David McGuinty

[Ethics, February 18th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, Treasury Board contracting rules are in place to prevent corruption and political favouritism. Yet documents show that in March 2013, the office of the then minister of natural resources, now the Minister of Finance, ordered his department to approve a $9,200 payment that, according to his own department, “contravenes...Treasury Board...Contracting Policies”.

This was an after-the-fact speech-writing contract for the minister. Who was the money for? It was for none other than Guy Giorno, the Prime Minister's former chief of staff.

Why were proper contracting rules violated?

[Intern Protection Act, February 17th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow up with a question for my colleague from Tobique—Mactaquac and perhaps remind him and the House that this is one of the reasons why the member's bill is so important because we actually need accurate statistics.

In 2012, the youth unemployment rate of those 18 to 25 year old was 12%. In April 2014, it was 14%, and rising. So I am not sure where the member for Tobique—Mactaquac got his numbers in saying it has been on the decline. In fact, it has not. It has been on the increase over the last several years.

I would like to congratulate the member as well for the thoroughness she has brought to the bill, because not only does it show the need for statistics and perhaps the reintroduction of the long form census so we can rely on accurate statistics, but it also calls for the implementation and the need for standards—the need for standardization, for that matter.

In my own riding of Ottawa South right here in the city in the national capital, I have a very high youth unemployment rate, particularly because I have such a multicultural Canadian population in the riding, where there are 82 languages spoken and people from 146 countries.

Would she perhaps help us understand how her bill would help deal with the new normal in Canadian society, which is the diversity I was referring to in my own riding of Ottawa South?

[Rail Service Resumption Act, 2015, February 16th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Malpeque is again correct. The government could have done many things. It was forewarned over and over again, through testimony, witnesses, overtures, meetings, advisory groups, and councils. The situation has been going on now for almost nine years.

The government should have invested far more in inspection and audit capacity inside Transport Canada. The government should have invested far more resources in enhancing the safety management systems that our railways, airlines, and shipping companies rely on. They are the central place where regulator and regulated meet to make sure things are safe, and the government should have invested far more in enhancing that capacity.

The old idea that a group in Canadian society can be picked out and blamed is Republican Conservative tactic 101. The idea is to find a bad guy, and in this case it must be the unions, and blame them. That is nonsensical, not efficient, and not economic.

The railways have never been more profitable, and we are for that. Why would they not reach out, work with the front-line workers, and ensure that the legitimate concerns they have with safety and security, such as sleep, are addressed?

These things could have been defused months ago, if not years ago. This was a predictable strike, and the government knows it. Shame on the government for allowing this to happen.

[Rail Service Resumption Act, 2015, February 16th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right.

I respect the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. Our party does not have a history of attacking the Supreme Court of Canada or its Chief Justice. We will leave that to the current Prime Minister of Canada.

The hon. member is absolutely right in saying that employees on the front lines of our rail system have a lot to contribute and want to improve the safety, the efficiency and even the profitability of the railway they work for. The Conservatives' outdated belief that the unions are just there to get as much as they can from the employer is false.

The employees of an organization are essential to that organization's success and are thus deserving of a much more respectful approach. I therefore agree with my colleague that this type of negotiation can enhance safety.

[Rail Service Resumption Act, 2015, February 16th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to follow my colleague and some of the very important and profound comments he made about where we are with respect to this back-to-work legislation and why the Liberal Party of Canada cannot support it.

It is important to step back for a second so that Canadians can see the repeat pattern of crisis and back-to-work legislation.

Let us remind Canadians, from the perspective of the Liberal Party of Canada, that the federal government has an obligation to get the very big things right. One of the things a federal government has to get right is rail safety.

Rail safety in this country today is in a state of flux. We have had a 1,500% increase in the transportation of oil by rail in the last three years. Even if every single contemplated pipeline is built in Canada to transport fossil fuels south, east, and west and is used at maximum capacity, present projections suggest that by the year 2024, there will be one million barrels of excess oil capacity per day that will have to be transported by rail.

