Debates of Feb. 3rd, 2015

Protecting Taxpayers and Revoking Pensions of Convicted Politicians Act

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor. His explanation of the bill was both fair-minded and quite elegant. He did a good job explaining both the bill and also the rationale to hold parliamentarians to a higher standard because of the privileged position we hold in this House. The member has given me a few more minutes to address some other points. I am not going to explain what is in the bill, since he has done such a wonderful job already.

The bill does focus on some two dozen Criminal Code violations. These are all indictable offences, meaning they are serious crimes that members of this House or the other place would have to commit and be found guilty of in a court of law before a pension were revoked. That is an important part of this bill because it would take these decisions out of a political theatre and put them into a court of law where, because these are serious matters, those decisions should rest.

There is one aspect of the bill that I would like to address, and some points that I have heard in the first hour of debate and that have come up in discussions with colleagues here and elsewhere.

The first measure is that there remains in this bill some measure of partial retroactivity. Initially when I tabled this bill in June 2013, I suggested that convictions be retroactive from that date forward. In the committee, that was modified and the modification is acceptable so that the crime itself could have happened at any time before this bill, should it receive royal assent, came into effect, but the conviction would now have to happen on or after that date. Going forward, if this bill became law, it would still apply to malfeasance that occurred in the past. That is a good compromise, and I understand the reasons for that were dealing with potential court challenges. That was an amendment that I thought was wise and good.

This bill, after discussion over the last 20 months, does have and I hope it will have support from both sides of the House. When I first tabled the bill, I had suggested a floor of two years, that the maximum sentence be two or more years. However, upon consultation with members on both sides of the House at the first debate, I suggested that be moved to five years, within the Criminal Code and an indictable offence. In working with both sides of the House, trying to find a bill that would accomplish its objective—which, at the end of the day, was to penalize members who broke trust with taxpayers, members who through illegal activities misplaced or misused tax dollars—the bill was further refined in committee, with amendments I suggested in committee, to focus on violations like breach of trust, fraud, theft, and forgery, aspects that have to do directly with how we spend and use tax dollars in this place. Our role as legislators is to come here and decide on behalf of Canadians how tax dollars are going to be spent.

I will give one good example of why an across-the-board five-year threshold posed some challenge. I say this respectfully mostly for members in the official opposition who believe the bill has been weakened because of these changes. When we are at home in our riding, we drive around a lot. If we were to ever hit someone with our vehicle and kill him or her, the punishment is up to a five-year prison term. The point of this bill was never to capture someone or to have someone revoke or lose a pension through an error or momentary lapse of judgment; it was for deliberate theft of tax dollars.

To have an across-the-board blanket meant that a member in this House, because of a terrible accident, a tragedy and a crime but not something that was intentional, could very well be in a position of losing a parliamentary pension.

That is the rationale for focusing on the two dozen or so provisions in this bill that focus on infractions that deal directly with our duties as parliamentarians.

Recently a number of amendments have come forward from the official opposition that I must confess I disagree with. In fact, I actually thought it was the will of this House, as I was proposing these changes, to focus the scope of this bill on our actual duties. I can say that, because on December 10, 2013, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster, when I suggested raising it to a threshold of five years, said:

However, as the member has already indicated, we would be looking and seeking amendments to change it to five years for a criminal offence and we have seen, I think, from the member, some willingness to compromise on that. That is welcome.

I went back through the debates we had in this House on this bill to be sure I understood the mood of the room. Member after member, from both sides, had suggested or debated or told this House that in fact we wanted to be careful, that we did not want to inappropriately strip a member of a pension for a violation that was not related to his or her duties. It was only as one of our colleagues found himself in violation of the Canada Elections Act that suddenly the debate became about widening it. This is a problem, because as we look at legislation, we have to be somewhat consistent in our approach.

I have correspondence from the Leader of the Opposition, who talks about our former colleague, Dean Del Mastro, who was found guilty of breaking the Canada Elections Act. The Leader of the Opposition said that this former member would have lost his whole pension under the restrictions of the Nova Scotia law, which states that any MLA convicted of a crime with a maximum sentence of five years or more in jail will lose the right to a full pension.

