Dennis Bevington

[Taxation, February 26th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, Statistics Canada's latest report shows that consumer costs in the north have risen twice as fast as elsewhere in the country. The report shows that the major factor increasing the price of food is the Conservative's own nutrition north program. This flawed program has stuck northerners with overpriced, over-packaged, poor-quality food. Clearly, the government has to take action to reduce the high cost of living in the north.

The NDP has long called for a 50% increase to the northern residence tax deduction. Will the government include such a measure in its upcoming budget?

[Fair Rail Freight Service Act, February 4th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I think arbitration, by its nature, means that we want someone who understands the nature of fairness within the system. To have that, it has to be someone who fully understands the system but is not engaged in one interest or the other. There must be continuity, with the same logic applied to different areas of the country and the same methodology, which comes from continuity, in arbitration. I would say that if this system is going to be successful, it needs those qualities within the arbitration system. One is a dedication to fairness and the second is continuity.

[Fair Rail Freight Service Act, February 4th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, there were two questions. I will attempt to deal with the first one.

Of course, without government raising money, we cannot reinvest in things that require investment to increase productivity. If we increased productivity in the rail lines, we would then increase the profits of those rail lines. They could provide that to their shareholders.

There is a symbiotic relationship among all the things we do in this country. There is no separation into hard and fast units. Rail, and the way it has developed in Canada, has engaged most segments of our society. That is why government has a very important role. However, if government does not collect the money, it cannot invest. It is pretty straightforward.

There may be North American rates. However, quite clearly, there is also the provision of incidental services. I am sure that there is a lot of fudge room within those rates. Nothing can be delivered at the same price in the same time. Volume counts. The type of delivery and the conditions make a difference. All these things add to cost or take away from cost. To not have them in arbitration, to not have the finesse of the system available for arbitration, I think is something that will inevitably lead to abuse.

[Fair Rail Freight Service Act, February 4th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I think the committee could perhaps start with the witnesses who could talk about equality and fairness within the system. We might actually want to look at economists, perhaps some people who study these issues around the world, how rail companies work in this fashion, so that we could see clearly what is fair, what is likely to be fair, and how to present that in committee in a good fashion. I would say that would be a first step for this bill: to examine the ethics of the bill and how it would apply to the different parties who would be affected by this.

Then we would want to take that understanding and go to the actual shippers and make sure that we cover the wide variety of shippers in this country, geographically and by the type and size of material they are moving through the country, because they are all very significant players.

I would say that would be an interesting formation of the committee. However, whether the committee is ready to put that kind of effort into this remains with that committee to decide.

[Fair Rail Freight Service Act, February 4th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to discuss the bill, Bill C-52, an act to amend the Canada Transportation Act.

As the previous transport critic for this party during the 2008 to 2011 era, through that time I recognized that there was a great demand across the country for changes that would assist shippers in dealing with the duopoly of the rail system in Canada and the conditions that occurred.

Quite clearly, the concerns were greater among the smaller shippers than among the larger shippers. Therefore, the ones that could command the greatest use of the railway had greater opportunities to strike better deals. The problems lay in a stronger fashion with those that did not have the quantity and the continuity of freighting that would attract the rail systems.

I remember meeting with the pulse association, people who provide agricultural products that are not grain but beans, soy, peas and that measure of agricultural product, which is growing considerably in Canada but in smaller batches in different areas across the country. Their problems with getting their product through the rail system were paramount to them. They said they could not deal with the system as it is right now. The types of producers, the locations of those producers across the country and the nature of the product meant that the rail companies were not attracted to them as customers as much as they were to larger producers.

I will be very interested to see how it will play out across western Canada now with the loss of the single desk for grain, how that will play out with small producers, smaller aggregations of those who are moving grain.

The Conservatives sold the idea of getting rid of the single desk on the basis of enabling grain to be moved to different places by the producers in a fashion that would allow them to value-add to their product. Let us see what happens when this occurs in a system where the need for freight is paramount, where we have to move the product and where farmers are not protected by the larger system that existed under the single desk. We will see what that does and how it works. I am sure the committee will hear representation on that matter as well, as it moves forward.

In looking at the rail system, we have heard a lot of talk about infrastructure. The parliamentary secretary mentioned the great investments that the government has made in the rail system. I would raise, for instance, the investment the government is making in one of the big problems with our rail system, the level crossings. There are some 1,400 level crossings in this country. They are being added to incrementally by municipalities all across the country. The Conservatives identified $27 million a year over five years to invest in level crossings.

