, but he does not choose who the people are from whom he has to appoint. That is independence.

“Whether or not the PBO does opposition research” is effectively what I heard, and “is he taking up the issues of the opposition?” I would say that shows proper independence. He has done a lot of research that the opposition has found valuable to use on the government. On resourcing, while the member bemoans the proportional resourcing for a country one-tenth the size of the United States, for example, 150 reports in five years does not sound like there is no independence for the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

Is the member saying that the Parliamentary Budget Officer is not independent?

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his very relevant question. It gets to the heart of the definition of independence.

In 2008, when the Parliamentary Budget Officer tried to table his office's reports—independently prepared reports on important issues involving government operations—they tried to muzzle him and keep him from presenting his research to Parliament and to Canadians.

The issue of independence is not about knowing who will be chosen, it is knowing what flexibility and autonomy the PBO will be granted so that he can do research to table reports in Parliament and make analyses that will be taken seriously so that the government can be forced to be accountable and transparent. Independence is an important issue, and it extends beyond the selection process. The PBO must also be given the authority to act.

As an officer of Parliament, the PBO would have full independence and could not, as is the case now, be fired by the Prime Minister—that could happen because he is currently at the Prime Minister's beck and call.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's definition. It appears that the members on the other side of the House do not understand the definition of an independent officer, someone who can really speak to Canadians and be accountable to them.

I have a question for my colleague. I am a member of the Standing Joint Committee on the Library of Parliament. One of the recommendations made in the 2009 report was as follows:

That the Speakers of the Senate and the House of Commons request the Standing Joint Committee on the Library of Parliament to evaluate the effectiveness of the position of the Parliamentary Budget Officer commencing on the third anniversary of his appointment.

This review should have been done in 2011, and so far, it still has not been done. What does my colleague think of the fact that this was never done?

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is a crucial matter that strikes at the core of the independence issue.

Frankly, I am even wondering if the Library of Parliament should conduct this review, because the position of Parliamentary Budget Officer should not answer to the Library of Parliament. It should not answer to an institution that itself answers to the Standing Joint Committee on the Library of Parliament, which is a committee made up of members of Parliament, the majority of whom come from the government.

When talking independence, these are all relevant issues that should be clearly defined. For instance, the previous member asked a question about independence in terms of the appointment, but what kind of independence, what kind of autonomy does the Parliamentary Budget Officer really have when he is threatened with cuts to his funding—almost half of his budget—immediately after publishing a damning report about the total cost of our intervention in Afghanistan? How can the Parliamentary Budget Officer operate effectively and independently when he does not know what kind of reprisals his office will suffer if the government is unhappy with a study?

In my opinion, these are key elements and they should be compelling arguments for ensuring that the Parliamentary Budget Officer becomes an officer of Parliament reporting not only to the Prime Minister, not only to the Library of Parliament, not only to the Standing Joint Committee on the Library of Parliament, but to Parliament as a whole, because he is working for all of us and for all Canadians.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

It being 5:15 p.m., pursuant to an order made earlier today, all questions necessary to dispose of the opposition motion are deemed put and a recorded division deemed requested and deferred until Tuesday, February 12, 2013, at the expiry of the time provided for government orders.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that you see the clock at 5:30 p.m.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private member's business as listed on today's order paper.

Air Passengers’ Bill of Rights

[José Nunez-Melo, NDP, Laval, QC]

moved that Bill C-459, An Act respecting the rights of air passengers, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to commence debate on my private member’s bill—Bill C-459, An Act respecting the rights of air passengers.

The important thing to mention is that there is nothing new here. This is not the first time that a private member’s bill of this kind has been introduced. In the second session of the 40th Parliament, there was an attempt to pass a bill that was somewhat similar to this one in certain respects.

At the time, the bill had been aborted clumsily following the release of the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. Most of the Conservative members made the patently irresponsible mistake of deciding not to pursue study of the bill, for a reason that made no sense. They had understood that the act was an attempt to assign air carriers a nonexistent responsibility.

I must admit that I was surprised to learn why the study was abandoned and the process leading up to it. I was dumbfounded and could simply not understand it. I asked myself how members of the committee that is basically responsible for adding certain details or simply some clarity to a number of sections could possibly have failed in their duty by ruling so arbitrarily on the matter without any further justifications.

On the one hand, I am convinced that the House will view this bill as a second opportunity to correct a past mistake and to rapidly approve a good, more exhaustive and more precise act. On the other hand, if it should prove necessary to refer it to a committee, then the committee should at least do a serious and non-partisan analysis of it. This committee strikes me as far better prepared and more aware of issues surrounding respect for consumers.

