Bill Casey

[National Highway Policy, December 17th, 1999]

Yes. The report of the New Brunswick auditor general, Daryl Wilson, yesterday leaves little doubt that the former Liberal government painted itself into a corner with the Moncton to Fredericton and Moncton to Saint John toll highway deal by failing to explore several alternative options. Again, when there are no federal funding programs, no national standards and no set of rules to follow, the provinces will get creative.

We have two inappropriate deals in Atlantic Canada, one in Nova Scotia and one in New Brunswick. Again I say, this is not only me finding fault, it is all three auditor generals. There are no more auditor generals to find fault with it. Everyone of them have found fault with these programs. That is what happens when we do not have a federal funding program.

The problem is really serious now. It is getting to the point where action has to be taken. Two years ago, the minister said that highway refunding was a top priority for him, but he has done nothing about it. As I said earlier, 38% of Canada's national highway system is now deemed in need of major repair, estimated at $17 billion.

Why do we have this problem? For one thing, highways do not deteriorate on a straight line basis. They stay solid for some time. When they start to deteriorate, they deteriorate quickly. If they are not maintained, they will go beyond the point of no repair and then must be replaced. Because there has been very little maintenance in the last five or six years on highways in Canada, we find ourselves with some very serious problems.

Another reason is that there has been no funding program for the last five years. I believe the last programs were signed by the Conservatives. I am not sure of that, but I think that is exactly right.

The next government policy that has caused these problems is the policy to reduce the number of trains that take heavy freight and heavy tariffs from coast to coast. By reducing the train routes and tearing up short lines all over the country, it has forced traffic and goods onto the highways. This means bigger trucks, more trucks and more damage to the highways. That is another government policy that has built on this.

Another one is simply that the international truck traffic has tripled in 10 years, up 300%. Again, that means more trucks, bigger trucks, more damage, worn out highways, rutted highways, broken highways and unsafe highways. Although I talked about Atlantic Canada a lot earlier, this is not only Atlantic Canada. I have just picked a couple of highways that are particularly infamous for their problems.

Quebec highway 75 from Quebec City to Chicoutimi is an example of a very dangerous highway. This highway has not been fixed and instead of fixing it, they have increased the policing to make sure people go real slow because the highway is deficient, not adequate and cannot handle the traffic.

In Alberta, highway 2 south and highway 1 east, which was designed for much less traffic than they experience now, cannot handle it.

Then, of course, there is the infamous highway 401 in Windsor where there have been so many tragic accidents. Even in the new territory of Nunavut, there is no road link and no highway system at all. This is an issue that goes coast to coast, involves every province and every territory.

When I was first assigned the duty of transport critic, I wrote every minister of transportation in every province and asked them what their number one problem was. Every single one of them who answered said that highway funding was the number one problem.

[National Highway Policy, December 17th, 1999]

It was Dave Dingwall, and Ritchie Mann who was the minister of transportation in the province of Nova Scotia. They transferred these funds in a very inappropriate manner and the auditor general of Nova Scotia blew the whistle.

The federal auditor general has also blown the whistle on toll highways. The auditor general has written a whole book on the highway program in general but on the toll highways in particular. It goes on and on and lists different things that were done and not done and that should not have been done.

Here are a couple of comments the auditor general made. “Transport Canada has failed to exercise the controls entrenched in the agreements under which these investments were made. We found that it has failed to discharge the leadership responsibility to co-ordinate information for the government on federal highway spending overall”. In other words, the federal auditor general said that it was chaos. He honed in particularly on the toll highways in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Just two weeks ago, the auditor general of New Brunswick joined the auditor general of Nova Scotia and the Auditor General of Canada. In his report he accuses the provincial Liberal government of New Brunswick of not even giving adequate consideration to options or anything else, that it just dove into this toll highway system for entirely political purposes. The auditor general has listed a long range of failings in the New Brunswick highway deal.

[National Highway Policy, December 17th, 1999]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should establish a National Highway Policy in partnership with the provinces to ensure the long term viability of our national highway system in light of the nature of our country, our geography and our culture which demands a consistent and uniform highway system.

