Jim Gouk

[Transportation Amendment Act, November 28th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, in terms of the democratic deficit, as I said to reporters when I talked to a number of people about leaving this place, if this House had worked the way that the Standing Committee on Transport worked for the most part, we would have had a better House. For the most part on the transport committee we have put partisan issues aside, although they have to arise once in a while. We have listened to one another. We have considered one another's positions and we have accepted that. If this House would operate that way, more democratically, we would have a much better place.

Specifically with regard to the member's question on the hopper car issue, that was one of several recommendations from our committee. It was ignored by the government. The minister himself said that he would look very favourably at that, but actually the Minister of Finance is the scarecrow in all this. Every time we make a recommendation about airport rents, I have to go see you know who.

With hopper cars, maybe it is a coincidence but one of the principal activists in the Farmer Rail Car Coalition is now the campaign manager of the Minister of Finance. I wonder how he made out in this whole process and if that was his reward for trying to get king you know who re-elected.

[Transportation Amendment Act, November 28th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, as much as the Liberals have a real talent for writing bad legislation, even they cannot put nothing but bad in this legislation. These kinds of omnibus bills have always been a problem in the House. They contain a few good things, but there is always a lot of bad things. We simply cannot support those few good things and ignore all the bad stuff.

The bill touches on things like railway safety. Some areas that may have merit cannot be accepted over and above all the bad stuff in the bill. I am sure the hon. member is aware of that and is as troubled as I am with the omnibus nature of some of the government's bills.

Let me tell the member some of the reasons why we did not support his so-called better balanced budget. Nine words described foreign aid spending in his so-called better budget. Worker protection was not even included. The budget was not hard to read. It contained 68 words in total about how money was going to be spent. Sixty-eight words and not one word about worker protection in that budget. He does not need to raise that red herring.

[Transportation Amendment Act, November 28th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the two points that he raised. I most assuredly want to talk about the first as well as the second.

First, the member mentioned forcing the election. What a lot of crap. I know this hon. member and I guess I cannot say “Larry of the North”, so I will not, but we say that affectionately when working with the member on committee and at other times.

To say that the Conservatives are forcing the election is wrong. Bad government is forcing the election. Corruption is forcing the election. A loss of moral authority to government is forcing the election. If the government had not signed a deal with the devil as it were to keep it on life support, when it certainly did not deserve it, we would have ended its rule, its reign, and its dictatorship last spring.

The Liberals signed a deal with the NDP and I understand why the NDP did that. It has very much been the champion of social programs. On the surface the budget amendment looked as though it actually addressed social programs, but it did not. If we were to read the budget amendment, we would find that there are only 68 words that describe how $4.5 billion is going to be spent.

When we listen to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, he actually said in the House that it does not mean we are going to spend it. It is an enabling bill that would allow us to spend up to that amount. In actual fact, nobody is going to see any of that money.

It was good publicity for the NDP. I understand that. Unfortunately, that is part of the workings of this House. It was certainly a good deal for the Prime Minister. He said he would sign off on that. It really did not cost him anything and it kept the government going a bit longer.

Then the Liberals had other opportunities. They had an opportunity to accept a deal put forward by the NDP that would have prevented this election happening until after the new year. It would have given the government time to bring forward bills, such as Bill C-68, the Pacific gateway bill.

In fact, the government could have met with the House leaders and said, “Okay, which bills can everybody support? What is your priority? Let's move forward with the ones that people support, so we can get those things passed”. The Liberals would have found that a lot of bills would have passed, including Bill C-68.

People have to understand that it hits me right here every time I say something favourable about Bill C-68. I recall the $2 billion useless firearms registry under that same number.

As far as ACAP funding goes, the member who raised the question is absolutely right, it has been a good program. The funding is sliding downward rather than up. There is no stability in it. There is an incredible cost to apply for it, as I mentioned earlier on, and it is a crap shoot. The funding is applied for and nobody knows if they get the funding or not. Applications are not made frivolously.