This is actually false, because this former member, while he was found guilty of a provision under the Canada Elections Act, was actually found guilty of a crime with a maximum penalty of one year. It did not reach the threshold, in my original bill, of two years. It does not reach the threshold of the penalty of the Nova Scotia law, nor did it ever reach the threshold of this bill, at five years. That is simply not true.

It is important, because the mood of this House was such that we wanted to focus on our duties as legislators and on the appropriation and disbursement of tax dollars.

Where are we? We have a bill today that has gone through several hours of debate, has gone through committee, and has had several changes to it proposed, which I think, by and large, have strengthened it.

I will not be supporting the amendments put forward by the official opposition, because I think they attempt to, at the last minute, the 11th hour, open this bill up in a manner that not even the Nova Scotia bill, which the NDP cites as the standard, does. In fact, they would endanger the likelihood of this bill passing the House, because it was both government members and opposition members who urged me throughout the process to be very focused in this bill and to go after penalties that are in line with our duties as parliamentarians.

Twenty months later, we have this bill before us, and I hope it will receive support on both sides of the House. I believe it will receive support on both sides of the House, and I urge members to support it so we can get it off to the Senate. I hope to see it become law before Parliament is dissolved in advance of the next election.

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

Mr. Speaker, this is certainly an interesting bill that we are debating tonight given the fact that we have a government that has consistently said it is about transparency and accountability.

I will quote the Prime Minister, who has said, “...bend the rules, you will be punished; break the law, you will be charged; abuse the public trust, you will go to prison”.

When looking at this bill, we have to take into consideration its intent and how we can best ensure that when we are elected or appointed as parliamentarians or senators, there is protection for the public trust.

This bill is similar to one moved by the NDP in Nova Scotia, as my colleague from New Brunswick Southwest mentioned a while ago. That bill received royal assent on May 10, 2013. There are some differences between the bills. The Nova Scotia law targets MLAs who have been convicted of an offence punishable by imprisonment for a maximum of no less than five years. It also provides that any entitlement of a former spouse or a court ordered restitution may be deducted from the MLA's pension.

The bill before us was tabled in the middle of the Senate scandal that was subject to raging debate in the House of Commons, a scandal in which many Conservative senators were under scrutiny for claiming expenses they were not entitled to. This has severely tarnished the Conservative Party's claim that it is the most ethical and transparent government Canada has ever seen. Indeed, we look at this, we see that it is an issue of ethical and transparent government. Just to go back a bit, we can look at some of the issues that have come forward from that. We just have to look at Carolyn Stewart-Olsen, the former Conservative spokesperson turned senator, who had to repay inappropriate living expenses. We had Mike Duffy being ordered to pay back more than $90,000 for false living expenses and claiming per diems while on vacation. Pamela Wallin was ordered to pay back more than $100,000 for improper claims. We have also seen Liberal senators who have had to make repayments.

When looking at what has transpired since the Liberal sponsorship scandal, there really is not much difference in terms of transparency and accountability on this side of the House. Therefore, when bills such as this come forward, we think they look great but we have to scour through them to see what the hidden agenda is or how we can work with the Conservatives to make the bill functional

During the analysis of the bill in committee, the Conservative Party changed the provisions that determined when a senator or MP's pension would be revoked by removing any retroactivity in the application of the bill and proposing an exhaustive list of Criminal Code offences that would trigger the removal of the pension instead.

Experts had hesitations regarding this approach, noting that the choice of including some offences and not others did not make sense, particularly the fact that offences under the Elections Act were not included. The Conservatives refused to accept an amendment that would have revoked the pension of the former parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister, as mentioned a while ago. We know that the Prime Minister stood in the House and defended that member over and over again until the member was found guilty of breaking the Elections Act.

While the bill clearly aims at punishing the Conservative and Liberal senators who have abused taxpayers' money, Canadians are more and more convinced that the solution to the unelected, unaccountable, and under-investigated Senate is to abolish it, pure and simple.

So much has been going on in the House with respect to accountability and ethics that we really have to look at the whole. We have to look at what happens at committees as well.

