Val Meredith

[Airline Industry, March 15th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government has a history of imposing high taxes in order to accumulate surpluses to make itself look good.

First, it was the EI fund and now it is the airport security tax. The government starts collecting this extreme tax on April 1, even though it has not yet hired any staff or bought any equipment and will not for many months.

We understand that over the next five years this tax will accumulate at least $1 billion more than is actually required. How can the Canadian airline industry survive this unreasonable tax?

Will the finance minister reconsider this ill advised airport security tax immediately before it completely destroys the Canadian airline industry?

[Supply, March 12th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, the government's obvious omission is the lack of a plan that encompasses all security issues. What we have seen over the past six months is a government that has piecemeal policy and that reacts to situations rather than looking at the whole and having a widespread, overall security plan in place.

Since 1993 we have seen continued reductions not only in our police forces across the country, but in our military, CSIS and anything else that has to do with the security of our country. We have seen an orchestrated reduction of the resources put into those agencies that are responsible for the protection of Canadians.

The response from the government since September 11 and the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. has been very piecemeal. The government has been reactive.

I will briefly mention aviation security because I spoke at length about it yesterday. What is this piecemeal reaction to aviation security? The government's response is the implementation of an airport security tax, another tax on Canadians.

The government quite rightly says that Canadian airports had a higher degree of security than American airports had prior to September 11, but we have to wonder when the Canadian government feels it has better security in place yet is charging Canadians five times what the Americans are charging American travellers. Canadian airports already have more equipment and more security measures in place than American airports do. One has to wonder at this reactive policy of the government in response to September 11.

Being from a constituency that has two of the busiest border crossings west of the Windsor-Detroit border crossing, I also have to bring up the piecemeal response the government has to border crossing security measures. The government has been remiss in acknowledging the fact that increased traffic is going across the Canada-U.S. border as a result of the Canada free trade agreement and NAFTA. In the last 10 or 12 years there has been an increase of almost 10% per year in traffic across these borders.

In a trade corridor report that I did for the Canada-U.S. interparliamentary group in May 2000, I recommended that part of the way of dealing with the problems at various port entries was to share responsibilities by having U.S. counterparts in Canadian ports and Canadians in U.S. ports. It is interesting to note that one of the piecemeal responses of the government is to do precisely that two years later. The government reached an agreement with the Americans to have Americans in the Vancouver, Montreal and Halifax ports and Canadians in the Seattle and Newark ports to help with pre-clearance and with fulfilling regulations of both countries when container goods enter the North American continent.

One of the things the government could be proactive in is supporting the concept of a North American security perimeter. This idea frightens the government for some reason. The government seems very unwilling to have Canadians be the leaders in this kind of concept. The piecemeal reaction of just sharing customs agents at a few ports does not quite meet the grade.

The government also has an agreement to extend the NEXUS program, a pilot project at the Sarnia border crossing, to three border crossings in British Columbia. As I mentioned, two of Canada's busiest border crossings are in my riding. I look forward to having the NEXUS program at our Peace Arch, Douglas and Pacific border crossings.

Again, it is a reactive approach. The government should have a proactive security program that uses the same system at all border crossings in Canada. The system used at border crossings should also be used at airports and marine entry points. We should have a systematic way of recording and monitoring the entry and exit of individuals into our country and onto the North American continent.

This is what the PC/DR coalition proposed on November 1. The government should be proactive. It should be a leader in this kind of program. It should put something on the table that will work efficiently to monitor and control the entry and exit of people into Canada and the United States while allowing pre-cleared individuals and goods to move freely.

We have looked extensively at border management and security measures and have come up with a comprehensive plan to deal with the issue across the country. Our plan includes the establishment of a new ministry. More importantly, it takes into account that whatever happens must be a shared responsibility with our neighbour and partner the United States. We must share information in an efficient manner that is acceptable to both countries.

We were concerned that parliament should be brought into the package. Parliament must be held accountable and responsible. Parliament should make the decisions. Parliament should be relevant to decisions pertaining to security and the protection of Canadians.

