Bill Siksay

[Business of Supply, April 23rd, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to participate in the debate this afternoon on the opposition day motion from the New Democratic Party about consumer protection around credit card interest rates.

We know this is not a new problem in Canada. This problem has existed for many decades and we have seen it get worse with each passing year. Consumer debt has risen dramatically in Canada over the past decades, and it remains today at an all-time high.

The current economic crisis has compounded the difficulties that this high-level of consumer debt makes for ordinary Canadians. Many Canadians are facing a loss of income because of layoffs and unemployment and the lack of availability of employment insurance in their area. They often have to resort to credit cards to make what income they have stretch and to find immediate access to some money to pay their everyday household bills. They use them as a stopgap, which only serves to increase the pressure and the difficulties that these families face. We know it is a serious and stressful time for many families.

Yet we still see increases in credit card rates across the country from different providers. These credit card rates continue to increase at a time when the Bank of Canada rate is at an all-time low. There seems to be no willingness on the part of banks and credit card companies to pass on to consumers the benefits of that low Bank of Canada rate.

This is not something that has just needed to be done now. For many decades we have needed this kind of intervention to protect consumers. We are glad that we have this opportunity today to debate some very specific suggestions for addressing the problems that consumers are facing with regard to credit card interest rates.

One of the things our motion talks about is modelling a response in Canada on what is currently being debated in the United States. Right now I believe both the Senate and the House in the United States are looking at measures to protect consumers from credit card interest rate gouging in that country.

I have looked at one particular piece of legislation, the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, which is currently before the U.S. Senate. This is the legislation that the motion we are talking about today refers to as a potential model for the government, a model that might enable it to get on with this task more quickly than it might otherwise do.

The government has talked about studying the issue. It has talked about a task force. Here is a legislative model currently being debated in the United States, put forward by the Obama administration, that merits the government's attention and might provide a quick start to getting something before the House.

The motion talks about a six-month deadline for legislation. We would love to see it faster than that. If the government could get it sooner, that would be great, and perhaps looking at what is being proposed in the American Senate would allow it to get on with that task.

I want to talk about what specifically is in the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act that is before the United States Senate right now.

Section 101 of that legislation would require prior notice of interest rate increases on credit cards. It would prohibit an increase without 45 days' notice. It would prohibit applying rate increases retroactively to existing balances, and it would require clear notice of the right to cancel the credit card when an interest rate is raised.

These are important initiatives in the United States. In a few of these cases, I should note, we have similar regulations already in Canada. In some cases we have a partial regulation similar to what is being considered in the bill before the United States Senate, but overall, the comprehensiveness of the legislation merits our attention here.

Section 102 of the U.S. bill talks about a freeze on interest rate terms and fees on cancelled cards. That would prevent the interest rate from being raised or repayment terms being cancelled if a cardholder cancels the card.

Section 103 talks about limits on fees and interest charges, and there are four provisions under this section. It would prohibit double-cycle billing. That prohibits credit card issuers from imposing interest charges on any portion of a balance that is paid by the due date.

It talks about over-limit fee restrictions, where cardholders must be given the option of having a fixed credit limit that cannot be exceeded, and card companies cannot charge over-limit fees on cardholders with fixed limits. Cardholders may elect to prohibit the creditor from completing over-limit transactions that will result in a fee or constitute a default under the credit agreement. Over-limit charges can only be charged when an extension of credit other than the fee or interest charge causes the credit limit to be exceeded. Over-limit charges can only be applied once during a billing cycle.

The American legislation would also prohibit charging interest on fees, such as credit card transaction fees, late fees and over-limit fees. It would also put limits on charging certain fees, for instance, to allow a cardholder to pay a credit card debt, whether the payment is by mail, telephone, electronic transfer or otherwise. It requires fees to be reasonably related to cost. Foreign currency exchange fees may only be imposed in an account transaction if the fee reasonably reflects cost incurred by the creditor and the creditor publicly discloses the method for calculating the fee.