When we do the math, that does not turn out to be something that will really solve the problem we have with level crossings. Some level crossings can cost between $30 million and $40 million to fix. These are major requirements in the rail system.

If we take a good look at it, the rail companies are not primarily responsible for what has happened with level crossings. This is a co-operative effort that extends across governments, provincial highway authorities and municipal governments. Everyone has a hand in level crossings. Why does the federal government have to play a role? The federal government can be the final arbitrator there. With the profits rail companies are making, they should be a big part of this as well.

Of course, the government does not collect taxes in a decent fashion from corporations that actually make profits, and cannot reinvest for the public good and the good of those corporations. The chances of the infrastructure issues, that is, of rail being fixed across this country, are very remote if the present spending level of the federal government continues.

I am glad that the NDP has such a strong transport critic today, one who has pushed very hard on these issues.

The service agreement review went through and finished in 2011. Members are now seeing an act in front of Parliament, Bill C-52.

The first part of the bill sets up terms and conditions for contracts for railways and shippers. If a shipper wants to enter into a contract with a rail company, it can describe the traffic to which it relates, the services requested by the shipper in respect to the traffic, and the undertaking the shipper is prepared to give to the rail company with respect to traffic for services. How will one make sure that the rail companies will be well served when their cars arrive? How will all of this fit together?

Contracts, of course, do not apply to written agreements already in place. A company that has already established a written contract with a rail company is not available to deal with this under this legislation. They are locked in.

In the case of many of the larger producers, that may be to their advantage. They do not have to renegotiate anything. The ones that provide a lot of freight movement have a deal set up.

Seeing what is happening in the industry here with the failure of the pipelines that have been proposed for Canada, I would say that we are going to see greater rail traffic carrying oil and gas products across this country. That may change the dynamics of the rail system as well. The larger producers may find themselves competing with other very large producers as well. We will see how that plays out.

The second part of the bill deals with arbitration. Once one has established a contract or is unable to agree on a contract, there is a process of arbitration. That is good because, of course, it is sometimes very difficult to come to agreements.

Small producers in a remote location are looking for the rail company to arrive in a good fashion with the cars. They are going to leave them there. The cars are going to be in good shape. They are going to take the cars away after they have them filled.

There are many variations that have to be examined in a contract between two parties that carry out this kind of work. Is the shipper going to be ready to provide the product to fill all those cars when they are delivered at the site? If they are not, is there some measure of compensation to the company for leaving the cars there longer? If the company does not supply the cars in a good fashion, is there a way to compensate the shipper, who may be backlogged at the receiving area with the other mode of transportation that caused them to bring it to the railway? These are complex, detailed issues that have to be worked out between shippers and the rail company. Of course they will require some arbitration.

What is the hammer that the company keeps under this legislation when it comes to negotiating or dealing with arbitration? Under proposed subsection 169.31(4), the following applies:

For greater certainty, neither a rate for the movement of the traffic nor the amount of a charge for that movement or for the provision of incidental services is to be subject to arbitration.

There is the hammer for the company. It can set the rate for the cars sitting in the dock. It can set the rate for the movement of the material out of the area. It can decide the nature of the movement, the volume of the movement taking place, and how cost effective that is with its service charges that fit over top of that. All of those issues are not going to be subject to arbitration.

The company holds a very strong hand there when it comes to exactly what it is going to cost to do the work. Still, the arbitration should take into account the rates. In any business arrangement, the rates are very important. They cannot simply say “We are going to have a service contract, and you do not get to talk about the rates. The only thing you can talk about is what is going to happen”. Those two things have to work together.

The government, by excluding that from arbitration, has given the rail companies a very strong position in Bill C-52. I hope that it will be seen in committee as something that needs to be worked on. There needs to be some work done to make this fairer, more equitable to all of those concerned, especially the small producers across this country who do not have the leverage to make the deals, as was the case even before this bill.

After this bill there should be some leverage for those small companies so they can make sure that services are being provided to them in a good fashion at a reasonable rate. That is what we should be doing in government, being fair to both sides. The basis of government is trying to come up with solutions that work for all parties.

Some of the other concerns here also fit with small companies, the small shippers, such as the degree of difficulty they may have in working in arbitration, the timeframes that are outlined, the process that is outlined, all of which are very complex and very expensive. The costs will have to be borne by the shipper. The cost of the arbitration is to be split equally between the shipper and the rail company in all cases, according to this legislation.

