Brian Masse

[Canada Marine Act, April 9th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know where he got the idea that anyone is faulting the fact that the port authorities decided to go through their lobbyist element and their group association. I was simply pointing out that we did not hear from some of the smaller ports or all ports in this country about this particular bill. I think they would have added some valuable testimony and would have been something I would have appreciated.

It is not a question of blame or finding fault. I do not know where the hon. member gets that type of insinuation, because it certainly is not borne out in anything I said. What it identified, though, was the fact that we did not have some of the smaller ports and some of the more important ports in front of the committee. Maybe they would have actually found the amendment problem we have here today. Maybe they would have been the ones to point out our grammatical errors, I do not know.

There at least has to be some acknowledgement that they were not at committee and it was a strategy that the port authority association took. That is fine. It is fair. I am not saying it is a bad one, it is the one they chose, but it certainly did not provide an opportunity to hear from all ports across Canada. That, to me, was a loss for us.

Second, with regard to the situation, it was very obvious that the member had difficulty when Mr. Vaughan came to committee. It was really a bizarre situation because the parliamentary secretary for the Conservatives actually tried to give up his time to the Liberals so he could question him further. I have never seen that in the years that I have been in Parliament. I have never even heard of the Conservative Party trying to give up time to the Liberals.

Nobody has suggested that the city of Toronto had an official position. That has never been presented by me or in this debate. Second to that, he was identified as a city council representative.

To me, today's debate is important because it signifies the fact that this legislation has problems and I will stand by that.

[Canada Marine Act, April 9th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important. It really does go to the heart of the matter. How could a mistake like this on the “a”, the grammatical aspect, not be addressed? It was because we had moved so quickly with this bill and the process. It is connected. These things do not happen on their own. They happen because things have not been covered off to the fullest extent.

I was trying to illustrate with my one amendment here, and I have others, why it is so important to have that thorough discussion. If we could miss the letter “a” and actually change the language structure requirement necessary for the French translation, then what else could we miss?

I am going to present at least a little bit of discussion with regard to this amendment to illustrate the seriousness of this. What else is missing? What other mistakes are there?

The point I was trying to get across is that the amendment the government is making in this other bill by reducing the board of directors to a smaller component undermines democracy. It also undermines the ability for communities to be represented.

The board of directors is going to one of five to eleven members, down from seven to fourteen. That means that the government appointees have a higher level of support or a higher level of direction which they did not have before. That bias creates all kinds of problems.

The parliamentary secretary in trying to limit this debate, in his own words said he was supported by all other stakeholders. This is not true. That is not accurate. It is not factual.

I have a letter that was submitted and we heard testimony. There was a group whose testimony was limited on that too. It was interesting because the time that was spent on the bill was rather quick not only in terms of the presentations of the government, but also presentations from those who were in favour and those opposed. In fact, we did not hear from a single port authority on its own. An association presented to the committee. What we did have were some objectors.

The parliamentary secretary should know this because he received a letter. He is saying it is supported by all stakeholders. Adam Vaughan, a city councillor from Toronto talked about the problems he had with this bill in his own constituency. The Toronto Port Authority is in his constituency.

There is not only this unilateral exclusive component of people who are in favour of this bill; there are those who are opposed and for legitimate reasons. The NDP opposes the bill for a number of reasons. This is an opportunity lost. The bill, for example, could have addressed other matters and it could have addressed things that related to better public policy.

I know the Liberals and the Conservatives are even debating among themselves and trying to take credit for the bill. We think there could have been a better bill. That is why we had amendments in there that would address some of those things that we lost out on.

When we look at the glaring necessity for this amendment with respect to the letter “a”, what other things are missing in this bill?

The bill is very important. It deals with the financing of the port authorities. The member for Eglinton—Lawrence noted some of the important issues related to our ports. The ports are a historic element, which is recognized in the bill. If the letter “a” could be missed, it shows that there could have been more work done to improve the bill with other amendments. Hence we were very disappointed that we could not get those through.

