Dick Proctor

[Pest Control Products Act, June 13th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Rosemont--Petite-Patrie for his questions and his kind remarks. I was not aware of the Cousineau report on bio-pesticides, but let me make a couple of points.

First, under the Pest Management Regulatory Agency I think that in general we have been far too slow in this country in terms of dealing with minor use products. The numbers are quite startling when we contrast them with those in the United States. It seems to be able to move much more quickly than our regulatory agency can in order to get some of these minor use approvals through in a narrow timeframe. Members will realize that when crops are at certain stages it is extremely important that the application be applied then or it is wasted, the money is lost and the product just does not work. Generally speaking there is a concern.

However, to specifically answer the member's question about using bio-pesticides to reduce our involvement with the more harmful products, this is something that I think is extremely important. In my speech I tried to contrast the differences we see in this country in terms of money available for biotechnology from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the very minuscule amounts of money that are available on the organic side including, in this case, the bio-pesticides. I think there needs to be a balancing.

The organic industry is growing extremely quickly in this country. I know it is only 1% or 2% of the overall farms, but it is surging ahead and I think those farms need some additional assistance. Something in this area like Quebec is apparently doing on bio-pesticides would certainly be a step in the right direction.

[Pest Control Products Act, June 13th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to participate in this important debate, the third reading of an act to replace the Pest Control Products Act which dates back to 1969.

The stated objective of the legislation is to protect the health of Canadians from the ill effects of pesticides and to protect the environment at the same time. Both are laudable goals and we support them. However we cannot support the bill because we do not believe that the bill succeeds in setting out what it proposes to do.

This legislation has been a long time in coming. The existing Pest Control Products Act dates back to 1969. A great deal has changed since then. The Liberal government promised this legislation in its first term of office in 1993 but it has taken nearly a decade to get from there to here. We acknowledge that the bill is a significant improvement over the 1969 legislation.

It would use modern risk assessment practices, taking into account the consideration of vulnerable populations, such as children. It would require mandatory re-evaluation of pesticides, some of which have been around for decades without the benefit of re-evaluation. It would increase public participation in the decision making process and would make mandatory the reporting of adverse effects.

However as the lead critic for our caucus, the member for Winnipeg North Centre, and our environmental critic, the member for Windsor—St. Clair, have both pointed out, the bill does leave a great deal to be desired.

We all realize that there are trade-offs to be made between the need we currently have for using pesticides to produce food on the one hand and the health of Canadians on the other. When it comes to those trade-offs it is the health of Canadians that must take precedence and priority. That is why we are concerned that there is no precautionary principle in this legislation. A precautionary principle would ensure that the health of Canadians is our overriding and major concern. The bill does not enshrine this principle. We find this strange because the basic premise of the bill is to protect the health of Canadians from the adverse effects of pesticides.

Another area of disappointment in Bill C-53 is that it does not adequately address pollution prevention or reduction, and the reduction in the use of pesticides. In other areas the legislation is vague and we see that far too many details would be left to regulations. I speak for example of the details in timelines for the process of re-evaluation of pesticides.

As my colleagues have pointed out earlier in the debate there is nothing in the bill to indicate that the government wants to or has plans for reducing our overall reliance on pesticides.

I have the privilege of representing a Saskatchewan constituency, one that has a mix of urban and rural communities and individuals. I want to talk briefly about some of the trade-offs that must be made in an industrial society where people produce goods and market products for others to enjoy. I want to talk about the method for registering pesticides and of re-evaluating them. This is a task that does fall to the Pest Management Review Agency, the PMRA.

A report was prepared by the committee on environment and sustainable development in May 2000. I know that everyone in the House agrees that the chair of that committee on environment and sustainable development has sterling credentials as a strong environmentalist.

The report stated clearly that it intended to make the protection of human health and the environment the absolute priority in pest management decisions with a special emphasis on the protection of children and other vulnerable populations. This accords very closely with the position of our party in this area and with the position outlined in this debate earlier by my colleagues.

The environment committee indicated that the precautionary principle must be the approach used in all decision making, again mirroring the policy of our party. The committee chair expressed his hope that Canadians would move toward organic agriculture even while acknowledging that this will be a long term project.