When a runway is crumbling and a small airport is trying to service an entire region, it is critically important that these projects be funded. The government could do a lot better than it has done.

[Transportation Amendment Act, November 28th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start my speech by sending a special message to someone very special. I spoke in the House last week and made a member's statement. I thought that would be the final time I would address the House. It turns out that much to my surprise the government has brought forward one of the more useless bills it has on the order paper. It talked about bringing this forward a number of times. I do not know if common sense prevailed or what, but it never did. Now suddenly on the final day of the government, we find ourselves with Bill C-44.

I am pleased to hear the parliamentary secretary to the minister say that he would concentrate mainly on air transportation. That is the part I would like to speak to as well.

Other bills could have been brought forward. I heard one mentioned. One of the questions the parliamentary secretary received from a member of his party caused him to raise Bill C-68, the Pacific gateway bill. That is a prime example of a bill that should have come forward, along with several other bills in the House. The government introduced it a long time ago. We indicated very clearly to the government that we would support that bill. For some reason it chose not to bring it forward. It is probably so the Liberals can campaign in British Columbia and say that it offered the bill and the Conservative Party caused it to be defeated.

We did nothing of a kind. The Liberals had more than ample time to bring it forward. They never did, and instead we find ourselves discussing Bill C-44.

Let us talk about the genesis of the bill. When the new Minister of Transport came forward in Parliament, one of the things he said to our committee and to me personally, as the vice-chair of the committee, was he would reintroduce Bill C-26. Bill C-26 was the predecessor of Bill C-44. He did not say that he would take the intent of Bill C-26, redesign it and try to respond to the needs that had come up with all the problems in Bill C-26.

That was one of the dumber things I have heard him say. I have some measure of respect for the minister, and I temper that with the word “some” very strongly. However, bringing Bill C-26 forward and reintroducing it definitely has to go down as one of his more foolish moves. Bill C-26 was so bad that with a Liberal majority government it could not get the Liberals to vote for it. Why on earth would the government want to bring it forward in a minority?

Let us talk about some of the things that are wrong with the bill. As the parliamentary secretary addressed primarily the air industry, I will do the same, although I would be remiss if I did not put a few words in at the end of my speech on my old arch concerns about VIA Rail.

First, I would like to talk about airport rent. The parliamentary secretary to the minister said that the government wanted to help the air industry, that it recognized how important air transportation was. Those are funny words coming from a party that has done everything it can to destroy the air industry in the country.

Members of the Standing Committee on Transport have studied this both in Ottawa and across the country. We have listened to witnesses from every aspect and every sector of the air transportation industry. We made a series of recommendations by way of an interim report. One of the first recommendations was that the government immediately reduce airport rents by at least 75%. The government responded to that. It said that it already had taken care of this and that it would bring in a 60% reduction in the rent paid by the national airports over the term of their leases.

As my colleague said in questions and comments, after the parliamentary secretary spoke, that is not a rent reduction. That is a 60% reduction in the amount the government will increase it by in the future.

I have said that when I retire I will practise the three g s, namely garden, golf and grandson. My grandson is a year old. If he should happen to grow up, get into the air transport industry and even become the CEO of one of the airport authorities, then perhaps he may have something to be thankful for the government bringing in the 60% future reductions. That is provided the air transport sector survives under Liberal policy. We need rent reductions now.

Toronto airport was spoken very strongly about, and I would like to address a couple of the comments the minister has made in the past with regard to it. Many people have been crying loud and clear for reductions in the rent at Toronto airport in particular because of it having the highest landing fees in the world. The minister's response to that was twofold.

First, he said that if we did not like the fees there and if we did not like landing at Toronto airport, we could always land in Montreal. It is an interesting thing for the minister from Montreal to say. Maybe it will garner him a few votes there, except I hope the people in Montreal have the good sense, and I am sure they do, to recognize that if he is that out to lunch in terms of airport rents in Toronto, it will eventually affect them as well.

