Jim Gouk

[Canada Transportation Act, March 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I will wrap this up and address-

[Canada Transportation Act, March 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, under the former system, rail abandonment took place after the railroad could prove financial hardship. Therefore, any rail company that wanted to abandon a railroad first made absolutely certain it had financial hardship, even though it may not have existed. I have spoken to the rail companies and they will never admit this on record but it is undeniable.

What the rail companies do is they first demarcate the line. In the case of a rail line abandonment in my own riding they wrote a confidential trucking contract to a reload centre so that the customer would be gone and would not exist on that rail line.

The second thing is they do absolute minimal maintenance. They do not break any safety standards but they do the minimal maintenance which may mean running their cars at half loads, at five kilometres an hour over the track so that it requires prohibitive capital investment if someone else were to come in or if they were ordered to continue to operate that line. Ultimately, they get abandonment but by that time no short line operator in their right mind is going to come in and buy this line that needs this tremendous capital infusion and has no customers.

The intent of the new abandonment procedures contained in the bill is to ensure that does not happen. As the hon. member has suggested, if they start putting all kinds of restrictions and prohibitions in the way of the rail companies, they would simply revert to the old system and we will not get any short line development in this country.

The new system allows a rail company to sell off a line or abandon it. It is the company's choice. The company first has to offer the line, market it publicly by a set series of advertisements and a time parameter set out in this bill. If it does not find a customer, it then has to offer it to the federal government, then the provincial government, then the local government at net salvage value without first demarcating and running the line into the ground.

The bill will enhance the viability of any lines considered for abandonment. I have talked to short line operators who are eager to expand their networks and to increase-

[Canada Transportation Act, March 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if we could seek unanimous consent to have me speak very briefly on this same set in response to what the hon. member has just mentioned. There are other members who perhaps can talk on this but I can keep it very short and succinct and address from the committee's perspective why it has taken the position it has for the enlightenment of the member who just spoke.

[Canada Transportation Act, March 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, most of the amendments appeared in the Order Paper for the first time yesterday with the notice of intention to bring this bill forward. It has been quite a scramble with 82 amendments to come up with some reasonable debate for today. We still have to sort through many of these. We want to make sound judgment decisions on these, not snap decisions. I do ask your patience as I am sorting through these.

With regard to Motion No. 2, I do support this. Basically it brings an old and acceptable definition of a federal railway into the new act. I see no reason not to go with that.

With regard to Motion No. 28 and moving onward, I will pass over some of these very quickly because they require little comment. On Motion No. 28 I do not believe there is any justification for this. This we will not be supporting, nor will we be supporting Motion No. 29.

In the case of Motion No. 29, and this will come up often under several of the motions by this member, this is inconsistent in my opinion with the intent of the bill. The hon. member did appear at the odd committee meeting. I recognize he is not a member and that he has other obligations, but various parts of these things were discussed at length in committee by all the parties present.

Unfortunately he seems to be either missing part of it or by not taking part in the actual debate and participating did not understand the intent of what this bill is all about.

With regard to Motion No. 30, also made the member, I will be supporting it although I think it could have been better defined. It is an improvement over that section of the bill nonetheless.

Now we get into a mixture with the hon. member from the Bloc Quebecois. Motion No. 31 is a reasonable proposal as it deals with rail abandonment and I do not have a problem with it.

On Motion No. 32 from the hon. member from the NDP, once again this goes completely against the widely accepted abandonment policy this bill has attempted to bring in, one I have support.

There was a bit of controversial discussion of this during our hearings at committee, but I think the explanation was well given. Most of the witnesses who came before the committee did accept this.

With regard to Motion No. 35 presented by the minister I believe all parties are in agreement with this motion and that it should pose no difficulty.

With regard to Motion No. 36, of course I will be supporting. It was put in on very sound information; I put this motion in. We believe this provides reasonable protection for the interest of utility companies.

We had a lot of input on this. I have spoken with several of the hon. members from the other side. This is where I hope we do not get into what we have found in the past where individually they all agree with our position but collectively they vote opposite our position.