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to stand before the House today to debate Motion No. 102. I would like to point out that this is the last private member's motion of the century. I brought this motion to the House two and a half years ago and I always wondered why it was held up so long. I now know why. The best has been kept until the last. What a way to end the century by talking about a new highway system to lead us into the new millennium.

My motion is very simple. I call on the government to establish a funding program to restore and improve the national highway system. It has truly fallen into disarray over the last few years with no funding program in place, no long range planning, no planning at all and no arrangement for the provinces or anyone to plan ahead.

The present situation we have for funding highways in the country, which needs highways so desperately, is a very ad hoc system. Currently, the Department of Transport and the parliamentary transport committee estimate that it will take $17 billion to restore our highway system. This is not to improve it but just to restore it and make up for the money that has not been spent on the highways over the last seven or eight years.

It is agreed that approximately 38% to 40% of our national highway system is now in a declined situation, which is not up to standard and not acceptable. Seven hundred and ninety bridges on our national highway system have been identified as in need of major strengthening and repair. There are no current funding programs available. This is the situation we presently have in the country.

The old policy we had up until approximately 1993-94 was a program where the federal government would sign agreements with the provinces on an ad hoc basis. They would negotiate them one-on-one and come up with a 50:50 program to fund highways in some provinces but not do the same thing in others. This was very inconsistent and very short term with no long range planning. It did not allow the provinces to plan for communities, traffic patterns, or to take advantage of our free trade programs and everything else that we have established in the country and that are so important.

What is wrong with not having a highway funding program? I want to hone in on Atlantic Canada for a minute because it is a true example of what can happen without a highway funding program.

In Atlantic Canada, with no money to build highways and no program, the provinces got creative and established toll highways in both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. These two provinces target the traffic from other provinces for revenues to their coffers. A lot of people have complained about these toll projects. It is not just a matter of paying the toll. Part of the deal for both the highway in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick is that the legislatures in their respective provinces passed legislation to prevent people from using public highways that ran parallel to the toll highway. Even though the taxpayers pay for these highways, they cannot use them. They are forced onto the toll highways by legislation even though these are provincially and federally funded highways that were built decades ago. This is very offensive to the people. This is not only offensive to the people and to me, but also to all three auditor generals. The auditor general of New Brunswick, the auditor general of Nova Scotia and even the Auditor General of Canada have taken exception to these things.

The auditor general of Nova Scotia was the first to point out the problems. He blew the whistle on the Nova Scotia toll highway when two ministers, one federal and one provincial, transferred $26 million from the federal-provincial highway program to their own ridings. I will not go into the details, but the auditor general blew the whistle and forced them to put the money back into the highway fund.

[Parliamentarians' Code Of Conduct, December 16th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise on a question that I first raised on November 23. It was a general question about aircraft in the Department of National Defence.

We talked about Hercules planes that could not get off the ground and could not make it from point A to point B. We talked about the Auroras which cannot fly too low and cannot fly too high. There is only one elevation they can fly at.

I would like to hone in on the Sea King question today. We all know the Sea Kings are very tired and old. They have been refurbished. They have new skins and now they have new lives but even with that, the minister of defence says that their useful life is only until 2005 before we get new helicopters to replace them.

We know that new helicopters are necessary now, especially because we have spent all this money on frigates that were designed to have these new helicopters. Without the helicopters they are really only about 50% effective. We are most anxious to see those helicopters supplied, but the problem is the new helicopter delivery time is eight years. The Sea Kings only have a useful life until 2005 and if we ordered the helicopters today, which we have not done yet, they would not be here until 2008. There is a hole between 2005 and 2008.

My question for the parliamentary secretary is, what will the department of defence do in the time period between the earliest delivery date of 2008 and the expiry of useful life of the Sea Kings in 2005? What happens in the three year hole?

[Halifax International Airport, December 15th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is not only the minister's letter. There is a signed letter, a signed agreement, signed by the director of airports divestiture that says: “Transport Canada agrees to continue to be responsible for pyritic slate runoff existing prior to transfer date”. It is very clear and very simple.