Section 104 of the U.S. legislation talks about the consumer's right to reject a card before notice is provided of an open account. It gives cardholders who get pre-approved the right to reject a card up until they activate it, without having their credit adversely affected.

Section 105 clarifies the terms used, because often there is confusion between the terms “fixed rate” and “prime rate”. It would go to establishing a single definition.

Section 106 talks about the application of card payments. It prohibits card companies from setting early deadlines for credit card payments. It requires payments to be applied first to the credit card balance with the highest rate of interest, to minimize financial charges. It prohibits late fees if the card issuer delayed crediting the payment. It prohibits card companies from charging late fees when a cardholder presents proof of mailing a payment within seven days of the due date.

Section 107 talks about the length of the billing period, required to be 21 days before the bill is due.

Section 108 is an important section of the American legislation. It talks about a prohibition on universal default and unilateral changes to cardholder agreements. This is something we could use in Canada to prevent credit card issuers from increasing interest rates on a cardholder in good standing for reasons unrelated to the cardholder's behaviour with respect to that particular card. It prevents credit card issuers from changing the terms of a credit card contract for the length of the card agreement. It also requires issuers to lower after six months the penalty rates that have been imposed on a cardholder, if the cardholder commits no further violations. These are all things that go a considerable way to protecting consumers.

Section 109 talks about enhanced penalties.

Section 110 talks about enhanced oversight of credit card issuers through their primary regulator, something that is also very important.

The bill has other sections that are very important. There is a whole section dealing with the protection of young consumers and the extension of credit to young people and to underage consumers, restrictions on affinity cards that are provided to young people, and protection of young consumers from pre-screened offers of credit. There would have to be permission given to allow for that pre-screening.

In Canada, we have seen occasions where young people have been particularly targeted, like seniors, by credit card companies and often provided with credit cards that were not requested. This has often contributed to the debt problems that those groups face in our society.

The American legislation also talks about interchange fees. While it does not go to providing specific remedies for the problems faced there, it does call for a study and report on interchange fees.

While the motion we are talking about today does not talk about interchange fees, those fees that are charged to retailers and merchants for using a credit card service and ultimately have to be passed on to consumers, this is something that is very important.

We have heard from many retailers. I have heard from them in my riding. One retailer pointed out that $4.5 billion was taken in, in those kinds of fees, last year. In his business, the rate he had to pay the credit card company for using credit card services was raised eight times before October of last year. This is unacceptable. This is another hidden cost that gets passed on to consumers. It is also unfair to merchants.

We need comprehensive credit card legislation in Canada to prevent gouging of our consumers, of people who rely on these devices. We also need comprehensive legislation to protect retailers who also need these credit cards as a requirement of doing business here in Canada.

[Business of Supply, April 23rd, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her intervention in this debate this afternoon.

I want to pick up on one point, even though it is not directly related to consumer credit card interest charges. She mentioned the interchange fees that are charged to retailers for using a credit card service in their businesses and how these fees constantly go up.

One of the small business people in my riding wrote to me and said that last year it went up four times as he was trying to do business. He said that when those kinds of fee increases happen, he has no choice but to pass those on to the folks who do business in his store. It gets passed on directly to consumers, so consumers get hit again by this hidden fee that is charged by banks and credit card companies to the retailers.

I wonder if the member has heard from retailers in her riding who face a similar problem and have spoken to her about how this hurts both the retail sector and consumers in Canada.

[Government Spending, April 22nd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, there was a time when unreported extravagant ministerial travel would make a Conservative's head spin, but no more. We know that the former minister responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec spent over $65,000 on 13 trips on privately contracted planes in the first half of 2008 without disclosing that spending. It is not the first time the minister has failed to follow the rules.

Will the President of the Treasury Board explain why his colleague gets to break the rules yet again?

[Peace, April 21st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, how does a society develop a culture of peace? The Canadian Department of Peace Initiative focused on that question last weekend in Hamilton, Ontario.

Peace activists from across Canada showed our support for a major realignment of federal and provincial government priorities away from militarism and violence, and toward peace.