I hope they will give this due consideration and in the end decide to vote with the interests of the public. This is not in the interest of one or two companies. This is in the interest of the general public, the interest we are trying to protect with this motion.

Likewise, Motion No. 37 continues the same.

My hon. colleague from Okanagan Centre mentioned Motion No. 38 with regard to the Liberals' indication that they are not supporting Atlantic Canada with Motion No. 25, for which they have already indicated no support. This motion asks for a provision to continue the CN line from Montreal to Halifax for a period of five years.

Under Bill C-89, the CN privatization, I brought this up at the committee level. I asked for a 10 year of continuance at that time. The port authority from Halifax came forward and made a very sound and logical argument as to why this should be considered.

This is not something that goes against anyone. It is simply an assurance that they will have a period of time to get financing for the necessary infrastructure improvements for post-Panamax vessels in place with an assurance that there is a rail line in place to carry their goods to central Canada and the American mid-west. With the use of the CN line and the Sarnia tunnel the port of Halifax is superior to anything in the New England states or in New York.

We are moving to a deregulatory privatization or commercialization of the ports coming up very soon in the new year. The former Minister of Transport put us on notice of that in December.

For an investor to look at the port of Halifax which under this new act will have to find money in the marketplace without government guarantees, any wise investor will say: "What guarantee of return do I have on this? What happens if that line is taken out?"

During committee study on this the head of CN Rail, Mr. Paul Tellier, came before us as a witness. He is required under this new act, when passed, to put out a three year outline of any line he proposes to sell off or abandon. I said: "If you are to project for three years obviously you have to look beyond that, four or five or possibly beyond that. I ask you now in keeping with that, can you tell us if you have any plans over the next five years to abandon the rail between Montreal and Halifax". His answer was an emphatic no. It is not a hardship on CN.

Some hon. members opposite, particularly when I raised this on Bill C-89, said: "This is unbelievable, the Reform Party interfering in the private marketplace by trying to put a restriction on a private company what it can or cannot do with its rail line".

Not only the Liberals but all governments for the past 80 years have interfered with the marketplace with CN Rail. It has caused most of the problems that we now have in our rail industry.

It is unreasonable after 80 years of interference for the government to arbitrarily cut the string with no transition period. A five year transition period is incredibly minimal, does not hurt anyone, does not hurt CN, and does not cost the government money. This is a win-win situation. I hope this time hon. members will support Atlantic Canada and give it this necessary provision so that

Atlantic Canada can become a shipping giant on the North American east coast and also a big boon for CN. It guarantees that traffic having come into Halifax must then be shipped on a Canadian rail system. I seriously ask them to consider their position on this one to make it non-partisan to support Atlantic Canada. All of Atlantic Canada will be watching.

Moving on to Motion No. 39, this motion by the hon. member from the NDP attempts to subvert the main purpose and intent of this bill. It carries on through Motions Nos. 40 to 55. Each of these in essence are amendments which attempt to defeat the entire bill.

I suggest to the hon. member that these are not supportable. He can vote against the bill as we may depending on what the Liberals do with certain very controversial clauses in this bill which we will be debating later on. However as the bill stands, I will not support these motions.

[Canada Transportation Act, March 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am in support of Motions Nos. 1 and 69. I have a little difficulty in so far as there is a bit of redundancy in it, but I feel we should support it nonetheless.

The bill already contains a provision which provides no barrier to access for anyone disabled. I am puzzled as to exactly what kind of barrier we would put in front of an elderly person who was not already covered by the disabled part.

That notwithstanding, it may be possible and we should recognize nonetheless that there is a need for access for elderly people. As the hon. member has just mentioned, we certainly do not want it to appear that we have not given due consideration for their concerns. They have a right to full access to all transportation modes in this country. That would clarify it at least in the bill. I do not think they would have been unduly hurt had it not been there, but why not be generous and ensure that proper provisions are made for these people so that they are assured that they have not been left out.

With regard to Motion No. 25, I also think this is a fair consideration for Atlantic Canada. This does not provide any problems for anywhere else in Canada but it is a consideration that will have a significant impact on some of the Atlantic provinces in order to access some of the terms contained in the bill.

