Garnett Genuis

[Copyright Act, May 17th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the motion, the government had promised the opposition that we would pass Bill C-11 at all stages at an appointed time agreed on by all parties. Of course, the government broke that commitment by calling Bill C-11 this afternoon without notice.

We do not believe in playing politics on this important issue and we do have another slot we want to use—

[Copyright Act, May 17th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member on bringing this bill forward. As much as I have not had a chance to read the bill in great detail, certainly the intent of the bill and the direction we see is very positive.

Why is the bill being put forward today despite other legislation being on notice? This is an issue where there seems to be a substantial degree of consensus and it would have been nice to have moved forward with proper notice in a collaborative way. Instead, after indicating that the government would move a different bill, today we have closure on one bill, report stage on another, and now it is pushing this one forward. Why not move this bill forward in the collegial co-operative manner that something this important deserves?

[Air Canada Public Participation Act, May 16th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I do want to take this opportunity to correct the member for Spadina—Fort York, who wants to say that the previous government did nothing on this and nothing on that. Of course, our previous government made substantial investments in the aerospace sector. One example is the $900 million for the strategic aerospace defence initiative. It was a significant investment, administrated through Industry Canada, that is supporting the aerospace sector.

The current government is not helping the aerospace sector. In fact, it is going in the opposite direction. It is changing the rules in the middle of the game to allow jobs to go out of the country.

I wonder if the member would comment further upon some of the significant changes we made, not just for the aerospace sector, but for all businesses and all workers. It made Canada a more competitive environment to create jobs by lowering business taxes, by increasing our trading relationships.

We did so much for the aerospace sector, for every sector, and now the government is selling out workers by changing rules in the middle of the game.

[Air Canada Public Participation Act, May 16th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, it is curious to hear the member talk about the best interests of workers when, explicitly, the purpose of this legislation is to change the law to allow Air Canada to no longer employ workers in Canada for the purpose of their maintenance.

We have talked on this side of the House about other measures that the government could take to enhance the competitiveness of the aerospace sector, things like increasing the foreign ownership limit and tying airport improvements fees to specific projects. We have listed them before. I will not list all of them again. However, could the member comment on the many different options for increasing the competitiveness of the sector, which are not only for increasing the competitiveness of companies but also for benefiting workers? Why is the member not looking at some of these other options rather than simply supporting the bill, which provides a windfall gain to one particular company?

[Air Canada Public Participation Act, May 16th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I have a hard time believing that the hon. member was serious when he asked that question. He applies the label “modernization” to this piece of legislation with no sense of irony. We could apply the word “modernization” to almost any piece of legislation and say, “Oh, this is modernizing it”. We could do the opposite and say, “We are modernizing it”. Then, he associates that with the expansion of the House or any number of other reforms. What utter nonsense.

He is using the word “modernization” without any concept of what that actually means in this context. This is allowing the outsourcing of jobs. This is changing the rules of the game midstream, giving windfall benefits to Air Canada with no broader economic strategy at all, and saying, “It is fine because we will give it the nice label of 'modernization'. It is 2016, after all. It is the 21st century.”

[Air Canada Public Participation Act, May 16th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her excellent comments and all the important work she is doing here.

I will say, yes, it is fishy when we hear the government talk about consultation because it is very keen to use the word to pay lip service to consultation. However, in almost every case, it appears that, for the government, consultation means holding meetings and then doing what it wanted to do anyway. It talks about consultation in the context of the Air Canada Public Participation Act, yet it is proceeding on a course that is incredibly unpopular with almost everybody involved.

On pipelines, which is another example, the government talks about extending the consultation process, yet it wants cabinet to retain final approval. That is not meaningful consultation at all. There will be more meetings but still the government gets to do whatever it wants at the end.

Again, on electoral reform, it is similar. The government is talking about having this extended beautiful consultation, which will include Twitter and more Twitter, but at the end of the day, it seems dead set on doing exactly what it planned to do all along. That is not meaningful consultation.

I think Canadians need to ask, when the government talks about consulting people and about looking at the evidence, who it is going to consult and whether those consultations are actually going to inform the final product. Is it going to do more than just hold meetings? Is it going to listen to the concerns that are being raised?