I am a member of the committee and a member of the House of Commons. I do not think that the Liberal member or the Bloc member and those who want to address this are wasting taxpayers' money in doing so. I hope the other parties appreciate that it should not be blamed on the committee alone for missing this amendment. There is a responsibility for the government to produce legislation that is going to work and that actually has the proper elements to it to test the mettle of the legal system. When there is an error such as this one, the government has to take some responsibility.

It is wrong for the government to blame us for missing this in committee. Once again it highlights why the bill needs other amendments. The New Democrats have proposed amendments in order to make sure that the bill was more accountable, more open to the public and that it was going to be better for some of the smaller ports.

To the NDP this is an incomplete bill. We will be supporting the amendment, but not the bill itself.

[Canada Marine Act, April 9th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise today to speak to Bill C-23 and, specifically, to this amendment. It is a small amendment, but I would also like to thank the parliamentary secretary, as per his comments, for opening this up as a larger debate.

He talked about people supporting this bill. He talked about how it is a Conservative bill as opposed to a Liberal bill. He talked about how he was not going to waste taxpayers' money. Although, I would remind him that this is the government that paid $250,000 for a throne speech.

This is the government, his own department, that put $116 million of taxpayers' money out the window on an ecoauto feebate program. We actually saw money from Canadian taxpayers going overseas to automotive manufacturers located in Korea, Japan and elsewhere. He has raised all those types of issues in this context.

However, I want to go back to this amendment because I think it exemplifies something, but I also want to say that the New Democratic Party will be supporting this amendment because it is a technical one for language purposes, but we will not be supporting this bill.

This amendment is a glaring example of the type of work that needs to be done to actually put in a proper bill to update our ports, and we are supportive of that.

The amendment is a result of a mistake. It begs the question, “What other mistakes are in this bill?”, and that is the problem. I myself, as a committee person, have proposed several amendments to try to change the bill, to make it a better bill, to balance it out, and to make it more strategic. I have some examples, but I want to make sure first of all that viewers here understand that we are not here wasting taxpayers' money. We are talking about a very important bill.

I take offence in terms of the parliamentary secretary trying to blame the committee for missing this error. It was his government that decided to table this bill. It was his government, supported by the Liberals and the Bloc, that wanted to very easily pass this through committee and had plenty of opportunity to make sure that it crossed all its t's, dotted all its i's, and made all its a's work out. But apparently it could not do that.

The member for the Liberal Party said there were thorough discussions with regard to this. We really only had a few sessions at committee. In fact, it was passed very quickly through our committee and that is one of the reasons why there has been a mistake of this magnitude.

It is really offensive for the parliamentary secretary to come in here and blame the committee, when the government really wanted to ram this through and it got help to do that. We really only had about an hour of time to study the bill clause by clause.

If the parliamentary secretary wants to talk about the sloppiness with respect to this issue, then he should be looking at himself and his government for not delivering a proper bill in its current context. That is the problem that they face.

We made some amendments that we thought would add more substance to the bill. Apparently. the Conservatives did not add amendments that added substance; they added technical elements just to make sure it met language laws and would not end up in the court system.

However, we actually made amendments that were significant. One of those amendments was to subparagraph 8(2) of the act. We wanted to introduce the following:

a number of individuals comprising a majority of the board of directors who are either municipal councillors for the municipalities mentioned in the letters patent or appointees of those municipalities.

The reason that we submitted that amendment as opposed to the government's amendment that we are talking about here is because this bill is going to reduce the board of directors in many types of port authorities across the country. That is problematic because it undermines the democratic representation that is necessary for those port authorities. What we are going to see now is government appointments taking on a higher prestige level than before.

[Airline Industry, April 8th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, this minister had eight months to protect consumers and has yet to do so.

CBC's Marketplace proved that Canadian customers are getting gouged by the airlines. Surcharges can actually run the ticket up another 50%. That is not fair and we can stop the gouging.

Canada's travel professionals and consumer groups have created the travel protection initiative and demand the minister use his current authority to ensure truth in advertising for the public. This action would provide the needed transparency and accountability that other people in other countries already receive.

Why is the Minister of Transport grounded in his own fog while he is letting the airlines fly away with unfair profits on the backs of Canadians?