My view is that the improvements made to this bill emphasize passenger rights and create conditions favourable to an approach that makes everyone in the relationship a winner, both passengers and carriers. We have placed a clear emphasis on eliminating poor business practices, such as deliberate overbooking.

We are trying to make the Government of Canada understand that it can no longer remain so isolated and insensitive to responsible business practices. Such practices often result in customer loyalty. Customers appreciate being shown respect, and treated fairly and transparently.

An approach in which everyone wins is clearly a better idea. The improvements and added clarity in this new version of the bill eliminate any ambiguity in situations where it is obvious that responsibility ought to rest with the air carriers. The bill specifically states that weather events are not the fault of the carrier.

That is also the case when one of the government agencies decides to ground a plane and prevent it from taking off because there is an identifiable danger to passenger safety.

These agencies also have improved operational processes and adhere strictly to a set of regulations they are required to follow by law. What we want to tackle is the dishonesty on the part of a carrier that deliberately, for its own benefit, exploits the practice of overbooking or invents false weather conditions.

Overbooking often results from poor risk assessments. To put it clearly, this is what happens when a carrier sells seats it does not have, and charges its customers for them, over a period of several weeks. To put it even more clearly, after assigning a plane with a capacity of 200 seats to a particular route, it sells 210 tickets. After assessing the risk of no shows, as they are called in the business, it can expect that a maximum of 195 passengers will ultimately come to the counter. In that case, it can be said to have assessed its risk properly, and so it is not in danger of any constraint under this bill.

This practice has become so common that mistakes and miscalculations by managers are in fact commonplace. The situation then becomes unacceptable when all 210 passengers do show.

Disinformation is rare, but it does happen; the goal is to conceal the real cause of a delay or cancellation. The carrier does not want to admit that a mistake was made and uses every means necessary to try not to look like it is at fault.

What the bill seeks to do is hold the carrier accountable so that it will deal with the situation transparently and offer to refund the value of the ticket to passengers who are adversely affected, in addition to compensation for the inconvenience, and do so proactively and with full acknowledgement of its mistake. The carrier must formally undertake to offer rerouting at no extra cost, and with compensation, if it knows that another flight has seats available for the same destination.

Offering rerouting often involves a lengthy wait. Depending on how long the passenger will have to wait, refreshments, meals, accommodation, transportation and calling cards are provided for as additional compensation.

This bill is also a step forward toward international standardization. It will put Canada in the vanguard, or at least enable it to catch up in comparison to existing legislation in this area.

In Europe, there has been similar legislation since 2004 and some Canadian carriers are required to abide by it. There is legislation in Asia, particularly in the Philippines. And more recently, in December, our American neighbours enacted an equivalent law.

If the previous version of this bill had been passed in 2009, Canada would not be lagging behind and would not be seen as a follower, even though the headquarters of the International Civil Aviation Organization is in Canada.

Right now, we have the opportunity to quickly pass this good bill and to give our hon. colleagues a chance to fix their past mistakes. We can be sure that this initiative will have tangible benefits for passengers and will also have a positive economic impact on the air carriers.

In closing, I ask all members in the House to consider this bill. I urge them to support this initiative that is widely supported by the public.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank my colleague from Laval, who provided such a good explanation of this practical initiative that will help consumers. As the deputy critic for consumer protection, I am delighted with this initiative.

I think this is a simple initiative, and sometimes it is the simple things that make a difference. All members of the House have probably been in similar situations. They have probably all experienced delays or paid too much.

As my colleague from Laval explained so well, many companies already offer some compensation to passengers. Passing this bill will make this a common practice for all airlines.

I would like my colleague to talk more about the possibility of having an international standard.

[José Nunez-Melo, NDP, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Québec.

As I was explaining, in 2004 legislation was enacted that covers most European countries and sets out specific dollar amounts for passenger compensation in the event of a poor practice such as a delay, denied boarding or other inconveniences.

This is becoming the norm. Naturally, airlines have also adopted standards, as I was explaining about risk assessment. Airlines do not expect all passengers who have purchased a ticket to show up. They know that some passengers will be inconvenienced, and all they can really say is that it is their fault. This law is proactive.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Mr. Speaker, this bill is an incarnation of a bill presented by Mr. Jim Maloway, a former member of the House and a great consumer protection advocate. I wonder if the hon. member would inform the House as to what substantial changes were made to this draft of the bill compared to the previous draft, with reflection of the fact that the Canadian Transportation Agency on June 28, 2012, provided a wide-scoping definition to expected tariffs, expected liabilities and expected treatment of passengers in various situations.

