Val Meredith

[Supply, April 4th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, this party agrees with the need for some reformation, some changes in how parliament operates and in how the patronage system needs to be corrected.

The concern is not just about the appointments. The concern is about how the government is bringing legislation to the House that removes power from the House and places it with the executive branch of government. That has to stop.

[Supply, April 4th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I thought I made it quite clear that HRDC is only one department and that the problems do not sit just with one department.

When we talk about $1 billion, one audit of $1 billion worth of projects showed very high instances of non-compliance, of poor management.

When the hon. member talks about those most in need benefiting from this government largesse, we know that is absolutely misrepresenting the facts. The Liberals cannot tell me that the government in helping Amtrak, the U.S. passenger rail service, is helping those most in need, that Bombardier, a very large international corporation which has 32 plants around the world is in dire need, that they are those most in need.

The government member is misrepresenting to Canadians where all the money is going. It is not just HRDC. It is EDC, it is DIAND, it is industry, it is HRDC. The taxpayers' money goes to many different areas in government spending.

All we ask in the motion is that the internal audits done on how the government is spending taxpayers' money be made public and available to the opposition and to Joe Blow citizen so that we can hold the government accountable and be able to decide whether the government is spending our money wisely.

[Supply, April 4th, 2000]

Precisely. A member on the opposite side says we do not need access. Then why are the audits not available to us if we do not need access to information? The truth of the matter is that the government is withholding this information. Why?

The member for Mississauga South claims that the government was ensuring its credibility, its integrity and its accountability. He did not use the word transparency because he could not. If this is true, then why do we have to go through the access to information process to get audits that are supposed to be available without an access request?

It is because the government is hiding information and one has to ask why. It is to control the timing of the release of the information. The government wants to withhold this information until the summer recess when we are not sitting here and cannot draw the public's attention to the mismanagement of government departments. Or perhaps it is withholding this information until after the next federal election so the Liberal members do not have to hold themselves accountable to the electorate during that election. The government is controlling the timing by refusing to release these audit documents.

Most important is that the government is breaking its own policies. It is breaking the policies and the established process of releasing government audits. It is the government that is to rule under the law but it seems to have no hesitation to break it whenever it is appropriate to do so.

The member for Mississauga South commented that it was information that came up, that perhaps it was not an audit at all that raised this concern in the Department of Human Resources Development. He also said that it was one audit.

It is not one audit. Canadians are smart enough to know that it is not one audit we are talking about. It is a number of audits, and it is a number of audits that we cannot get our hands on. And it is not just one department. A number of departments other than human resources development hand out grants and subsidies to individuals and corporations in this country. It is their audits as well.

Our job in opposition is to hold the government accountable for spending the good hardearned tax dollars of the Canadian public. The government does not seem to be responsible or really care whether it is held accountable or whether the integrity of government is protected.

We in opposition feel that it is important for the government to share information. Government departments should be available to the public for scrutiny. It is very important that a government that places so much control and power with the executive branch show itself to be transparent so the Canadian public can have some degree of confidence that the government is doing what is in the best interests of the Canadian population.

Everything we have seen in the past three months in the House would indicate a number of things, that the government is contemptuous of the Canadian taxpayer, the government has no intention of being transparent and its integrity is in question. The government has to decide whether it is going to continue down the path of withholding and controlling information or whether it is going to offer to the Canadian public information so it can be held to account for how it spends the tax dollars that are provided to it to provide programming for Canadians.

I ask the government members if they intend to uphold the laws of the land or if they feel they are above the laws of the land.

[Supply, April 4th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened with interest to the comments made by the Liberal member. I am a little concerned because I get the impression members such as the member for Mississauga South do not realize the concern that Canadians have.

Canadians have watched over a period of time what they consider to be democracy and accountability in government diminishing. We have seen how a government has taken authority away from this place, the Parliament of Canada, and has placed it in the courts of the land and in the orders in council, the executive branch of government. We have seen how the executive branch of government, which is really a handful of individuals hand picked by the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister himself, is running the country. This motion has brought to our attention the fact that not only is it running the country, making the decisions and ignoring parliament, but it is also refusing to share information which is legally available to Canadians.