We used to see committees as a place where we could count on people doing the heavy lifting for Parliament. It was said that although the chamber could appear to be a partisan mess, the committees were where sleeves were actually rolled up and petty differences were set aside, while some common good was served. That notion and those outcomes have been replaced by sideshow antics and committees are now a place where democracy rarely happens. By using their majority to go in camera, the Conservatives are actually gaining every aspect of committees and then telling Canadians, with a straight face, that this is what they voted for.

There was a comment from one of the committee chairs at the time, the member for Winnipeg Centre. The Conservatives had voted to go in camera and he wanted to ensure we were not. As he was suspending the meeting he said the following. “while we clear the room of the Canadian public and go under the black shroud of secrecy once again”. That is how he ended that session of the committee in order to go in camera. Canadians need to know the truth. Therefore, when we are looking at this bill, it is important to look at all aspects.

Let me reiterate what the bill would do.

Bill C-518 would remove the privileges of retiring allowances or compensation allowances of former members of the Senate or House of Commons if they have been convicted of certain offences under the Criminal Code, and that is a great thing. The member of Parliament or senator convicted then receives an amount equivalent to the contributions he or she paid for his or her pension, as well as the accumulated interest on those contributions. They get what they put into it, but they do not get the rest.

Following an amendment in committee, the member of Parliament or senator must now have committed certain offences in the Criminal Code that are listed in the bill. The Conservatives have also removed the retroactivity of the bill, meaning that Bill C-518 will only apply to senators and MPs that lose their position once the bill becomes law.

Experts have warned against the use of a list of offences because it could be applied in a broad spectrum, for example, if an MP has been a public servant, and also because it does not include many offences to other laws that are relevant to an MP's or senator's function, such as the Canada Elections Act, the Income Tax Act and the Parliament of Canada Act. We found a solution to this problem, but the Conservatives simply chose to ignore it.

We make proposals. We try to work with the Conservatives and the Liberals to try to find that common ground where we can have bills that are functional and that mean something.

The changes that were introduced to the bill by the Conservatives in committee will exclude the offences. That is the part we want to ensure we emphasize. Too many laws that are relevant to the function of the MP or senator will be excluded. They were not able to justify why they refused the amendments brought forward by the NDP. It was a good amendment. By doing this, the Conservatives will allow the former parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister, Dean Del Mastro, to keep his pension even though he was found guilty of electoral fraud. That is the important piece.

Although the member across had mentioned the fact that it had to do with our duties, when we are running for an election, that is part of our duties as we are moving forward. That is how we get elected.

We can talk about a lot of the misgivings on the Conservative side. Peter Penashue was one of them. He was found to be in contravention of how much money he was allowed to spend during the election. It actually had given him a hand up over other candidates because there was much more money spent on that side. We have a list of those where we have a lot of misgivings on the Conservative side.

At the end of the day, we need to ensure that the laws we put in place will protect the public's interest when it comes to accountability and ethics as we take our positions in the House of Commons or in the Senate.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The question is on Motion No. 1. A vote on this motion also applies to Motion No. 2.

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

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

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

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

In my opinion, the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Pursuant to Standing Order 98, a recorded division stands deferred until Wednesday, February 4, 2015, immediately before the time provided for private members' business.

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

Employment

[Jonathan Tremblay, NDP, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the youth unemployment rate is very worrisome. It has never been this high.

There is currently a youth employment crisis in Canada. It is a crisis that the government refuses to acknowledge, just as it refuses to acknowledge its abysmal job creation record. The youth unemployment rate reached its highest level in April 2008, before the recession. The official unemployment rate was then 11.8%. In September 2011, the youth unemployment rate reached 14%. Today, it is approaching 16%. That is about double the Quebec rate, which is around 7.6%. Canada's unemployment rate is 6.6%

However, programs such as skills link, which directly supports youth facing barriers to employment, are being dismantled by the Minister of Employment . Despite a youth unemployment rate of 16%, the minister tolerates the intolerable, that is, never-ending delays and broken partnerships with solid organizations with a proven track record, but whose future is now in jeopardy.

Does the minister not realize that leading organizations in our communities are waiting for him to take action, and also that his lack of action is hurting youth in need who could get help finding a job with well-established projects under the skills link program if only they were able to get the nod?

Is that the government's plan, to deliberately leave these young people out in the cold, people who need a little helping hand to improve their quality of life and take charge in order to find or keep a job? The Conservatives have already abandoned the regions and now they are abandoning our youth.

