Olivia Chow

[Canada Marine Act, December 4th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, subsection 14(1) of the Canada Marine Act and section 4.6 of the letters patent reflect the promise of more community control and a fair collaborative framework, but what happens when a port authority is created is that the port authority has its own letters patent. What it says in its letters patent in regard to the board of directors in the case of Toronto, although I am not sure about Vancouver, is that it gives the minister the flexibility to nominate whatever people the minister wants.

Therefore, we have a law that says, yes, let us be collaborative and have more community control, but in actual practice that has not been the case whatsoever. There have been no consultations, no reporting to the community, no public meetings, no discussions and no newsletters. So what is happening is that there is a huge divide between the local community and council, especially in Toronto, and the Toronto Port Authority. It seems to me to have been designed in such a way that while it talks about the principles on the one hand, the actual implementation of it is completely contrary to local control.

[Canada Marine Act, December 4th, 2007]

I like warrior.

[Canada Marine Act, December 4th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. At that time, the former Liberal government was eager to find ways to reward friends. If we look at who was appointed as the first chair, it is very interesting. It was a Liberal Party fundraiser. The Marine Act, section 15(1), says that the qualifications of the directors are that they:

--shall have generally acknowledged and accepted stature within the transportation industry or the business community and relevant knowledge and extensive experience related to the management of a business, to the operation of a port or to maritime trade.

Therefore, it is very clear that the minister's nominee or those who are on the board of directors of the port authority are supposed to have experience in operating a port or in maritime trade. If we look at who was appointed, we will notice that the first chair, other than the fact that he was a Liberal Party fundraiser, had nothing in his background to indicate that he had any experience in ports or in marine business knowledge.

Then we have another lawyer, at that time from Tory Tory DesLauriers & Binnington, and there seems to be no mention in his background that indicates port or marine business knowledge. Quite a few media reports at that time tied him to the Liberal Party. As for the third one, the vice-president of strategic services, she was and is a senior policy adviser to the premier of Ontario, again a Liberal.

That is what we have seen. The chair at that time, another one, did not have any port or marine business knowledge. He was, however, a Liberal Party fundraiser and a former law partner of our former prime minister, Jean Chrétien. If we look at the four appointees who came in, what we notice is that they have extensive Liberal Party connections.

Things have not changed that much. Rather than Liberals, it is now Conservatives. They are still appointees and still are not accountable to the citizens of Toronto, which is why the mayor, Toronto's city council and in fact Torontonians have said generally to please make this port authority accountable to the citizens of Toronto and return it to the hands of the City of Toronto. If not, it is going to be a place where party fundraisers, whether Liberal or Conservative, will end up taking their places at the Toronto Port Authority.

[Canada Marine Act, December 4th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I want to speak about the Canada Marine Act. It had an unfortunate amendment a few years ago, debated at length during 1997. At that time the minister of transport, Mr. Collenette, said that it was important to have a new Canada Marine Act than have an act that would include some of the ports. He said it would then download some of these ports to their own board of directors.

The minister added that he needed to be satisfied that the port was likely to remain financially self-sufficient and that it was of strategic significance to Canada's trade and diversified traffic.

The city of Toronto has a port that does not meet any of the criteria set out in clause 8 of the Canada Marine Act. It is not self-sufficient. It is not significant to Canada's trade and it does not have highly diversified traffic. One would think that the Toronto port would not be taken away from the hands of the city of Toronto.

Unfortunately, that did not happen. At that time there was a great deal of political interference. It appeared that a former Liberal member of Parliament, in April 1997, decided to take the matters into his own hands and wanted to develop the airport, in this case, without the interference of the city of Toronto. The Canada Marine Act was amended at that time to include the city of Toronto's port authority even though it did not meet any of the criteria.

It seems from all the media reports and all of the discussion at that time, that the inclusion of the Toronto Port Authority was done purely for political reasons. At that time there was a serious number of lobbyists. When we look at the lobbyist registry, there was a large group of lobbyists at that time lobbying the federal government to make sure that happened.