I can say very clearly that in the legislation before us, there does not seem to be a lot of listening going on. We have concerns raised by the Government of Manitoba, by the Government of Quebec, by opposition parties, by the unions, by virtually everybody except Air Canada.

I asked the parliamentary secretary, who is in favour of this, then? She sort of alluded to the fact that there were others in favour of it but did not name a single stakeholder group that was in favour of it. That does not mean that there might not be some out there, but it is clear that the vast majority of those with the clearest stake in this issue are very concerned about what the government is doing here.

[Air Canada Public Participation Act, May 16th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, our party is committed to standing up for workers and supporting them. We do have a somewhat different economic philosophy from the member's party. We believe that a strong system of market incentives that encourages economic growth will benefit workers across the board. We have stood up for that kind of a system, a system that is fair to workers and has predictable rules that encourage more investment.

The member asked what we could do to benefit workers in this sector. I will refer back to the list of suggestions I made in terms of things that could enhance the competitiveness of the sector. We in the Conservative caucus believe that measures to enhance the competitiveness of businesses in this country to allow them to hire more workers are important. We were concerned with the budget when the government removed the hiring credit for small business. That is a clear example of the government doing something that is bad for business but more importantly, it is bad for workers. Removing the hiring credit hurts the ability of businesses to hire workers and create jobs.

We are concerned about some of the broader economic competitiveness things that the budget has moved away from. Specifically, in terms of the aerospace sector, there are a number of measures we have talked about, such as raising the foreign owner limit on Canadian-based airlines and tying airport improvement fees to specific projects. These would be good for workers and good for the Canadian economy as a whole.

[Air Canada Public Participation Act, May 16th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, respectfully, I did not quite follow the question because of some mix-up in constituency names. I am the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan. The member referred to a member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, which is the name of a constituency in the previous Parliament. Maybe he meant to refer to our colleague from Carleton—Eagle Creek, who in the previous Parliament was the member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar. I think that is where he was going. Unfortunately, the economic philosophy that informed the question is even more confused than the constituency names.

The removal of the conditions would provide no specific benefit to the taxpayer. The removal of the conditions would be a gift to Air Canada. If Air Canada buys Bombardier planes, there would obviously be some benefit to that. We would want to see Air Canada make investments in Bombardier. What we would be concerned about though is if there were some kind of quid pro quo involved, if the government had undertaken these negotiations to do an indirect bailout in a way that was not transparent. The government should make any efforts here transparent, at the very least.

Just to be clear, I strongly support the motion we put forward with respect to the Billy Bishop airport. I spoke in favour of it. I voted in favour of it. There was certainly no division on this side of the House on that question at all.

Our party has been consistent about wanting to see reasonable measures that are pro-market and respect the rules but also support the development of the aerospace sector. We cannot just give some windfall gains to one company and call that a strategy for the sector. That is not a strategy for the aerospace sector at all.

[Air Canada Public Participation Act, May 16th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise and address at third reading this very important subject of the government's proposed changes to the Air Canada Public Participation Act. I am sure for many people watching this at home their first reaction when they hear the Air Canada Public Participation Act is to ask what is that.

The reality is that the bill is important. The changes the government is making are important, in part because of the substantive effect of those changes on the workers and others who will be impacted, but also because of what it tells us about the government's broader economic philosophy and the direction in which it is going perhaps on a wider variety of files. There are some things we should say about the bill right off the bat.

First of all, there is a strong multi-party consensus, at least outside of the government, opposing this legislation. Conservatives, New Democrats, and the leader of the Green Party have all spoken very forcefully against the changes the government is making, and for different reasons coming from different economic philosophies, but it is very clear we all have concerns about it. We on this side are collaborating in our opposition.

On the government side we hear an abuse of language and that is consistent with many of its arguments. The Liberals talk about modernizing, moving forward, that it is the 21st century. This is the all-purpose argument with the government. Stating the current century, stating the current year and talking about modernization is the all-purpose argument which can be used to justify anything, it seems. It is not an argument at all, but we hear this coming from government members and we hear them talking about collaboration on this file.

However, as I mentioned in questions and comments and alluded to already, there is actually a strong consensus in this House of opposition to the bill among a wide range of different parties and philosophies. Within civil society there is an opposition to it from a variety of different quarters. The previous Manitoba government had concerns about this as well. The Quebec government said that we should not be rushing into this right away. As well, the union representing the workers who are affected has concerns about it. There is broad concern about the government's agenda for reasons that I will get into later on.