The Department of Peace Initiative proposes the establishment of a federal department of peace to place the promotion of peace at the heart of the operation of our government by redirecting the machinery of government toward the promotion of peaceful conflict resolution, non-violent intervention and mediation.

As well, establishing a Canadian civilian peace service to professionalize peace work by Canadians would significantly improve Canada's role in charting a course to peace at home and around the world.

New opportunities exist to recommit to peace given the coming end to Canada's participation in the war in Afghanistan and new interest in nuclear disarmament. A broadly mandated department of peace would entrench Canadians' hopes for a peaceful world in the work of our federal government.

[Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, April 20th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in the debate on private member's Bill C-291, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (coming into force of sections 110, 111 and 171).

This is not the first time that I have discussed this type of legislation, and I want to thank the member for Jeanne-Le Ber for reintroducing the bill. This legislation was introduced in the last Parliament by another member and the House passed it in the last Parliament. It then went on to the Senate where, with a few amendments, it was also passed. Unfortunately, it did not have an opportunity before the last election to come back to the House to have those amendments approved, and therefore, the bill died without having completed the full parliamentary process. The fact is we are now debating that bill as amended by the Senate in the last Parliament. We are talking about it yet again.

The bill calls for the implementation of legislation that in fact was passed by Parliament back in 2001. It calls for the implementation of the refugee appeal division, which is a feature of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that was passed here in the House after a lengthy process back in 2001. When the Liberal government of the day implemented that legislation, it refused to implement the provisions dealing with the refugee appeal division. Those sections that are named in the current bill we are discussing today were never implemented. The Conservative government has also refused to implement the provisions regarding the refugee appeal division.

We are now in this bizarre situation where we are debating a bill to implement legislation that has already been passed by the House of Commons and the Senate. The bill has been largely implemented, except for one part. One of the strange features of my time here in Parliament is that we actually would need to debate legislation to implement legislation that we had already fully debated and passed in this place a number of years ago, but that, in fact, is what this is about, because of the government's refusal to abide by the will of Parliament, by the decisions of parliamentarians, on the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act back in 2001. This is disturbing because the refugee appeal division emerged out of the debate and discourse and the committee hearings in 2001 on the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

It emerged as a compromise because the government of the day wanted to reduce Immigration and Refugee Board panels from two members to one member. It was thought that to serve the needs of fairness and justice, a one member panel only represented the interpretation of one person and that increased the likelihood of mistakes, errors and inconsistencies. It was thought that some other appeal process was necessary to balance that reduction in the panel from two members to one member. A compromise was struck. Members of Parliament agreed to the reduction of the panels from two members to one but also insisted that the refugee appeal division, the RAD, be a part of the legislation in order to give people a recourse to appeal a decision made by a panel in a refugee determination case.

That was a very important piece of the process. It showed Parliament perhaps at its best by reviewing legislation, finding the problems, responding to the needs that the government of the day addressed, and finding a compromise and implementing that compromise. Yet after the fact, the government went ahead and reduced the panels from two members to one, but refused to implement the other procedure that would have ensured some fairness and some justice. The government refused to implement the refugee appeal division. That speaks rather badly of the government of the day and its respect for the parliamentary process that we engage in here daily.

If the Conservative government had respect for the kind of process we go through in this place, it would move immediately to implement the refugee appeal division. New Democrats would certainly proceed that way. We have been strong supporters of the implementation of the RAD.

I remember speaking to people at the Canadian Council for Refugees a number of years ago when I was acting as citizenship and immigration critic for the NDP and indulging a fantasy that some day I would be the minister of citizenship and immigration. I gave notice then, and I will do it again, that should I ever become minister of citizenship and immigration, I would expect the folks working in that department and the minister's office to blow the dust off the pile of paper in the corner of the office that is the refugee appeal division file and put it on my desk. One of the first things I would do would be to implement the provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act without delay because it would bring a measure of fairness that is required. It would also respect the parliamentary process.

