Debates of Dec. 12th, 2023

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023

[Some hon. members]

No.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, all the Atlantic MPs were banging on the door. The Prime Minister was behind the door in a fetal position, sucking on his thumb and crying his eyes out, because his Liberal MPs were threatening to walk out of caucus. He walked out—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona is rising on a point of order.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, when the leader of the Conservative Party decides to get his first job outside politics, I wonder if he too will be a drama teacher.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I could not even hear what the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona was saying, so I will ask him to repeat it.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am sorry I was not loud enough the first time.

I was wondering aloud if, when the leader of the Conservative Party decides to get his first job outside politics, he will be a—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

That is not a point of order, but a point of debate.

The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, so says the guy who has been living off a parliamentary paycheque since he was born, because his dad was a member of Parliament. He still is.

The reality is that the member for Kings—Hants was among those Liberal MPs banging on the door, begging the Prime Minister to relent on his carbon tax.

The Prime Minister, shaking on the ground, finally agreed to relent. Out he walked to an unannounced, unscheduled press conference, without any written materials. It was not even in his itinerary moments earlier. He announced that he would put in a temporary three-year pause, but just for some people, in regions where his poll numbers were plummeting and his caucus was revolting. There is now that temporary pause on the carbon tax, a carve-out.

His environment minister said there would be no more carve-outs. There already have been. For example, there is no carbon tax on the industrial sector in Canada. It has a carve-out. There is no carbon tax on large cement plants or concrete factories—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. member for Jonquière is rising on a point of order.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I do not know if there is a problem with the interpretation, but this is very confusing. The member is talking about a documentary and a carbon tax that does not apply. I do not know whether it is a problem with the interpretation, but perhaps the Leader of the Opposition could speak a little more slowly. It is difficult for the francophones to understand what he is talking about.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, this is not a language issue. It is just that the Bloc Québécois does not understand common sense. That is the problem.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Madam Speaker, can the member for Carleton tell us if he will be continuing, so I can ask my question when he actually has a chance to re-engage on this?

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would ask for the unanimous consent of the House to let the leader of the official opposition finish this wonderful speech, which is teaching us such great and marvellous things.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Does the hon. member have unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I truly believe if you ask again, people would be so excited to hear the end of the story from the member for Kings—Hants.

[Some hon. members]

No.

The House resumed from October 25 consideration of the motion.

Canadian Aviation Regulations

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am glad to rise on Motion No. 96.

I would not mind ceding my time to the hon. Leader of the Opposition so I could hear him speak more about the fall economic statement, but we are in Private Members' Business, and I do need to speak to this.

The last time I spoke to this, I spoke to the goodwill and good nature of what this motion represents. I also mentioned I met with the International Association of Fire Fighters. This is an issue. It is an issue that needs to be addressed, but what I spoke about is the need to get this to committee, which is how we make decisions around this place.

Private Members' Business, even with a motion as good-natured and as good willed as this, really does not have the effect or authority that committee business would have. What I mean by that is that we would get everybody in. The committee could, through its work, have stakeholders come in, including the International Association of Fire Fighters, the Canadian Airports Council and the International Civil Aviation Organization so we could all get as much information as we could to make an informed decision, not only on the status of current firefighting capabilities at airports, and how that relates to safety and other issues, but also on what the impact of that would be on costs.

A critical component to this is getting all sides of this issue to the committee table and having a proper and informed debate with lots of opportunities to ask questions and get answers. This is a critical component to where we want to go with this.

In fact, yesterday at the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, our shadow minister for transport, the hon. member for Chilliwack—Hope, presented a motion to committee to study this very issue. I will read into the record what his motion proposes.

He moved:

That the committee undertake a study on Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting at Airports and Aerodromes (Canadian Aviation Regulations, Section 303) allocating a minimum of three meetings to this study to hear from witnesses that include the International Association of Firefighters, the Canadian Airports Council and other interested parties, and that the Committee report its findings to the House.

That would be the proper format and venue for this issue to be studied. The member for Chilliwack—Hope is proposing to committee that we have up to three meetings and invite all of the stakeholders in, including the IFF, of which I am a former member, and the Airports Council. I would suggest having the International Civil Aviation Organization come in to talk about safety. We could have Transport Canada at that meeting. We could have government officials at those meetings to really properly vet this out and hear from all sides and, therefore, make an informed decisions.