The federal government said that it was not a good plan. The government had an adviser from Nesbitt Burns. It did not recommend that the Toronto port be included, based on the financial reasons alone. At that time there was also a royal commission on the future of the Toronto waterfront. It recommended a restrictive role for the Toronto Port Authority so that the city of Toronto could get on with developing its waterfront.

Against both of these two recommendations, the Toronto Port Authority still got included in the Canada Marine Act at that time. To make matters worse, the federal government then appointed people who certainly did not meet the criteria. It seems to me there was controversy over the appointments of members to the board of directors. This was June 8, 1998 and the transport minister at that time, Mr. Collenette, was accused of manipulating the appointment process.

Indeed, the Toronto case was not isolated. Vancouver and Halifax were also quick to cry foul, so it does not surprise me today that members of Parliament from both Vancouver and Halifax will want to speak later on about this issue. The National Post headline of August 18, 1999, said: “Collenette skirts rules to appoint Liberal allies: New port authorities: Shipping groups outraged by political 'manipulation'”.

In fact, there was a series of subsequent headlines. One said that the bill, when it was going through third reading, would give communities more control over the ports and that it would establish “a fair, collaborative framework for the management of commercial ports”. It sounds good. More community control and a fair collaborative framework were supposed to be brought forward.

What happened? At that time the minister appointed directors that were not nominated by the user groups and used their power. Clause 14.1 of the Canada Marine Act gives the minister the flexibility and discretion to nominate as user directors persons other than those persons recommended by the classes of users to ensure an appropriate mix of board members, et cetera.

What happened was that the Liberals at that time decided to put in some of their own appointees and did not follow the guidelines. It seems to me that the Conservatives are also following that tradition.

We now have a port authority that has very little local control. Under this bill it would have access to the infrastructure fund. That is a problem. Why? Because when the infrastructure fund was first created, the idea came from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. All the projects were supposed to come from the municipalities, a third being matched by the provincial government and a third being matched by the federal government. The plan, as originally envisioned, would allow the local municipalities to have control over this infrastructure fund.

Through the years the former Liberal government then made it its own fund and many of the municipalities then had very little control over it. It got worse and worse, and it is not clear with the Conservative government how the criteria is going to be established for the infrastructure fund.

If the port authority, like the Toronto Port Authority, has access to this infrastructure fund and because it has very little control by the local communities and government, it could have access to a lot of funds that were supposed to be destined for municipalities to fix highways, potholes, build community centres and all of those things. This part of the bill is very worrisome.

What happened in Toronto was that soon after the Toronto Port Authority was included in the Canada Marine Act, it decided to initiate lawsuits against the city of Toronto. It threatened lawsuits with the federal government and sued the local community group Community Air.

Not only do local communities have no influence over the appointments into the local port authority but the first thing the port authority did after the Canada Marine Act was passed with amendments and political interference was to sue every level of government other than the province of Ontario in order to gain funds for itself because it was never financially self-sufficient.

There were land use changes and planning. There was very little public input. In the last few years the city of Toronto was not even notified of major changes at this port authority when it decided to make changes in the local area.

The port authority has also recently threatened to take one third of Little Norway Park, a popular park in the local neighbourhood, because it is running a substantial airport there so it is needs to find room for parking spaces, queueing lanes, and all kinds of space for taxis to park, et cetera. That is certainly not an appropriate use of land for that little area. On top of that, this port authority, because of its various lawsuits, has obtained somewhere between $35 million from different parties.

The entire operation was run by one board member because the rest of the board either resigned or were not reappointed. During the period the port authority was trying to go after the federal government, it had only one member sitting on its board.

The port authority also used $300,000 of taxpayers' money to run advertising campaigns to justify its existence. If this bill were to pass, I cannot see for the life of me why we would contribute infrastructure funds to an organization that is in fact into suing everyone. It has no local control and has used at least $300,000 for advertising campaigns to justify its existence.

As a result of this port authority not having any local input or control, the revitalization of Toronto's waterfront has slowed down. Lots of speeches have been made. Lots of promises have been made. Money has been promised. Many discussions have been held about why the Toronto waterfront needs to be revitalized.

It seems to be one step forward and another step back because this local port authority controls some of the land rights by the water, but it has not been participating with the various stakeholders about revitalizing the waterfront.

