Pat Martin

[Canada Transportation Act, September 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am most interested in Bill C-11 in the area of air transportation safety. I notice the bill does deal with the complaints division of air transportation issues. I want to know if my colleague has had similar experiences or if he has knowledge of experiences that I have had in being on a do not fly list that is maintained in the United States but which Canadian airlines have to pander to.

In other words, there is a sovereignty issue and a jurisdiction issue that somehow my name is on the United States' do not fly list so I am not allowed to have a boarding pass in my own country to travel from my hometown to Ottawa where I work. I know I am not alone. I know my colleague, the leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons, is also on this ridiculous do not fly list, but there is no way to get off it because we do not control it.

In the context of Bill C-11, could we not have addressed this basic, fundamental sovereignty issue that we have a right to determine in our country who is considered a risk? Canadian members of Parliament who have already cleared basic security checks should not be put on that list and be denied the right to fly on a Canadian airline domestically within our own country. It is absurd.

By way of background so my colleague can answer more thoroughly, I know there is no way to get off the list because I phoned the 1-800 number in the United States and I was told to send my passport, my birth certificate and my marriage licence to them and then six weeks later they will rule on whether my name shall be cleared. I am not prepared to get on my knees and beg the Americans to stop inconveniencing me.

Does the hon. member agree that Bill C-11 or at least the House of Commons should take some steps to protect the interests of Canadians as it pertains to air transportation safety?

[Canada Transportation Act, September 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, if there are not any other interruptions about what I am wearing, I would be happy to talk specifically about rail transportation safety.

I would like to ask my colleague about his remarks regarding transportation safety. Would he agree with me that there is a compounding effect if we ignore rail transportation safety?

A lot of us want to get the freight off the highways and back onto the railways where it belongs. The compounding effect I am pointing out is that the lack of action on rail transportation safety leads to less safe highways because there is freight. Anybody who has driven the Trans-Canada Highway lately will share the frustration that I do. One is just bombarded, almost swarmed, by transport trailers, by 18-wheelers, when that freight should properly be on the rail system.

Would he agree that this is an important integral element that we have to deal with when we talk about transportation safety?

[Canada Transportation Act, September 21st, 2006]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to my colleague for reminding me that I just came from a press conference all about the effort to ban trans fats. I am very enthusiastic about this issue and my enthusiasm for banning trans fats motivated me to wear my button into the House of Commons.

In the interest of banning trans fats, I do thank my colleague for pointing out the fact that the whole country should be seized of the issue. We want to ban trans fats in all of Canada, including Quebec. There is a great deal of interest in the province of Quebec about banning trans fats. I notice that every time we raise it, it comes up on the front pages of all the newspapers in the province of Quebec. The public wants to see trans fats banned, so that is why I wore this button today and I did in fact wear it into the House of Commons.

[Canada Transportation Act, September 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague's intervention with interest. In terms of rail--

[Political Financing, September 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard all kinds of sanctimonious bluster from the President of the Treasury Board over this already.

The fact is it was the NDP that filed the complaint with the elections commission on June 29. Three months later, the commission cannot get the Conservatives to cooperate and show their books, to open their political contribution books. I was shocked to learn the elections commissioner does not even have the authority to audit a political party's books.

The Conservatives turned down every amendment we put forward on election financing in Bill C-2. How can they stand here and say they are committed to openness and transparency if they will not cooperate with the elections commissioner?

[Political Financing, September 20th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the new Conservative Party is acting more and more like the old Conservative Party of the 1980s. It promised it would clean up election financing laws, yet its own actions make the Liberals look like Quakers when it comes to sleaze.

Will this new Conservative government force the old Conservative Party to release the books of its donations for its 2005 convention and come clean with these millions of dollars of illegal political donations?

[Canada Transportation Act, September 19th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I notice that Bill C-11 deals with the air transportation sector and complaints process. I am wondering if the parliamentary secretary could comment on the idea that Canada needs its own do not fly list.

