Bill Casey

[House Of Commons, March 16th, 2000]

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am asking for unanimous consent that this motion be withdrawn.

[House Of Commons, March 16th, 2000]

We are entitled to two votes. The government House leader is especially culpable in this. The House leader has a special duty to parliament. He is an officer of the House and he has a special duty to ensure the rules are followed. He has a special duty to not follow the rules or instructions of the PMO and to protect the procedures and the operations of the House. Otherwise the House will pay and that is what we are doing here today. Because the rules were abused and because there was a temptation to take shortcuts and restrict the process, we are paying the price today. Mr. Speaker, you are paying the price today because you have to sit and listen to this.

During the short time in dealing with Bill C-20 we have seen members led down a path where their rights have been curtailed, the rights of Canadians to be heard in committee have been trampled and important relationships which make this place work have been thrown in the trash barrel, all in the interest of getting the bill passed in time for the Liberal convention. I truly believe that the Bloc moved this motion in an emotional moment, in a cloud of uncertainty while we were dealing with an issue that is so important to them. I do not believe this would have happened with any bill or issue other than Bill C-20.

Mr. Speaker, we as a party will not support the motion to have you lose your job, not even for a moment. The previous speaker for the Bloc indicated that it was not a reflection against you, Mr. Speaker. I think it is quite pertinent to have said that.

Considering the emotion and all the clouds surrounding this whole issue, the rush to judgment and time allocation and restrictions, the emotion felt by the Bloc members which I cannot underestimate or understate, I would ask you, Mr. Speaker, to ask the Bloc members if they would now withdraw the motion. They have indicated that it is not against you; it is against the administration practices used in one serious instance. Rather than go through a vote, I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to ask the Bloc members if they would withdraw the motion.

[House Of Commons, March 16th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I will be using the full time. Sometimes in the House one is not really anxious to speak on issues and sometimes one is, and this is one time that I feel very privileged to have the opportunity to speak.

When I walked in this morning it was interesting to look around and think how strange a world we work in and how strange the situation is. We are actually here debating whether or not you should keep your job, Mr. Speaker. That is a very strange issue to be discussing. It would not happen in any other walk of life.

Can we imagine the Royal Bank discussing in public whether or not employees or management personnel should keep their jobs? While you sit there, Mr. Speaker, we are discussing whether or not you should keep your job, not only in front of 301 members but in front of millions of people who are watching this debate. Before I go any further, I want to say that we in the Conservative Party feel you should keep your job and we will be voting that way in the end.

The Canadian public should understand what a different world we work in. Just in the last two days we have certainly seen circumstances to prove how different our world is from the normal world of the working person, the employee in the private sector.

If members of a company discussed in public whether or not a person should be kept in their position of employment, they would probably be charged with infringement of the rights of privacy of an individual or could be charged with constructive dismissal. You could charge us with constructive dismissal if we were in the private sector. This is how much of a strange environment we work in.

Your job is certainly not easy. Every time you make a decision you automatically make some people disappointed. Every decision you make makes some people disappointed. Sometimes we are disappointed in your decisions. Sometimes we are elated if you support our position, but every time you make a decision you will disappoint someone. We should all understand that you can never make everybody happy in your job. It is a very difficult job.

In 1988, when I was first elected, I remember we were on the government side and we had an awful lot to say in the selection of the Speaker at that time. The Speaker was one of our members. Even although the Speaker was one of the members on the government side, I am sure we were just as disappointed in his rulings as many times as the opposition was, but perhaps the opposition did not realize that at the time. I just want to point out that yours is a difficult job and we understand that you cannot please everybody all the time.

I also think we should understand that this whole issue arose in a very emotional situation. I do not agree with the Bloc's position and their main purpose of being here, which is to separate from Canada. I do not agree with that, but I definitely agree with their right to be here to state their position.

I also want to point out that last night after we were through we went back into the lobby. I just happened to be on the phone in the phone booth in the lobby and I watched the Bloc members and how they handled the disappointment of the decision we made on Bill C-20.

I have never seen a group of people so emotionally disappointed. They showed their emotion with tears, hugs, holding hands and everything. I respect that, I really do, but it struck me how emotional it has been for them. This is very important to the Bloc members. I admire them for their passion. I admire them for their ability to plead their case as strongly as they do. I admire them for the position they take, even though I do not agree with it. I truly do.