When a government minister stands up and says that this is exclusively about the economy, our international reputation, and the movement of our citizens, she is only partly telling the truth. Much more is below the surface.

Of course, this is in large part about collective bargaining and the right to collectively bargain. We all know that. However, as the vice-chair of the standing committee on transport, who has been active now for over two years in all of the details around rail safety post-Lac Mégantic, I believe that the government is trying to project a different series of concerns to mask a fundamental and lingering problem in Canadian society today, and that is rail safety. The government would have us look over here as the minister distracts from the government's failure to take serious action on safety and security.

Canadians are not going to be surprised to learn that at committee, we have had the heads of CN, CP, the Teamsters, Unifor, and other unions and stakeholders all come forward and say the same thing. They want more safety and security in the rail system. They have all agreed on this. They have all called for enhanced safety. In fact, they have been unanimous about it.

Part of the challenge we face as a country is that we have had five ministers of transport in eight years. That is not serious. How is the minister of the crown seized with one of the most important and foundational responsibilities in Canada, which is transport, supposed to do the job if he or she is being shipped out, shipped down, or shipped up through the department of transport in 16 to 18 months?

This is one of the challenges we face. We have had a succession of ministers transiting through the department of transport on their way elsewhere. The safety and security they are supposed to uphold are undermined.

By failing to address the serious issue of adequate rest for railway operators, the government has failed to prevent this CP Rail strike. It is not management. It is not labour. That simplistic, sometimes antiquated notion, often put forward by my colleagues in the NDP, is, in my view, dépassé.

All parties want to see the requisite investments in safety and security, and they know that they are not getting it from the government. That is why the government is rushing through this back-to-work legislation. It is an attempt to masquerade and to cover the fact that it has not addressed the foundations of some of the challenges we have going forward. This puts our railway employees, Canadians, and our communities at risk.

It is the government's responsibility—not the railway company's responsibility, not the union's responsibility—to establish rest periods for railway workers to ensure that railway employees, Canadians, and communities are safe. It cannot be fobbed off or sloughed off. We cannot simply pretend this is a dispute.

“Irreconcilable differences”, says the minister. “We have been there, trying to help broker a deal”, says the minister. Really?

The Minister of Labour should talk to the Minister of Transport and find out why it is that for over six years, the government has been meeting with union representatives, the railways, and advisory groups in backroom meetings. They have been seized with these foundational security concerns for all that time.

The Conservatives knew this was coming. It was no surprise. Now the minister comes out and says that it is merely a negotiation of differences between two parties.

She is right that several unions have settled. Unifor and 1,800 employees have settled. The Teamsters and its 3,000 members on strike have not, but this is not reducible to mere union-management or labour-management differences.

Do not take my word for it; take the report of the Auditor General. It is a scathing indictment of the government's failure to address the foundational issues around rail safety for almost nine years.

The government does not like to hear it, but I like to remind Canadians that Conservatives have spent more money each and every year for the past five years on economic action plan advertising during the NFL or hockey games. These spots cost $37,000, $67,000, and even $300,000 for 30-second advertisements.

It is interesting that not one of those Conservative MPs can look their constituents in the eye and say that they can defend that spending, because they know they cannot, not with the real needs out there in Canadian society and certainly not with the real needs of rail safety.

The Auditor General pointed out many times and in many places that there are huge problems. Here is one to remember. In the three fiscal years that the Auditor General audited, the government's Department of Transport audited only 25% of the safety management systems it said had to be audited to keep the railways safe. In the same three-year period, VIA Rail, carrying four million passengers a year, was not audited once. Those facts are indisputable.

In conclusion, we cannot support this back-to-work knee-jerk legislative response. It is a masquerade. It is hiding the foundational issues around safety and security that Conservatives have refused to address. That takes money. It takes inspectors. It takes investment. The government has an obligation to get the big things right; rail safety is one of those things, and it is not doing it.

[Rail Service Resumption Act, 2015, February 16th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague to expand on a couple of points he made in his speech.