The second thing he said was that the rents were not all that big a deal, that they were only 14% of the budget of Toronto airport and that its debt load was 40%. Therefore, it is not the rent, it is the debt. Let us talk about that debt. Let us talk about why airports have debt and have spent a ton of money.

In Ottawa the terminal building that the airport authority took over was deplorable, as it was in Toronto and several other airports around the country. It financed $335 million to build the new terminal that was long overdue. It did not cost the government or taxpayers a dime. The reason it was needed was the government of the day and governments in the past ignored the infrastructure needs of our airport system.

Airports used to lose for the government over $200 million a year. That was while the government was not putting any money into it. That was just its operating cost, a $200 million loss. Now all of a sudden it is saying that they have to have fair value. If it cost $200 million to run them and they were run for free, they have received fair value.

Over and above that, by the parliamentary secretary's own words, $6 billion has been spent at the Toronto airport to build up the infrastructure that the government neglected. In fact, in the case of Toronto it was even worse. The Liberal government cancelled the newly signed Pearson contract that would have built a new terminal at no cost to the taxpayers whatsoever. It established, through legislation, that the contract holder would not be allowed to sue the government, and decreed how much it would get for damages by way of a settlement.

I listened to the Liberal rhetoric. I was green, I was new. I thought that if the government was saying it, it had to be true. I was shocked that it was going to give the airports as much money as it did. As the new transport critic, a member of Parliament and a member of the Standing Committee on Transport, I decided I would hit the books and study this so I could come up with arguments as to why they should not even get that much money, having done all the bad things the Liberals said they did.

Surprisingly, the more I studied this, the more I discovered it was not such a bad deal at all. In fact, it was a pretty good deal. It was such a good deal that I found a memo from the department asking how on earth the it manage to get such a great contract. The department could not believe it got such a good contract on the department's behalf, and that is what the government cancelled.

Pearson has languished ever since. As part of the settlement that it finally was forced to make, it ended up buying terminal 3 back from private sector operators. That is where a lot of this debt has come from, all generated by the government.

The government did another thing, which was done by the minister's predecessor, David Collenette. This is one example of the really stupid things that has been done in the name of helping airports. Mr. Collenette said that there were a lot of problems, that the government was really soaking them with the rent, that he knew it was a problem, especially with the sudden downturn in traffic, so what the government would do was not cut the rent but defer it. They would still have to pay it, but the government would allow them not to pay it for a little while. That did absolutely no good because they had to put the money aside and save it for the day when the government said it had to be paid.

If the government wants to do something short term right away, it should cancel the payment of those deferrals. It was something that was supposedly going to help, at least the members opposite certainly crowed about it, and yet it does not do any good.

Another thing that needs to be brought up is ACAP. One of our recommendations was there should be a flow through of moneys received from airports. We heard a lot of people saying that airport rent should be eliminated. I do not support that. It should be greatly reduced. There should be enough money coming to the ACAP, the airport capital assistance program, for smaller airports that are the feeders for these national airports. We put forward that ACAP should be increased and stabilized. Right now there is no guarantee that it will even continue, and it has not increased. The government said that it was adequately funded. That is a lot of nonsense. The ACAP has not increased since it started. With the cost of everything going up, simply not increasing it means there is less money available for the various projects.

Another thing we asked was that the government simplify the application process. We talked to operators of the smaller airports who told us that it cost as much as $10,000 to apply for ACAP funding. In the grand scheme of things, I know the former prime minister, Jean Chrétien, once said in the House, “what's a million?” A million dollars to the Liberal Party, with all the things it has done with taxpayer money, perhaps is not a tremendous amount of money. However, $10,000 for a little airport with a small budget is a lot of money, and that is only to apply for funding that it may not get. It is a long, drawn out process and it is absolutely unnecessary and unacceptable.