On that score, the recent 2001 census is interesting when it comes to agriculture. It indicates that more than 2,200 Canadian farms produce at least one category of certified organic agricultural products. These 2,200 organic farms represent only about 1% of farms, but there is no question that the number of organic farms is growing faster than any other type of farming in the country. I am pleased to report that more than 700, almost one-third of those 2,200 farms, are in the province of Saskatchewan and growth is continuing at a great rate.

In its report the environment committee pointed out that the European Union has also experienced remarkable growth in organic agriculture. Even there the total number of organic farms is only in the range of 2% of all the farms in Europe.

I want to make the point that the government and the federal department of agriculture have not made it a priority to assist in the development of organic agriculture. I believe that is a mistake. There has been a very modest amount of money given recently by the department of agriculture, somewhere in the neighbourhood of $600,000, for the development of organic agriculture. This amount is not to be sneezed at, but it is a very minute amount in comparison to the amount of money available for the study of agriculture biotechnology.

We will be using pesticides to produce products for the foreseeable future. I refer again to the chair of the environment committee because in the preface to his report last May the chair said “our reliance on pesticides in agriculture is so overwhelming, it would be impossible for us to abandon their use in the short term”.

It then becomes crucially important that we have a safe and transparent process for the registration and evaluation of pesticides and those tasks fall to the pest management review agency, the PMRA. When this organization was created as a standalone agency, it was supposed to streamline the process of getting new pesticides onto the market and getting old and untested ones reviewed and cancelled if necessary. It has not worked out that way and criticism comes from all sides and all quarters.

When it comes to the PMRA there is a rare unanimity among industry groups, environmentalists, health groups and legislators. That unanimity is that the pest management review agency in Canada lags well behind its U.S. counterpart in approving newer, safer chemicals that could allow older and more hazardous products to be removed from the market.

The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, of which I am a member, discussed this very matter at some length this year during our deliberations. In a report on the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, one of the four recommendations was that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada provide at least $1 million a year in funding for a research and analysis program similar to the IR4 in the United States. This was to be developed in co-operation with agricultural stakeholders to generate or complete the necessary data for the approval of new minor use products or to expand the use of previously approved products.

That was a significant recommendation of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food to deal with the minor use policy of the Pest Management Regulatory Agency.

The Canadian Federation of Agriculture and other farm groups wrote to the health minister regarding Bill C-53 about a month ago. In a letter to the hon. Minister of Health, the president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Bob Friesen, indicated that on timelines the Canadian Federation of Agriculture recommended that product registrations be included in the legislation or applicable regulations should be referred to therein in order to create greater accountability of the PMRA's performance and management regarding submissions.

The federation also had recommendations on the auditor general's requirement for the agency's financial statements, information about the agency's performance with respect to the objectives established in the corporate business plan and a summary statement of the assessment by the Auditor General of Canada of the fairness and reliability of the information. There has been some concern.

The CFA went on to say that there is no mention of minor use in the legislation and that too is of concern. The CFA and others are insisting that farmers need faster access to newer and lower risk chemicals. The CFA stresses that product registrations have to be dealt with in a more timely manner. We in this caucus certainly agree with that observation.

For one reason or another the PMRA has not been up to its task. The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food found the problem so vexing that it held hearings and wrote a report. I have already alluded to recommendation No. 3 in the report. It was a report on the performance of the PMRA from the perspective of farmers and the competitiveness or lack thereof.

The agriculture committee chose to send a strong message to the Pest Management Regulatory Agency that improvements to its management and registration process were crucial and overdue. We have to ask why the PMRA has not performed better than it has. Part of the problem is the conflicting mandate. The Pest Management Regulatory Agency is charged with protecting human health and the environment while at the same time supporting the competitiveness of Canadian agriculture, forestry and other industries. In this latter role there is pressure on the PMRA to promote the use of pesticides.

These, we submit, are conflicting interests. As well, there appears to be a corporate culture at the PMRA that does not promote transparency in decision making. We submit that transparency is extremely important in order to guard the health of Canadians and the environment.

Regrettably, the bill before us does nothing new to clarify the statutory responsibilities of the PMRA. That is a serious concern.