When we pass a tax bill, a Canada pension bill or a veterans bill, we do not see members going back in the lobby and hugging each other and showing tears of emotion one way or the other. When we talk about helicopters or even HRDC, that does not happen. That is what happened here. This is a very emotional debate and this non-confidence motion is tied up in the whole cloud of the emotion of the debate.

I say to Bloc members that I was truly moved last night, to the bottom of my heart, by how much it affected them, and how much I admire what they do and how they do it. I do not agree with them but I admire how they do it.

We are dealing with a real serious issue. It is a very serious charge. Although we deal with debate every day in the House of Commons, we do not often deal with this. This is the first time I have ever had to deal with it. We are actually discussing the removal of the Speaker from his position.

You are our leader. You are our umpire. You are the one who makes sure that everybody is dealt with fairly and that everybody has his or her share of time in the House, an opportunity to speak. No matter whether or not you agree with it you always ensure, as it is your job to ensure, that we have our say and are treated fairly. From where we sit it appears that you do that.

We are now being asked to consider removing you from your job. We do not agree with that. On one hand we do not agree necessarily with your decision on this issue, but it is your job to make decisions and it is our job to respect those decisions. We totally support your tenure in the chair as our Speaker and will not be supporting the motion that would have you lose your job.

I go back to some of the issues like the emotion I was talking about. Many things have brought us to this point today. This is not just about something that happened in the administrative office of the Speaker. It is all involved with the emotion in terms of Bill C-20. It is involved in the tactics the government is taking, the tactics it has used throughout this parliament to try to restrict debate, limit our ability to move amendments and thwart us in our job. This is part of our frustration, aside from the emotions.

The situation was exacerbated because of the nature of the bill. If this decision had been made about the helicopter issue or another issues it probably would have never come to this censure motion. I hope, Mr. Speaker, you understand that is part of this whole thing.

Also, it is a reaction by all of us on the opposition side to the abuse that the government has made of the rules to try to expedite debate, to take shortcuts and to restrict us from doing our job.

It is interesting that I just came across some notes from when we were in government. Some Liberal members took offence when we invoked time allocation. When the minister of Indian affairs was in opposition he said that parliamentarians who represent the people should not be so quick to ram agreements through the House. That is exactly what the government is doing now. The minister of public works said:

We could have debated it in order to afford all members an opportunity to receive criticisms and comments from their constituents, to urge the public to understand what we are talking about, to understand all about this...bill that we are trying to push through as fast as we can during the night.

That is what the Liberals said about the Conservatives when the Conservatives were in power, and now they have invoked time allocation a record 63 times to do exactly what they were so much against when they were in opposition.

The government has tried to distort the rules and abuse the rules, especially in the case of Bill C-20 which has been so emotional. It stopped debate at second reading. It limited the powers of the committees. It refused to travel to hear people all over Canada even though every Canadian will be affected by this maybe some day. It attempted to restrict the power of the MPs to present amendments.

This bill is extremely emotional and extremely important to Bloc members. They felt thwarted in their job. They felt frustrated, as we all do, but for them it was exacerbated because of the importance of the bill. That should have been taken into consideration throughout the debate.

The first issue is the ruling from the Speaker concerning confidentiality from the law office of the House that we are dealing with today. We disagree with the decision from the Chair. The notion of all House employees being part of the team equally under the blanket of secrecy and therefore privy to everything is not the same as a solicitor-client relationship.

We have to have confidential meetings with House officials. We have to be able to deal with them on a confidential basis. We have to expect that our discussions with them in drafting bills and amendments and everything else is confidential and not to be shared with anyone else in the office, any other party and especially the public.

We support the Bloc in its point but we feel it is an administrative issue and certainly not a reflection of the Speaker who presides in the chair. It is a problem that we would want addressed. We would certainly want to be assured that confidentiality is a priority in the House. We expect confidentiality to be just that and nothing less.

I often wonder if this had been government information whether it would have been shared or presented in the same way. I suspect it would not have been, but I hope that is not the case. In the instances which were brought to the House by the Bloc House leader we believe the secret information was shared too broadly in an attempt to provide services under trying conditions. I emphasize trying conditions. We view this as extremely serious when confidential information is shared. We go to the legal advisers and we treat them as solicitors. We need confidentiality, especially in the adversarial relationship we have in the House.