We recognize the need to make parliament relevant and bring it into the process. We recognize the need for a parliamentary committee to oversee the new department that would be responsible for Canada's security and border management. The committee should have access to the necessary information to hold the government accountable and make sure the programs it presents to Canadians on behalf of Canadians are carried out in an efficient and proper manner.

We not only recognize the need for the government to be efficient in managing the agencies responsible for border management and public security. We need a parliamentary oversight committee. We need to communicate and co-ordinate with our American neighbours.

The PC/DR coalition has been able to put together a comprehensive overall plan looking into the future. The Liberal Government of Canada is responsible for doing this. Why does not find it possible? Why does it always react in a piecemeal fashion? It does a bit here and a bit there but has no comprehensive, forward looking, organized and efficient method of providing Canadians from one end of the country to the other with secure and properly managed border entry points. Why does the Liberal government seem incapable of doing the logical and responsive thing? Why does it not put forward a comprehensive plan to deal with the issues?

It is encouraging that the government is listening albeit two years too late. It removed the 10% share ownership limit on Air Canada. It has allowed for shared customs officers at Canadian and American ports. I hope the government will react quickly to our recommendations for a new security ministry, an oversight committee and a program for sharing information with the Americans to ensure better border security and safety for all Canadians.

I hope the government is listening. I hope it will review the plan we put on the table November 1 and move quickly to implement it.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2001, March 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, you will appreciate that I am the critic for the coalition on transport so on speaking to this bill I will be dealing mainly with the airport security fee that has been instituted with this piece of legislation.

As we have heard from many others, this security fee is not well thought out. The committee on transport spent three months investigating airline and airport security and how to deal with it. The minister always told us that the security at Canadian airports was far superior to that of the American airports at the time of September 11, and I do not disagree with him. Canada needed it because it was home to a terrorist attack in 1985. The Canadian government and the Canadian airports had to increase the security.

One wonders, when we are already starting from a position of strength where our security apparatus is much greater than that of the Americans, why we felt it necessary to charge so much. Where the Americans are charging $2.50 one way, we are charging $12 one way. Canada and Canadian airports already have a lot of the equipment while the Americans are having to buy more equipment and to increase their participation in security to a much greater degree than Canadian airports. Why is the amount of money so much greater here in Canada when we are already starting ahead of the Americans?

There is some concern with the manner in which this whole airport security fee has been put on the table. The transport committee investigating this whole issue recommended to the government that it be a shared responsibility, shared with the industry, shared with the taxpayers and shared with the travelling public. The reason was that there were more people who were not flying in airplanes, who did not go through an airport security screening process, who ended up dying on September 11.

This does not just affect people who happen to get themselves into airplanes. This affects everyone who is in an arena, at an event, in a place where people gather and even on the receiving end of water distribution systems. This affects all Canadians, so it seems somewhat unfair that only the Canadian travelling public ends up picking up the costs of a terrorist activity or the potential for a terrorist activity.

The fact is that the government did not look at the variety of airports and the variety of security that is required. The hijackers did not look at a small twin engine airplane that was going from Edmonton to Calgary or even from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. They looked at large transcontinental aircraft that were full of fuel because they would make an impact. A little airplane with a single engine prop is not going to destroy anything except itself if it goes into a building. There is a variety of needs for security and not all airports have the potential or the facilities to provide that kind of security, but that was not part of the plan. There was no impact study done to see what the impact would be on smaller airports, on rural airports, on airports that just have perhaps float planes flying in and out or at a maximum a small twin engine plane, a Dash 8 or Dash 7.

No impact study was done to see what kind of an impact this kind of security fee would have on them or on the airlines that fly those smaller planes. For the Hawkairs of British Columbia or their people to have to get involved in an airline security fee does not make sense. They only fly Dash 8s and Dash 7s from small communities into Vancouver. There should have been an impact study done. There should have been some consideration of the security requirements that vary from larger airlines to smaller airlines and certainly there should have been more of an impact study done on what it will mean to the travelling public.