How does that work? If the arbitration is in favour of the small shipper, they still have to pay the piper for the work they have done.

What I would like to see in this is some means of establishing rates and conditions that would apply across the country, so that some kind of equivalency develops among the arbitration systems and that, across the country, what is decided in one place has some relevance to what is going on in another, so that we have some fairness in the system.

I do not see that yet. Perhaps some of my Conservative colleagues who may have some ideas about that may want to express them. I think it is more likely to be taken up in committee, however. This bill needs a lot of work.

What is the record of this majority Conservative government in offering up amendments? I have to say it is abysmal. It is totally abysmal. These people do not believe in amendments. The Conservatives believe that what they put forward is good enough for the country. They are in charge and they know what is right. This is what has happened with almost every single piece of legislation that has gone through the House to date.

Where are the amendments? When I worked in the transport committee, when there was not a Conservative majority, we worked together, we looked at the issues and we came up with solutions that were mutually agreeable. Then we created amendments that we all agreed with.

Transportation is a fundamental and vital service to this country. It is not something that should be dealt with by parties working against each other. I was always very pleased with the previous transport committee chair, the member for Brandon—Souris, who was very fair and understood that transportation was a vital and important part of this country, which needed to be expressed as such.

This bill should be amended. It should be considered very carefully for what it actually accomplishes and what it should accomplish.

[Arctic Council, February 1st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, with the chairmanship of the Arctic Council, it looks like the Conservatives may once again tarnish Canada's reputation on the world stage. The effects of climate change and the massive loss of Arctic sea ice are creating urgent issues in the Arctic, which require international co-operation. However, last week in Norway the Arctic minister said Canada's focus will be on business.

Why is the government wasting the world's time by using this important forum to advance corporate interests?

[Fair Rail Freight Service Act, February 1st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, as a previous transport critic, I faced many, many interest groups over the years from 2008 to 2011 wanting to see this in place, as well as the absolute intransigence of the government at that time to put it forward. The nanosecond was stretched out quite long over that time.

What has changed? The Canadian Wheat Board has now gone. We are probably dealing with a situation where there is more pressure on the government to act for the small concerns on the Prairies, and I think that is good, but if we are taking this to committee, we really need to take a look at what has happened to the wheat and grain industry across this country since the demise of the Wheat Board and that single desk, which had allowed more pressure on the rail industry.

[Business of Supply, January 31st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, at all levels first nations have had to recover from the many grievous wounds that have hurt their spirit. However, their spirit is going to recover.

In a way, I am of the fundamental opinion that first nations provide and can exhibit the greatest opportunities for leadership among us in this country. That spirit of leadership shown over the last while needs to be accepted and nurtured by all Canadians, because it will make us a greater and better country in the world we live.

[Business of Supply, January 31st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, when I travel through the Northwest Territories to the different communities, I see that those that have settled claims have relationships at the community and regional levels with all people. They are working with all people. That is how we get things done in Canada.

Things are done in Canada from a position of having something to offer. When first nations have settled claims, when they have certainty on their land, they have something really tangible to offer. They can control that offer as well, tailoring it in a way that works for them.

That is progress. That is going to make progress. That is what all Canadians want.

I am landowner. I control the land that I have. I make decisions about it. I invest if I have to. I look for partners if I have to. These are things we do as Canadians. I want first nations to have all those abilities that we all have as Canadians, tied to what they have from their ancestors, what they have from their position on this land.

Thirty times the courts have agreed with aboriginal people on land issues. Thirty times in a row. When are we going to wake up? When are we going to quit being so idle on these issues?

[Business of Supply, January 31st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Joliette.

The motion before us reads:

That the House, recognizing the broad-based demand for action, call on the government to make the improvement of economic outcomes of First Nations, Inuit and Métis a central focus of Budget 2013, and to commit to action on treaty implementation and full and meaningful consultation on legislation that affects the rights of Aboriginal Canadians, as required by domestic and international law.

I want to take some time to focus on the Northwest Territories, which is a singularly unique area of Canada where we have settled and unsettled claims. We found the best way to improve the economic situation of our indigenous people in the Northwest Territories is to settle land resources and self-government claims.

In the parts of the Northwest Territories where the claims have been settled, people have increased prosperity and the private sector, which wants to invest there, has certainty in the regulatory process. That is very clear. The opposite is true for those areas of the Northwest Territories, which still have unsettled claims.