What we saw at second reading is pretty clearly a government which did not want to talk about the bill. This is strange because it is actually the first new substantive legislative idea we have seen from the government. Yes, the government has proposed bills to implement court decisions. The Liberals brought in a budget. They proposed repeals of measures which the previous government brought in. However, in terms of something substantive and new, this is the government's one big idea so far. It would be strange that the government which has put this degree of importance on the bill actually does not want to talk about it. This is the first bill that the Liberals moved time allocation on. Even before they moved time allocation, they were not keen to put up speakers and the debate was sustained back and forth by Conservatives and New Democrats speaking about concerns about this legislation.

This is a strange situation we have. We have a piece of legislation that is presumably important to the government, and certainly it is important to the people whom it affects, and yet the government is not very keen to talk about it. The Liberals are abusing language around it and there is a growing consensus of opposition to the bill. That is important to underline as we move forward.

In fact, we had a vote today on the bill and it almost was defeated. We had a member of Parliament from Manitoba who voted against the bill at second reading, but who voted for it at report stage, which is disappointing because that member had an opportunity to actually stop this bad legislation from going forward at a time and in a way that would have mattered much more than at the second reading vote, but he chose to follow the government whip instead of to line up behind his constituents.

What is happening with the bill? What is the substance of the bill and why is it important? Let us go over the background one more time.

In 1988-89, Air Canada was privatized and the mechanism of privatization was through a share issue privatization. This means that the government previously had owned Air Canada. It issued shares, and sold those shares. At the time, those shares were subject to certain conditions. There were four main conditions proposed on Air Canada at the time of this share issue privatization: Air Canada had to be subject to the Official Languages Act; it had to maintain its corporate headquarters in Montreal; 75% of its voting shares had to be held by Canadians; and it had to maintain operational and overhaul centres in Winnipeg, Montreal, and Mississauga. There were four different conditions that were placed on Air Canada.

Of course, when we put conditions on the sale of something, it is going to have some impact on the share price. That is fairly obvious. To use a simple analogy, if I sold my house but said to the new owners that I had to have access to the backyard even after I sold the house, the new owners might agree to that, but they might say that they would pay less for the house if it was subject to that kind of condition, because that condition would be inconvenient for them and any subsequent owner.

This is essentially what happened when the government privatized Air Canada. These were not arbitrary conditions that the legislature came up with at a later point and chose to impose on a private company. These were conditions of sale. They were built into the deal. They informed the share price at the very outset of that deal. That is fundamental to understanding what is fair and what is right going forward in terms of these conditions.

Now, albeit significantly later, the government has decided to sort of unilaterally just give up those conditions. To extend the backyard analogy, it is writing off that condition that was previously written in the deal with no kind of compensation, for no obvious reason, not getting anything in return, giving Air Canada shareholders these windfall gains, giving value to Air Canada free from the state that was not there before. Had these conditions not been there in the first place, the government could have received more for those shares. It does not really make sense to say, “Here you go Air Canada, here are some total windfall gains”. It does not make sense to do it on that basis.

I should note that, despite all this talk about competitiveness and a level playing field, the government is removing one of four conditions and maintaining the other three. It does not appear to have any interest in removing conditions around official languages, corporate headquarters, or around the number of voting shares that have to be held by Canadians. This is not some grand latter day conversion to market liberalization by the Liberal government; rather, the Liberals are removing one specific condition, which allows the outsourcing of jobs. They are not undertaking a broader shift to try and enhance competitiveness. As I will get to later on, I think there are a number of other things the government can do, and might be wise to consider doing, which would in fact have a better impact on competitiveness.

We are certainly for strengthening the aerospace sector, and we are certainly for measures that will increase competitiveness, but not at the expense of basic fairness in the marketplace, not at the expense of taxpayers, and not at the expense of jobs.

Given the conditions that were put on Air Canada as a condition of the purchase of those shares, and given where we are now with this process, I think many people listening to this debate will wonder why in the world the government is doing this. Why did the Liberals decide now all of a sudden that they were going to give this nice little gift to Air Canada? It does not make a lot of sense unless one knows that there is something else going on.