Members in this caucus have received written assurances from the House lawyers that consultations on these matters will be kept confidential. We certainly hope the Speaker will take steps to ensure that those assurances are followed through, but there is a cloud over these professional consultations now because of this situation. It is a clear impediment to the way we do our work. Nonetheless the Speaker's finding on this issue was in support of what happened and we tend to disagree with that decision. However, again, it is the Speaker's right to make that decision.

As a party and as a caucus we will work to change the system. We will use the powers we have within the administrative structure to pursue that end. After all, we create the rules. These are our rules. They are not the Speaker's rules. If the rules need to be changed or enforced in a different fashion, it is our responsibility to see that is done, as well as the Speaker's. The tools are there to do this and we will use them. We do not need to have the Speaker step down in this case, not even close to that.

The remedy is there in committees and the Board of Internal Economy. Although we disagree with the ruling we accept it. We do not find it sufficient reason to remove or even censure the Speaker. We oppose this motion. Nothing happened here that could even come close to causing the Speaker to lose his job.

As I said earlier, we do not always get the decisions we want from the Chair. We do not always like the decisions but we accept them. We know that is the Speaker's job and we know that he cannot always rule in our favour even though we are almost always right.

I was elected in 1988 and the Speaker at that time made decisions that we found disagreeable or even offensive sometimes to us even though we elected the Speaker. We accepted them in the same way we accept the Speaker's decisions now. We know the Speaker does not write the rules. He does not invent the administrative practices, but it is the Speaker's job to ensure that they are administered in the proper way.

I wrote this speech prior to the passage of Bill C-20, which changes many things I was going to say, but it does not stop me from saying that during the great debate on Bill C-20, and it was truly an experience to be involved with that debate, the government refused to let the committee seek opinions of Canadians in Quebec, in Nova Scotia and in British Columbia.

We were driven by an agenda to meet the Liberal convention that started last night, today, tomorrow or some time. The whole agenda was driven to get this done and passed before the Liberals had their convention. To do that they had to run over some of us. They had to run over some members of the Bloc. They had to run over some rules in the House. I believe that was a driving factor and it should not have happened considering how important it is, especially to the Bloc members.

[Research And Development, March 15th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry.

When the department developed the research chair program to provide research money for universities across the country, it left out a small group of universities that do great work, like Nova Scotia Agricultural College and many, many more.

We have raised this question in the House several times before. I would like to know if the minister has adjusted the plan now to include universities like Nova Scotia Agricultural College.

[Westray Mine, March 13th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, it is certainly a pleasure for me to talk about this issue which stems from an awful disaster that happened in 1992 in Nova Scotia not too far from my riding. I remember it well. I was the member of parliament for Cumberland—Colchester at the time. I represent an area that has a large number of coal mines and we have seen our share of coal mine disasters in Springhill, River Hebert, Joggins and all those places that thrived on coal in the early years. This motion is very dear to my heart.

The father of the hon. member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough who initiated this motion was the member of parliament for that area. I remember going to the scene of the disaster and the Hon. Elmer MacKay was there virtually 24 hours a day until it was determined that there was no more hope for the 26 miners lost. He worked with the people hand in hand and was always present to help them.

I want to congratulate my colleague from Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough for working so hard to ensure that workplace safety is a top priority of the Government of Canada as well as the business community.

We will be voting on this motion. It will be interesting to see which members are in favour of amending the criminal code to protect workers in Canada from coast to coast. I am confident this motion will gain the support of the entire House or at least one would certainly hope so considering the ramifications.

This morning on the airplane coming to Ottawa I happened to open the Globe and Mail and there was a story that reminded me of the Westray incident. The article stated: “Ashen-faced relatives stood in silence watching rescuers coated in coal dust drag up the bodies of the people killed in the Ukrainian mine disaster”. That just happened hours ago and it sounds exactly like what happened in Westray. The draegermen were bringing up the bodies. It was such a sad thing and to think it could have been avoided.

I would like to take a moment this morning to read the motion. It is important that we remember what we are talking about. I will read the motion into the record so that everybody is clear about what we are dealing with. Motion No. 79 states:

That, in the opinion of this House, the Criminal Code or other appropriate federal statutes should be amended in accordance with Recommendation 73 of the Province of Nova Scotia's Public Inquiry into the Westray disaster, specifically with the goal of ensuring that corporate executives and directors are held properly accountable for workplace safety.