That ruling was made after the previous bill was tabled in the House. How has that impacted the construction of this particular bill?

[José Nunez-Melo, NDP, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, yes, that is what happened. We took the former project that was submitted in the previous Parliament and we analyzed all the clauses from a to z. In fact, I was surprised by the conclusion of the report by the committee because there were only small changes that we had to make to make it more specific.

The reason that was given was the word “fundamental” had not been included throughout the clauses. Therefore, we revised it completely from a to z and we changed and rephrased many phrases. All of them were improved and updated.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address this esteemed chamber again.

It has been my purpose in politics in my own small way to help expand free choice so people can earn success, take responsibility for their lives and enjoy the maximum spectrum of choice they can possibly enjoy.

That ideal of free enterprise, free exchange, has delivered humanity the most unprecedented buildup in prosperity in all of known history. That can only happen when we limit government to doing the things that people cannot do for themselves, which brings us to the question before the House today, and the overall airline industry and its service to customers.

What we see when we look at this industry is that the vast increase in choice and quality of service the industry has experienced is the result of decisions by governments over the last 25 years to allow free enterprise competition to lead the way. We have commercialized our airports, we have privatized areas that were formerly government controlled and we have given consumers the tools to make decisions for themselves.

The advent of the Internet has allowed consumers to compare prices and make purchase decisions in a way that was not even imagined 15 or 20 years ago. The power of a traveller to go online and investigate all of the pricing options and review the service of all of the other passengers who have written public reviews is a far greater power for that customer than anything we in this chamber could impose upon the industry or upon the customers.

Our role then is to continue to empower the customer to enjoy maximum service, so how are we doing that?

First, we are signing agreements with countries around the world to allow their carriers to compete for Canadian customers and our carriers to compete for their customers. This gives Canadian business a world of customers and Canadians customers a world of choice. The best thing we can do to enhance the service and treatment of customers who use airlines for transportation is to give them more choice and more competition.

Second, we are giving them more information. Our government instituted the “what you see is what you get” pricing system, wherein an airline has to advertise the real price of the ticket, not just the base price. That avoids the situation of a customer, a passenger purchasing a flight and then learning that it is far more expensive than the advertised rate that was offered.

When the passenger gets on the flight and has an unfortunate experience, the greatest penalty to the sector is the devastating effect of word-of-mouth criticism by the passenger, because other people will refuse to take the same airline if they hear enough anecdotal evidence of bad treatment. Therefore, it is already in the interest of airlines to provide the best quality service they can, or risk losing out to competition. Because of new competition from airline carriers like WestJet and now Porter and others, Air Canada has to work extra hard to retain its passenger base.

At the same time, we monitor the kinds of complaints that come from the sector. In 2011-12 the Canadian Transportation Agency received a total of 518 air travel complaints, 499 for informal facilitation and 19 for formal adjudication, not including an additional 77 complaints that had not been resolved in the previous year.

Let us put this in perspective. We are talking about 518 complaints out of 78.4 million passenger flights travelled. Clearly, the passenger understands that the airline industry has to respond to them, or the passenger can seek another carrier for the services sought. However, that brings about debate here in this House of Commons on this and so many other issues.

On this side of the House, we believe in maximum choice and competition. We believe in empowering customers. The NDP believes in empowering bureaucracy. We believe in allowing business to run business. The NDP wants to run everyone else's business. The NDP believes in nationalizing whole sections of the Canadian economy and has opposed privatization of enterprises that the vast majority of Canadians believe the government has no business running. It is with that mentality that the NDP comes forward with Bill C-459.

I will share more statistics. Of the 365 air travel disputes addressed through the Canadian Transportation Agency's informal resolution process, 293 were settled through facilitation. With respect to the formal process in the same period, 13 air travel disputes were resolved through adjudication. Again, that is out of 78 million passenger flights.

I think we can all agree that we have a system that works. The data clearly demonstrates that the agency performs a useful task and a constructive function when it comes to responding to the few customer complaints in the airline sector, without onerous regulations or court action. The compensation afforded to passengers for various infractions identified in the bill would supercede a function that is already performed by the existing agency.

One layer of government is never enough for the NDP members. They always want layer upon layer. They want an apartment building of layers of bureaucratic regulation and duplication to address every problem, real or perceived.

Given that the bill is largely silent with respect to how customers would obtain the monetary compensation laid out in the bill, disputes could be channelled to the courts, which would be an additional burden on all parties. Therefore, where we have a simplified, streamlined system that allows customers to address their legitimate concerns within the system in a timely fashion and at limited cost to Canadian taxpayers, the NDP would force customers into the courthouses, enriching lawyers at the expense of both the passenger and the business.