I filed numerous complaints because somehow my name is on the do not fly list which will not allow me to get a boarding pass on a flight from my hometown to Ottawa within my own country. I do not know if it has anything to do with the revisions or the hearings leading up to this comprehensive bill which amends rail and air transportation, if any of that analysis dealt with the do not fly list, but it is crazy that a Canadian member of Parliament cannot get a boarding pass on a domestic flight within his own country because his name is on an American do not fly list.

What is the government doing about the do not fly list so that we can fly again in our own country?

[Canada Elections Act, September 18th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I will just take this opportunity to briefly ask my colleague about the need to reform the elections act. In terms of election financing, one of the most glaring things facing us today that we believe could have been addressed by the government is the fact that the current Liberal leadership race is relying on massive election loans that are more like donations which would clearly be in violation of the election financing act were they viewed in their real context.

Perhaps my colleague from Windsor could comment on the lack of real election reform and the need for raising these other important issues in the same--

[International Bridges and Tunnels Act, June 22nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague does point out a worrisome trend, which is that even grassroots parties, or parties that seem to feature themselves as grassroots parties to get elected, often seem willing to trample on that very concept of consulting with the grassroots at their first opportunity once they assume power.

It is only months into a new government and we are having this argument about whether the government should or should not consult with lesser governments before it imposes some kind of massive development in their backyards. I think that consultation would be in keeping with exactly the principles that the government espoused and under which it was elected.

I think it is one thing that we share, in fact, with the roots of that party. The NDP has always prided itself on being a grassroots organization too. I would like to believe that when we form the first NDP federal government we will be more true to our commitments to consult with the grassroots and to maintain that link with the grassroots. There is something about power.

This may be my last opportunity to speak in the House of Commons in this session of this Parliament and, in these final moments, I would acknowledge how civil this debate is today. Of all the people that I have heard on this issue, the former leader of the NDP, Ed Broadbent, at the end of the last Parliament, implored parliamentarians to try to elevate the standard of civil debate in the House of Commons. I think it is starting to take. I believe that we can win our arguments based on merit, not on who can shout the loudest. Most of us here today agree, I believe, that sometimes we are embarrassed with the antics.

Whether this argument comes down in our favour or not, I have had the opportunity to express my views without being heckled or ridiculed or catcalled. It is a refreshing change. I find it is so much comfortable. If a member's idea cannot survive free and open debate, then perhaps the idea did not have that much merit, but we should not try to win it on the basis of shouting down the other person. I think there is a lesson in that for all of us.

I want to close by saying that the amendment put forward by my colleague for Windsor West was put forward in the spirit of trying to make this the best bill it could possibly be. There is no mischief. There is no political motivation. I hope it is received in that same vein.

[International Bridges and Tunnels Act, June 22nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, clearly the member for Ottawa South was listening to my remarks and I appreciate that.

I should begin by saying that no one is calling for the right to veto. We are calling for the duty of consultation. There is a separation.

I think he will find a good definition of consultation in Supreme Court rulings in Delgamuukw, Sparrow, and a number of other aboriginal issues, and I think Haida had the consummate definition of consultation as being accepted, as growing and evolving. Through jurisprudence we are finding a greater need to give better definition to the term “consultation”. In successive Supreme Court rulings is how these things evolve and mature and so does our understanding of the term “consultation” mature. I doubt that our definition of consultation will ever grow to the point where there will be a right to veto included in the duty of consultation.

I hope that helps to clarify the matter for my colleague.

As far as the worrisome trend I find with expanding the discretionary powers of the minister at the expense of Parliament, expanding the arbitrary powers of the executive at the expense of the elected body, I do not think anyone can deny this is a worrisome trend that has been identified by academics for the last 20 years, but most profoundly in the last 10.

I put the challenge back to my colleague. Show me a piece of legislation that did not have some clause at least in its original draft that did not expand the power, the authority of the minister at the expense of the legislative arena. That was the pattern. Often we interrupted that. Often we were able to nip that in the bud, but previous Liberal governments came back and tried again and again with virtually every piece of legislation that I have been associated with in my nine years in the House of Commons.