Private Members' Business is an opportunity for members to propose legislation and propose motions. While I certainly see the value in what the member is proposing in his motion, it requires study. I do not think one would find an argument from the International Association of Fire Fighters, the Airports Council or other stakeholders such as the International Civil Aviation Organization that this issue needs to be properly studied.

I know the International Association of Fire Fighters has done a study on this. At committee, it could come in front of committee to argue its points. We would then have committee members write a report that would come back to Parliament to be endorsed by Parliament in its entirety. Only then, when all of the stakeholders have been to the table and all of that information has been proposed, and a report has been written by our eminently qualified analysts, could a suggestion of this magnitude and recommendations of this magnitude be made, knowing all of the facts.

While I appreciate and respect the work the International Association of Fire Fighters has done on this, we do need to hear from others and hear about the impact this is going to have on not only service but also costs. We have talked about that.

I know there is a number floating around that it could work out to a few dollars per airline ticket as a surcharge, and I would submit we may even have the airlines come in to talk about the impact that might have. I know there have been recent reports through the UN and International Civil Aviation Organization that suggest that safety at Canada's airports is not as robust as it should be. Perhaps we could have the authors of those reports come to committee as well.

I do think it does require a more fulsome study, other than just passing a motion here in the House of Commons. Yesterday, the member for Chilliwack—Hope proposed a motion at the transport committee. I hope every single member of the transport committee would look at that motion and understand what the intent is. It is to have everybody come in, talk about this and provide their input, and then have that committee issue a report to Parliament, which we could debate in a more fulsome manner.

Sometimes, through private members' business, we see a lot of different motions come forward. If we want something that is going to have some teeth, if we want something that is truly going to put forward the safety issues that the firefighters have identified, then we need a committee to study this further and bring all these parties to the table.

I appreciate the work everybody has done.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Madam Speaker, we are considering Motion No. 96 today because there are some very significant shortfalls in Canada's firefighting regulations. I would like to name two of them, which are cited in the motion.

The regulations fail “to specify rescue as a required function of airport fire fighters”. The regulations require “only that fire fighters must reach the mid-point of the furthest runway in three minutes rather than all points on operational runways within that time period”.

The motion is clear.

[I]n the opinion of the House, the government should, without delay, ensure that the Canadian Aviation Regulations reflect airport rescue and firefighting standards published by the International Civil Aviation Organization, specifically by

(i) giving fire fighters at Canada's major airports the mandate and resources necessary to reach the site of a fire or mishap anywhere on an operational runway in three minutes or less,

(ii) specifying that a required function of fire fighters be the rescue of passengers.

It is about the recognition of rescue.

This is an important motion. We are in the second hour, and this motion will have to be voted on. The important thing to remember is that we must act without delay to resolve these situations and comply with standards.

It is too bad that the parliamentary rules do not allow us to acknowledge the presence and birthday of Alexandre Bertrand from the Aéroports de Montréal Fire Service, who is here with us in the House today.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I am sorry, but I must remind the hon. member that we cannot mention the presence of other people in the House.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Madam Speaker, I broke the rules. I wanted to acknowledge him because the Aéroports de Montréal Fire Service recognizes in this motion a unanimous desire to modernize the Canadian aviation regulations. It is urgent. They say this is a sincere and shared desire to improve safety for both firefighters and passengers. I also want to acknowledge my colleague from Mirabel for his work on this file and for his exemplary representation in a horrific tragedy that unfolded at the Mirabel airport. I think it is high time the federal government aligned the Canadian aviation regulations with international standards when it comes to rescue and firefighting at airports.

Yes, the motion reiterates the International Association of Fire Fighters' demand. Their position is based on ICAO standards, which recommend that all points on airport grounds be reachable within three minutes. The motion would also authorize intervention right in an aircraft, which is not currently allowed. Like a tragedy, this motion shows passengers and the public just how out of date the standards are and the extent to which existing rules in Canadian airports are unsafe and not in compliance with the regulations. The Montreal airport firefighters made that abundantly clear. It is time to take action.