That is not the solution. At least, that is not the Canadian way. In fact, it seems a lot more like a litigious American approach to a problem that is otherwise resolved through commercial competition and dispute mediation.

The danger of the bill is that it might place an important additional regulatory burden on air carriers that would render them unable to compete with their international peers. While the bill recognizes that the carrier should not be held responsible for cancellations due to weather or other extraordinary circumstances or incidents that are caused by other parties, the burden of proof would remain on the carrier. That would mean more cost for the carrier. What do carriers have to do when they face increased costs? They have to pass them on to the passengers. The very people the NDP purports to be helping would be paying the price.

I would also note that the biggest variable cost to our air carriers is fuel. What would drive up the cost of fuel more than anything? It would be a carbon tax. There would be taxes, regulation, bureaucracy and the command and control and big government. On this side, we reject those ideas in favour of more freedom and more choice.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Mr. Speaker, we have a clearer picture this time around as to where the government is going to stand on this particular issue.

It is obvious it will not be supporting Bill C-459. That is a little different from the position it took in the past. Members of the House who have been around for a little while will recall that this is not the first time this issue has come forward. I am not speaking about the efforts of Mr. Jim Maloway, consumer protection advocate, who did a great job introducing a bill in a previous Parliament. He is not here today, but his bill is being echoed in the current mover's presentation.

There was an earlier attempt to provide consumer protection for airline passengers, and that occurred in 2008. In May 2008, I submitted a motion for consideration by this House, that the House call upon the government to enact an airline passenger bill of rights similar in context and form to that presented to the European Union Parliament and passed, and also similar to legislation before the U.S. Congress at that time.

That motion would have put statutory effect to airline passenger rights. Now, the interesting thing is that the government was all for it, on its face. While the government suggested it was in support of enhancing and protecting airline passenger rights, it was doing something very different on the inside. What the government was doing was contacting its buddies, and this was only revealed through access to information.

The government members voted 100% in favour of the motion to enact legislative, statutory protections to airline passengers. The Minister of Transport voted in favour of doing that. The entire front bench, in fact every Conservative member of the caucus, voted for my motion.

What we found out, though, was that was not what the Conservatives were doing on the inside. Through some very skilful investigative journalism by some members of our press gallery, it was discovered that while they were suggesting they were in favour of this and actually voted for it in the House, a member of the transport minister's office, Paul Fitzgerald of Lawrence Cannon's office, was actually writing to lobbyists from the airline industry.

He was saying that they were going to have to do some lobbying to stop this motion in its tracks, and that if they did not lobby the Grits, the Conservatives were going to find themselves in the position where they were outvoted by the opposition parties. Fitzgerald added that he did not want the government to be forced into regulating passenger protection issues.

Now what the Conservatives did, after actually saying that they did not want to be forced into regulating passenger protection issues, was that they voted for it. Imagine the contempt, the pure raw contempt of what this place is all about. This is a legislative body.

What we say in here is what we say to the country, and when we say in here that we support airline passenger rights and we are actually going to put our stamp on that by standing in our place and voting for it, we do not actually go out and commission lobbyists saying, “Let us scuttle this. Let us get this done. Let us create a pack of lies. Let us try to create much innuendo about this. Let us try to smear this effort. Let us try to make sure that the Canadian public turns against those who would actually favour such a thing and promote such a thing in Parliament”.

Then after they fail at that, what do the Conservatives do? They vote for it. If that is not contempt for what we are supposed to be doing in this place, what is? It is called a lie. If members stand in this place and vote for something, should they not actually have the guts to stand with it all the way?

Now, all of sudden, we hear from the parliamentary secretary and few others. I can see I have a few tempers flaring here, because the Conservatives do not like being caught. A few of their senators do not like getting caught either, but that is another story.

If members are going to stand in this place and vote to enact legislative mechanisms to protect passenger rights, why would they not do it? The government actually tried to suggest that it was going to do that.

Right before the 2008 election campaign, the government created Flight Rights Canada. The Conservatives took a flight all right. They flew as fast as they could from what they did earlier in the spring of 2008, and they created this voluntary mechanism called Flight Rights Canada. Flight Rights Canada was a totally voluntary mechanism. The Government of Canada spent a total of $6,000 promoting it. It was supposed to be an omnibus way of protecting airline passengers. A fancy press release was put out 48 hours before the government dropped the writ for the 2008 election campaign, just to clear the issue off the books so that it could say it was doing something. Nobody ever heard of Flight Rights Canada ever again.