I think there was some misinformation about the motion. I am going to read it just so Canadians know exactly what the motion is about:

That an Order of the House do issue for all departmental audit reports to be tabled within 15 days of their completion and permanently referred to the appropriate standing committees, that audit reports since January 1, 1999, be tabled within 15 days after the adoption of this motion, and that all audit reports requested under the Access to Information Act be tabled forthwith.

All the motion is trying to do is to make information that is to be public made public through the committee process.

The hon. member for Mississauga South was quite right. This motion really should not be needed because treasury board has policies under which it is to operate. I will read from a memo from André Robert, the acting director of internal audit division of Treasury Board Secretariat. His memo is quite specific as to what the requirements under ATIP, access to information, are:

With regard to the issue of accessibility under ATIP as raised in the first paragraph of page two of my February 14 memo, I would like to clarify that once such reports are completed, they are public documents. This means that when completed, they should be accessible to the public without requiring a formal request under ATIP.

The memo is very clear. And, Mr. Speaker, I am sharing my time.

Requests for “draft material” of any kind should be dealt with through the normal ATIP process. Your departmental ATIP co-ordinator is familiar with these matters and requests received for draft reports should be referred to your departmental ATIP co-ordinator for appropriate action.

As a final point, I would ask that you please disregard my previous request to fax a copy—

It is very clear from this memo that the policy is in place. The problem and the reason this motion is before the House is that the government is completely ignoring the policy that is on the government books.

That policy is prohibiting Canadians from accessing information they are entitled to. It is their money that is being used. This policy has been in place for a period of time and everybody on the government side is aware of it, yet we have access requests for audits that we know are completed which are 45 days overdue.

[Export Development Corporation, March 31st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, there is a difference between helping Canadian workers and helping a worldwide conglomerate like Bombardier. Only three of Bombardier's 21 transportation manufacturing plants are located in Canada and employ only 16% of its workforce.

Can the government please tell Canadians why is it not only exporting capital out of the country but also is exporting jobs?

[Export Development Corporation, March 31st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister for International Trade keeps justifying the billion dollars plus that EDC loaned to Amtrak by claiming that these loans are creating jobs in Canada. However, Amtrak's press release at the unveiling of the Acela train, claims the trains are manufactured at Bombardier plants in Barre, Vermont, and Plattsburgh, New York, and were tested in Pueblo, Colorado.

Can the minister please explain to Canadians how putting people to work in Vermont, New York and Colorado is benefiting Canadian workers?

[Canada Transportation Act, March 31st, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I find it ironic that the minister is taking all the credit for what happened. I think that the companies involved deserve a lot of the accolades for taking a bad situation and dealing with it to minimize the damage to the travelling public.

I would agree that the legislation is a response to the airline merger wars that we saw last year. The Standing Committee on Transport and the Senate committee dealt with those issues and heard many witnesses who shared with us their concerns and their problems. I would not disagree with the minister that it was a difficult file.

I do not think the preferred outcome that Canadians really wanted was to have one dominant air carrier. I think many Canadians, like myself, would rather have seen two Canadian air carriers providing competition in the marketplace. However, it was quite clear that the reality was that would not happen, that either we would have a bankruptcy, which would put the one dominant carrier in a monopoly position, or we would have a merger. I think Canadians can be somewhat pleased that the outcome was a merger rather than a bankruptcy. At least it is to be hoped that will be the outcome.

Reality is that we now have a company which controls 80% of the domestic market. That is the result of previous government interference and involvement in the airline industry. Previous government regulation is largely responsible for the situation in which Canadian and Air Canada found themselves. Years of poor legislation and regulation put those companies in the very vulnerable position where they were unable to compete in the international market. Given the situation of the industry last fall, some would say that this bill is a reasonable response to that situation. It gives Air Canada a period of time to reorganize after the acquisition of Canadian Airlines and its debt.

