Mr. Speaker, I would like to being by saying that the Bloc Québécois supports the idea of modernizing the Weights and Measures Act. We have a lot of questions, and there will be a lot of work to do in committee in order to hear from a number of experts on the matter, given that this is a highly technical and specialized issue.
Before discussing the substance of the bill itself, I would like to share a story about a business that ran afoul of Measurement Canada. It demonstrates that the current appeals process and the lack of an ombudsman pose a major problem. This took place in the constituency of my colleague and friend, the member for La Pointe-de-l'Île. I want to share the sad story of an entrepreneur from his constituency who ran afoul of Measurement Canada.
This is the story of Mr. Lamontagne, president of a company called C.E.L.L. Inspection Inc., which was incorporated at the time these events took place. The company inspected commercial gasoline dispensers for accuracy and compliance. It was suspended by Measurement Canada in 2018 through a procedure that appears unusual and less than transparent.
Here is some background information. Between 2006 and 2018, Mr. Lamontagne was president of C.E.L.L. Inspection, which became an authorized service provider employing a number of technicians accredited by Measurement Canada. The company issued over 450 certificates, some of which relied on a method that Measurement Canada had approved. That method eventually led to the company's suspension.
C.E.L.L. Inspection worked with various types of volumetric standards, including some leased from Mr. Lamontagne, who also manufactured patented volumetric standards approved and certified by Measurement Canada. The use of these volumetric standards is what led to the problem. According to Mr. Lamontagne, these vapour retention volumetric standards were more accurate than the major brand-name volumetric standards recommended by Measurement Canada. In some respects, this may have worked to the advantage of the big oil companies. They were therefore using a more accurate technology that was recognized by Measurement Canada, and that would end up causing a problem.
Here is a brief review of the facts. In February 2018, a new inspector came to evaluate two C.E.L.L. Inspection company technicians, although she refused to consider the methods used for the vapour retention volumetric standard by the manufacturer, Jacques Lamontagne, even though these methods were approved by Measurement Canada. The Measurement Canada inspector abruptly ended the inspections after telling one technician that she had failed, but without offering a clear explanation or discussing the matter, meaning that she did not provide the usual guidance.
C.E.L.L. Inspection repeatedly requested the results and detailed reports on the tests from Measurement Canada, including through its lawyers in April 2018. Measurement Canada responded more than three months later with two notices of violation. The company responded to both violations, completed three corrective action plans and attended a meeting at which the company still did not receive a detailed report. Instead, it received its own corrective action report, which was amended with certain passages withdrawn and a few notes from the inspector.
C.E.L.L. Inspection then received an email from Mathieu Parent, a senior program officer at Measurement Canada, notifying it of its suspension. At that point, there were still two other certified technicians who could have continued to do tests for the company.
As member of Parliament for La Pointe-de-l'Île, my friend and colleague became aware of the issue and contacted the office of the then minister of innovation, science and industry, Navdeep Bains.
My colleague then held a conference call with Marc Gervais, director of parliamentary affairs for the Hon. Navdeep Bains, Measurement Canada president Diane Allan and Mr. Lamontagne. It was stated during the conference call that an independent appeal process could be undertaken.
C.E.L.L. Inspection therefore filed an appeal. However, this procedure consisted solely of an internal review of the case, without a hearing at which Mr. Lamontagne and his attorney could have presented their case. The revised decision was communicated on December 6, 2019, in a letter from Nathalie Campeau, regional director of Measurement Canada. It stated that the suspension was upheld, still in general terms, without specifically addressing the arguments put forward by Mr. Lamontagne and his lawyer.
C.E.L.L. Inspection filed a second appeal in January 2021, where Mr. Lamontagne was able to discuss his case via a conference call and email exchanges. The second review resulted in a brief two-page document that reiterated the suspension and indicated that, if his specific calibration setup required a unique operating sequence, then he should inform the regional volumetric specialist, even though his technology had already been approved and certified by Measurement Canada's chief engineer. It was just a formality when he was told that he needed to mention this.
My fellow MP then attended Mr. Lamontagne's third appeal hearing. Initially, the president of Measurement Canada said that she wanted to exclude the parties involved in the first and second appeals along with their reports. Excluding the previous parties from the decision-making process may have seem justified since this was an independent appeal, but failing to review and use the information on the facts that led to the suspension and resulted in it being upheld during the previous appeals was unusual to say the least. Looking into the facts that led to the suspension was clearly no longer a priority. Instead, the president tried to get C.E.L.L. to take further steps to regain its certification by refusing to compensate the company. She then broadly reiterated the previous decisions.
Ultimately, Mr. Lamontagne took legal action, but he did not have the same resources as the team of lawyers at Measurement Canada. As a result, he lost his first appeal on a technicality. For lack of resources, he could not pursue a long process in court to win. Faced with an army of lawyers, he was forced to concede.