Since then, the government has been suggesting that it is on board with protecting airline passengers. It also started the narrative that it was not necessary, that the market would do its job, and that people are not held prisoners.

Perhaps a person pays $1000 for an airline ticket and walks into the secure area of the airport. The airline has that passenger's bags in the hold of the aircraft, and suddenly, the flight is cancelled. Apparently a passenger has market power at that point in time and can simply walk over to another airline desk and say, “I have paid $1000 to that airline. My bags are in the hold of that aircraft, but I would like to use my market power to fly on your airline”. Is that going to happen?

The government denied and denied. It said that these rights were already available to passengers. The Canadian Transportation Agency did not see it that way. As a result of a complaint filed in 2009 against the domestic and international operations of WestJet, Air Canada and Air Transat, the Canadian Transportation Agency ruled, on June 28, 2012, that the consumer protection of airline passengers on those three airlines was inadequate and unreasonable, and it made amendments. The agency forced those three Canadian-based airlines to change their published tariffs. It forced them to improve their protections, their promises and their enactment of their promises to airline passengers. This happened while the government was saying that this was absolutely unnecessary. The Canadian Transportation Agency, a quasi-judicial body, did not quite see it that way.

We have an opportunity now to stand in this place and say as we mean and mean as we say. There are times when the market does not necessarily always protect consumers. I would hope that people on the other side would agree with that. I can think of one case in particular. A passenger walks into the airport, gets a boarding pass at the counter, gives the luggage to the airline, walks past security and finds out that after spending $1,000 on a ticket, the flight is delayed for 24 hours because it cannot get personnel, the plane has mechanical problems, or whatever. It happens. Is that a realistic scenario that suggests to anyone that the market is going to fix the problem? Can a passenger simply walk over to another airline counter, pay $2,000 now, because it is a last-minute ticket, retrieve that luggage from the previous flight, and carry on?

When passengers are dependent on the airline, the airline has a duty of care to the passengers. If the passengers are incapable of adjusting the circumstance to beat that reality, can the market fix the circumstance? No, it cannot, and that is why an airline passenger bill of rights is not a bad idea.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today in support of Bill C-459, introduced by my colleague from Laval, which would create the air passengers' bill of rights.

The aim of the bill is simple. It is fair and will protect consumers. In short, air travellers deserve to have clear rules around compensation and reimbursement when their travel plans change without two weeks notice. The bill would do just that.

The bill addresses five situations that may affect air passengers and provides details of how consumers will be compensated in those situations.

First, when a flight is cancelled, passengers would have the right to choose between being reimbursed and being rerouted to their final destination. They would also have the right to meals in a reasonable relation to the waiting time, as well as accommodation if necessary. They would be entitled to between $250 and $600 in compensation, depending on the situation unless the flight was cancelled due to extraordinary circumstances or if they agreed to be rerouted.

Second, if a passenger was denied boarding because of the air carrier overbooking the flight, the passenger would be entitled to receive between $250 and $600 in compensation in addition to any benefits offered by the airline.

Third, if a flight were to be delayed, every passenger would be entitled to meals and refreshments in a reasonable relation to the waiting time and to accommodation when necessary.

Fourth, If a passenger's bag was lost, and this happens quite often unfortunately, the passenger would be entitled to $500 in compensation.

Finally, if passed, the bill will require airlines to include all costs to the carrier of providing the service, as well as fees, charges and taxes it collects on behalf of another person or business and would apply administrative penalties to air carriers who did not comply with this requirement.

How would this work in practice? I will use two examples.

The first example is someone is booked to go on a vacation to the Caribbean. I know that might be hard to imagine, especially when the weather networks right now are talking about all the snow that Ontario will receive. When that person arrives at the airport, he or she is informed that the carrier has now overbooked the flight. To try and solve the problem, the airline asks all passengers if any of them are willing to take another flight in return for a reduction on the ticket price that they have already paid. Since not enough travellers are willing to change their flights, our vacationer is denied boarding.

If the bill were passed, our traveller will receive an amount of $250 to $600 in compensation, depending on the length of the trip, as well as either being rerouted to his or her destination or having the full cost of the flight reimbursed.

In the second situation a traveller's flight is cancelled and he or she is stuck at the airport, while waiting for the next flight to arrive. After several hours of waiting at the airport, the airline then informs the passenger that his or her flight would not be available until the following day. In this case, the “right to care” set out in Bill C-459 means that if the bill were to become law, the air carrier will be required to offer meals and refreshments, accommodation, transportation between the airport and the place of accommodation and a total of two telephone calls, faxes or emails per passenger.

Our aim is not to vilify or punish air carriers. Many air carriers already have very good compensation policies and customer service.