We have looked at Bill C-53. We certainly concede that it is an improvement over the situation that has existed under the old legislation that was passed in 1969 called the Pest Control Products Act. We have to say in all sincerity that we are disappointed because the government had a golden opportunity to fix the process of registering and reviewing pesticides in a way that would set a clear priority on protecting the health of Canadians and at the same time protecting the environment. The government had the opportunity to establish a review process that was both transparent and efficacious but somehow it managed to fail on both fronts.

The legislation has been promised for nearly 10 years. The former Minister of Health promised legislation in the fall of 2001. The Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development produced a study in May 2000 on the management and use of pesticides, including an examination of the Pest Management Regulatory Agency.

The primary objective of Bill C-53 as we understand it is the protection of human health and the environment. It is much stronger than the current legislation which must balance health and environmental concerns against those of industry. Some of the key provisions that will do this are the use of modern risk assessment practices, that is, consideration of vulnerable populations such as children, and of aggregate exposure and cumulative effects; mandatory re-evaluation of pesticides; increased public participation in the decision making process; mandatory reporting of adverse effects; and mandatory material safety data sheets in workplaces where pesticides are used or manufactured.

Bill C-53 does not adequately address pollution prevention and reduction in the use of pesticides. There is nothing to indicate that the government is seeking to reduce overall reliance on them.

There are concerns that the legislation is too vague and I hope I have covered that. Much of the details will be left to regulations, including details and a timeline for the re-evaluation process, types of tests used in risk assessment, et cetera.

The precautionary principle, which is very important, is not enshrined as one of the principles of the act. This is an extreme deficiency in our opinion.

There is a failure in the act to ban the use of pesticides for cosmetic purposes; the lack of a fast track registration process for lower risk or minor use products; a failure to reduce the number of pesticides being used, to reduce the use of pesticides in general and to prevent the most harmful pesticides from being registered; and a failure to require labelling of all toxic formulants, contaminants or micro-contaminants.

The mandate of the PMRA is not set out in the legislation. Unfortunately there is a failure to commit money for research on the long term effects of pesticides, especially on vulnerable groups like our children, and for public education about the dangers of pesticides and for support of alternatives.

In conclusion, the proposed legislation is an improvement. It is still flawed. Much of it is based on U.S. standards which will bring some of our standards up, but we will still be far behind countries in the European Union.

Harmonization may have dangerous effects in the long term. Given the scientific evidence that exists, the bill could have and should have been much stronger in the government's efforts to protect both human health and the environment.

[Public Works and Government Services, June 13th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the terms of negotiation may be still before the committee but it was passed 14 to 2 that Mr. Guité would appear before the committee, so my question is very relevant. We simply want to make sure, and the Canadian public wants to ensure, that the gentleman remains in Canada until such time as he has appeared before the committee, be that next week or next year.

[Public Works and Government Services, June 13th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, earlier today the public works committee took the important step of summonsing a former, now retired, senior civil servant to appear before the committee. There have been public news stories that this individual, Mr. Charles Guité, was planning to sell his residence and leave the country.

What steps will the government take to ensure that Mr. Guité remains in the country until he has been summoned and indeed has appeared before the committee?

[Main Estimates, 2002-03, June 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the former minister of public works and government services, who is again the government House leader, in defence of his questions before that change took place, argued that there had been no benefit that accrued to him or his family for the time spent at chez Boulay, as it has come to be known.

I felt at the time, as I listened to that answer, and perhaps this is a way to address the question raised, that the former minister of public works had totally missed the point. It was not about the benefit that accrued to him. It was the benefit that accrued to the president of Groupaction.

[Main Estimates, 2002-03, June 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I can certainly agree with the sentiments of the member. We should always be looking at ways to improve the system and to make it as accessible as we possibly can.

[Main Estimates, 2002-03, June 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I will deal very quickly with all the member's questions.

With regard to the business of orders in council and the involvement of the Clerk of the Privy Council, I do not think anybody should be concerned about that. I recognize where the member is coming from.

In addition to orders in council, I also asked whether the current clerk was involved with the production of the red book leading up to the 2000 campaign which others have said would be a breach. In any event, according to newspaper reports he was somehow caught up, to some degree, with the exciting and fascinating debate that went on last weekend involving the ex-finance minister and the current Prime Minister. If there was involvement there we should be properly concerned about that.