What could make more sense than that? The awful thing is that the study to which the hon. member refers was started in 1992 and was just tabled in 1997. His motion stems from that study.

The need for a rational standard of business behaviour goes without saying. However it is every bit as important that once the laws are established, provisions are created to ensure that bureaucrats do not tokenize the enforcement of those laws. There can be no double standards.

Enforcement administrators often give way to political influences that persuade them that enforcement of workplace legislation will sacrifice jobs and scare away industry. Enforcement apathy is often rationalized by the political suggestion that by giving a company the right amount of time the problem will be fixed. This is often proven blatantly untrue.

Those people who have been persuaded that jobs and votes are higher priorities than life enter into a clear conflict of interest and it must stop. Many well-intentioned business executives agree with this motion because it provides safety legislation in the workplace. However there are still some who do not. Sadly the benefits of their behaviours accrue only to those executives and those people involved, while the workers, their families and ultimately the Canadian taxpayer pay for their gain. In fact current tax credit laws favour non-compliant employers.

Collectively workers represent the wealthiest group of people and consumers in the country. It is from these workers that taxes are collected which in turn fund the infrastructure which stimulates an environment that creates additional wealth, so long as the workers and employees remain healthy.

When injured, taxpayers often pay the financial costs of rehabilitation, death benefits, retraining and lost productivity that exceeds $16 billion annually. Every day through their efforts Canadian workers earn the right to be protected with enforceable legislation.

As an investment it is good business and cost justified to protect Canadian employees. A small number of executives still escape liability because their lawyers show them how to hide behind jurisdictional boundaries. Even if convicted of violating the occupational health and safety statutes, existing provincial penalties are minimal compared to the rewards generated by their violation. This motion would require total accountability of executives with no loopholes.

Unfortunately we have seen many examples of occupational safety in the workplace taking second spot behind the bottom line, especially in the mining industry where the very nature of the work involves a great deal of risk. It is the duty of company officers to ensure the work is done in the safest possible conditions.

I again refer to the newspaper article about the Ukrainian explosion which so mirrors the Westray explosion. The article said “a preliminary investigation suggested that Saturday's accident was a methane explosion caused by a violation of safety standards”. That is exactly what happened at Westray.

Ukraine's energy minister also said that safety violations were likely at fault. The miners usually blame accidents on the unwillingness of officials to spend money on maintaining or upgrading safety equipment. History certainly has repeated itself there.

Often corporate executives sometimes seem less interested in the merits of workplace safety in pursuit of the bottom line. This is a very dangerous scenario. We must be mindful of it and do everything we can to prevent it.

In the case of the Westray tragedy, labour safety standards, in particular minimal safety standards, were not adhered to to the extent they should have been, much like we have read about regarding the Ukrainian explosion.

Looking at this issue in the larger context, there must also be recognition of the role of government to ensure proper standards are met, not only set but met. It stands to reason that when weighing business goals versus those of safety, sometimes businesses find themselves pulled in many ways. They have to meet production deadlines, outperform competitors, increase bottom lines, et cetera. That is where the human element and the safety issue must be exercised.

Far too often businesses and indeed heads of corporations are obsessed with financial gain leaving the safety of their workers neglected. That type of short term gain often results in long term pain, as was the case at Westray.

One thing that really struck me was the name of the study. The report that was done on the Westray mine disaster was entitled “A Predictable Path to Disaster”. That is a sad commentary on safety in the mining industry and the executives involved in that industry. A predictable path; they could have predicted that the disaster was going to happen, yet it still did.

Safety regulations, management and government all failed in their duties to those miners. Tough economic times which exist in the country put further pressure on workers. That is why this is so timely. The economic impact of having to shut down a corporation affects everyone in that company. The employees, management, board of directors and anyone associated with that business are going to feel a negative impact if there has to be an operational shutdown as a result of a potential breach of safety.

That is the cost of doing business and we have to do everything to ensure that those safety practices are followed. In the case of Westray they were almost trivial things which were overlooked: sensors shut down, alarms disconnected, comments from the miners disregarded, and things like that.

Companies must ensure the avoidance of hazardous or illegal practices such as those which cannot be condoned in any capacity. If companies have not already done so, they should do everything within their power to implement safe and ethical work practices. Ethics such as these should be studied and followed everywhere in places of employment, especially in upper management. If this is not the case, action must be taken to demonstrate the importance and seriousness of the issue. Business executives must promote and nurture safe work ethics and have an open and approachable attitude toward all employees.