I found myself stuck in Winnipeg a couple of weeks ago when it was so cold. The main cabin door was frozen and could not be shut. We had very good customer service and the carrier looked after all of the passengers on that flight.

There is no consistency across the industry. We need that type of consistency to protect consumers, small businesses and business travellers. The bill would create that consistency.

A similar system has been in place in the European Union since 2004, where the common rules for the compensation of air passengers in these situations was put in place across the EU member states.

All that the bill would do is build on the success achieved in Europe by identifying the best practices that have been put in place across the Atlantic and implement them here in Canada.

These are simple rules that would protect consumers. For this reason, I am very upset by the suggestion we hear from the other side of the House that Conservative MPs will not be supporting the bill. When the NDP has questioned the government as to whether it will support the bill, it has attempted to deflect by focusing on weather difficulties or extraordinary circumstances as a way to avoid supporting the bill.

I would, therefore, like it on the record right now that Bill C-459 explicitly states that air carriers would not be required to offer compensation for such circumstances; specifically, paragraph 4(1)(c), and subsections 4(2) and 4(3) of the bill cover this exemption. If the Conservatives focus on imagined problems as a reason to not support the bill, it is clear that they therefore do not properly understand the legislation in front of them today or that they are looking to find excuses not to support it.

In conclusion, it is clear that ensuring that consumers are protected in one of those five situations outlined in the bill is a relatively easy way for the government to improve upon the rather lacking federal consumer protection regime. For that reason, I ask all members from all parties to support this initiative and to support the bill.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me the opportunity to address the House regarding Bill C-459, the air passengers' bill of rights, which would establish terms and conditions including compensation and rerouting for the treatment of air passengers under various circumstances when air travel is cancelled, delayed, or baggage is misplaced.

This is a big country and as a result Canadians travel more by air than most people elsewhere. Many of us have experienced situations where our flight was delayed or cancelled due to weather conditions, mechanical issues or other reasons that we may not understand. Occasionally the delivery of luggage may be delayed due to tight connections, mishandling, malfunctions and various human factors. That is the key part.

People make mistakes every now and then. We do not like them, but they are a fact of life. Sometimes as passengers we feel we have not been treated fairly. We all find these situations frustrating. I have been there and I am sure all members have. One thing should be noted though. We are fortunate that in Canada there is a mechanism that provides passengers with a means to address these situations efficiently without engaging in onerous or costly legal wrangling.

Consumers have the right to expect to be treated fairly by airlines and therefore a process is in place for the impartial investigation of concerns. In particular, this means that a passenger, who has been inconvenienced and feels that his or her concerns have not been addressed adequately by the airline, can choose to file a formal complaint with the Canadian Transportation Agency. The agency is an independent, quasi-judicial tribunal that has a mandate to review unresolved consumer complaints against air carriers and to assist consumers to the extent possible.

Please allow me now to describe the regime that exists in Canada for the protection of air passengers' rights. As I have noted, Canada's policy for airline passenger consumer protection is based on a complaints-driven process. The carriers are expected to comply with their terms and conditions of carriage, which must be made readily available to the passenger. The terms and conditions of carriage are set out in carriers' policies with respect to important consumer protection matters including, but not restricted to, acceptance, loss and damage of baggage, taxes and fees, reimbursement, claims, flight cancellations, et cetera.

Air carriers are required to publish their terms and conditions of carriage on their websites and to live by these terms and conditions. This is enshrined in legislation through specific provisions in the Canada Transportation Act. If a passenger feels that a carrier is not respecting its terms and conditions of carriage, he or she should begin by bringing a complaint first to the airline. As I mentioned earlier, if not satisfied with the airline's response, passengers may then take their complaint to the Canadian Transportation Agency, which is empowered to provide recourse.

In 2007, our government took action to strengthen Canada's consumer protection regime for air travellers by introducing measures as part of Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Canada Transportation Act and the Railway Safety Act, which improved the transparency of carriers' terms and conditions of carriage and made the complaints process under the Canadian Transportation Agency permanent.

During the same period, our government introduced Flight Rights Canada, an initiative to inform the travelling public of the consumer protection approach that we have in place in Canada, their rights under this approach and how they can seek redress if something goes wrong when they are travelling by air. Flight Rights Canada included a six-point, plain language code of conduct defining service standards.

Canada's largest airlines have adopted these standards into their terms and conditions of carriage. They are now accountable for them as they are for all their terms and conditions of carriage. As my colleagues have no doubt noticed, Bill C-459 also includes provisions that regulate full fare advertising. On this issue, I am pleased to remind hon. members that this government has already taken action with the recently announced all-inclusive airfare advertising regulations.

