Bill Casey

[Petitions, December 5th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to present a petition today. Pursuant to Standing Order 36, it has been duly certified and approved as correct. I am proud but it is very unfortunate that I have to present this petition. It involves a person who lost his life as a result of the use of a firearm.

In October 1996 a man pleaded guilty to taking the life of his neighbour with a sawed off 303 rifle. This man then hid the body and held the victim's mother at gunpoint. Contrary to the federal law which states that anyone using a firearm who is convicted of criminal negligence causing death will face a mandatory four year jail term, this person was sentenced to only two years.

Therefore the petitioners humbly pray, and so do I, that Parliament take action to intervene in cases across the country that fail to uphold the spirit and the letter of the law.

[Privilege, December 5th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, this is not a trivial issue. This is a very serious issue, especially for those of us who sit here. The member in question put in writing: “I do consider violence appropriate sometimes”. He put that in writing to a women's organization and he even recommended that perhaps we should consider—

[National Defence, December 5th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence.

As a member of the government in 1993 that did have the moral courage to order helicopters, only to see the Liberal government default on that order, I was really gratified today by the editorial in the Globe and Mail entitled “Here comes a chopper to chop off your head”. It goes on to say that this government does not have the moral courage to order helicopters. It says that the EH-101 is undoubtedly the best helicopter but because it is politically undesirable, the government will not order it.

Will the minister prove the Globe and Mail wrong today, prove that the government does have the moral courage to buy helicopters and announce today to Canadians that it is going to order new helicopters before more Sea Kings crash?

[Transport, December 4th, 1997]

A lot of help is right.

I have in my hand the strategic highway improvement program agreement which manages $55 million of taxpayers' money and it states that it will be managed by two members, one member to be appointed by the federal minister and one by the provincial minister, and all decisions must be unanimous.

However, when I ask the minister a question about the 104 highway toll fiasco in Nova Scotia, which is already the most frequently closed highway in Canada, he says it is a provincial problem.

Can the minister please explain why the agreement in my hand states that it is the federal government?

[Transport, December 4th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I need a little help from the Minister of Transport today.

[Agriculture, December 4th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I met with the minister of agriculture regarding assistance for Nova Scotia farmers who have been severely impacted by the extended drought. Feed costs have risen dramatically while production has been substantially reduced, threatening their livelihood.

The minister committed to work with companion programs already in place which may make funds available to the Nova Scotia agricultural industry in this emergency. Funds already committed to other programs might be shifted to provide assistance needed, while not requiring any new money.

The minister has committed to negotiate with the province of Nova Scotia in an effort to reach a federal-provincial agreement to make this assistance available as soon as possible.

I thank the minister for his attention to this problem and look forward to the much needed assistance for Nova Scotia farmers.

[Canada Marine Act, December 3rd, 1997]

Madam Speaker, I rise on the last group of motions. I am little troubled. Perhaps I misunderstood. At committee several of us proposed amendments on the superannuation transfer between the harbour commissions to private corporations or to harbour authorities, that the superannuation benefits would be extended to all those employees of harbour commissions and ports that had them, that they would be supplied even on a temporary basis until such time as appropriate alternatives could be found.

Several members made amendments which would perform that and I thought we had been assured by the parliamentary secretary that they would be submitting an amendment that would address that need to make sure all employees had some continuation of superannuation benefits.

According to this, it applies only to Canada Port Authority employees, Motion No. 19.

Motion No. 18 is the same kind of motion, addressing the same issue. We prefer Motion No. 19. However, we understood that it would apply to all employees, not just to Canada Port Authority employees. I may have misunderstood that in committee but we did vote based on the assurances of the parliamentary secretary that there would be an alternative to the superannuation amendments that several of us put in.

Motion No. 20 is nice and simple and we agree that all fines recovered under this part should be paid over to the receiver general and form part of the consolidated revenue fund.

[Canada Marine Act, December 3rd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment on Group No. 3.

I add my support to the hon. member for Charlotte. I am not as familiar with the issue as he is but I have to ask myself a question. If a company has a good and viable project that makes sense to the community and everybody involved, why does it have to hire a former provincial minister of economic development to support it? Why does it have to hire a former member of Parliament to support it? Even more so, is it right to hire a former minister of transport who actually drafted and developed the legislation? Why does it have to hire that team? As a fellow said to me the other day, it does not pass the smell test right off the bat.

Motion No. 5 seems to be a reasonable request. In part it reads:

—A port authority shall establish a code of conduct and system of practices—

This only makes sense. It is in line with all organizations that establish standards. Even the ISO 9000 sets up a system of practices and standards and a code of conduct, which is only appropriate. We agree. It is more accountable and we support it.

Motion No. 6 updates clause 41 to include subsections 38(1) and (1.1). It only makes sense. It goes along with clause 41 and we support it.