One was the question of lingering safety concerns with respect to rail safety as a whole in Canada. He is aware, as members of the House should be aware, that the Minister of Transport, and each one who has come before her, has had detailed meetings, briefings, and exchanges with labour groups, safety groups, and the railways themselves. Each in their turn has raised profound and important security and safety concerns with the minister directly.

To what extent has the government been negligent in not taking the action required, which has now led to strike action?

[Rail Service Resumption Act, 2015, February 16th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague. I really appreciated his comments.

He just said that this is about employees exerting pressure on their employer. However, is the real issue that we are debating in the House today not the role that the federal government plays as the regulatory authority in Canada, with responsibility for the safety of our rail industry?

Is this really about pressure between two parties? Is that not exactly what the Conservative government would have us believe? Does it not want us to see these differences as just disputes between two parties? The government is trying to distract us so that it does not have to justify the fact that for nearly five years now, it has not invested as it should have in the inspectors, inspections, controls and staff required by the Department of Transport.

That is the major challenge we are facing today.

[Rail Service Resumption Act, 2015, February 16th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is missing a large element here: this is about security and safety. For two years the government has been warned repeatedly by the Auditor General, the Transportation Safety Board, and other voices, including the Teamsters and other union groups, that there are problems with the safety and security of rail in Canada.

We know on this side of the House that the government has spent more money on advertising its economic action plan than on rail safety for the past five years. We know that. The government cannot deny it because the numbers do not lie. It is the government's responsibility to address the serious safety issue of adequate rest for railway operators. That would have prevented this CP Rail strike. It is its responsibility to establish rest periods for railway workers to ensure the safety of Canada's railways and the communities that our railways travel through.

Railway employees have been asking the Minister of Labour, the government, as well as the transport minister, for safe working conditions. It is the government's obligation. It has been warned, forewarned, and warned again, and the result of the failure to take serious action on rail safety is the two parties with seemingly irreconcilable differences.

Can the minister explain to Canadians who are watching and following this debate why her government has not taken measures to prevent this draconian legislation being brought forward?

[Mental Health, February 3rd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to rise in the House today to recognize an outstanding achievement by my constituent Raphaël Guévin-Nicoloff. He has recently completed a 2,000 km bike ride from Buenos Aries to Tierra del Fuego in memory of his brother Simon, who suffered from depression and tragically took his own life 10 years ago. Through this impressive feat, Raphaël has raised over $4,000 for the Canadian Mental Health Association.

Twenty per cent of Canadians will personally experience a mental illness in their lifetime. We all know that mental illness indirectly affects all Canadians through a family member, a friend, a neighbour, or a colleague.

I ask the House to join me in applauding Raphaël's incredible determination in the face of such tragedy and encourage all Canadians to work together to continue to raise awareness about mental illness.

Congratulations, Raphaël.

[Rail service, February 2nd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, this debate is the furthest from hypothetical debates we could find.

I want commend my colleague, the member for Sydney—Victoria, for bringing forward his motion, which is extremely important. He is a very active advocate for agricultural producers and for agribusiness. He viscerally understands the role and the purpose of Canada's agricultural sector in a larger economic context, a theme I will come back to in a few moments.

I want to go back to first principles for listeners, readers or people watching this debate. Let us collectively recall that Canada's railroads were built chiefly with the leadership of government and that they had a unique foundational role to play in helping to kick start our economy and underpin this post-modern economy in which we now live. In fact, rail is indispensable to Canada's economic success. That is woven into the fabric of the specifics that my colleague from Sydney—Victoria wants to see examined in his important motion; what we see with respect to the government and how it interfaces with the transportation sector and its responsibility for transportation.

First, governments have an obligation always to get the big things right, the things on which Canadians count. One of the chief responsibilities of a federal government is transportation, which includes transportation policy, regulation, enforcement and so on.