On December 14, 2012, new air services price advertising regulations came into force that required any person who advertised the price of an air service to display the total price, inclusive of all taxes, fees and charges when selling flights within or originating in Canada. That is something I have experienced. Individuals book a flight, they think they have a price and all of a sudden all the other little things get added to it and it is not what they thought it was at the start. That is no more, thanks to this government.

The two key objectives of this new regulation are to enable consumers to readily determine the total price of an advertised air service and to promote fair competition between all advertisers in the air travel industry. When Canadians are travelling by air, they expect to be treated fairly by their carrier, as well as to be able to readily determine the full price of the air services they are purchasing.

Hon. colleagues must consider this private member's bill with prudence, as we cannot overturn the current policy by implementing a prescriptive and more burdensome framework. The bill could result in consumers having to take their cases to court in certain situations, as well as changes to the mandate of the Canadian Transportation Agency. It could translate into more red tape and costs to the taxpayer. That is the last thing we need.

Furthermore, elements of the bill could potentially have significant financial implications for airlines, which would translate into higher costs for travellers. This is not what we want. For example, while the bill recognizes that airlines should not be held responsible for incidents that are caused by third parties, such as air navigation service providers or airports, the onus could be on the carriers to prove that this is the case in a submission to the Canadian Transportation Agency.

Similarly, under the bill, carriers would not be responsible for cancellations caused by weather, which is a major factor in our country. However, again, they could be placed in a situation where they would have to prove this by way of submissions to the agency. All of this would result in additional work and cost for both the airline and the agency. I need not remind members that higher costs to carriers would definitely translate into higher fares for air travel.

Let me underscore that this government is, as always, firmly committed to promoting a healthy Canadian air industry, without compromising the protection of the rights of Canadians. We have a robust system for protecting air passengers' rights and this government is proud to reiterate that it has taken steps to reinforce this and will continue to do so.

We do not have a perfect system, but it is a pretty good one. The bill would definitely make it worse, not better.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Resuming debate.

The hon. member for Québec has seven minutes.

[Annick Papillon, NDP, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as the deputy critic for consumer protection, I am very pleased to speak today about Bill C-459, which was introduced by the hon. member for Laval.

The Air Passengers' Bill of Rights proposes implementing a new regulation that will better protect the rights of air passengers when they are treated unfairly by airlines. In fact, Bill C-459 could protect Canadians from the time they purchase their plane ticket until they arrive at their destination.

To quickly summarize the provisions of Bill C-459, the new regulation would require air carriers to compensate passengers if their flight has been overbooked or delayed for a long time or if their luggage is lost. This bill is based on a European law that greatly reduces delays and problems with overbooking. The Air Passengers' Bill of Rights applies to all air carriers, including Canadian carriers that land on European soil. Why should Canadians be treated better in Europe than they are at home?

I have heard many stories about airline employees who bend over backwards to help passengers when their flights are delayed or cancelled, and I would even like to personally thank a number of Canadian airline companies for the outstanding service they provide every time I travel. Unfortunately, passengers continue to be the victims of the poor practices of certain air carriers.

Many of these stories are well known. Someone buys a plane ticket and, upon their arrival at the airport, they find out that their flight has been overbooked and that, unfortunately, it is already full. That person must then wait for hours for the next flight. Or, without any explanation, passengers are forced to wait for hours before they are able to board the plane and, because of that delay, they miss their connecting flights. Other passengers have boarded the plane, only to wait for an hour or longer without anything to eat or drink before the plane takes off. These situations are unacceptable, and it is time to change the regulations in order to ensure that passengers' patience is not pushed beyond the limit unnecessarily.

Last December, the NDP questioned the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities to find out whether the government would agree to a law regarding the rights of air passengers. The minister's response focused on aspects that are beyond air carriers' control. This is what he said:

...it is nice to hear that the NDP has a solution for snowstorms, ice storms and all other unforeseen circumstances at airports.

I think that the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities should take the time to carefully read Bill C-459. The minister is implying that the problem with this bill is that it makes airlines responsible for weather-related cancellations and delays. He will be happy to hear that this bill copies verbatim the exemption included in European legislation that exonerates airlines in extraordinary circumstances. This exemption has been used successfully in Europe for many years.

The Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities implied that Bill C-459 would make airlines responsible for weather-related cancellations and delays, but that is untrue. Nothing could be further from the truth. Bill C-459 does not require airlines to compensate passengers whose flights are delayed or cancelled because of the weather. A flight that was cancelled because of the weather is considered an extraordinary circumstance, and as I already explained, this is set out in the bill introduced by my colleague from Laval. He wisely thought of everything.