The Toronto Port Authority is breaking the tripartite agreement it signed with the federal, provincial and municipal governments. Planes at the airport are twice the weight and double the passenger count of what was envisioned at the time the tripartite agreement was formulated in the mid-eighties. It is very noisy. Planes are flying in above the level that is supposed to be controlled by the tripartite agreement.

The airport is in close proximity to a large number of condominiums that were built in the eighties down by the waterfront. At the time the port was established there were very few residents living near the waterfront, but now there are at least 50,000 in the neighbourhood. I cannot see why this port authority should really stay.

The Canada Marine Act is supposed to deal with traffic going to different ports. There is absolutely no reason why there should be an airport at the Toronto Port Authority. Of all the ports across Canada, this is the only port that runs an airport and has nothing to do with waterways or shipping.

The Toronto port has very modest port functions, such as rulemaking for boats, buoys and dredging as required, and facilitating the odd, very rare, commercial ship arrival. Cargo handling is a major money loser and eventually needs to be merged with Hamilton or be shut down. The outer harbour marina probably could be operated by the city or Harbourfront Centre because it needs to demonstrate that the public interest would be better served by this port.

In the past, the City of Toronto has said to the federal government that if it is reviewing the Marine Act and making amendments to the Marine Act, it is critically important that the Toronto Port Authority be taken out of the Marine Act, because it really does not belong there. Its traffic is very small. It is still not financially self-sufficient. It is of no strategic significance to Canada's trade. It has no diversified traffic.

How could that be done? It could be done, effectively, by the governor in council pursuant to section 55. It could “liquidate its assets in accordance with the certificate or the regulations made under paragraph 27(1)(a) and...dissolve the port authority, and the letters patent are deemed to be revoked”. The proceeds would then be liquidated and probably should be transferred to the City of Toronto. The governor in council may also “by issuing a certificate of dissolution, dissolve a port authority without requiring the liquidation of its assets”.

So one way or the other, if we are to discuss this Marine Act in a way that is true to what it is supposed to be, the Toronto Port Authority should be returned to the City of Toronto.

Through the years, different mayors, no matter what their political stripe, whether it was Mel Lastman, who, last I saw, was a Conservative, or the present mayor, David Miller, with the entire City of Toronto council, has said over and over again that the Toronto Port Authority really should come back to the hands of Torontonians, because right now the users, the municipalities and any stakeholders in the neighbourhood basically have absolutely no influence over this port authority.

It would give me great concern that if the bill is passed what we would see is that Bill C-23 would allow this port authority to access infrastructure funds from the government. Let me tell members that in Toronto the infrastructure funds should be used to fix the crumbling highways such as the Gardiner Expressway. We have had three or four chunks of concrete falling from the Gardiner Expressway. The subways in the city of Toronto need repair and need to be expanded. There are hundreds of projects that are desperately in need of infrastructure funds. The last thing the City of Toronto needs is for this port authority to have access to the funds so that it could upgrade whatever it is upgrading in competition with Air Canada. The House would be making a terrible mistake.

I cannot see how we can possibly support the bill if the Toronto Port Authority is still part of the Marine Act and running its own business without any input from local municipalities.

[Canada Marine Act, December 4th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, recently the Federation of Canadian Municipalities said that there is a huge backlog of $123 billion in infrastructure deficits. A lot of municipalities are desperately looking to access some funds, to fix the highways, the potholes, the water treatment plants, et cetera.

Is the member concerned that this bill would allow the port authorities in a big city such as Toronto to access the infrastructure funds? For example, as he may know, the Toronto Port Authority operates an airport in downtown Toronto. An airport would need all types of infrastructure funds. It is now operated by one company, which is in direct competition with Air Canada. If this bill passed in its present form, the Toronto Port Authority could access infrastructure funds. This would make the pot which is already far too small in the Conservative budget even smaller.

In a lot of remote communities in Yukon, up north, in Ontario, or out west would have some access to this fund, but the fund could be drawn down by big ports. Even though the port is small, it runs an airport and has lots of demands.

Is the hon. member worried about allowing port authorities access to infrastructure funds? Would it not make the pot that much smaller and create unfair competition for a lot of municipalities that desperately need the funds to fix their highways, roads and sewage treatment plants?

