Chris Charlton

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, May 31st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, we have been debating these amendments to the budget bill for quite some time now, both in committee and now at report stage. It seems to me there are two separate types of issues here. One is a process and the other one is substantive. Substantively, there is a lot at stake, and we have talked about that at great length, whether it is the privatization of Canada Post, the gutting of environmental assessments, the fire sale of AECL, the legalized theft of $57 billion from the EI fund. All those issues are of grave concern to Canadians. However, what is equally of concern to them is they do not have an opportunity to participate in this process because all of these issues have been rolled into this omnibus budget bill.

I recognize we are at report stage, but surely it is not too late to sever those six critical areas from the budget bill, to deal with the budget bill on its own and to deal with these six individual items, if we have to, as stand-alone bills in the House. That would only require the Liberals to vote with us on this. With the Liberals, the Bloc and us, we could give Canadians that opportunity.

First, does the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan see that opportunity as a real one? Second, does she share my optimism that this is something we could do and should do?

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, May 31st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, one of the items in this budget bill that perhaps has not gotten nearly as much attention as it should have are the sections that are eviscerating federal environmental assessments.

For people who are maybe watching this debate at home today, that is particularly germane in light of what we are seeing south of the border in the Gulf of Mexico, particularly with respect to the oil spill down there.

We have a government here that, instead of re-examining all aspects of development that have an adverse impact on our environment, is making it easier and is loosening regulations. It is making it possible for people to essentially get around environmental assessment criteria. It is now being put into the budget in a way that formalizes the gutting of our environmental assessments.

I think it is one of the issues that deserves much more detailed attention. It deserves independent study, outside of this budget bill.

I know the member for Vancouver Kingsway is on the west coast. I know he has his own concerns about tanker traffic. I just wonder whether the member could bring a western perspective to that part of the debate, on environmental assessments in particular.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, May 31st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I really enjoyed listening to the speech from the member for Windsor—Tecumseh.

Tomorrow is Hunger Awareness Day, which speaks to a whole range of issues, including, of course, issues of poverty, first and foremost.

Employment insurance, for many Canadians, is the last opportunity to stave off a life of poverty when people have been adversely affected because they have lost their jobs. Communities like the member's community of Windsor and my home town of Hamilton Mountain have been just devastated by the tsunami of job losses as a result of the recession we are still in but that we first felt the effects of in 2008.

One of the things in the budget bill, as the member correctly pointed out, is the final nail in the coffin of the $57 billion fund of EI moneys, which the government is now taking for itself and is putting into consolidated revenues. It is basically legalized theft.

I want to ask the member for Windsor—Tecumseh whether his community is facing the same reality as we are in Hamilton, where people now have to rely on social assistance, because EI is no longer there for them. All the costs are now going onto ratepayers, the very people who have lost their jobs in our community.

[Bill C-9, May 31st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the sweeping policy changes the Conservatives and Liberals are forcing through are ill-conceived and bad for Canada.

At a time when the entire southern coast of the U.S. is at risk from a major oil disaster, why would the government gut environmental protection for new energy projects in Canada? Why are the Conservatives so keen to have a fire sale of AECL, a valuable and internationally recognized nuclear research agency?

If the Liberals and Conservatives are so sure these policies would wash with Canadians, why are they hiding them in an 880 page budget bill?

[Bill C-9, May 31st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government buried major policy changes in the budget hoping to ram them through unnoticed with the rest of its agenda.

This American-style approach is bad for democracy and goes against the transparency the government pretends is so important to it.

The Liberals are no better. They are all talk and no action when it comes to opposing Bill C-9.

We are calling upon both parties to do the right thing for Canadians by pulling these sections out of the budget. If the government really believes that these changes have public support, then it can reintroduce them as stand-alone bills if it must.

[Budget Implementation Legislation, May 27th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I guess the minister's selective memory of what is in the budget is to be expected since it is over 880 pages long. In fact, that is my whole point.

Here are just a few of the items that should never have been in the budget. It gives the Minister of the Environment the power to eviscerate environmental assessments. It authorizes the fire sale of AECL with no checks or balances. It begins the deregulation of Canada Post. It puts the final stamp of approval on the government's theft of $57 billion from the EI account, money that belongs to workers.

These provisions have no place in the budget bill. Will the government support the deletion of these sections and, if it must, reintroduce them as stand-alone bills?

[Budget Implementation Legislation, May 27th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives' everything but the kitchen sink budget is yet another giant step away from the promise of transparency that those supposed reformists rode in on.

This Trojan horse is stuffed with all sorts of measures the government does not have the courage to present to Canadians as stand-alone bills. It is an abuse of power taken straight from the Liberal playbook, and it is an abuse of the trust of Canadians.