This is not an extra piece of process; it is an essential piece of the refugee determination process. There are many concerns about that process. I have mentioned already that in Canada when a person goes before the IRB, that person goes before a one member panel, which means that his or her future is in the hands of a single person.

Many of the folks who serve on the IRB do great diligence in that job and are very concerned about the process and the work they do. However, the reality is that one person can make mistakes. One person can have a blind spot. When there were two members on the panel, through the discourse they engaged in at a hearing, those blind spots could be exposed and could see the light of day, but with a one member panel that is not as possible.

When a single person determines the fate of a refugee claimant, a bad decision can mean that the person is removed from Canada ultimately and sent back to a situation where the person faces danger and threats to his or her life. The basis of the whole refugee process is to protect people from that kind of threat. Therefore, a one person panel is a very serious problem with our current refugee determination process.

We have seen over the years that the IRB process can be very inconsistent. Different panel members make different decisions based on the same facts. There is a huge inconsistency in IRB decisions. This is another reason that a separate refugee appeal division is so important to that process. It would strive for more consistency in the process.

Everyone knows that mistakes are made in any decision-making process. That is why appeals in the refugee appeal division are very important. We also know there are often difficulties finding, and being able to afford, appropriate representation. There are difficulties dealing with a legal process that people may not be familiar with because of cultural and language differences and their newness in Canada. There are often difficulties with the hearing process itself. There are times when not every bit of information is examined and due process does not take place in the course of hearings. That is another reason that a separate appeal in the refugee appeal division is very necessary.

There have been calls from international organizations for Canada to implement an appeal. While Canada is known around the world for having a positive refugee policy, it is also known that the lack of an appeal is one of the significant shortcomings in the refugee process in Canada. We have been criticized by a number of international organizations for the lack of an appeal on the merits of a case.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights commented:

Given that even the best decision-makers may err in passing judgment, and given the potential risk to life which may result from such an error, an appeal on the merits of a negative determination constitutes a necessary element of international protection.

That was its reflection on the lack of an appeal before a refugee appeal division in Canada.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees wrote to the Canadian government to express concern about the non-implementation of the RAD. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees considers an appeal procedure to be a fundamental, necessary part of any refugee status determination process.

This is not frivolous. It is not an expensive proposition. The previous government and the current government have indicated the expenses related to it. It is a necessary provision. I hope that I never have to stand in this House again to call upon the government to implement legislation that was in fact passed here in 2001 and is already part of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. We need the refugee appeal division and we need it to be implemented now.

[Business of Supply, March 31st, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak in the debate this afternoon to the opposition motion on bridge funding for the CBC.

It amazes me how much governments and official oppositions enjoy kicking the football of the CBC back and forth across the aisle. It is a pox on both their houses. It is true that the Liberals gutted the CBC back in the 1990s. It is also true that the Conservatives have no interest in ensuring the future prosperity of our public broadcaster. We know there are reasons to disbelieve both those parties when they talk about CBC Radio-Canada.

We need a permanent and ongoing commitment to our national public broadcaster. We need to give up the football of kicking the CBC around and enjoying the political sport of it. It is not doing this important institution any favours. It is not doing the Canadians, who depend on the CBC for the cultural and democratic life of their communities, any favours whatsoever. The reality is they are both wrong.

It is long past the time for us to have a government in Canada that believes in national public institutions like CBC Radio-Canada. Frankly, there is only one party in the House of Commons that has a foundational belief, and it is the NDP. In this corner of the House, we know the importance of public institutions. We would go to bat for CBC Radio-Canada to ensure the safety, the security and the excellence of our national public broadcaster. That is fundamental to who we are as social democrats and democratic socialists.

I will not talk about the mandate of the CBC because I do not think there is anything to discuss. It is absolutely crucial. We know the CBC works hard to attain the goals of that broad mandate.