The arguments the government gives do not really add up. However, there is one thing we hear consistently from government speakers, and there have not been that many over the course of this debate. However, when government members want to speak to this debate, what we hear them alluding to is Bombardier. They are saying there is this thing happening with Bombardier, that it is going to have these centres of excellence, and Air Canada is making these investments. This is very much something happening that is separate from the Air Canada Public Participation Act.

The Air Canada Public Participation Act does not mention Bombardier. The member for Winnipeg North was alluding to negotiations that have taken place, that the government has undertaken negotiations. There is no specificity at all. I have asked repeatedly in questions and comments if the government could establish the link here. What are the Liberals talking about when they say that there is something happening over here with Bombardier and therefore they have to bring in a bill on the Air Canada Public Participation Act? There have been repeated questions about this link. They are hinting at it, but they are not willing to acknowledge it. I think there may well be a link between those events, but we have to understand why the government is not actually willing to talk about it.

Here is the connection between these events and the timeline that goes with it: On February 17 of this year, Air Canada announced that it had started negotiations with Bombardier to purchase C Series aircraft. These were aircraft, incidentally, that it had not previously expressed interest in. That was on February 17. Very shortly after that, on March 8, the minister put this bill on notice. Then the governments of Quebec and Manitoba suspended litigation and there was a variety of commitments made in the context of that by Air Canada.

It is interesting that this litigation has been suspended; it has not been halted. The government, by introducing this legislation, has actually pulled the rug out from under the provinces, should they wish in the future to continue litigation. That is an important point which I will get back to in a few minutes.

We see these events following very closely one after the other. Air Canada expresses interest in a purchase from Bombardier and then right after that, Air Canada receives the benefit of the proposal of this act. What seems to be happening is that Air Canada is receiving the free removal of a condition of its privatization at the same time as it is exploring a previously unplanned purchase from Bombardier.

I can only suspect that is because a direct bailout of Bombardier is unlikely to be acceptable to the public, especially at a time when Bombardier, like Air Canada, is outsourcing jobs, and so it has come up with this scheme of an indirect bailout. That is what appears from these events and certainly that is what is hinted at by the government, even though it will not answer a direct question about the relationship between the Air Canada Public Participation Act and Bombardier.

The benefit of the removal of conditions flows freely from the government to Air Canada and the benefit of a previously unplanned large purchase would then flow from Air Canada to Bombardier. Again, the benefit of the removal of conditions would flow from the government to Air Canada and the benefit of the previously unplanned large purchase there then flows from Air Canada to Bombardier.

This is what appears to be happening. If it is happening, it is something that Canadian taxpayers and workers should be very concerned about, because normally, if one were going to undertake a bailout, not that that is ideal under any circumstances, one would impose conditions on that bailout. Instead, there is only the removal of conditions of a previous privatization and there is no guarantee that there will be economic benefits or jobs here in Canada.

If people are skeptical about this connection, this connection was actually made explicit by the Quebec government when it discontinued its litigation against Air Canada. Here is what it said: “Subject to...final arrangements, the Government of Quebec has agreed to discontinue the litigation related to Air Canada's obligations regarding the maintenance of an overhaul and operational centre following Air Canada's agreement to collaborate with the Province to establish a Centre of Excellence for C Series”. Of course, tellingly, the Quebec government does not want this legislation passed at the breakneck rate that the government seems to be pushing it forward, because it suspended its litigation subject to “final arrangements”.

Air Canada has expressed interest in the purchase from Bombardier, but the deal has not been closed. There has been talk of opportunities by centres of excellence of new investments and jobs in Quebec and Manitoba, but these are all things that Air Canada has dangled as possibilities. Meanwhile, the government has not just dangled this legislation, it is trying to push it through. It is trying to push it through very quickly, with limited discussion, with time allocation, and with, it seems, as few government members speaking to it as possible.

If the government proceeds with this legislation this quickly before these investments have even been made in Manitoba and Quebec, then it will have pulled the rug out from under those provincial governments. Even then, given what the government may be trying to do to produce this kind of indirect bailout effect, it has gone about it in a very ham-fisted way that will likely not have—I should not say “likely”, but may well not have the effect that it wants it to have.