However, the government says that it is all right because they can add the cost of the application to the cost of the project and apply for the whole thing. First, they have to put the money up. Second, they have no guarantee that they will get that funding. The government could do a lot better that it has in this area.

We also asked that no rent should be paid on airports with less than two million passengers. There has to be some base from when they can then generate enough money to run their airports and then start to pay the rent. The government's response to that is it believes that airports with less than 2,000 passengers not paying rent would not satisfy the government's real property policy that states, “Where public assets are leased to private or commercial entities, the government should receive a fair return”.

We already have talked about fair return. Vancouver airport has undertaken a tremendous terminal expansion. It has built a second runway. It is continuing to expand its operation tremendously. It is known as one of the world authorities on the operation of an airport. What has it cost the government? What gas it cost taxpayers? Not one dime, but the government continues to use it as a cash cow to skim money from it.

Another of the recommendations was the government eliminate the air transport security fee and pay for the services through the consolidated revenues fund. The government says that the enhanced air travel security systems benefit principally and directly air travellers. In these circumstances the charge is fair and reasonable.

We have to ask ourselves what exactly is air security for? Is it for the security of the passengers or is this enhanced security that came as a direct result of 9/11 for the protection of the public at large against acts of terrorism?

The overwhelming damage and death toll in the case of 9/11 was not to the aircraft or the passengers on board, catastrophic though those events were. The damage and the largest loss of life was in the buildings. Therefore, we are doing this for the general safety of the public, and nowhere else in security does the general public not pay these security fees. They do not load this on any other sector. The government seems to think that there is so much money in the air transport sector that it can apply whatever charges it wants at any time at all.

Another thing we asked for was that customs services be provided at airports that can demonstrate they have regular transporter or international services. The government's response to that is charging fees for services has been the government's policy, dating back to 1989, and that it will have to continue with that. That is not true either. That is a very inconsistent statement because we do not charge any one sector. We do not charge the people who benefit when they cross the border. If that were the case, why are all the people who do not cross the border paying for those customs services at the border? The Liberals could charge a fee for everybody who comes across, if that is what they truly believe. Therefore, their policy is extremely inconsistent.

I want to get on to my favourite topic, VIA Rail, because this goes back right to my first days in Parliament and some of the things I found out about VIA.

I have a measure of respect for VIA and the service it provides, particularly in the Quebec-Windsor corridor. It is a necessary service. Essentially, it is an extension of commuter rail.

There are basically three types of service provided by railroad for passengers. One is commuter rail, in which I will include the Quebec-Windsor corridor and intercity transportation, but it is still essentially commuter rail and travel in a high density corridor. I think that it is quite justifiable to move people, to keep them off the highways, and to provide better access to travel. It is in a very restricted area.

We have it in Vancouver, not run by VIA Rail. We have a very good commuter service there. We have one in Toronto and we have one in Montreal. Then we have VIA Rail providing this intercity connection as well in the corridor.

We have remote communities. It is appropriate for the government to take a role in ensuring that remote communities are captured by way of differing types of transportation and have some service provided to them and ensure that service is maintained. The third thing is rail tourism. Rail tourism is for tourists getting a tourism experience.

We do not have passenger rail outside of those three items I mentioned. There is no such thing as regular passenger rail. For example, VIA Rail runs from Edmonton to Vancouver. Aircraft fly from Edmonton to Vancouver and the Greyhound bus goes from Edmonton to Vancouver. Only one of those three is subsidized, and that is VIA Rail. Even though it is subsidized, VIA Rail is the most expensive of those three methods of travel. It takes 17 times longer to go by VIA Rail than it does to go by aircraft. Obviously, people are not riding it simply for the transportation. They have to pay more and it takes infinitely longer to get there. The only reason they are on that train is for the rail experience, in other words, rail tourism, so why are we asking the taxpayers of Canada to subsidize tourism experiences?