The International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO, is a United Nations agency that enables member states to co-operate on international civil aviation matters. ICAO's head office is in Montreal, Quebec. The organization really puts Quebec on the map. This is interesting because, as the organization's headquarters, Montreal should be a model of air transportation safety, not an example of obsolete federal regulations. Fire fighting services are key to an airport's safety program. An airport is only as good as its focus on safety.

According to the Aéroports de Montréal firefighting unit, three minutes is how long a plane can withstand a fire before it melts the fuselage and spreads from one end to the other on the inside. At the moment, regulations require airport firefighters to reach the middle of the furthest runway within three minutes. Clearly, this cannot work. If the core mission is to save lives and ensure safety, we are far from achieving that goal. It is high time that things changed. Just imagine for a moment being a passenger. Many of us in the House have to travel by air regularly. Let us imagine that our plane is on fire. What do we expect? We expect to be rescued immediately and kept safe. That is also what firefighters want. That is what they are supposed to do.

It is unconscionable that firefighters at an airport like Montreal's cannot perform the initial rescue on board an aircraft. This is currently the case under federal regulations. There is no valid reason why firefighters at major Canadian airports should not be responsible for performing this rescue. I would go even further in this debate. I would say that it is a problem that relates to recognizing the work of airport firefighters, a problem recognizing that firefighters have the skills, the qualifications and the mission to do their job. I would say they are heroes. The Bloc Québécois will certainly support this motion because it is time to modernize Canada's aviation regulations, which date back to 1996.

The regulations have not been reviewed in 30 years. We should not have yet another example of federal regulations—because there are other situations where regulations have not been reviewed in other fields for many years—where outdated rules from a long-gone era are still being used and fail to support the vital security and rescue mission we have at our airports.

I think the time has come to listen to the firefighters. The regulatory amendments they want are simple and, above all, essential. It is high time we took action to improve everyone's safety.

Something is wrong when firefighters have to fight for this. Hours and hours are spent on ensuring that the regulations are followed. Hours are spent on promoting accepted safety rules. Many situations are unsafe. It takes a lot of reading. They are unsafe in terms of the number of personnel who seriously fail to meet mission requirements, and in terms of equipment and lack of training. It comes down to a failure to recognize this work. This situation absolutely must be corrected. It is clear that more vehicles, more response force provisions, more buildings to accommodate vehicles and, above all, more firefighters will be needed to respond to disasters and meet current needs.

In conclusion, I think that there are many arguments in favour of acting efficiently and effectively. It is great that a committee decided to move a motion to study the issue more thoroughly, but there needs to be action.

Madam Speaker, there have been consultations among the parties and if you seek it I believe you will find unanimous consent for me to table, in both official languages, the following document: a report on the unsafe situations at the Montreal airports. This document was produced by the Aéroports de Montréal Fire Service.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be rising today to give my thoughts on Motion No. 96, which was introduced by a fellow British Columbian, the member for Fleetwood—Port Kells. I would like to thank him, because it is not every day that the House of Commons gets to take a deep dive into the Canadian aviation regulations. I say that as someone who, like many members of Parliament, has spent many hours of my life in this job on an airplane.

Actually, I rarely give any thought to this particular issue, because I think that we in Canada enjoy one of the safest airline usages in the world. I have a lot of trust in the ground crew, the pilots and everyone who is involved in the safe operation of an aircraft. As my riding is about as far away from Ottawa as one can get, it allows me to fly on those aircraft without a second thought, but this is an interesting topic.

For members back at home who are watching this debate, essentially what the House of Commons is looking at is a motion brought forward by the member for Fleetwood—Port Kells that is asking the House of Commons to recognize that there are some significant shortfalls in the Canadian aviation regulations, and to recognize, essentially, that there is a requirement that firefighters at an airport must reach the midpoint of the furthest runway in three minutes rather than all points on operational runways within that time period. In recognizing that some of these facts exist, the motion is asking for the opinion of the House, that the Canadian aviation regulations should reflect airport rescue and firefighting standards published by the International Civil Aviation Organization, specifically by giving firefighters at our major airports the mandate and resources necessary to reach the site of a fire anywhere on an operational runway in three minutes or less, and specifying that the required function of those firefighters be the rescue of passengers.