[Airline Industry, April 8th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, working families are sitting down to budget and plan for their summer vacations. Flipping through the newspaper ads, one would think there was a fire sale on air travel in Canada. However, that is not the case. When travellers are confronted with a mountain of outrageous fees that are not advertised in the ads themselves, suddenly, the vacation is not so affordable. Airlines are gouging customers, hiding fees and suckering unsuspecting customers.

Will the minister heed the advice of consumer groups and professional travellers, and use his powers that he currently has to force airlines to advertise only the actual price?

[Petitions, April 7th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, my second set of petitions deal with animal cruelty. The petitioners call on Parliament to update a 115 year old law that protects animals from cruelty. Over 700 petitioners are calling for real changes, not Bill S-203, which is coming forward this week in Parliament.

[Petitions, April 7th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I have two sets of petitions to present. The first is with regard to a private member's bill that I am moving forward, Bill C-476, to amend the charity portion of the Income Tax Act. The legislation would provide for charitable donations the same type of tax deduction that political parties get right now. The petitioners are from across Canada and support this important change.

[Committees of the House, April 7th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to ask my colleague a question on such an important matter.

The United Nations has been looking at this matter for 20 years. It has been under development through a lot of negotiations. During that time, a lot of countries have had to wrestle with many different problems, from land treaties, to the elements of aboriginal people's treatment, in terms of programs and services, dislocation from original land, and a whole series of settlements. There has been so much progress to this point. This is not seen as the ultimate solution to everything, but it is an important significant step for Canada to be part thereof to put the pressure on all countries, including ourselves, to deal with this matter.

I would like to ask my colleague about the two decades of work that Canada was intimately involved with that could literally go up in smoke. That seems to be a departure from the traditions of a country that is starting to wrestle with old problems and bring restitution to things that we have done as a nation that have a healing effect to move forward.

What might the rest of the world think of Canada being in the position of 20 years of working on this and then pulling out at the last minute? What will others think of us and of our country's leadership?

[Louis Harris, April 7th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, on March 22, 2008 at the age of 87 Louis Harris passed away peacefully. Mr. Harris was a proud Canadian who served in World War II with the Essex Scottish Regiment.

During his service in Normandy, Louis was injured when he was struck by shrapnel at multiple parts of his body, but was saved from greater harm as one piece was blocked by the book Jewish Thoughts, which his grandmother had given to him on his departure from home. It was tucked into his breast pocket for safe keeping.

When Louis returned he continued his service to Canada by volunteering all his life. As a member of the Royal Canadian Legion he was a founding member and past president of Branch 578, honorary life member of both the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars and was a recipient of many awards including the prestigious Palm Leaf.

Louis was a loyal member of CAW local 444 working to provide for his family and community.

Louis was married to Mary, née DesRosiers, for 61 years, and the cherished father of Linda, Bonnie, Pam, Wayne, the late David, Gale, Danny, Barbara and Patrick. He is also survived by his 12 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

My condolences to Mary and all the Harris family. I will miss Louis' smile, laugh and determined resolve to build a better world. He did his part through and true.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2008, April 7th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a challenge for social services during a downturn. There is no doubt about it.

Ironically, with this budget the Conservative government is actually reducing what we can get on a return for a charitable donation. Because the Conservatives have tied it to the income tax bracket, what has happened is that the for amount of money we give to charities we are going to get less back this year than we did last year. The government has not decoupled that. Basically what it is going to do to Canadians is that as we give to charity, we are going to get less back, so it is a double whammy.

I can say that when it comes to our city and area we also have been hurt by the thickening of the Canada-U.S. border. We have witnessed a loss in trade for some of the tourism as well as some of the other activities for which Americans came over to Canada. They would visit and partake not only in the lifestyles but also in commerce and social functions. That has actually put other charities at risk. That is a shame.

I have a private member's bill that actually looks at reforming the charitable tax act of Canada. I wish the government would adopt that as opposed to a general corporate tax cut, because that would put more money back in people's pockets and more money into charities and not for profit organizations such as the United Way and the VON, which do good work for Canadians as opposed to having that money sent overseas.