If the government has nothing to hide, why is it burying so many nefarious initiatives in one omnibus bill?

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, May 26th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I hope people at home are watching and they can see the size of this document. The member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek is quite right in that there is nothing in this budget for seniors. What is in the budget of course is $6 billion in continued corporate tax cuts for the wealthiest corporations in our country, $6 billion, when every member in the House knows that by comparison with a measly $700 million, we could have lifted every single Canadian senior out of poverty. That should have been the priority in this budget.

Pension reform is crucially important. Here we have a budget bill which is almost 900 pages with nothing on bankruptcy protection. I hope all members of the House will be joining us at the corner of Wellington and Metcalfe streets this afternoon to talk to workers who are losing their jobs, whose plants are closing down. There will be steelworkers from all over the country. Members should come and talk to them. They should ask them whether they are pleased that there has been absolutely no progress on pension reform in this country. I can tell everyone the answer at that corner tonight will be a resounding “no”.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, May 26th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it is a fabulous question. We just moved 62 motions to deal with parts of the bill that must be deleted. The member is quite right in that there is no way that due diligence has been done on any of the six of them. There may even be more and I would be interested to know whether the Liberal Party moved amendments as well.

There are six parts that are of particular concern to us. I have spoken to one of them this afternoon and that is the air travellers security charge. Other ones that are profoundly troubling for us are the start down the road to deregulation of Canada Post, the National Energy Board, environmental assessments, and employment insurance.

My goodness, the employment insurance fund had a surplus of $57 billion before successive Liberal and Conservative governments started taking that money out of a fund that was there to protect the most vulnerable workers in our country who had just lost their jobs, to keep them above the poverty line. The government took their money, put it into the consolidated revenue fund and now is putting the final nail in the coffin by depleting the EI account to its bare bones.

Those are all things that merit much further attention, which is why we are moving these report stage motions so that we can do in the House what the committee was not able to do.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, May 26th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on the motions before us today. Mr. Speaker, as you just read out, there are 62 motions and now I find myself in the position where 49 of them are grouped into one slot of debate. I only have 10 minutes to speak this afternoon, so I will restrict my speech to two clauses in particular, clauses 96 and 97 of the bill, and I will let my colleagues speak to some of the others.

Clauses 96 and 97 of Bill C-9 before us today must be deleted because they pave the way for a massive increase in the air travellers security charge, the ATSC. Together they form just one of six pieces of business that have absolutely no place in this bill.

The omnibus budget bill is almost 900 pages long. It includes 24 parts with more than 2,200 sections. It is subject to one debate at second reading, another at third reading in each house, plus scrutiny by only one committee in each house. Those limitations mean that members of this House cannot possibly do justice to the varied, far-reaching and fundamental changes proposed in this legislation.

The inescapable conclusion is that the government is trying to bury deep in its budget legislation all manner of nefarious, unwise and unpopular pet projects. In bundling these unrelated measures into just one bill, the government's propensity to stifle debate and silence its critics reaches a new low. The huge and indefensible increases to the air travellers security charge included in this omnibus bill is another example of bad public policy being rushed through the House with as little scrutiny as possible.

Canada's security charge was extraordinarily high even before this proposed increase. In 2008 the Air Transport Association of Canada conducted a survey to rank the security fees charged by 175 governments at airports worldwide and found that Canada's security charge was the second highest, second only to that in the Netherlands. It is widely believed that with these increases we will have the dubious distinction of having the highest costs in the world and yet there is absolutely no evidence that we will be any safer.

The international fee alone is set to increase a whopping 52%, from $17 to $25.91. In the United States, the international security charge is $5. It is a simple question. On what basis can the government justify imposing the highest costs in the world on Canadian air travellers? What can possibly justify a 50% increase in the air travellers security charge when the existing tax is already yielding a surplus?

Let me add that while it seems clear the existing security charge yields a surplus, we cannot know for certain what is happening to those tax dollars because the audited information that Canadians are entitled to is simply not available. The last report by the Auditor General on the security charge dates back to 2004-05. The lack of accountability for taxpayer dollars is unacceptable.

However, the Air Transport Association of Canada has conducted its own study in the absence of audited information. Let me quote from ATAC president and CEO John McKenna's recent testimony before the Standing Committee on Finance:

We looked at the numbers supplied by CATSA [the Canadian Air Transportation Security Agency] and Statistics Canada.

Our estimates are based on the 48 million passengers screened by CATSA in 89 Canadian airports during fiscal year 2008-09. The numbers put forth by CATSA concur with Statistics Canada reports of 108 million passengers emplaned or deplaned during calendar year 2008, with some 54 million departing passengers, CATSA's clientele. Statistics Canada indicates that 62.9% of these passengers were on domestic flights, 19.5% were on transborder flights, and 17.6% were on international flights.