Motion No. 7 states in part:

—An examiner shall be a person appointed by the Minister from suitable persons in the office of the Auditor General—

This again makes sense to us. It assures credibility. It ensures the examination will be done properly. It removes the potential of political influence from the position. We agree the examiner should be appointed by the minister from suitable persons in the office of the Auditor General of Canada or the Department of Justice.

We are against Motion No. 8. It seems to make the system far more cumbersome and difficult to handle. It makes it less efficient and contradicts the whole purpose of streamlining the act.

We are against Motion No. 9. It eliminates the auditor as far as we can tell. It does not make sense to us to eliminate the auditor function. We think it is appropriate to leave the auditor in place.

Basically that is our position on those motions. Now I will move to Motion No. 13 and onward.

Motion No. 13 states in part:

—A not-for-profit corporation shall, in respect of its operation of the Seaway establish a code of conduct and system of practices—

That is exactly the same theory and purpose as the former amendment with regard to a code of conduct and a system of practices. We agree with Motion No. 13. It is very reasonable and we support it.

Motion No. 14 is linked to Motion No. 13. If we support Motion No. 13 we pretty much have to support Motion No. 14.

Motion No. 15 states in part:

—An examiner shall be a person appointed by the Minister from suitable persons—

That is much the same. It is a good position. It is appropriate. We will be supporting it.

Motion No. 16 states in part:

“shall be referred to the Canadian Transportation Agency and the Agency shall make a final determination with respect to it and shall report its determination to the Standing Committee—

We say no to this motion. It is very cumbersome. It is far less efficient. Again it contradicts the purpose of the bill, which is to commercialize the exercise, make it more efficient and put the decisions into the hands of the users. We are against Motion No. 16.

Motion No. 17 would delete clause 89. We are against this motion. Clause 89 allows the minister to change the auditors if he feels it appropriate, and we support that. We think that clause should remain so we will be voting no to this amendment.

[Canada Marine Act, December 3rd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly a pleasure to speak on this bill today.

I have but one little problem with it and that is that I was not here in the last Parliament. My constituents decided to give me a little vacation and while I was home for three and a half years, the transport committee of the House of Commons researched this particular bill for approximately a year and a half.

In our case, it was really thrown at us and we did not have a lot of chance to review it. We were denied the opportunity to hear witnesses other than the minister and his officials. Therefore, I feel that the committee and Parliament were let down quite a bit. However, we are going to address these motions in Group No. 1 today.

As much as we understand the thought and the purpose behind this motion, we are going to vote against Motion No. 1. In some ways we feel that it makes sense, but on the other hand it would allow an unlimited number of directors to be appointed to the CPA boards. We think that would be a mistake. It already has a large number of members and many of the ports have asked for smaller boards, not bigger boards. With this amendment to the bill, it would allow for a much larger board.

We are also going to vote against Motion No. 2 because we feel that it will prevent port authorities from expanding, using their own resources. It will deny them the ability to grow if a port authority is successful and is able to grow. There have been some very exciting examples of this lately. However, this motion would deny them the right to continue to grow. It reduces flexibility and creates an impedance against growth for successful port authorities.

It basically says: “The minister may fix the limits of a port that is to be managed by the port authority”. That really would restrict imaginative, successful, viable port authorities.

It was interesting to hear that the airport authority in Vancouver recently get a contract to build and manage an airport in another country on another continent.

Motion No. 3, from the member for Beauport—Montmorency—Orléans, I am pleased to say we are going to vote yes on this one. We feel that this is a much better idea than the original one. It creates flexibility and removes politics from the board. The way it is established now there is opportunity for patronization and politics to be involved. This removes some of that and we support it. It is much more efficient and certainly is in line with the streamlining objective of the whole bill, to make it efficient and put control in the hands of the users and the people in the ports. This amendment goes a long way toward that.

Motion No. 12. I am going to vote against this motion. Again it changes the situation quite a bit concerning the property and the limits “matters and zoning by-laws that apply to neighbouring lands”.

We feel this is far too vague in that local and neighbouring municipalities could change bylaws and therefore affect what goes on in the port authorities. The port authority may establish a certain fashion of operation based on the bylaws that are in place now in the neighbouring municipality or jurisdiction and then all of a sudden, if that jurisdiction were to change its bylaws, it could cause the port authority to have to make substantial and profound changes in the way it operates.

We feel that this amendment is too vague. It gives too much control to the neighbouring jurisdictions. We do not support this motion.

[Airport Safety, December 3rd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I have a problem with that. I understand that at this moment Vancouver has 27 air traffic controllers available. NavCan set the minimum standard at 36 air traffic controllers. This is extremely dangerous. This is a 25% shortfall. It means that a lot of air traffic controllers have to work overtime up to 10 times a month.

Again, will the minister instruct NavCan to simply accept its own minimum standards for air traffic controllers? Will he tell NavCan to hire air traffic controllers to bring staffing up to its own minimum staffing standards?