Surely if the Government of Canada signs an agreement and a person signs an agreement with the government, the government should honour that commitment. Will the minister instruct his department to honour the commitment?

[Halifax International Airport, December 15th, 1999]

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

Under the access to information program, we received a letter written by the minister to the Halifax International Airport Authority dated July 22, 1998. It outlined the terms of the agreement to take over the airport. One of the sentences the minister used in his own letter is: “This offer confirms Transport Canada's intent to assume liabilities for the current pyritic slate mitigation program”.

That is a very clear commitment by the minister. It is very simple. The department has now reneged on that commitment. Will the minister please confirm to us he will instruct his department to honour the commitment and assume the responsibility for existing pollution at Halifax airport?

[Minimum Sentences, December 14th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I rise as a follow-up to a question I asked on October 21, a long time ago. A lot of things have happened in the aviation industry since then but my question is still valid.

My question on October 21 referred to a report written in 1993 and that report is still valid. It was based on the concept that if Canada had one major airline, we would have very little competition and no protection for consumers. That was valid in 1993 when the Competition Tribunal wrote it. It was valid on October 21 when I brought it up, and amazingly enough, we are right back where we started. The government is now considering what conditions it will apply in the event of a dominant carrier and one airline in Canada.

Considering that everything is the same as it was in 1993 and back in October, I would like the very distinguished parliamentary secretary to address my question about what is happening right now. What assurances are being demanded by the federal government and the federal minister in his negotiations with the successful dominant carrier in respect to divestiture of regionals, for example, to allow for competition throughout the country?

What protection is being given to discount airlines against this giant monopoly that we will have? What conditions is the minister demanding of the dominant carrier insofar as slot availability, ticket counter availability and all the other things necessary at airports across the country? What is he demanding from Air Canada in the interests of consumers? What demands is he making of Air Canada about price gouging?

We recently noticed that Air Canada increased the prices by 3% to address the increased fuel costs in Canada where there is no competition, but it did not apply the increases to international flights where there is competition. This is a very serious issue that is already coming to the table.

The minister, as we speak, is negotiating behind closed doors with Air Canada to determine what concessions will be made to protect consumers and what regulations will be devised to assist Air Canada to become the national airline that it wants to be, and that is a monopoly.

Just exactly what conditions is the minister demanding of Air Canada with respect to divestiture of regional airlines, price protection for consumers, protection for regional airports, protection for discount airlines and all the things that we need in the country to protect consumers and make sure that we have a good, viable format for airline passengers to travel in the country at competitive prices?

[Airline Industry, November 30th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. Just a little while before InterCanadian closed its doors on Saturday it faxed a letter to the Minister of Transport. The letter was from the president to the minister and it said: “The simple fact is that InterCanadian simply cannot continue to withstand the continuously changing position of the government”.

If the minister who created this four months of aviation chaos will not now step in to help InterCanadian, will he step aside and let someone else bring some common sense to this chaos?

[Air Transportation, November 29th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, contrary to the minister's answer, the president of InterCanadien Airlines wrote the minister two days ago and said, “This is to inform you that InterCanadien has now reached the final desperate condition that we have been openly warning you about for many months”. He went on to say “InterCanadien considers that its current condition and its anticipated closure are direct and predicted consequences of the actions and omissions of the federal government ministry's agency”.

It is very clear that the government's lack of policy and direction is part of the problem. Will the minister take responsibility, act as a facilitator, bring all the parties together and get InterCanadian flying again?

[National Defence, November 24th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly appropriate that the minister talked about safety inspections, because yesterday we talked about the worn out Sea Kings, the rusty Auroras and today we find out that both of the Hercules planes failed when they went to East Timor. Hon. members should listen to the problems: faulty brakes, damaged windows, cracked tailpipes.

I sold used cars for 18 years and this plane would not pass a highway inspection. If a plane cannot pass a highway safety inspection, how can we expect it to fly in the air?

When will the minister stop making a laughing stock of the Canadian air force and put money into the airplanes?