In short, there is the appearance of serious misconduct and an abuse of power by Measurement Canada, which caused significant harm to C.E.L.L. Inspection and the calibration trolley manufacturer Jacques Lamontagne. Even trolleys with designation certificates were suspended by Measurement Canada, as they even cancelled the meeting for their certification. There does not seem to be a formal appeal process in place for the decisions of Measurement Canada, the agency responsible for certifying gas pumps at big oil companies' stations.
My colleague and friend, the member for La Pointe-de-l'Île wrote letters requesting meetings with the successive ministers responsible at various stages of the process involving Mr. Lamontagne and C.E.L.L. Inspection, as suspensions fall under the minister's authority pursuant to the registration agreement. His first request to Minister Bains led to a meeting with the minister's director of parliamentary affairs and Diane Allan, president of Measurement Canada, during which it was agreed that Mr. Lamontagne could initiate an independent appeal process. Subsequently, during a meeting with the minister's parliamentary assistants, my colleague indicated that the company had merely been referred to Measurement Canada's supposedly independent appeals process. More recently, the former minister of industry, now Minister of Finance, was reluctant to intervene, noting that Measurement Canada is a quasi-judicial body.
I have just outlined the unfortunate situation in which a Montreal-based company was apparently the victim of an error by Measurement Canada, and where it did not appear possible to correct that error. This is a serious problem. Does Bill S-3 adequately address the changes needed to the laws to ensure that this situation does not happen again? That remains to be seen. It needs to be examined. This is very technical. Would it be helpful to establish a genuinely independent appeal process in the event of a dispute? We say yes, without a doubt. Should an ombudsman position be created for this purpose? That is also quite possible. This is worth pursuing and I urge the government to improve how appeals are handled in disputes and to improve the impartiality of the process when decisions that appear unfair are challenged. We will see.
To my knowledge, the company had to cease operations because a technician intervened. Measurement Canada swapped out their technician during the assessment, and this technician failed to recognize an instrument that was, in fact, more accurate and certified by Measurement Canada. Using her discretion, she was able to drive a business into bankruptcy. That is unacceptable. Subsequently, my colleague, accompanied by company representatives, met with the team of the minister responsible, who informed them that an independent appeal process was an option. In the end, there was nothing independent about it. The case had to go to court, pitting a small business against an army of lawyers employed by Measurement Canada.
In my view, a grave injustice has been done here. While it is, unfortunately, too late to rectify it now, I do hope that the legislation passed here will enable us to approve rules, practices, procedures and safeguards to ensure that unfortunate stories like this never happen again.
As I said at the outset, we will be voting in favour of the principle of the bill at second reading so that this highly technical bill can be studied in committee and so that the committee can hear from key witnesses such as Hydro-Québec and Énergir. Manufacturers of measuring instruments such as Mr. Lamontagne, president of C.E.L.L. Inspection, will be able to share their stories.
As usual, we will try to keep a close eye on this government, which, with each new bill, is giving itself more and more powers, in particular in the hands of ministers, as Bill S-3 proposes. Yes, this bill does give the minister greater powers. We will try to act responsibly and ensure that Quebec's prerogatives are not undermined by this bill.
Given the technical nature of this bill, its scientific jargon and the many provisions it contains, we will ensure that the work done in committee is as rigorous and thorough as possible. We realize that the legislative and regulatory framework needs to be modernized, and that Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada has called for just that, because the department believed, as the parliamentary secretary said in his speech, that the current framework lacked flexibility and was becoming outdated with the advent of new technologies.
Digital measurement systems and all software that can be associated with trade are not implicitly covered by the current legislation. Budget 2024 talked about the government's intent to modernize this legislation, in particular to ensure that the minister has the authority to “establish standards and provisions related to calibration, inspection, contractors and certification.”
As members may know, the bill has 59 clauses. The first few, clauses 1 to 27, amend the Weights and Measures Act to modernize the framework that governs measuring devices used in trade. While most of the amendments are technical in nature and consensus-based and seek to ease the bureaucratic burden, others deal with expanding the minister's authority, which must be justified, as I was saying. Questions are also being raised about the proposed suggestions regarding the authorization, certification and use of certain measuring devices. For example, clauses 3, 5 and 10 of Bill S-3 propose giving the minister new powers to approve and review measuring devices. One of the measures that is of concern to us at the moment is that the minister could designate an entity other than the National Research Council of Canada to calibrate and certify reference standards for inspections. Why is that necessary? That is the type of question we are going to ask her in committee.
As for clauses 12 and 13, despite the fact that the Department of Justice has indicated that the bill complies with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, this bill grants significant powers when it comes to inspections and telewarrants. In light of the story I just told, it will be interesting to hear the reasons why it is absolutely necessary to grant the government such powers.
I see that I am running out of time. I think I covered the key issues. I prepared a 20-minute speech, but I had a little less time than I thought, so I will stop there.