I have had a fair amount of experience as a member of Parliament with the Canadian aviation regulations, but in other areas. Those regulations exist under the authority of the Aeronautics Act, and if one looks at the regulatory powers conferred to the minister in the Aeronautics Act, we can see that the minister, or the Governor in Council, has been given quite a wide latitude.

I represent a fairly rural riding that has a fairly big chunk of airspace that has been designated for flight training. Many of my constituents are now quite concerned, because that area is not as rural as it once was. We have more and more people moving to Vancouver Island and previously empty farm fields now have neighbourhoods starting to develop in them. People are becoming quite concerned that the airspace in this one particular area, over the Westholme and Chemainus areas of my riding, is being buzzed in the summer constantly by low-flying planes practising flight manoeuvres. What that allowed me to do, as their member of Parliament, was to take a deep dive into the Canadian aviation regulations and to also look at the Aeronautics Act and become somewhat familiar with the wide-ranging powers that the minister has. Essentially, what I hope is the result of the passage of Motion No. 96 is that the minister will take it upon himself to finally act where previous governments have not, because this has been a long-standing issue.

The International Association of Fire Fighters has concluded that there are significant regulatory shortfalls. A study by that association found that regulations regarding emergency response at airports do not meet international standards set out by the International Civil Aviation Organization in terms of making rescue a required function of airport firefighters or mandating a three-minute response time to reach all points on the runway. Essentially, this is a motion that is aiming to make sure that those regulations meet that standard.

This motion was likely influenced by the IAFF's legislative conference, which happened in March of this year. It definitely did advocate for those changes. I am proud to say that our NDP leader, the member for Burnaby South, spoke at that conference. He expressed his support for the IAFF's position and for improving, generally, Canada's aviation regulations to meet international standards.

I am here to say that the NDP supports this motion because we firmly believe that the safety of passengers should always be of paramount importance in the event of an emergency at Canadian airports. We should meet international standards for safety and should make sure the government is providing our firefighters the proper resources to accomplish that goal. Something we always have to keep in mind when we are changing these regulations and requiring firefighters to take on new duties is that they must always have the proper resources and equipment to fulfill the tasks we ask them to do. For firefighters who are willing at a moment's notice to put their life on the line for others, I think this is of paramount importance.

I respect the right of every member of this House to bring forward a motion or a private member's bill of their choice, but I find this interesting because regulations, especially when we look at the area covered under the Aeronautics Act, can be gazetted quite quickly. I wonder why we have to resort to a motion to call on the government to do something that I think there is a lot of evidence for it to have already done a long time ago.

I think it is a noble motion, but the changes being called for are far too late and should have been adopted decades ago. Those in the industry, especially the International Association of Fire Fighters and pilot unions, have been raising the alarm on these deficiencies in the Canadian aviation regulations since their inception in 1996.

We know the Senate has looked at this issue. It made a report in 1999. The amount of time that has passed, it now being 2023, goes to show that successive Liberal and Conservative governments in that time really dropped the ball on what I think is a rather simple and quick fix. The consequence of this is that our country, with a very valued and high safety threshold, is being left behind by the rest of the world when it comes to response times. We owe it to Canadians to really step up to the plate and make sure that those standards are fully included.

We know that Canadian and U.S. militaries have adopted these standards, but Canadian commercial aviation continues to lag behind. Why is this particularly important? According to the Transportation Safety Board, 56% of airplane accidents happen during the landing phase and 24% occur during takeoff, so being in the air at cruising altitude is not when most accidents happen. Rather, it is usually when the pilot puts on autopilot and the plane flies itself. When pilots are making the approach to land or are taking off, the stats show that is the most dangerous time for both the aircrew and the passengers on board. Accidents are always happening at airports, and this important change to the Canadian aviation regulations is needed so we have faster response times, so firefighters are well aware of the mandate they are expected to follow and, most importantly, so they have the equipment necessary to do their job.

I know I am coming rapidly to the end of my time on this. I would like to end by saying that Canadian air passengers should be able to count on fire service in the event of a fire on an aircraft. I think the firefighters themselves have voiced their strong support for this change in the measure.

I think this is a good motion for raising public awareness on this issue. I would like to commend the member for Fleetwood—Port Kells for bringing it forward. I hope that not only through this motion but through the very fact that he gets to share a caucus meeting with the Minister of Transport every single Wednesday, we will see this very noble gesture turn quickly into actual action.