Young people are waiting for a nod from the government to contribute to the economy of their region. They are waiting for a nod to discover the dignity and pride that comes from getting a job. Will the minister give them the nod?

On November 25, 2014, I was asking the minister in this House about some problems related to the skills link program. To provide some background, my question on November 25 was about shedding some light on why the many applications for subsidies under the skills link program have been gathering dust for over a year. It took 18 months for a simple acknowledgement of receipt, while other integration projects were rejected entirely.

In my question to the minister, I asked him specifically why the youth employment centres in the Quebec City region all had their applications rejected. Their applications to implement a social and occupational integration program, a project that Service Canada has been a partner to for 10 years, were rejected out of hand.

Will the minister say that the projects were rejected for lack of funding? That would be too easy. There is more to it than that. When the program no longer has any funding, officials know it. However, in this case, the officials are being shut out and no longer understand what is happening with the program. The skills link program was working and was helping young people find employment.

I also met with young participants in the Chantiers urbains program, a project run by the Quebec City youth employment centre. I was touched by their stories and surprised at the ingenuity with which the staff carry out social and occupational integration projects while providing support to these young people to help them succeed.

The minister must take into account the efforts made by employment and training organizations to provide young people with a unique experience and a launch pad to success.

Twenty-two organizations, including 14 in Quebec, have contacted their MP to find out whether they could expect any funding soon. Most of them have been taking part in the program for many years. Some of these partnerships have been in place for eight or 10 years, and this is the first time they have faced such delays.

When will the minister take action?

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment and Social Development]

Mr. Speaker, the claim by the member opposite that our government is not adequately supporting young Canadians could not be further from the truth. I think he is simply not aware of all of the programs, initiatives, and resources our government offers to young Canadians to help connect them to available jobs and employers who are looking for young people to fill jobs all across this country but are having difficulty finding young people with the skills they need to fill those positions.

I am actually quite happy to elaborate a little about all our government has done to get the facts straight on this important issue and make sure that jobs are available for young Canadians and that young Canadians have the training they need to apply for those existing jobs.

Through our skills agenda, we are ensuring that Canadians have the skills they need to apply for in-demand jobs. This is exactly true for young Canadians. I am sure my colleague on the other side of the House has seen the work our government has done to help young Canadians plan and pay for their post-secondary education.

My colleague may even remember the significant investments in apprenticeships we announced in last year's budget. We introduced the new Canada apprentice loan. This provides apprentices, registered in Red Seal trades, with access to interest-free loans to help ease the financial burden of upgrading their craft, which of course started accepting applicants last month. The Canada apprentice loan has already been successful across the country, and we are seeing a lot of uptake with people applying for this support.

In regard to youth employment, we are moving on many fronts. The government also provides a variety of youth employment programs to help all young Canadians, not only apprentices, make informed career choices and develop the skills, experience, and knowledge they need to secure a good job in our rapidly changing job market.

For example, I am sure the hon. member is aware of our youth employment strategy, $300 million. Unfortunately, his party has consistently voted against it. I am sure he knows that, through several programs, our government provides skills development and work experience for at-risk youth, summer students, and recent post-secondary graduates. It is clear from the number of applicants we see each year that the skills-linked programs are a huge success.

In November, the member opposite asked about employment centres in general for his riding. I might remind the member that we informed him at that point that, if he has specific questions on specific applications for people in his riding, he should please bring them to us outside the House and we will gladly look into them for him.

Our goal is to fund high-quality projects that meet community needs. However, we receive many quality proposals, and not all could be selected with available funding.

In economic action plan 2014, we announced our intent to improve the youth employment strategy and align it with the evolving realities of the job market, and to ensure better outcomes for Canadians and better value for taxpayers.

The summer works experience program provides summer job opportunities for secondary and post-secondary students. This program is an important part of our youth employment strategy.

I ask the member across the aisle that, when we bring these programs forward, when we bring these key investments, which will match young people in this country to available jobs and match employers who have positions with highly skilled young people who are trained to do those jobs, he and his party support those initiatives that we put forward for funding, if he is truly interested in improving the opportunities for young people in this country.