I am delighted to see the Speaker in the Chair because he knows firsthand about the royal commission on electoral reform and party financing that began about 1988 or 1989. Some very good, solid recommendations are in the Lortie report, recommendations that by and large have not been followed. Some of them deal with party financing. I encourage the member to look at that report or ask the Speaker for a briefing because he could do that on a firsthand basis.

The member referred to what happens in the United States. I recall when that commission had meetings in Washington. We sat down with a group of politicians and backroom strategists who started off the meeting by saying that they had looked at our laws and did not think they had a single thing to teach us. They felt that we had a lot we could teach them, and that is true.

However, having said that, it is not perfect. One thing that could happen and probably should happen is that there should be strict limits on the amount that can be donated. At the same time I think it is important to note that if we are going to limit and restrict donations, there has to be some additional public involvement. We do have some public financing in our laws but we need more in order to make it fair and equitable. If that happened it would take many of the current concerns out of the system.

I agree with where the member is coming from on third party advertising. I have always agreed with that legislation. I was concerned when Alberta judges turned it down. I am not talking about federal or provincial elections. I am talking about Canadian Wheat Board elections which come up every two years. Allegations were made after the last board election that folks who were interested in getting rid of the wheat board or in electing directors of the board who would open up the board to the open market were unnecessarily influencing it. Those allegations were made to the minister responsible for the wheat board. I am not sure what action he has taken but it is a major concern.

[Main Estimates, 2002-03, June 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to speak in the House of Commons especially in the evening. We are here tonight to talk about the Privy Council Office estimates for the coming year.

As the House knows, the Privy Council Office is one of the three central agencies of the federal government, along with the Prime Minister's Office and the Treasury Board Secretariat.

This debate comes at an important time, not only in the life of the country but in the life of this parliament. There is a growing unease among Canadians who since 1993 have been prepared to give the government and the Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt in many areas. In light of the stories that we have been hearing and reading about for many weeks, there is a growing concern among the population about where is the beef, where is the vision that the government has for the future of the country.

We have seen in the past week two editorials in English language newspapers calling for the resignation of the Prime Minister. Gordon Robertson, one of the most respected public servants, was acknowledged earlier in the debates. He said that he believes the Prime Minister is about to join the ranks of other Liberal prime ministers who have outstayed their welcome in that important job and role as the prime minister of the nation.

The role of the Privy Council Office is to provide cabinet with non-partisan political advice to guide the decision making of the government. That is in stark contrast to the Prime Minister's Office which is on the partisan side of the ledger.

There is some concern of late about whether or not the Privy Council Office itself is straying over the line and into the role of partisan political advice. I do not know Alex Himelfarb who three weeks ago was appointed the Clerk of the Privy Council but he has been criticized in public quarters for taking an active role in the recent highly publicized dispute between the Prime Minister and the former finance minister.

Public administration scholar Gilles Paquet has concluded that the Prime Minister had politicized the position by asking the current Clerk of the Privy Council to directly intervene in a partisan dispute. Before that dispute broke, columnist and author Jeffrey Simpson had written in a column just over a month ago that Mr. Himelfarb is a favourite of the Prime Minister. It is widely reported, according to the columnist, that he had helped write the last red book which the Liberals campaigned on in the 2000 election, a rumour that if true would represent a breach of public service neutrality.

Under the government the relationship between the Privy Council Office and the Prime Minister's Office has been the focus of a good deal of scrutiny. There was a hallmark study done by Donald Savoie who had spent considerable time at the centre of government in a previous administration. He concluded that the decision making authority had been highly concentrated in these two bodies to the detriment and possible obsolescence of others including parliament. Mr. Savoie wrote:

Cabinet has now joined Parliament as an institution being bypassed. Real political debate and decision making are increasingly elsewhere--in federal-provincial meetings of first ministers, on Team Canada flights...in the Prime Minister's Office, in the Privy Council Office, in the Department of Finance, and in international organizations and international summits. There is no indication that the one person who holds all the cards, the prime minister, and the central agencies that enable him to bring effective political authority to the centre are about to change things.

What I think Mr. Savoie was saying is that cabinet, like parliament, has become little more than a focus group that polling companies engage in from time to time to assess the temperature of the electorate on issues of the day.

Mr. Savoie is not alone in his concern in this area and neither is Mr. Simpson, because Mr. Paquet has said:

I'm surprised that the clerk of the privy council, who is serving the prime minister as his deputy minister, would be politicizing its position to such a degree that he would become involved in partisan debate with other ministers.