In testimony before the members of aboriginal affairs and northern development committee during hearings in Yellowknife on Bill C-47, the NWT and Nunavut Mining Associations and the NWT Chamber of Commerce both stressed the value of having settled claims.

There are some examples of how settled claims can improve the economic situation of first nations people, Inuit people, and I will speak to two of them.

One is the Inuvialuit. The Inuvialuit were the first to settle their claims in the Northwest Territories. They did a very good job of it in 1984, with excellent claim settlement. They took over large pieces of their traditional territory. They got surface and subsurface rights in the oil-rich Mackenzie Delta and the Beaufort Sea area. They were in a position to take advantage of resource development, resource exploration in that area, and they have built an amazing Inuvialuit Development Corporation, which owns outfits like Canadian North Aviation. Members may have flown on it themselves. It owns the Northern Transportation Company Limited. It has investments and opportunities for Inuvialuit people throughout the Northwest Territories, at all levels of employment.

It is through this settlement that the Inuvialuit were to get their heads into economic development, rather than spending their time trying to fight with the federal government over land claim settlements.

We could talk about the Tlicho government, settled under the Liberal government in 2004. Its land extends through diamond-rich areas of the Northwest Territories. It has rights to large areas of land, surface, subsurface. It has opportunities on that land. What has it done with them? It has created the Tlicho Development Corporation. That development corporation, in less than 10 years, has gross revenue in excess of $130 million, employing 800 people.

This is the kind of effort that could be made by first nations when they achieve control over traditional lands and territories, not when they are stuck on reserves, not when they do not have the opportunity to participate fully in the resource economy.

However, this is not the case in the areas of the Northwest Territories that do not have settled claims. In the Dehcho and the Akaitcho regions, both incredibly rich areas of the Northwest Territories, the Dehcho with its gas deposits, the Akaitcho once again with mining and great opportunities as well, negotiations on land claims are stalled. They have been stalled with the government for many years.

Much of the fault lies with the federal government through actions like continually changing negotiators, never giving negotiators the ability to make decisions, revisiting areas which have been agreed to in negotiations and changing negotiation mandates. These are all things that completely obfuscate the system.

In these two regions there is much uncertainty. The investment is difficult. Now there are brave companies, and I speak of Avalon as one company that is going through the environment assessment process. It won awards for its ability to talk to the first nations in those regions and to bring them into the process themselves.

We see industry taking over the role of government in providing the authority to first nations to make decisions on their land. That is what it takes in unsettled areas.

Chief Roy Fabian of the K'atl'odeeche First Nation recently told the aboriginal affairs committee the following during hearings on Bill C-47 on the Surface Rights Board Act:

This legislation is a serious matter that strikes at the heart of Treaty 8 and jeopardizes our attempt at reconciliation with Canada. The legislation appears to be an attempt to circumvent our land claims process and undermine our authority over our lands.

...I want to make it clear that this Bill, if passed, will not be recognized as valid law on Katlodeeche territory. If the federal government attempts to impose this legislation on our Treaty land then we will consider our legal options to oppose this legislation and resist every attempt to grant an access order on our land.

Where does that leave industry? Where does that leave certainty? Where are we going with that? That is not working, is it?

Chief Fabian highlights a key element in current federal-aboriginal relations, namely that federal action or inaction is causing a rising sense of dissatisfaction among Canada's first nations, its aboriginal people, leading to movements like Idle No More. It is leading directly there. It is leading to a movement that we can all get behind: we should not all be idle on this issue. We should not be obfuscating. We should not be trying to make this a harder thing to accomplish, to get land claims settled in this country.

Canada's aboriginal people are no longer content to just sit patiently while Ottawa gets around to finally addressing their concerns. They are idle no more. Congratulations to first nations. Congratulations should come from all Canadians. We are glad they are idle no more. We are glad they are standing up for their rights. We are glad they are standing up for the land and the environment. These are things that have to be done. They are not getting done by the government. First nations can provide the leadership.

Canada's first nations want full settlement of their claims on traditional territories and will not wait while federal negotiators play games. They will be idle no more when it comes to getting these claims settled.

Canada's aboriginal people want to be treated fairly. They want to build the economies of their communities and regions. They are not opposed to development. I have shown that. They want to be full partners in development have a say in how it occurs. However because of delays by the federal government, they are no longer willing to wait.

Canadians should get behind them. Let us all be idle no more when it comes to first nation issues.