This is underlined by a press release that the Government of Manitoba released on May 9, “Government of Manitoba opposes Bill C-10”. It said:

[The deputy premier] presented to the federal Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities to reiterate the Manitoba government's opposition....

“There are significant implications to moving forward with Bill C-10 without further dialogue and consideration,”.... “The Government of Manitoba is requesting specific commitments from our partners in the federal government to ensure the proposed changes to the Air Canada Public Participation Act will provide a net benefit in terms of investment and job creation for Manitoba’s aerospace industry.”

The press release goes on:

In February 2016, the previous government wrote the federal government requesting that amendments to the Air Canada Public Participation Act be limited to expanding the geographical scope of Air Canada’s commitments within Manitoba. The proposed amendments go significantly further than the geographical scope.

It is interesting that in Manitoba, as well as here, there is a unity between the previous NDP government of Manitoba and the new PC government. They are both concerned about the act, just as in the House, Conservatives and New Democrats are both very concerned about the direction this is going.

To come back to this point, it is clear that there is a strong consensus in terms of opposition between different political parties at different levels, and throughout civil society, as well.

However, what are the arguments we hear from the government in favour of this bad and unpopular legislation? We hear talk about the health of the aerospace industry. All of us want to see a stronger aerospace industry. All of us would like to see Air Canada do well.

My colleague from Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek has done a very good job of outlining other things that could be done that would actually be stimulative. What about following through on the government's plan to lower taxes for small business? It made a previous commitment to do that. It is raising taxes on small business, which flies in the face of a commitment that not only it made during the election, but all of the parties in the House made during the election.

Aside from the aerospace industry, just thinking about the economy as a whole, what about follow-through on the commitments they made with regard to business taxation?

Here are some things specifically toward the industry that could improve competitiveness: tying airport improvement fees to specific projects with explicit sunset provisions; overhauling the financing model for security; increasing the number of existing trusted traveller programs; increasing the foreign ownership limit of Canadian-based airlines to 49% for air carriers operating commercial passenger services; reforming Nav Canada to reduce costs imposed on airlines; improving governance in airport authorities; establishing a set of principles to guide all airports in Canada when determining fees; better aligning regulations with the U.S. and Europe; and continuing to streamline immigration and customs processes.

These are a number of things that the government would be very wise to do and they would have our support in doing them, in terms of actually seeking to improve competitiveness. However, this is not about competitiveness. If this were about competitiveness, the government would be looking at a broader range of things. It is moving one specific condition, which was a condition of Air Canada's privatization, which allows Air Canada to send jobs overseas, and it is doing it at a time when Air Canada is perhaps suspiciously doing something else that meets with the government's objectives.

If we put this picture together, it clearly is not about competitiveness. We would have seen a much broader strategy if the government was actually interested in the health of the aerospace sector and improving the competitiveness of the aerospace sector. Like so many things, such as its emphasis on modernization, these are just words that the government uses with seeming disconnect from the actual, substantial meaning of those words.

Let me just wrap up by saying that I think this really is crony capitalism at its worst. There are three different parties in the House. Our party generally believes in the value of the market mechanism. Our friends in the NDP are more skeptical about that. However, we at least believe in a rule-based market system, that an effective market system requires adherence to rules. It means that if there are obligations that are part of a condition of sale, they have to follow through on those obligations. They cannot change the rules in the middle of the game for the workers.

The government does not really have a concept of a functioning rule-based market capitalist system. Its idea is that it gets together with the Air Canada executives and they talk about what they are going to do, and then it tries to get a few people's interests working in one direction. However, it ignores the interests of the workers, of the taxpayers, of broader society.

That is why we would say this is a crony capitalist bill. There is something to object to, for Conservatives, for New Democrats, or anyone in between.

I hope members stand up and oppose the bill.

[Air Canada Public Participation Act, May 16th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard from this member and other members on the government side about working collaboratively and about all the people with whom they are supposedly undertaking negotiations.

As far as I can tell, everybody is opposed to the bill except Air Canada, everybody including the provincial governments.

Aside from government members themselves, who support the bill, and aside from Air Canada, which obviously supports the bill, with everybody else seeming to be lining up on the other side, how does it all make sense for the Liberals to claim that this is the result of some kind of project of collaborative work?