Bill C-26 holds Air Canada to the commitments it made to the government and to the competition commissioner in the letter of December 21. Air Canada will be held to its commitments, including the promise to smaller communities to provide air service, at least for a period of three years, and the promise to employees that there will be a controlled reduction of the employee force after a period of two years, and that the reduction will occur through attrition. We hope that this bill will hold it to that commitment. It also agreed to give up slots in some of the major airports and to sell the surplus aircraft to domestic companies.

Bill C-26 makes a lot of these commitments enforceable. That is important. There has to be some way to make sure that those commitments which Air Canada made in its presentations to the government, the standing committee and to Canadians are met. It made commitments to Canadians, the Canadian travelling public and Canadian taxpayers. I think it is important that there be some way of holding it to those commitments, and Bill C-26 tries to do that.

It also tries to make sure that those commitments made by Air Canada are enforceable and that there is some way to make sure the corporate entity responds in kind to those commitments and promises.

Some would say that the $10 million fines and the five year incarcerations are quite heavy. The minister has said that they already exist in the Competition Act. Canadians would feel a lot more comfortable if those fines and levels of incarceration were also to apply to the government when it makes commitments that it fails to follow through on.

The government is trying to hold corporate Canada accountable to commitments it made, and that is a good thing. It would be nice if it would expand that to include itself.

It also is an attempt to have some control over increased air fares. The travelling Canadian public are very concerned that now that we have a dominant carrier, which controls 80% of the air routes, fares will rise to a level that they will no longer be able to afford. The intent of this bill is to put into place, through the Canadian Transportation Agency, the means to make sure that does not happen, that controls and monitoring can be imposed on the company without needing the individual traveller to complain about these sorts of increases in airfares before they can be dealt with.

There are problems with this bill. One of the problems that I foresee, and I am sure others have as well, is that in giving the Canadian Transportation Agency these new powers to do the monitoring there will be a tendency to hire a lot of new staff who will create work to justify their positions. In creating the work to justify their positions, they expand and develop an empire. That is something which the government must ensure does not happen. There must be some control in the development of the bureaucracy that develops the need to monitor beyond the point that they really need to be doing that.

This bureaucratic empire will also create an equal response from the airline industry, and not only Air Canada. It will not only affect Air Canada, but any other small airline that is in a monopoly position. It will create an equal response from the airline. How many people would they have to hire to react to this bureaucratic empire which might be built? There is an onus on the government to make sure that does not happen.

The Canadian Transportation Agency must also determine which are monopoly routes. Many of the monopoly routes flown in this country will not be flown by Air Canada but by smaller airlines like First Air and Bearskin Airlines. They will be brought into this monopoly route situation with the Canadian Transportation Agency overseeing them. I am not saying that should not happen, but we have to make sure that it does not happen to the degree that it overexceeds the need. This would result in the situation where the smaller airlines would either start asking the CTA for advice before they entered a route or before they asked for an increase of the fare, or they would end up having to provide the resources to those small airlines to compete with the demands being placed on them by this bureaucratic agency which had been given this new role.

There have to be controls and there has to be an understanding of what is a monopoly route. We will have to be more careful in that area.

One of the other problems is the inclusion of cargo in the fare increase. Yes, there may be a reason for including cargo, but it has not been made clear. Evidence has not been presented to justify including cargo in the new agency's responsibilities. This measure would concern many of the smaller airlines which service the north. It is not realistic for any airline to be expected to transport cargo below cost. It is going to have to be shown through concrete evidence that there is a requirement to include cargo in the provisions of the CTA.

The other area I have some concern with is the exit provision. I know that with Inter-Canadien there were great problems in the way it was handled. It created a discontinuation of services which caused a lot of problems for the travelling public. However, the exit provisions in the new legislation require a carrier to give four months notice if it intends to withdraw services, not only all of its services, but 50% of the service provided to the community.

It is hard to test a market if the airlines have to be in it for four months. It is expensive for a smaller airline to be committed to four months of service. I wonder if WestJet would have gone into Abbotsford, which was its first major test of the market, if it had had to stay for four months. I am a little concerned that this might eliminate competition in the marketplace because it puts a heavy burden on the airlines.