Mr. Paquet concluded that as an official of the Prime Minister's Office, it is Mr. Eddie Goldenberg in this case who is in the political job, while Mr. Himelfarb's role is to oversee the machinery of government.

What this points to is the public's right to know and a feeling that the right to know is under some siege and in some considerable difficulty. The information commissioner has just this day released a document which indicates that the federal government has taken advantage of the tragic events of September 11 by suppressing information and stopping independent inquiries that it deemed to be threatening to national security. Information Commissioner John Reid says that the government has given itself the power to remove classes of records deemed to be too sensitive from ever being accessed while halting all requests under review. He believes that the government has “quietly and firmly” shut the door on 19 years of public access to the records showing how ministers and staff are spending public funds.

Mr. Reid stated “The report emphasizes the fragility of the public's 'right to know' and” cautions “ that this right continues to be under siege” by parliament. Mr. Reid, I am pleased to note, takes issue with the much debated anti-terrorism law, which was known last year as Bill C-36. He refers to it as “a sweeping derogation from the right of access contained in the Access to Information Act”. I am pleased to hear that because it is confirmation of and one of the reasons why our party stood in opposition to Bill C-36 when it was being rushed through the House of Commons in the wake of September 11.

The report states:

Bill C-36 gives the Attorney-General the power to use a secrecy certificate to resist giving records to the Information Commissioner...The federal government has given itself the legal tools to stop in its tracks any independent review of denials of access under the Access to Information Act.

The commissioner said that we Canadians need to be wary of this government's continued attempts to prevent access to important information. He is critical of the intent of the government to reform the act by way of an insider review process. He stated:

The harsh attacks made this year by the government against the right to know heighten the concern that, no matter how well the task force does its work, no serious effort will be made by this government to modernize and strengthen the Act.

Those are very significant concerns. In addition to them, Mr. Reid is also saying that Canadians should ask themselves why the Prime Minister is so opposed to independent political auditing of his ethical standards and those of his fellow ministers. We find the answer in the report from the commissioner, who is an independent officer of this House and who has had to take the Prime Minister's Office to court. This is what he has to say in that report released today:

The fact remains, however, that there is a reluctance to write things down (for fear of access) and an oversensitivity to preserving the good “image” of a minister, the government or the department. It is a fact that the Clerk of the Privy Council insists on the broadest possible interpretation of the scope of cabinet secrecy. As well, the Prime Minister is personally committed to insulating his office and offices of ministers from the Act's coverage and from the Information Commissioner's investigative jurisdiction. These “hostilities” at the top stand in the way of the good-faith efforts, at more junior levels, to get on with a cultural change to open government.

Those are fairly important words from the Information Commissioner, who does report to the House of Commons and to parliament. It brings up the fact that the New Democratic Party, for three consecutive parliaments now, has been endeavouring to have the House pass ethics guidelines. We favour a range of legislative reforms that would introduce transparency and accountability into party and campaign financing and the conduct of legislators and members of the executive in their dealings with lobbyists.

I think this is a terribly significant time to be making these kinds of ethical guidelines, just because of what we have been reading and hearing about in the news media. I believe that the root of the problem is kickbacks or perhaps kick-forwards in terms of working with ad agencies and the like, either for past favours or for future favours.

One of the ways that this could be corrected very quickly would be to amend the Canada Elections Act to incorporate funding of party leadership campaigns under the disclosure requirement. A second way would be to develop and promote a system of state funded campaign financing, possibly modeled after the system in Quebec or Manitoba, which must be implemented to curb the influence that business and the wealthy have over the democratic electoral process.

I do not want to imply by referring twice in one speech to Jeffrey Simpson, the Globe and Mail columnist, that I am necessarily a big fan, but I did read with some interest a recent column that Mr. Simpson wrote in that newspaper regarding the changes to the election law that have occurred in Manitoba under the premiership of Gary Doer. In that column, Mr. Simpson indicated that Mr. Doer “first had to persuade his own party to abolish union and corporate contributions to political parties”. He managed to do that. He has brought that law into power. The provincial parties operating in the province of Manitoba must now rely only on contributions of up to $3,000 maximum from individuals, wrote Mr. Simpson, “a change that would be worthwhile for federal parties to adopt with modifications, instead of having their leaders fly around scooping up corporate (and union) cash” as the Prime Minister did recently in the province of Manitoba at a $400 a plate fundraising dinner.