As Nova Scotia experienced with the Westray disaster, senior bureaucrats within the provincial workplace and enforcement agencies became compromised by regional politics and vested interests. This practice is suspected to be occurring in other provinces even today, almost eight years after that explosion.

I want to wind up my comments by saying that I hope the whole House will look at this bill for what it is. It is a motion to protect workers in a very unsafe situation. It addresses a terrible safety record. It is time now that we in the House pull together and do something to address those issues.

[Petitions, March 1st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today to present a petition signed by 130 citizens of Truro, Nova Scotia. It is sponsored by the United Church of Canada, the St. Andrews United Church in Truro and Maggie's Place, also located in Truro.

They call on the government to address the issue of child poverty and, in particular, they have several issues they want to make the House aware of. One is the fact that one in five children now lives in poverty in Canada. They also want to remind the House that in 1989 the House of Commons unanimously resolved to end child poverty in Canada by the year 2000, but since then child poverty has actually increased by more than 60%.

The petitioners call on parliament to use the federal budget of 2000 to introduce a multi-year plan to improve the well-being of Canada's children. They urge parliament to fulfil the promise of 1989 in the House of Commons resolution to end child poverty by the year 2000.

[Trans-Canada Highway, March 1st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, today Premier Bernard Lord of New Brunswick announced that tolls are to be removed from the New Brunswick section of the Trans-Canada Highway, just as he promised months ago. The previous Liberal government created this toll highway and established legislation forcing all trucks from Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland through the tolls, effectively transferring money from all the other provinces into New Brunswick.

Although it is a New Brunswick toll highway, the tolls affected all of the Atlantic provinces, and I would personally like to compliment the member for St. John's East for his tireless efforts to seek fair treatment for the citizens of Newfoundland and its industries. As well, the member for Beauséjour—Petitcodiac was very much involved with this lengthy debate.

This now puts the focus on the only section of the Trans-Canada Highway in Canada that has a toll charge left, and that is the section through Nova Scotia. Again, a former Liberal government established this toll highway and it is now left to others to find a way to eliminate the last Trans-Canada toll highway.

[The Budget, February 29th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, my question is a supplementary to the question asked of the Minister of Transport. I direct my question to the very distinguished Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport.

Last summer the Minister of Transport announced that there was a crisis in the aviation industry. Not many people knew that, but he announced there was a crisis and therefore, by his very announcement, it was determined that there was a crisis. We went through a whole lot of turmoil, debate and negotiation.

As a result of the announcement that there was a crisis in the industry, the transport committee held endless meetings almost around the clock hearing from people in all facets of the aviation industry: air traffic controllers, pilots, the airlines companies and ticket agents.

At that time we were told that there was no crisis in the industry, that there was a crisis in a company in the industry. It completely proved that the department and the minister were wrong in their interpretation of the situation. As we know, it went on and on.

In any case, we ended up by adopting the dominant carrier structure that we have now, with Air Canada having virtually 80% to 85% of the entire industry totally under its control.

The minister recently tabled legislation that would help control the situation and provide protection for different parties in the aviation industry both from the consumer's point of view and from the industry's point of view.

I would like the parliamentary secretary to provide us with the position of the government on ownership restrictions as far as foreign ownership goes, restrictions as far as maximum ownership by any one single party.

What protections are there for the regional airports? All the airports in Atlantic Canada are really suffering now because of the reduction in flights, reduction in revenues from landing fees and terminal fees. What protection is there for those airports?

What protection is there for consumers who are already feeling the bite of the added burden on Air Canada? Flights have been discontinued and cancelled. It has created chaos in the airports.

What protection is there for employees that are affected by this? What protection is there to guarantee that there will be competition against the dominant carrier in this one line dominant carrier structure?

Would the parliamentary secretary please enlighten us as to the position on those items?

[Gasoline Pricing, February 22nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the government has increased fuel taxes by in excess of $900 million a year over the last five years. That government has done it, and I am asking it to reduce the increase a little so the trucking industry can survive, so that people can pay their wages and pay for their groceries.

[Gasoline Pricing, February 22nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, there is no fuel like an old fuel, but anyway I want to point out that the minister is trying to go back a decade. He is responsible. That party is responsible today. In the last five years—