The minister feels that the 120 days will not do that. I would like to think that the committee would hear from smaller airlines which might be concerned about the exit provision. I will take the minister at his word that he will look at the amendments and the recommendations that come out of the committee hearings to improve the legislation.

The competition commissioner feels that the best way to ensure reasonable airfares is competition. Airlines are extremely expensive. They need a lot of capital to operate, buy equipment and fly that equipment. The 25% limit on foreign ownership is very restrictive. The 25% limit is a regulation that can be changed at any time. There is no commitment from the government in the legislation to consider that in the future.

I would like to think that the government will at least entertain the thought that after a two year period the 25% limitation on foreign ownership will be lifted to 49% to allow more capital to come in to support Canadian carriers in providing the competition that Canada will require.

The competition commissioner has also suggested that there be no limitations on Canadian carriers as to foreign investment. I agree that Air Canada should be given the two years, but at the end of that two year period there has to be a commitment to increase the competition if it has not been created through Canadian carriers. Canadian carriers might be more able to increase that level of competition with Air Canada if it had access to foreign investment and ownership.

Another concern I have is that there is no mention or commitment that the monopoly carrier cannot use its influence to restrict access to airports for other Canadian carriers. Today we see it might be an issue where a Canadian carrier is being restricted to an airport by the airport authority. I do not think that should be allowed. I do not think Canadians want to see an airport authority having that kind of decision making ability and being able to refuse a Canadian carrier access to Canadian airports. I think that should be addressed.

There is another area the bill does not deal with to the extent I feel Canadians would like. The Government of Canada should not be involved in limiting Canadian ownership in Canadian companies. In the Air Canada Public Participation Act the extension from 10% to 15% just does not cut it. It is irrelevant. The whole issue is that the Government of Canada should not have the right to restrict Canadian ownership in a Canadian company. I would suggest that needs to be addressed. It needs to be looked at and removed completely from the books.

We know there have been problems with the acquisition of Canadian Airlines by Air Canada. We are starting to see them happen every day at the airport. I know it is difficult for Air Canada to try to rationalize the service of the two airlines, putting them together and getting rid of the overcapacity. However, the complaints from the travelling public are starting to get very loud.

Flights are being significantly overbooked. Fifteen or twenty people were left standing at the airport when I flew to Ottawa from Vancouver. They had arrived at the airport thinking they had a seat on the aircraft. That is not acceptable and has to stop.

Schedules are being changed with passengers not being informed. Passengers are arriving at airports to find that the connecting flight they were going to take has already left or has been changed or that they have been rebooked on a later flight without being told. Those sorts of things are not acceptable.

I am hoping that they are growing pains, that they are something we are seeing in the short term and will be addressed in the long term. My fear is that the public will only accept a certain level of this kind of treatment. Seeing as how they do not have a viable alternative, there will be a pressure for more regulation. That is not a direction I would like to see the government go.

The answer is not to get back into overregulating the airline industry. The answer is to hold Air Canada accountable for being a good, responsible corporate citizen and for being upfront and honest in the commitments it has made to the travelling public.

The difficulties we are seeing are not just with the travelling public. They are also with the employees. The minister said earlier that one of the conditions was that there would be fair treatment of the employees in this transition period. I think Air Canada made that commitment to the minister. He certainly made that commitment to the Standing Committee on Transport.

There is evidence out there today that some issues have to be resolved. Two unions have come to an agreement and that is good news. Some of the unions are realizing that it is the new reality and they have to come to an agreement. I do not disagree with the company that the unions have to deal with seniority lists, but there are still the issues of seniority lists and of fair treatment of employees.

It is not just seniority lists. An incident happened in Ottawa where the language requirements have come into play. I agree with the minister that part of the legislation is that the airlines comply with the Official Languages Act. The act is quite clear. There are designated bilingual areas and there is a percentage of population that is required in order for the second official language to come into effect. I would like to think that the requirements for the airlines will not be any higher than the Official Languages Act stipulates, that there will not be any additional requirement placed on the airlines that go beyond the Official Languages Act.