I recall that René Lévesque, the first leader of the parti Quebecois in the province of Quebec, who governed for a number of years, was asked after he left office what the one piece of legislation was that he was most proud of. He responded very promptly that he was most proud of the guidelines his government brought in on spending for political parties and curbing and restricting donations from corporations and from trade unions. This is something that, as I have said before, but I do not think we can say it too often, would go a long way to restoring the faith of Canadians in what it is that governments are doing and what it is that political parties need to be doing.

Another area that could and should be looked at is the whole notion of whistleblower legislation. My colleague, the member for Winnipeg Centre, introduced a bill more than a year ago, an act to respect the protection of whistleblowers and to amend various acts. The bill proposes to protect members of the public service of Canada from retaliation for making in good faith allegations of wrongdoing and to provide a means for making such allegations in confidence so that it may be determined whether or not there is substance to the charges and to allow an opportunity to ferret out all of the facts. The legislation proposed by my colleague would have placed present practices under the House of Commons where they could be referred to a committee by the House.

Whistleblower laws are posited on the belief that employees should be able to disclose without reprisal to those in a position to investigate instances where there has been or there will likely be a criminal or a civil offence, a breach of legal obligation, miscarriage of justice, danger to public or individual health or safety, damage to the environment or a coverup of any of these matters.

The basic provisions would be protection of disclosures made in good faith to prescribed bodies. The bill would prohibit employers from discharging or otherwise discriminating against employees in retaliation to the disclosure to the employer, an independent body or government agency. It would protect employees and allow them to participate in formal government proceedings in connection with violations, including amnesty from any legal proceedings arising from their participation. Finally, it would establish an independent appeals procedure for any employee who believes that he or she has been discharged, demoted or otherwise discriminated against contrary to the provisions, and compensation could be awarded in cases where this has occurred.

This is not groundbreaking legislation. It would be in this country, but it certainly is not around the world. The British public interest disclosure act is considered by some to be the best example of comprehensive whistleblower legislation and makes provision for whistleblowers to be protected in the case of wider disclosures, which is mentioned in my colleague's bill.

My time is drawing to a close. I indicated that I was not here to be critical of Alex Himelfarb, the new Clerk of the Privy Council Office. Indeed, I noted with some interest that he addressed some 800 senior public servants yesterday in a speech here in Ottawa.

Among other things, Mr. Himelfarb said that the time was ripe for the bureaucracy to dish up new and exciting policy options like this government has “never seen before”. He is calling for an agenda in the fall that includes public service reform, health care reform, the long promised innovation agenda, a skills and learning blueprint, and something that will reach out to aboriginal, poor people and make certain that every child has a good start in life.

I think that if that were to happen it would be a good start, not only for Mr. Himelfarb, but for the House and mostly for the people of Canada.

[Public Safety Act, 2002, May 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising to speak to the amendment that, as my hon. colleague from the Bloc indicated, has been put forward by the member of parliament for Pictou--Antigonish--Guysborough. The amendment states:

That all the words after “that” be deleted and the following be substituted,

“this House declines to give second reading to Bill C-55 because it constitutes an autocratic power grab by the Liberal government at the expense of parliamentary oversight and the civil liberties of Canadians.”

A number of acts come into play in Bill C-55: the Aeronautics Act; the National Defence Act; the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority Act; the Marine Transportation Security Act; the Criminal Code of Canada; and interim order powers.

A lack of specifics with respect to the Aeronautics Act was one of our concerns about the original bill, Bill C-42, which was introduced last fall in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. There have been modifications to the part of Bill C-55 dealing with the Aeronautics Act.

The part of the bill dealing with the National Defence Act has been somewhat changed. The proposed military security zones would now be called controlled access military zones. Canadians will find out all about this next month in Kananaskis. Bill C-55 stipulates that the zones could only be created to protect DND property or foreign military assets in the country. The changes are relatively insignificant.

With respect to interim order powers, the bill would now require orders to be approved by governor in council within 45 rather than 90 days. They would need to be tabled in parliament within 15 days. The changes are relatively insignificant and do not substantially address concerns about abuse of power and interim order making.