[Jonathan Tremblay, NDP, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a shame because I was talking about the skills link program, but in his answer, he talked about everything but that program.

I recently found out that the Charlevoix chamber of commerce has also been waiting nine months for an answer about a project that was supposed to start in September 2014. I am not talking about a project that nobody in the department knew about. On the contrary, this is about years of partnership, tangible results and an 80% youth employment retention rate. What more could the minister want?

Despite the fact that the minister has been aware of the problems with the skills link program for months—nearly a year, actually—he has not done anything about it. The system is broken. We see that clearly on the ground. The program has been dismantled and the program officers have been muzzled.

I would love to hear the minister explain why these many problems exist. Has he lost control of his department, or is he coming up with a new version of the program that will do even more harm to worker training organizations?

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is quite the contrary. We have been over this with the member opposite before. He simply needs to look at the facts when it comes to what this government is doing to support youth employment in Canada.

Our government offers a wide range of youth employment programs and services that will help young Canadians make a successful transition to the labour market. They range from financial assistance to work experience, career information, and job search tools, so once again, I strongly encourage my hon. colleague opposite to get all the information available on these resources, programs, and initiatives so that he can better support young constituents in his riding as they make the move from school to work.

In the meantime, our government will continue to invest in young Canadians, connect them with available jobs across the country, and make sure they have the skills needed to apply for those jobs and have the labour market information needed to know where to apply.

I can only hope that the member opposite, who seems to be so concerned about youth employment, will actually support the initiatives our government brings forward in this year's budget so that young people in this country can get the jobs that are available to them.

Rail Transportation

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Transportation Safety Board is charged with investigating accidents and making recommendations to the government on how to prevent them in the future. The Auditor General is charged with ensuring that the government is providing the services it should and that resources are being spent effectively.

Last year the Auditor General put forward a scathing review of Transport Canada's ability to properly assess and police the railways' safety management systems. He noted, among other things, that Transport Canada had not managed to perform most of the planned audits of the safety management systems. Only 26% over a three-year period, ending before Lac-Mégantic, of the audits were actually performed by Transport Canada.

For its part, the Transportation Safety Board, in its report on the Lac-Mégantic disaster, was also highly critical of the oversight of MMA by Transport Canada. The report said:

...Transport Canada's regional office in Quebec had identified MMA as a company with an elevated level of risk that required more frequent inspections. ...

In addition, although MMA had developed a safety management system in 2002, Transport Canada's regional office in Quebec did not audit it until 2010—even though this is Transport Canada's responsibility, and despite clear indications (via inspections) that the company's safety management system was not effective. Transport Canada Headquarters in Ottawa, meanwhile, did not effectively monitor the Region's activities. As a result, it was not aware of any weaknesses in oversight of regional railways in Quebec, and it did not intervene.

With all of these problems with Transport Canada happening, it is a wonder that the current government actually acted by cutting Transport Canada's budgets for rail and dangerous goods safety by at least 20%. The minister might try to claim that these are merely back office positions, but the facts tell a different story.

According to a story in Business News Network, just in December, 15% of the jobs in Transport Canada's dangerous goods and rail safety divisions are open across the country, and eight of 19 engineering positions within the dangerous goods division in the Ottawa region headquarters are unfilled. That is almost 50%. A position for the manager of dangerous goods inspection in the rail safety division is vacant. Nationally the vacancies include a superintendent of gas containment and several specialists on containment means for dangerous cargo. The records show that more than 30 positions in the dangerous goods and rail safety divisions have been vacant since 2009. Some resulted from 2012 budget cuts that forced four senior engineers into retirement.

However, Transport Canada is projecting further reductions to its workforce under government efforts to eliminate the federal deficit. It estimates the budget will shrink from $1.7 billion to $950 million within three years, including about $600,000 in cuts to the rail safety and dangerous goods divisions.

“It seems the importance of this role [of qualified engineers] was not taken into consideration when cost-cutting measures were implemented at Transport Canada”, said Debi Daviau, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service Canada labour union that represents the engineers.

Transport Canada also publishes a watch list, and that watch list identified four items in rail safety that needed immediate attention, two of which have been on the Conservative government's watch list for the past five years. TSB found two significant recommendations for the rail sector that are now over five years old and have had no action.