The issue that came up in Ottawa was that 60 baggage handlers in the Ottawa airport were given layoff notices apparently because of an inability to speak French. One has to ask where was Air Canada's commitment not to lay off employees for a two year period of time. I would like to think that this will stop after the legislation passes.

What happened to people being able to work in the language of their choice? The argument from the bilingualism proponents is that supervisors need to be bilingual in order to speak to the workers in either language, but that is not the case here. It has to be addressed with Air Canada that it cannot be allowed to continue to allow one employee group to lord over the other ones and to place expectations that should not be placed on them.

In conclusion, the official opposition will allow the bill to go to committee because we think that is where it needs to go. We will give it very close scrutiny in committee to make sure that all players and all stakeholders have an opportunity to look at the legislation, how it will affect them, and to make suggestions on how the legislation can be improved.

The minister said in the House this morning that he would listen to the recommendations from the committee and would consider the proposed amendments. I take him up on that. I take him up on the commitment he made this morning to give consideration to the outcome of the committee.

The official opposition is quite prepared to play the watchdog role with Air Canada to make sure that Air Canada meets its obligation and the commitments it has made to the government, to the opposition and to the Canadian travelling public.

As the dominant air carrier with 80% control of the domestic marketplace Air Canada is close to a monopoly. If it becomes disrespectful of the travelling public because of its position, the official opposition will substantially increase its efforts to increase the foreign ownership component in the Canadian airline industry to provide real competition. We are prepared to give Air Canada two years to make the adjustments to make the merger work, but not if it continually abuses the travelling public. I support the government in sending the bill to committee for further study.

[The Budget, March 29th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, in response to the member for Ottawa Centre, I am not an expert in health care nor do I profess to be, and I am not an expert on a bill coming out of the province of Alberta. However, I will tell the hon. member that the system we have had for 30 years is not working.

The member is fooling himself and the Canadian public if he maintains that there is not already a multi-tier health care system. Anybody who has the financial wherewithal goes south to the United States for treatment. In my riding which borders the United States, when people are told they are going to have to wait 8, 12 or 18 months for treatment, they go to the United States to get that treatment within days or weeks, if they can afford it.

There is already a multi-tier health care system. The government deludes itself when it thinks and tells Canadians that that does not exist and that every Canadian has the same access to good quality health care in this country. It is deluding itself if it thinks that. The health care system that has been in place for 30 years does not work. It has been proven that it does not work.

The government would be well advised to open its eyes and its brain and look at alternatives of how we can make our health care system really work. The one it is supporting does not work. As the leadership in this country it should be trying to find a system that does work. All Canadians deserve access to the care that they need regardless of where they live or how much money they have. They do not have that in today's health care system.

The government should not be asking me whether or not I support it. Canadians are asking the government what it has to offer that will ensure they have access to health care when they need it. They do not want to wait two years or 18 months or 15 months for that care. They are looking for leadership and they are not getting it from the federal government.

[The Budget, March 29th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the budget debate today. This the Liberal government's seventh budget and it is pretty much more of the same. The first mandate was high taxes and cuts to government spending. The second mandate is high taxes and increased government spending.

The Liberals are trying to give the impression that they are making massive tax cuts for Canadians. They are claiming that they are cutting taxes by $58.4 billion. That is an illusion. If we take a closer look, and they can argue the finer points, the $7.5 billion are for the child tax credit. That is a social program, the same as OAS and CPP. It is not a tax cut; it is a social program. Government members should be upfront and honest and say so.

Some $13.5 billion of this supposed tax cut is a reindexation of tax brackets. That is not a tax cut; that is just the government promising Canadians it will not be robbing them in the upcoming tax years, that it will forgo taking more tax money from them rather than giving them real tax relief.

The $58.4 billion tax cut is also offset by the $29.5 billion increase in CPP premiums. The taxpayer is actually only going to see a $7.9 billion tax cut and that is over five years. That equates to about $2.07 additional money per week for the taxpayer. If that is what the Liberals think is a tax cut, it certainly is not shared by the ordinary Canadian.