I would argue with the government that this is what will happen when we have a WestJet flight between Edmonton and Calgary that costs $100. With this fee they will pay $89 of taxes on top of that $100. That is $189. In essence what it will do is take people out of the airplanes and put them in the congestion of our highways. I do not have to tell the House about the numbers of accidents that happen when more people in cars and trucks use our highways. I suggest that more people die per year in highway accidents on the North American continent than died flying in the aircraft used as weapons on September 11.

It really does make a person wonder whether the government is looking at this security airport fee in the truest sense of it being used for security purposes or if the government had some other reason for it. When we look at $2.2 billion being set aside from the budget for this security fee, we see $1 billion for equipment.

The government gave the equipment now in airports to a non-profit company that is a spinoff of the airline association. The government gave that to this association, so the question is this: Will the government get back at no cost all this equipment it gave away or will it be paying this not for profit company for that equipment it gave to the company in the first place?

Is this $1 billion to be written off all in one year? It is an ordinary Canadian company. It has to amortize the cost of capital expenditures over a period of time. Many transportation companies, particularly rail, have argued that they should be able to amortize that over shorter periods of time because the equipment wears out, but they are not allowed to do that.

Here we have the government putting $1 billion into equipment, writing it all off in one year and collecting this supposed airport security tax of $24 per return fare to pay for that equipment, but what we are hearing is that potentially this fee will create such hardship for small companies that they will lose travelling public and it may shut them down. From others we are hearing that the large number of passengers will lead to the accumulation of so much money that it will be far more than $2.2 billion and will create this huge pot of money. This is where I get back to the purpose of this tax and the government's real agenda.

I would suggest that it is possible the government saw an opportunity to make some money to use for projects other than airport security. I use the example of the employment insurance pot. The people who know how these things work said that $15 billion would be more than adequate as a rainy day slush fund in order to handle heavier unemployment in the future. They said that $15 billion was more than enough. The government across the way has now accumulated almost $40 billion in that fund. Is it used for employment insurance? No.

Time will tell if this fund grows and this money is used for purposes other than airport security. If that happens it is a fraud to the travelling public who have been asked to pay for the cost of providing for airport security.

The government has said that it will be reviewing this airport security fee in six months to see whether or not it is meeting the needs. That is interesting, because earlier today we were also told that the government is already going to start to collect this but that the equipment will not be in place until probably six months down the road. How will the government know whether or not the money it collects will meet the needs of this whole new program if it is not up and running by the time it makes its assessment?

The government has not done an impact study. It has no idea whether it is going to work. It is picking on the travelling public and not sharing the cost among all Canadians who would benefit from this security. This just shows that it was very poorly thought out and should probably be reviewed within the next couple of months rather than in six months. It should probably be set aside if changes are not made to make it more fair to smaller companies and the travelling public.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2001, March 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting that all the questions concern an airport security tax when this is a budget implementation bill. It should show the government the seriousness and concern all members of the House have regarding one part of the budget implementation bill.

This is the same government that collects billions of dollars in employment insurance premiums to the tune that it has three times the amount of money that people who deal with these things say is required for future downturns in the economy.

This is an opportunity for the government to do the right thing. The parliamentary committee on transportation studied the issue for three months. It went into great detail and recommended to the government that the costs of airline security be borne across the board by taxpayers, industry and consumers. The government has decided to ignore the recommendations of the committee and implement the airline security tax.

There is another issue I will ask about. The government gave security equipment to an association to maintain and look after it. Will the government use this money to pay for the equipment it bought and then gave away? Will it double pay for something that belonged to it in the first place?

The government is not only ignoring the recommendation of the committee, which is an abuse of parliament. It is paying twice for something Canadian taxpayers have already paid for. Will the government get the equipment back without paying for it?

[Softwood Lumber, February 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the last meeting was in May last year so I do not know where this guy is coming from.

Canadians know that the only winners in the softwood lumber dispute are a coalition of wealthy American timber owners, inefficient lumber companies and their lawyers who all benefit from the high lumber prices. However, most Americans are still unaware that they as consumers are being gouged by artificially high lumber prices for the benefit of the coalition.