We have a private sector company in British Columbia and Alberta that provides that amply well. It bought the service from VIA Rail. Travelling on the southern route and as well through to Jasper, VIA Rail used to carry about 5,000 passengers a year and lose money. The private sector company that took it over, and invested millions and millions of dollars in advertising, has won awards all over the world. It just recently won a very prestigious award by the International Tourism Association as one of the best rail experiences in the world. It carries over 80,000 passengers. Yet, we still have VIA Rail wanting to go back and compete with them and the government is looking at supporting VIA Rail on that. It is absolutely unacceptable.

VIA Rail only pays one-fifth of the trackage fees to CN and CP that companies like the Rocky Mountaineer have to pay because the government negotiated that and forced that on the freight rails. That is one-fifth, so they are getting that over and above the $500,000 a day in taxpayer subsidies.

I think the government is being very unfair to VIA Rail. VIA Rail should be allowed to operate commercially within the corridor, do a good job, and probably get a lot of kudos for doing so. I think it is absolutely wrong to subsidize a government operation to compete against the private sector.

I would like to go on about this and many other sectors and talk a lot more about VIA Rail as well, but I will end by saying, first, that I am very disappointed that the government chose to bring such an inappropriate bill forward when there are so many things that needed to be brought forward that we would have helped to pass had it done so. The Liberals have had the opportunity. We even gave them the opportunity to extend the Parliament to get those things through, if necessary, and they have turned it all down, perhaps so they can make a bunch of false campaign statements when they get out there.

The other thing I would like to say is that this will definitely be the last time that I will rise in the House as a member of Parliament. The government's life will end tonight and everyone will go on the campaign trail. I will not be returning. Perhaps some others, particularly on the other side, will not be returning either, but they think they are returning. I know I am not returning.

This is my last time, Mr. Speaker. To you and to the House, and to all members of the House in all parties, thank you for the experience. I have enjoyed it, these bills notwithstanding, because I know that good work can be done as well. Good work was certainly been done in the committee. That is what I was talking about today. We would have a better government if it would listen to and follow the reports of committees like the transport committee instead of coming up with bills like this.

[Supply, November 24th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, if anybody knows about funny speaking, it is the hon. member who just spoke.

First, she talks about the games that are played. Let us talk about some of the games. Let us talk about a government that removes the opposition supply days so a non-confidence motion cannot be brought forward on a corrupt government.

Let us talk about when the Liberals filibustered their own motions to prevent anything else from coming forward. Then they voted closure on themselves in order to cut it off at the end. Talk about games.

Then there were the arcane procedures that the Liberals brought up to disrupt the normal flow of business in the House in June. I am not sure if it was the hon. member who just spoke or the transport minister before that who talked about deals with the Bloc. We have not made a deal with members of the Bloc. They happen to be voting the same way we are. That is the deal.

However, the Liberals made a deal with members of the Bloc last June to get their support and to prevent us from bringing forward motions. They do not need to tell us about playing games. They are the ones who are doing it.

The Liberals lament about the fact that we are having an early election. Yet they did it in 1979 after only nine months, as the hon. member herself said, because of a gas tax. Yet as soon as the Liberals became government, they put in the very thing on which they defeated the previous government.

We are not getting the gateway bill and other bills like that. Why? Because the government has never brought them forward. They have not even been on the order paper. The gateway bill would have passed. We had already indicated we would support it, but the Liberals did not bring it forward. They are playing games. They want to hold that up and say that this is the gateway bill, but we did not get it because the opposition called an election.

The final point the member can address is in terms of an early election. She said that they were prepared to call the election as soon as the final report of Gomery came in, which was due on December 1. It has been delayed. If the final report had been delivered on December 1, it would have meant we would have had an election in late December, early January, the very thing we offered the Liberals and they turned it down. If there are any games being played, it is by them.

[Member for British Columbia Southern Interior, November 24th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, today is probably the last time I will rise in the House as a member of Parliament. After four terms of representing the good people of the most scenic riding in Canada, it is time for me to pursue other interests.