We have seen an increase in agricultural production, in natural resource exploitation, the transportation of oil by rail and stability, if not a slight increase, in passenger rail transportation across Canada. The government knows this. In fact, for almost a decade now it has watched this growth. However, as my colleague from Sydney—Victoria pointed out, we have seen the government reacting in knee-jerk fashion. It is almost as if it is jumping from one ice floe crisis to another ice floe crisis, depending on the crisis of the week, month or year. It is so much so that now our rail system is in flux.

Our rail system is in crisis. We have ships waiting off the west coast of Canada for our grain, our agricultural products and sometimes for other natural resources. We have seen a massive 1,200% increase in the transportation of oil by rail. The government has known this for almost a decade. We have seen a crisis emerge in passenger rail services in the country. There have been complaints from all over northern Quebec, from Sarnia, Sault Ste. Marie and so many other smaller parts of Canada that are witnessing a decline in service, frequency and availability. On all fronts, we have a problem.

What has the government's reaction been to this problem in almost a decade? Its first reaction was to appoint five transportation ministers in less than nine years. No minister can take on a portfolio like Transport Canada seriously and commit the time and effort that is required to improve the transportation system by flitting in and out, either heading up, down or out of cabinet. This is what we have seen with a succession of cabinet ministers.

One of the things I have noticed in my time as the transportation critic for the Liberal Party of Canada is a proximity relationship between the regulated railways sector and the regulator at Transport Canada. This has deeply concerned me. This relationship, in my view, and I do not say this lightly, between Transport Canada, its minister, its staff, its good officials and the regulated sector of the railway is too close. It is too cosy. It is almost too integrated, and we have seen this as we have studied the safety management systems that apply as much to the transportation of grain as they do to the transportation of oil.

The facts are, as I mentioned, there have been five ministers in nine years. There has been an Auditor General's report, which can only be described as scathing. Over a four-year period, the Auditor General ferreted through what was happening at Transport Canada and came back with some incredibly problematic and troubling findings, thing likes in a four-year period, the government had not had Via Rail, with its millions and millions of rail passengers a year, audited by a qualified inspector for its safety management system.

In the entire rail sector, only 25% of all the audits that were supposed to have been done, planned by the government, were in fact done. It does not increase our confidence in rail safety, particularly in response to and after the terrible tragedy of Lac-Mégantic in Quebec.

As my colleague pointed out on penalty provisions, the minister was buttonholed last week by media. On camera, the minister said that the government would have to see whether it would impose a fine and how much it would be. Agriculture producers and shippers have to know. The government has said that it will be $100,000 a day in fines. Now it has said that it will not be $100,000 a day, but $100,000 a week. It actually is not $100,000 a week either. It is full of discretion. The minister will decide, when she feels like it, or whoever the next minister is, whether the railway company should be fined. I do not know on what grounds or on what basis, because the criteria is not clear.

The fines do not go to the shippers. They do not go to those who have been affected by the choices made by the railways or the constraints imposed on the railways. The fines are paid to the government, not to the shippers who have liquidated damages, with crops and yields and grain sitting in storage waiting to get on to ships that are moored off the coast of B.C. It makes no sense, but these are the kinds of changes and actions the government has brought in, again in a very ad hoc way, dealing with a bottlenecked railway system.

Prairie provinces are the world's top canola producing region. It is incredible what our agricultural producers have done, the efficiency, the environmental sensitivity, the quality of the grain. We are the second largest exporter of wheat, up 14% to record 81 million metric tonne levels in a short number of years.

The Liberal Party of Canada thinks that with the relationship between the regulator and the regulated, the railways companies being regulated, it appears is if the railways are now picking and choosing, based on profit margins, what they will or will not essentially ship. Some volume standards have been brought to bear, but even these do not deal with the crisis that is in play.

To recap, our are shippers captive. They have no competitive commercial alternatives, no legal recourse when the system fails. The threatened fines have no real impact. They are no substitutes for liquidated damages for the affected shippers. The government has brought in an order to move certain minimum volumes of grain, which expired in November 2014, and is making it up again as it goes along.

We need this motion. We need a comprehensive examination of the rail transportation system to get it right and get it better. We owe it to Canadians, to our future, to our economy and we really owe it to the future success of Canada.