The Liberals have told Canadians that their priorities are going to be that 50% of the surplus will go to new social programs and the other 50% will be divided between tax cuts and debt reduction. I asked my constituents if they agreed with the government's proposals of splitting the money this way. Over 2,100 people responded and 73% said that they did not agree with the Liberal proposal of splitting the money 50% for new social programming and 50% between tax reduction and debt relief.

One of the individuals who said no to the Liberals' plan was a Mr. Paul Martin of Blackwood Street in White Rock. It is unfortunate that his namesake does not share his concerns that this is not the way to use the taxpayers' money.

The Liberals are very proud of the $2.5 billion in new health care spending. This afternoon in question period we heard just how proud they are of this $2.5 billion in new health care spending. If we look at it more closely, that is divided over four years which means there is only $500 million per year in new spending for health care. I do not need to remind the House that health care has been shown to be the number one concern of the Canadian people. It is the number one concern.

This $500 million a year means only an additional $81 million per year for British Columbia. That is 1% of the B.C. health care budget. That is what the federal government is adding in new money to the crisis in our health care system. This is what the government's response is to the highest priority of the Canadian people. It works out to an additional $20 per British Columbian.

It is interesting that the government in ignoring the priority of the Canadian people decided to give an additional $226 million to human resources development. This is the department that has shown over the last number of years to have completely mismanaged the Canadian taxpayers' contributions. Audit after audit after audit is showing that department has not handled and controlled taxpayers' money as it should have. And what does the government do? It gives more money to the department that the auditor general is saying has exceptional problems in controlling spending.

I ask members on that side why the government is putting more money into the black hole of HRDC than it is putting into health care. Is it that building a fountain in the Prime Minister's riding is more important than adding hospital beds across the country? I would like to believe that the government has at least heard the concerns of the Canadian people.

One of the other priorities outside of health care is that of transportation. This is one area in which the government should be increasing funding and looking at as a priority. It is an area that is completely disintegrating. The transportation infrastructure in this country is falling apart. We are consistently getting further and further behind and the government is doing absolutely nothing.

Last year the government collected $4.5 billion in fuel taxes and spent only $150 million on highways. The budget this year has put in only $150 million for highways. That works out to about 150 kilometres of road improvement over the next four years. Three years ago the transport committee reviewed the highway infrastructure of this country and reported that it would take $18 billion to bring our national highway up to a safe standard. The government is providing less than 1% of the required funds.

It is quite conceivable that the prairie provinces will have to turn paved roads back into gravel roads because they cannot afford to maintain them. Urban areas and border areas are going to recognize and have to deal with complete gridlock in their transportation systems.

Transportation systems are instrumental in helping our economy with its trade obligations and its trade patterns. Trade is a key contributor to Canada's economic well-being and transportation systems are essential in moving our goods in order to create this wealth. It is the creation of wealth through our economy that allows us to sustain the social safety nets we have in this country. It is imperative that the government recognize the need to improve our transportation systems to ensure that the economic growth can be sustained and will support the economic growth of the future.

I would suggest that it is time for the government to show leadership. It should show leadership by creating a safe, seamless and integrated transportation network, not just nationally but internationally and continentally.

It is only by the federal government showing leadership and working with the other partners, the provincial governments, the municipal governments and the private sector, that we will be able to enhance our transportation system and ensure that there is no gridlock, that the trade can move, that the wealth is created so we can continue to afford the support for health care and education that our citizens are demanding.

I would hope that the government would listen, would readjust its priorities and would consider that perhaps spending more money in HRDC is not what the Canadian taxpayers want. They want their money to go into priorities like health care, education and improved transportation systems.

[Human Resources Development, March 29th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe that the minister would actually make those statements in the House.

It is very interesting that the minister refuses to release the more recent audit through access to information. Eighteen months ago the minister knew, from the audit in human resources, that it warned of a loss of ethics and control which would lead to serious problems.

How can Canadians believe that the minister will make any changes when she did not make the changes that were recommended 18 months ago?