Those interests will involve a lot more time with my family, especially my wife Ann, who has been unwavering in her support of my career both as an MP and prior to that. We often hear of the sacrifices made by the members of the House but we do not speak often enough of the sacrifices made by members' families. My wife has made whatever success I have enjoyed possible. I intend to spend much more time with her than I have been able to do in the past. It is her time too.

I thank the members of my board for their unwavering support. I thank and acknowledge my staff, Danielle Jackson, Sarah Tupholme and Bonnie Fowler. Not only have they been tireless in their efforts on behalf of constituents but they have become very special friends.

Finally, I want to thank my constituents for the incredible honour that they have provided me to be allowed to represent them here in Ottawa. I thank them sincerely and leave here hoping that I have measured up to what they expected of me.

[Petitions, November 16th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, my petition today is signed by the residents of Rossland, British Columbia. The petitioners point out to the House that the RCMP detachment in their community was closed approximately two years ago, being amalgamated with two other detachments. Since that time, there has been a growing frequency of crime in their community. The petition is signed by almost 20% of the residents of that community.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to enact legislation to reopen the local RCMP detachment in Rossland in order that RCMP members be available for direct and immediate contact to deal with complaints. As it stands now, it takes up to 45 minutes for the RCMP to attend complaints. My constituents are looking for the same kind of justice that they would expect in other communities.

[VIA Rail, October 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, in 1989 the government of the day ordered VIA Rail to sell its new tourism service known as the Rocky Mountaineer. VIA was already heavily subsidized and the government believed that the private sector rather than the taxpayers of Canada should take the risk of developing tourism business.

Now that the private sector purchaser, the Great Canadian Railtour Company, has invested millions of dollars of risk capital and successfully built the service into an internationally known B.C. success story, VIA wants back in and has plans to expand its Vancouver to Jasper service to cream off the business developed through private sector investment.

There is no honest business plan to justify this action by VIA. Its train make-up allows for up to 50 cars on its run but it averages less than half that. If there really were a passenger need, why would it not run more cars at a marginal cost increase instead of doubling their frequency and consequently doubling their cost?

VIA is a government operation and it is up to the government to order the heavily subsidized VIA to cease any consideration of expansion and competition with the unsubsidized B.C. company that invested the money and built the business.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I heard the hon. member mention that he was writing his memoirs. While I disagree radically with the hon. member's politics, I do respect that he is someone who likes to get things right and who works very hard at his job. I would like to make three points for the hon. member relative to what he said today.

First of all, he kept referring to the Conservative Party under Brian Mulroney and in the past. I would like to remind the member that his was the Progressive Conservative Party. Like the Alliance Party, and certainly like the government with all its faults now, each of us had some problems in the past, so we formed a new party using the best of both of those organizations, with a new policy and a completely new platform. He is talking apples and oranges.

Second, the Progressive Conservative Party that he refers to as adding this high amount to the debt was subject to the highest interest rates in my entire lifetime, international interest rates, not Canadian interest rates. Around the world at that time, interest rates were the highest that they have ever been in my lifetime. Right now, this government, while taking credit for what it is doing, is subject to the lowest interest rates in my entire lifetime.

Finally, the point I would like to make to the member is that the highest amount of debt that we have ever had in one year in this country, adjusted for constant dollars, was under a Liberal finance minister named Jean Chrétien.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to make Certain Payments, June 16th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, earlier tonight the member for Scarborough—Rouge River asked a question with regard to the pension plan. He said there was no integrity on this side because members opted out and then they opted back in.

The reality is many of us opted out and we had no guarantee of getting back in. But what was the result of the sacrifice made by the members on this side? The pension plan that was 5% is now 3%. There is now an age requirement. Double dipping has been removed. There was integrity on this side of the House. The sacrifices were made on this side so that costs could come down in this Parliament. We did our part.

Could the hon. member tell us what, if anything, he has ever seen the Liberals do to cut--