Now that the American coalition has lost its largest financial contributor, will the government take the--

[Infrastructure, February 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, when the budget was introduced in December the $2 billion strategic infrastructure fund was to be administered by an arm's length foundation. However when the legislation was introduced this week, surprise, a Liberal cabinet minister will get to decide where the money goes. Yesterday the Prime Minister said this change occurred because he believed that decisions about the fund should be made by people who report directly to parliament.

If this is the case, perhaps the government could explain why it rejected a transport committee report recommendation that a secretary of state for transportation security be created to be responsible for aviation security and report directly to parliament. Instead the government created an arm's length authority to administer the $2.2 billion air travellers' security fund.

Why the inconsistency? Could it be that the Liberals have not quite figured out how to use the air travellers' security fund for patronage purposes?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2001, February 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, only in the minds of the Liberals can it be seen as being different because it is still overseeing the spending of taxpayer dollars to the tune of $2 billion. Their arguments are ridiculous.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2001, February 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it interests me that the hon. member on the Liberal side can make that argument in this instance, yet when it comes to a couple of billion dollars for the infrastructure grant, the Liberals use the opposite argument. They say that it has to be a minister of the crown who makes these determinations and who answers directly to the House on those determinations. Why is it okay for the infrastructure money to be handled this way, but for aviation security it has to be handled by this arm's length board?

The government needs to make up its mind as to the most efficient and best way to handle these things. In one bill it is giving us both entities but is using a different argument for each. However, in essence it is still overseeing over $2 billion of taxpayer money to provide a service for Canadians. Why the discrepancy? It does not make sense.

The government is showing its lack of foresight and lack of vision. It is not taking into consideration a committee report on which members spent many hours working. They did their homework. Government members of the executive branch completely ignored it. This shows lack of vision on the part of the government.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2001, February 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, this board could be like any of the other boards created by the government. People who worked for the Liberals during election campaigns get appointed to these boards.

The important thing is the accountability factor. Whenever an arm's length board is appointed, it gets further and further away from being accountable to the House. There is a budget of over $2 billion and a tax on airline travellers. We have to be able to judge how that affects the industry. However this is removing the decision making process too far out of the House. That is more critical than who will be appointed to the board.

We have seen many examples of this from the immigration refugee review board to port authorities and so on. Positions on boards have been used for patronage appointments to reward people for working for the party. Canadians will not feel secure or will not feel their best interests are being considered knowing that the airline industry is being looked after by people with absolutely no knowledge or background in that area.

We are always concerned about arm's length boards; who will sit on them, how will they respond back to parliament and how they will be held accountable. We are also concerned that most of the money be used for the security of the travelling public, not to cover the cost of administering the board.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2001, February 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would love to have an hour but I am splitting my time with the member for Saskatoon--Humboldt, so I will have to keep my comments fairly brief.

Bill C-49 is a response to implement the budget tabled on December 10, 2001. Although there are six major parts to the bill, I would like to concentrate on three of them: part 1, the air transport security authority act; part 2, the air travellers security charge act; and part 6, the Canada strategic infrastructure fund act.

I will begin my comments by following up on what my colleagues have said on the government's decision on the Canada strategic infrastructure fund act. When the government announced this in the budget, the money was to be administered by a foundation with a board of directors. The foundation was to be responsible for assessing the potential of these projects and making the decisions on key public infrastructure projects based on their merits.

Somewhere between December 10 and February 5, the government changed its mind. We have heard all kinds of explanations as to why it changed its mind, but there seems to be only one simple reason, that is, government members of parliament do not want an arm's length foundation and do not want to have to go to it to lobby for money for projects in their ridings.

There is widespread support throughout our country for this type of infrastructure program. We have seen, at least in my part of Canada, some really good projects like the Annacis Island sewage treatment plant for the greater Vancouver area. However we have seen an awful lot of wasteful projects as well, like the fountains in the Prime Minister's riding, projects that occur when funds are distributed for political reasons.

It is amazing that it took the Liberals almost two years to come up with a budget but less than two months to change the delivery of that budget.