The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority Act received royal assent after Bill C-42 was tabled last fall. Bill C-55 has been updated to reflect that the act was passed. If Liberal members opposite had their act together this section of the bill would have initially appeared as a conditional amendment. The fact that it did not further underlines how the government has been making up its security policy on the fly for the past several months.

Unlike Bill C-42, Bill C-55 would add a new section to the Marine Transportation Security Act that would empower the government to contribute funds to port authorities to help pay for new security measures. Peter Mancini, our justice critic in the House from 1997 to 2000, said the Liberal government would rue the day it privatized port authorities. That day has arrived even more quickly than Mr. Mancini predicted.

Bill C-55 would broaden the scope of the criminal code with respect to hoaxes.

There have been a number of changes to Bill C-55 but as civil libertarians we still have concerns about it. In one sense it is an improved public safety package. However it needed improving. In the wake of September 11, Bill C-42 was rushed in. The government sat on it from November until April when it brought in the revised bill, Bill C-55. It should have made significant improvements at the time. It did not. It should therefore come as no surprise to people who follow politics and are aware of the New Democratic Party's strong support for civil liberties over the years that we will continue to oppose this piece of legislation.

The government wants to give itself powers to spy on passenger lists of people travelling on airplanes bound for domestic or foreign destinations. That is too much. It introduced anti-terrorism Bill C-42 which was widely criticized by civil libertarians as being draconian and dangerous to the freedom and liberty of Canadian citizens. That may have been why the government paused last fall and did not proceed with the bill.

As I have indicated, we in our party do not believe the new version has been substantially approved. It is overly heavy handed. Some people have indicated that it is draconian in its present form. As I said, it is understandable that mistakes are made when bills are formulated on the fly after a tragedy. However with the benefit of hindsight it is unfortunate that so many mistakes remain in the legislation.

The New Democrats are not the only ones opposed to Bill C-55 and speaking out against it. The privacy commissioner has deep concerns, so much so that he took the relatively extraordinary step of publicly releasing the letter he wrote to the transport minister on the topic. The letter related specifically to clause 4.82 of the bill. The privacy commissioner's concern was that the provisions of Bill C-55 could fundamentally and unnecessarily alter the balance between individuals and the state that exists and should exist in a free society such as our own.

The privacy commissioner Mr. Radwanski said he feared deeply for the privacy and civil rights of Canadians. So do we all. So should we all. The privacy commissioner is not alone. At least one backbench Liberal has publicly expressed concern that the bill in its present form would give undue powers to cabinet ministers over the civil liberties of Canadians.

We are making the same call in the House of Commons for caution, prudence and the protection of civil liberties as did our predecessor giants. Men like Tommy Douglas and David Lewis stood in the House in the fall of 1970 and spoke out against the War Measures Act. That was a time of emergency. On reflection, this is also a time of emergency. It is unworthy of the government to proceed in this way on this bill at this time.

As I have said, the government has waited four months to introduce the bill. All of a sudden it is in a rush to have it pass through the House before we rise in little more than three weeks time. Where has the government been since the bill was introduced in November? Why was it not brought back to the House until the spring? We have been dealing with a number of relatively miniscule items since then. We could have dealt with a more substantive bill like this but we did not.

It is our duty as parliamentarians to give the legislation the depth and scrutiny it deserves and requires. We are asking the questions Canadians want answered. In doing so we hope to give the government and the public time to hone in on exactly what is going on.

We in our party oppose the legislation and welcome the amendment produced by the hon. member for Pictou--Antigonish--Guysborough. We call on the government to reconsider the tight, unrealistic time frame it has indicated and give us the space necessary to consult all Canadians and parliamentarians on Bill C-55.

[Agriculture, May 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, for years now the agriculture minister has been urging grain farmers to diversify into livestock and they have. Now Saskatchewan agricultural producers are saying that half the cattle herds in that province are at risk because the water has dried up and the pastures have burned up in a devastating drought.

The $2.2 million in the rural water development program evaporated months ago and more than 2,000 applications are still outstanding. The question the farmers and ranchers want answered by the government is why does the minister of agriculture refuse to take the request forward for an additional $5 million for this program?