One is that there are no video or voice recorders on trains. The TSB has been regularly demanding them; the Conservative government has been regularly ignoring this demand. Airplanes have managed to do it for decades, so it is not reinventing the wheel, but the problem persists.

The other recommendation is action to prevent missed signals. Most other countries on the planet have some form of positive train control on trains in their jurisdiction. Canada has simply just ignored the problem, and we will continue until there is another major disaster like Lac-Mégantic unless the government steps in and does something.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I will deliver some remarks on the question asked during question period on the matter of the sharing of risk assessments between Transport Canada and municipalities.

The Minister of Transport, as we know, has asked railway companies to complete risk assessments that identify population density along their key routes used in the transportation of dangerous goods. On April 23, 2014, under the authority of the Railway Safety Act, the minister issued an emergency directive to all railway companies requiring the implementation of key operating practices, including speed restrictions for certain trains carrying dangerous goods, increased inspection requirements, and the completion of risk assessments.

Specific to risk assessments, the emergency directive requires companies to determine the level of risk associated with each route carrying 10,000 or more loaded tank cars of dangerous goods per year. Those risk assessments must do the following: first, identify safety and security risks associated with that route, including the volume of goods moved on that route, the class of track on that route, the maintenance schedule of the track on that route, the curvature and grade of the track on that route, environmentally sensitive or significant areas along that route, the population density along that route, the emergency response capability along that route, and the areas of high consequence along the route; second, identify and compare alternative routes for safety and security; and third, factor potential or future railway operational changes, such as new customers moving goods subject to an emergency response assistance plan under the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, or municipal changes due to population growth, for routing restrictions. Transport Canada officials are reviewing risk assessments submitted by railway companies and will continue to review them on an ongoing basis.

On the question of transparency, Transport Canada cannot publicly release railway risk assessments without permission from the railway companies. The risk assessments were produced by the railway companies and may contain sensitive commercial, financial, or technical information. I point the member to section 20 of the Access to Information Act, under which the Government of Canada cannot disclose records that contain financial, commercial, scientific, or technical information that is confidential information supplied to a government institution by a third party.

Following the tragic derailment in Lac-Mégantic, however, Transport Canada committed to sharing with communities Transport Canada information related to potential railway risks. Specifically, the department committed to sharing all notices, and notice and orders pertaining to engineering matters, including blocked crossings, with the municipality or other organized district that may be affected by an identified threat or immediate threat to safe railway operations.

As of October 29, 2014, copies of notices, and notice and orders are being sent to the most senior official of the municipality or other organized district. I can assure the member that Transport Canada continues to work together with municipalities and railways to promote safety in all Canadian communities.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in answer to the specific points raised by my colleague opposite, the risk assessments that were performed were actually request by the government and, therefore, those risk assessments should be in the public interest and viewable by the public, at least by the members of Parliament who have been called upon to keep the public safe.

I do not accept that when a railway company is asked to provide a risk assessment, the disclosure of that information is somehow going to prejudice its operation. That cannot contain information that is vital to the operation of the railroad in a financial or otherwise prejudicial way. That information is in fact vital to the operation of the households and communities through which the train runs.

I disagree quite vehemently with the member's assertion that somehow this information demanded by the government is somehow protected and kept secret by the railroads and, therefore, has to be kept secret by Transport Canada. Transport Canada has an obligation to keep Canadians safe and allow Canadians to observe what risks there are in Transport Canada's operations in respect of the safety of our nation's rail system.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his intervention, but it is not about the opinion of the member of Parliament. There are legal experts who look at these matters to ensure that governments comply with laws that are on the books.

I point the member back to section 20 of the Access to Information Act, which imposes certain obligations on the government that must be respected, whether or not some in the government or some in Parliament may feel that they would love this information to be out there in full measure.

I think the member knows that were the government to release information that is not supposed to be released, it could potentially have the ability to alter markets. That is why budgets are kept under wraps, for example. It is because of the ability of the information contained within to move markets.

We have dealings with companies on an ongoing basis that cannot always be divulged. There are legitimate legal reasons why that is the case. I encourage the member to go back to the Access to Information Act, look at section 20, and understand the government's situation in this regard.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The motion to adjourn the House is deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 8:16 p.m.)