The bill has been put out with the idea of making the rail section of it more fair to shippers across the country. In doing so, it has certain provisions that shippers and rail companies must meet on

access to various services. To not include this would unfairly restrict Atlantic Canada.

It is consistent with the old policy held with the CPR line that ran through a portion of the United States in order to access the rest of Canada. We would be very remiss to penalize Atlantic Canada on what amounts to a technicality in the provisions of this bill. I will be supporting that one as well.

[Canada Transportation Act, March 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, another point of order. I understand the groupings also include voting. Group 6 contains a motion to delete clause 27(2). That same grouping contains two different motions to modify clause 27(3), which is simply a part or refers to clause 27(2).

If they are voted on together and if the government chooses to defeat clause 27(2), which I suspect it will do, it will also defeat the minister's Motion No. 7. I do not believe that is the intent. It is going to add confusion.

Could we get clarification that these will be voted on separately even though they are grouped together?

[Canada Transportation Act, March 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I have had discussions with members of other parties and I believe if you seek unanimous consent you may find agreement to refer clause 27 of this bill back to the Standing Committee of

Transport for reconsideration, given the further input that has come from the field.

[Privilege, March 14th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I thought the Mutt and Jeff act was going into a trio or a quartet. They had not given me my lines. They seem to know theirs so well.

I do not feel I need to go on further with this. I am sure the hon. members will now stand and start expressing their opinions when the Canadian public can actually listen to them, instead of small shots coming from the other side. I am sure if they have a real opinion they will share it with us. Otherwise I guess they will continue to talk when other members are up.

This is an important motion because it represents what we are hearing from the Canadian public right across the country. When I talked to these people defending the right of Bloc members to express opinions in the House, I said they had the right. However, with this letter that was sent out they have crossed the line.

There are some people who thought it should have happened long ago. It was a grey area at best. We gave them the benefit of the doubt. However, with this letter to the military they have crossed the line. Action needs to be taken. The Canadian public demands this and the Liberals should support examining this and following through.

Do not take it into committee and simply put it to sleep, as many of the members across do when debate is going on in the House. Deal with it in committee. Bring it back to the House and follow through with it. Do not simply shove it into committee and leave it

there forevermore, never dealing with the question. It needs to be dealt with, it needs to be dealt with properly.

If the hon. members across the way who are being quiet for a moment-I do not know how that ever happened-have a point to make I wish they would rise and make it. If they have something sensible to say I would hate to miss it the one time that might happen.

[Privilege, March 14th, 1996]

We hear all kinds of people going on on the other side. It will be interesting to see if they rise to deal with this question themselves or if they simply, as I have said before, want to continue to use other members' times. Again that is a queer notion of Liberal democracy.

[Privilege, March 14th, 1996]

Oh, the hon. member wants to talk about pensions. I know he is going to sally up to the trough. Fifty-one or 52 of us over here will not, but he certainly will. If he wants to talk about pensions, I would love to go on for a long time on that one.

I found myself saying to my constituents that as long as this is a democratic House, we will allow them to bring forward their points of view. We have never tried to bring forward any motion even remotely like this concerning the Bloc for simply stating their opinion in this House. This particular action went way beyond the stating of opinion.

As I said at the beginning, if the Bloc had simply said that in an independent Quebec these are the opportunities that will be available in the military, we would not be bringing this motion forward. But what the Bloc has done is it has essentially advocated desertion from the Canadian military swearing allegiance to someone other than the crown to whom they originally swore their allegiance. The facts of this are very clear. We have the letter. It is not some comment someone said a member of the Bloc made. It was a letter sent out from this House.

It does need an investigation. Unlike the Liberal Party we are not saying to bypass the investigation, hang him from the yard arm before anybody reviews this and call him before the bar, like they wanted to do because we asked Canadians for their opinion. We simply want this investigated. We want it investigated openly. We believe there are a great deal of problems with what the member for Charlesbourg has done.

We think it should be viewed as seditious but nowhere did we say it is an act of sedition. We said we believe it should be viewed as sedition and we certainly believe it is an offence to the House.

As such we believe it constitutes a contempt of Parliament. Consequently we ask for it to be examined by a standing committee of the House.