I want to talk briefly about the motion, which ends the notion of bridge funding to deal with the current crisis. I do not think that is enough. The motion, if it were really working in the best interests of public broadcasting in Canada, would have included the notion of a long-term stable commitment to funding for the CBC of at least seven years, as was recommended by the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage in the last Parliament. It would ensure there was a memorandum of understanding negotiated between the government and the CBC to allow for that kind of long-term stable funding. Unfortunately that is where the Liberals are not prepared to go, despite the brave words and the clear understanding of the member for Vancouver Centre. She clearly knows the situation, but she is not prepared to see her party include that as part of the motion. It needs to be in this motion. I will support the motion, as far as it goes, but something very important is missing from it.

Why is that so important? The committee report done in the last Parliament by the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage noted that the funding of the CBC was absolutely crucial. We know the CBC is dramatically underfunded. In terms of public broadcasters around the world, we know the CBC is 16th out of 18 in western industrialized countries. We fund the CBC at the rate of $33 per Canadian, which is the second-lowest rate of funding in the world for a public broadcast, and that is completely unacceptable. Only New Zealand and the United States fund their public broadcasters at a rate lower than Canada.

We have heard, in the course of this debate, that a country like France funds its national broadcaster at $77 per French citizen. Britain has a licensing system. The equivalent funding is around $130 per person in the United Kingdom to fund the BBC. I think everyone in this chamber would appreciate the excellence of the work of the BBC, and it is partly as a result of its funding.

The BBC is well-funded by the people and the government of the United Kingdom, through a 10-year memorandum of understanding that is negotiated between the BBC and the government of Britain. This results in a long-term stable funding so the broadcaster can plan for its future, make decisions about where it will go, instead of wondering year after year what kind of money will come to it and what cuts will be subject to. It is also a broadcaster that does not depend on advertising revenue, like the CBC, and the vagaries of the economic situation.

The CBC is now feeling the effects of the economic crisis because of its advertising revenues. It would be an important facet of any long-term funding arrangement that any dependence on advertising revenues by our national public be removed. That is crucial.

We need that kind of long-term stable commitment. We need to increase the funding to the CBC. We need to ensure that it is negotiated as part of a memorandum of understanding between the government and the CBC.

There can be no argument about that. Even the Conservatives on the committee agreed with the need for a seven year memorandum of understanding about long-term stable funding for the CBC. They may dispute the funding level, but they have not disputed the need for it. However, have they acted on it? Have they moved in this direction? Unfortunately not. We are still in the situation of kicking the CBC back and forth across the aisle of Parliament, with charges and countercharges. It would be nice to get out of that rut and ensure that the CBC has that kind of commitment to funding so it can get on with its important job and fulfill its mandate to Canadians.

In these most recent troubles facing CBC, we know local media is one of the things that is most affected. It is one of the great ironies of the situation. For a number of years now, the CBC has been promoting a plan to expand local radio across Canada. It has had a plan on the table. The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage last year reviewed the plan to expand local radio into 15 markets in Canada to ensure that another eight million Canadians would have access to CBC local radio programming.

Communities such as Kitchener, London, Montreal South Shore, Hamilton, Barrie, Kingston, the Laurentians, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Drummondville, Red Deer, Nanaimo, Kelowna, Fort McMurray, Chilliwack, Saskatoon and Cranbrook would all benefit from having the CBC local radio as part of their communities. Some of the most successful programming of the CBC are its local radio programs.

I know in Vancouver, for instance, the CBC local radio programs lead the market in terms of audience share now, and they are excellent programs. They are programs of record in terms of the life and political life of the community. None of the communities that do not have it now, the eight million Canadians that do not have access to that kind of programming, should be denied that.

The sad part is it is not an expensive proposal. It is $25 million in capital costs and $25 million a year in funding afterwards. That is very cheap for the kind of high quality programming to which another eight million Canadians would have access.

What are the benefits to those communities for establishing those kinds of radio stations with CBC local radio in those communities? There are a number of benefits.

It would act as an economic stimulus, and we need that in all of our communities, given the current crisis. CBC Radio-Canada local radio highlights a region's innovation. Development and opportunities are promoted to national and international audiences. With that local connection, other things become possible.