Based on these numbers, it becomes a simple exercise to estimate the revenues generated by the ATSC [the air travellers security charge]. The spreadsheet that we handed out suggests that revenues generated by the ATSC well exceed CATSA appropriation, even before the increase [in the ATSC]. Based on these calculations, [what the ATSC collected in 2008-09] more than $70 million was retained as general revenue by the Government of Canada and not used to fund CATSA.

Once the increases in the ATSC have been factored in, and considering the budget allocation for CATSA of $1.5 billion over the next five years, the revenues generated by the ATSC will produce an annual surplus of over $330 million.

That is 330 million taxpayers' dollars every year for five years quite unaccounted for.

Where is the surplus? Is the surplus being quietly moved to general revenue? Why is the government imposing a massive tax hike on the travelling public when the fund is already in surplus? How does the government intend to spend the burgeoning surplus it is now asking Canadians to finance? Is the government seriously trying to tell Canadians that it has delivered a no new taxes budget when it in fact includes a massive and unnecessary tax increase for the travelling public?

CATSA is responsible for implementing new security measures but does not do any threat assessment whatsoever. That is the purview of either the RCMP or CSIS. How much of the security charge generated revenues go to Transport Canada? How much goes to the RCMP or CSIS? Canadians have a right to know. As the Air Transport Association of Canada pointed out to the Standing Committee on Finance, Canadians do not need more layers of security; they need more effective security, better security.

Is the government simply going to increase the security charge every time a security loophole is discovered, or is it going to make air travel safer for Canadians by taking a comprehensive look at security procedures? Will security measures simply accumulate, or will the government look to developing and implementing a more efficient single step screening process aimed at improving security, reducing the number of screening stages and the time and personnel required to process passengers?

Anyone who has travelled by air knows that the inefficiency of current security practices is a serious problem, but the government continues to take a piecemeal approach to security, adding ad hoc security measures in response to isolated incidents. New Democrats believe that Canadian aviation security planning should include a comprehensive security assessment that is informed by past incidents but also looks forward. We must identify sensitive areas that could be subject to attack and implement proper security measures and response procedures to address these threats.

We must review our response systems and airport architectural design to allow security to efficiently and effectively deal with security threats with a lesser impact on airport operations.

We must develop better coordination and information sharing between intelligence agencies and airport security that would allow security personnel to actively search for potential threats and prepare response scenarios while at the same time protecting privacy rights.

Canadians want the government to develop a security system that truly protects travellers, that is designed specifically for the Canadian context, and that reflects our own needs in light of the security threat in this country.

As well, CATSA's performance must be measured against agencies that perform the same work in other jurisdictions. How does CATSA's performance stack up from an economic perspective? Are we getting value for our money? If we are, how does the government know that? What evidence has been gathered to evaluate CATSA's performance and where can the public get that information? Where is the public review of CATSA and its finances that the government promised last year?

Rather than visit massive tax increases on Canadian travellers for little or no discernible benefit, the government would have been well advised to support the private member's bill introduced by my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona. The act to provide certain rights to air passengers included a passengers' bill of rights and introduced measures on compensation for over-booked flights, unreasonable tarmac delays, cancelled flights, the concern for late and misplaced luggage, and addressed all-inclusive pricing by airline companies in their advertising.

The legislation was inspired by a European Union law where overbookings have dropped significantly. Air Canada is already operating under the European laws for its flights in Europe. Why should an Air Canada customer receive better treatment in Europe than in Canada?

The bill of rights would have ensured that passengers were kept informed of flight changes, whether they were delays or cancellations. The new rules would have been posted in the airports, and airlines would have had to inform passengers of their rights and the process to file for compensation.

These are the types of changes Canadian consumers want from their government. Instead, we have a tax hike with no commensurate increase in safety, security or convenience.

The government is asking us to approve a massive tax increase when it promised there would be none. The government offers no rationale for that increase, no explanation of why we should move from the second highest cost security charge jurisdiction on the planet to the first. There appears to be a huge surplus in the security charge fund, but we cannot be sure exactly how much, where it goes, or how it is spent.

Canadians have no idea whether the agency responsible for their safety operates efficiently or effectively. Canadians are being asked to pay more with no indication of better service. All this is buried in a budget bill that, because of the government's almost paranoid fear of scrutiny, will not see the oversight and review that Canadians need and want.

It is for all of those reasons that I was proud, on behalf of the entire NDP caucus, to move the deletion of all sections in Bill C-9 that deal with the air travellers security charge.