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, November 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, no wonder Canada's productivity has dropped and keeps dropping. It is not going anywhere fast. In 1983-84, post-secondary education funding, in terms of investment, was about .56% of all the funding given in all of the grant areas. By 1993-94 it was .41% of GDP and in 2007 has dropped to .22% of GDP. No wonder our productivity is not going anywhere fast.

In terms of the environment, I noticed that this budget actually continues to promote the government's failed clean air act targets and includes the inadequate 2050 target. This works out to be a 31% reduction below 1990 levels when the House has been talking about an 80% reduction. Is that something the member can support?

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, November 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, Canada's productivity has dropped to 16th place, the U.S. dropped to 6th and Ireland has gone down to 21st in ranking, whereas the high taxing countries, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden and Denmark have gone up. They are always at the top in their productivity. They put a lot of money into innovation and research and development.

The hon. member talked a lot about investing in municipalities and investing in the social good, yet he would not say how much the investment would be, where would the money come from? Is it coming from an increase in income tax? Is it hiking the GST?

The Liberal Party talked about reducing the corporate tax rate of 18.5%. After the speech by the Leader of the Liberal Party, the Conservatives did reduce it. It announced the corporate tax rate would go from 18.5% to 15%. I cannot tell the difference between the two parties because they say to bring it down further.

Where would the money come from and what is in this mini-budget? Is the corporate tax rate 18.5% or is it 15%?

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, November 29th, 2007]

Mr. Rae turns out to be a Liberal, so I am not surprised he had difficulty.

However, we have seen it over and over. Look at Manitoba and how many balanced budgets it has had. Look at the government of Tommy Douglas. Through the years there were balanced budgets.

In terms of the number of years, the member should look at the facts and the figures. He will find that when the NDP runs a government, by and large it has balanced budgets, unlike some other governments that have had huge debts. Look at the promises federal governments have made to children, that they would invest in them and make poverty history. We have had the Conservative government, the Liberal government and then a Conservative government again. After 18 years of promises, what has happened?

Another promise was made to lower greenhouse gas emissions 20% by 2000. I remember that red book promise. Guess what? It has gone up. Why? There was no investment in anything green, not in public transit, green technology or retrofit programs. How does that help the community?

For us to have a prosperous Canada with a high productivity rate, we have to invest in things like child care and post-secondary education. How did Ireland, for example, come from not doing very well to a place where it is now dealing with child poverty? What did it do? It invested in post-secondary education and in people. We do not do that. We give big corporate tax cuts, and guess what? No wonder we lag behind in our productivity. No wonder we have trouble with our place in the world.

I understand the Liberal Party likes to make big promises. I heard a recent promise on dealing with poverty, something about 30:50 or whatever. Yet where is the money to do all that? From 2001 to 2007, we saw $53 billion in corporate tax cuts. That money should have gone to deal with poverty and to investments in communities, cities, people and families. That is what we should have done.

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, November 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member were to ask the Library of Parliament which party ran the most fiscally responsible budget in government, he would be surprised. It is in fact the NDP.

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, November 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am not surprised that the Liberals would not want to comment on this budget. The not so new government, the North Star government, is following the Liberal tradition of not investing in municipalities, cities, communities and ordinary Canadians.

A tax cut does not build affordable housing. A tax cut does not mean that buses come more frequently. A tax cut does nothing to ensure libraries open on Sunday. It does not build community centres or libraries. A tax cut does nothing to help farmers. A tax cut does nothing to help people who are desperately in need of affordable child care, whether it is in rural communities across Canada or in big cities.

In fact, an OECD report came out yesterday. It said that families could not afford child care and that there was not enough decent, high quality child care out there. Therefore, what do families do? They either have to stop working or they stop having babies. No wonder the birth rate in Canada is so low. Only in the province in Quebec has the birth rate stabilized, because it is investing $7 a day child care. Outside of Quebec ordinary families cannot afford to have babies. Why? Because they do not have affordable child care.

How does a tax cut deal with the problems families face? It does not. We have seen report after report which say that among OECD countries, Canada is dead last in its investment in affordable child care.