CBC Radio-Canada local radio advocates for local culture. Local careers are launched in music, comedy, drama and literature. Locally recorded CBC concerts are heard around the world and on other public broadcasters.

Skills are developed in local communities, with partnerships with students and schools. There is community dialogue on community events and community political issues, so it increases the democratic life of those communities. The CBC local radio stations are also available for emergency broadcasts 24 hours a day, should that be necessary. All these things—

[Public Safety, March 30th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the Transportation Safety Board has reported on the pipeline accident that occurred in Burnaby in July 2007. A construction project severed a pipeline releasing hundreds of cubic metres of crude oil over homes and into Burrard Inlet. The TSB found that the key causes of this accident were that 52-year-old pipeline location maps were inaccurate and that project communications were inadequate.

How will public safety be ensured? Will a new survey of the pipeline location in Burnaby be required and then updated regularly?

[Marine Liability Act, March 30th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the member has raised a good question. The technology of cleanup is something that we need to be constantly working at and improving.

We know that sometimes the actual cleanup is not always the greatest for the environment either. Some of the detergents used have their own effects on the environment as well, but given the kinds of circumstances that exist when these accidents happen, this is a measure that has to be taken and is not yet perfected in terms of other causes and damages that may result from that.

However, I think it goes to the importance of making sure that we have the best possible technologies for this. It goes to the importance of supporting those organizations that are working on that kind of operation. It goes to supporting the kinds of research that go into those sorts of technologies.

There are times when we know what it would take to do that and we back away because of the economic cost. I think we have to have a different measure. We have to set the bar in a different place that values the environmental costs of transporting oil, of using bunker oil to fuel our ships, of locating pipelines near our shorelines, to make sure that we have taken every precaution and that we have worked for the best interest of the environment.

[Marine Liability Act, March 30th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague. It is a very crucial issue. I have often heard that even in the cleanup on the shoreline of Burrard Inlet after these oil spills, today we can pick up a rock on the beach and find oil underneath that rock. Even though all efforts were taken to appropriately clean up that coastline, there have been difficulties and it is never quite complete. There is always more to be done.

It shows the limitation of efforts to clean up. It shows the limitation of establishing liability for these accidents, because no matter how far we go to try to undo the effects of these oil spills, those cause permanent and ongoing damage to our environment and to our coastline.

We may be upping the liability amounts, but that still does not make it any better in terms of dealing with the consequences of these accidents. Therefore, preventing them is very crucial. At the same time, we have to make sure that, in covering the cost of cleanup, ensuring the protection of communities and animals is seen as part of the cost of doing that kind of business and is calculated into the costs of those industries.

[Marine Liability Act, March 30th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure this legislation covers the kinds of issues the member has raised, although I hasten to add that I think he is right. We do need to pay attention to those other issues that would ensure prevention of these kinds of accidents and incidents. Training the folks who are involved in the transportation of oil in tankers along our coast is absolutely crucial. However, training people who operate ships and deal with the fuelling requirements of those ships operating along the coast is also clearly an issue. The incident I talked about in Burnaby was the result of an employee failing to close a valve, which led to a significant incident in Burrard Inlet in the Vancouver harbour.

One wonders what training the employees of that ship received and whether they would meet standards that Canadians are comfortable with to ensure the appropriate operation of ships in our waters. We should consider those important. Prevention is always better than needing to have in place policies for liability and policies for cleanup. It would serve us far better in the long run if we had excellent policies to prevent this kind of accident.

All the issues around transportation of oil along the coast of British Columbia come into play here. The possibility of offshore oil exploration and production, which we continue to oppose in this corner of the House, issues of on-land accidents that end up affecting our waterways and our coastline, all those come into play.

In the summer of July 2007, exactly a year after the incident in the harbour as a result of the ship, a construction accident ended up rupturing the crude oil pipeline in Burnaby. There was a huge spill of oil from the land into Vancouver harbour, into Burrard Inlet. Therefore, issues are raised by that kind of accident, as well.