The European Union commissioned a study two years after it implemented its legislation. I am sure my colleagues on the other side would love to hear the results of this study. The study concluded that European airlines extensively used the extraordinary circumstances argument to avoid compensating passengers. However, all of the stakeholders agreed that the extraordinary circumstances exemption nevertheless struck a good balance between a passenger's right to compensation and fairness to the airlines.

Under Bill C-459, all that an air carrier is required to do in a case of cancellation due to weather is: reimburse or reroute each passenger, which is reasonable; offer meals and refreshments in relation to the waiting time, nothing wrong with that; and provide hotel accommodation in cases where a stay of one or more nights is required. There is nothing here that is unreasonable for an air carrier to do.

That said, it is important to recognize that many airlines already offer passengers good compensation. The purpose of this bill is not to attack the airlines, but rather to level the playing field for carriers and penalize only those companies that try to fleece customers in order to increase their profits. That is the difference.

Companies that follow the regulations will not have to pay. However, those that make a profit at the expense of passengers will have to compensate travellers for their mismanagement. It is as simple as that.

Why should customers not expect better service? Why should passengers not be informed of flight changes, delays and cancellations under penalty to the airlines? Why should the new rules not be posted at the airline counter to inform customers of their rights and the process to file for compensation? Why should the public not expect all-in-one pricing so they know the total cost of the flight before they click the “buy” button?

These are simple, obvious measures. There is no doubt that this is a good bill. I invite all of my colleagues in the House to vote in favour of Bill C-459.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

The time provided for consideration of private members' business has now expired, and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the order paper.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 is deemed to have been moved.

Veterans

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this adjournment debate this evening relates to a question I put to the Minister of Veterans Affairs on October 25 and to which I did not get any response.

To give a bit of context, at the time I said that the government, through the funeral and burial program, was providing only $3,600 to cover the funeral expenses incurred by a veteran in need, while the actual cost of a decent funeral is at least $7,000, if not $8,000.

In the days that followed, specifically on November 5 and 6, several of my colleagues put questions to the minister but did not get any response.

We asked why, since taking office, the government had not increased funding for funeral and burial costs for our veterans, despite being aware of this issue since 2009.

Of course, the minister gave a stock reply that did not at all answer the question. The only answer provided was that he would not cut into the veterans' programs, like the Liberals had done before. Of course, that was not my question. I did not ask whether he would make cuts to the programs, but whether he was going to increase funding for this funeral and burial program.

So, I hope to get that answer today. I am looking forward to hearing the parliamentary secretary tell us whether the government intends to increase funding for this funeral program in the 2013 budget or, at the very least, during the review of the new veterans charter.

I also think it is important that the minister and the parliamentary secretary take a closer look at the Patrick Strogan report, which was tabled in February 2009 and which focused precisely on this funeral fund program. What have they done since? Absolutely nothing.

In his report entitled “Serve with Honour, Depart with Dignity”, the veterans ombudsman, Patrick Strogan, mentioned seven major concerns. Among other things, he feels that the funding is lower than the costs, that the program has too much red tape and that it should be offered to all veterans, and not just to a single class of the poorest veterans.

In its study on the commemoration of the 21st century, the committee made the same recommendation, namely that the program be improved. At the time, before October 25, the Funeral Service Association of Canada sounded the alarm. It confirmed that funding for the program was well below funeral costs. That funding has not been adjusted since 2001, while costs have increased significantly since.

The association even said that its members provide funeral services at a lower cost to veterans than to the general public. Those businesses are partially funding funerals for deceased veterans because they feel it is important that veterans have a burial that is worthy of their sacrifice. I thank them for their commitment to our veterans. We are asking the government to have the same level of commitment and to improve the program to cover all funeral costs, as it should.

Eligibility also seems to be an issue. Since 2006, 67% of requests have been denied. That is an alarming percentage, and it is high time the government review its eligibility criteria. All veterans should have access to this program, no matter where and when they served. The ombudsman and the NDP feel that there should not be different classes of veterans; they should all be equal.

Using the estate or means test to assess the net worth of a veteran's estate also seems to be problematic because it restricts a veteran's access to the program. The Royal Canadian Legion stated that the government had effectively limited the ability of the Last Post Fund to meet its mandate by reducing the estate exemption from $24,000 to $12,000. That happened under the Liberal government, but the Conservative government has done nothing to change the situation since 2006.

I will ask the government again. Will it make improvements to this program in the 2013 budget, and will it change the eligibility criteria for the program?