The Canadian air transport security authority is also covered in this act. It creates this arm's length authority to oversee activity in Canada's airline industry. What is really significant about this in Bill C-49 is that it totally ignores a report from the committee on transport. The transport committee studied aviation security from October to December. We heard from dozens of individuals and organizations in our hearings on aviation security. We received testimony from individuals and groups on every aspect of the aviation industry in the country. Not only that, we travelled to Washington, D.C. and heard from senior members of the federal aviation administration and other authorities in the United States regarding civil aviation. The committee took in all this information. Those of us on the committee worked in a non-partisan manner and I mean that honestly. We produced an excellent report on aviation security.

One of the major recommendations in the report was the creation of a new secretary of state for transportation security. The reason is that we realized the importance of having an elected official who would be responsible for aviation security as well as the other modes of transportation and who would report back to parliament and be held accountable. However the government decided to ignore the report and instead created an authority to oversee aviation security. This authority will consist of a board of 11 directors, including a chairman.

What type of airport or aviation security will we have? We do not know, because of course the bill does not go into details as to what the security will be and it passes on this decision making authority to this board of directors. Whether we have government employees or contractors providing this aviation security, it will depend on a decision by this arm's length authority. Given the tax the finance minister is imposing on air travellers, this authority will have a budget of $2.2 billion over the next five years.

In comparison let us look at the two ways of dealing with things, the infrastructure and the airline security.

The government rejects the use of an arm's length foundation to be responsible for the $2 billion strategic infrastructure fund, with the Prime Minister claiming that these decisions should be made by a minister of the crown who is accountable to the House of Commons. Then in the very same bill, it rejected the Commons committee report that asked for the creation of a new minister of the crown who would be accountable to the House of Commons and instead put it into an arm's length authority for a budget of $2.2 billion.

Why the discrepancy? Why on one hand the argument to have an arm's length organization to oversee the $2.2 billion and on the other hand the need to have a minister overseeing $2 billion? It just does not make sense. Could it be that the Liberals have not yet figured out how to use the aviation security budget to line the pockets of their friends for patronage purposes?

When we look at the $2.2 billion budget and the air traveller security charge that is included in the act, we have to look at what it is about. This is a $12 one way ticket charge for all air travellers in Canada and a $24 return charge on international flights. Look at an airline that is trying to reduce the cost of air travel to get passengers off the roads and into planes. The fare for a trip between Calgary and Edmonton or Vancouver and Kelowna is under $100. This tax that will be imposed on the traveller will increase their airfares by over 20%. This increase will take hundreds if not thousands of people off planes and put them on our already crowded road infrastructure.

We can understand why there were over 15,000 passengers with WestJet who signed a petition asking the government to reconsider.

Compare that to how the United States handles this. The United States has implemented a similar fee, but it is only $2.50 U.S. one way with a maximum of $5. Why are the Americans, with their overwhelming airline security, two or three layers of screening, bomb sniffing dogs and the use of the national guard only charging $2.50 while the Canadian government is charging $12 a flight? There are two possible explanations.

The first explanation could be that this is the way the government is handling the value of the Canadian dollar, that it believes that the $2.50 U.S. will be worth $12 Canadian at some point this year. The other explanation is that the $12 fee is needed to provide patronage positions to Liberal hacks.

The response of the government to this outrageous tax is ludicrous. The government and the Minister of Transportation have said that the high security tax would actually increase airline traffic by reassuring the travelling public that they would be safe. These comments demonstrate how disconnected the minister and the government are from reality. If they really believe this why is the tax not $100?

It is ironic that the day Air Canada announced that it lost $1.25 billion last year, the government did everything possible to prevent more Canadians from flying.

Then we have the finance minister saying that this is just a user fee and that airline passengers are the only ones who benefit from the airline security. Did the finance minister not watch what happened on September 11? More people died in offices and going to work than people who were in the airplanes. Those people who died were policemen, firefighters and people sitting in their offices. Aviation security is everyone's concern and that cost should be shared by all. That was a recommendation from the transport committee and was ignored by the minister.

In conclusion, there should be one individual responsible and that person should be sitting in the House of Commons reporting to parliament. The security tax is out of proportion and will probably become the next Liberal billion dollar boondoggle.