Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues in the House for that enthusiastic and warm welcome this evening at this advanced hour. I really appreciate the encouragement.
We are here this evening examining Bill C-31, another one of the omnibus budget implementation acts of the Conservative government, and yet again we find ourselves presented with a massive bill. The bill is over 360 pages long, and it changes a number of pieces of legislation, more than 60 acts in all.
I want to begin my remarks by pointing out again the fundamentally undemocratic nature of the government throwing into one omnibus bill much of its legislative agenda, including many measures that have nothing to do with the budget and including whole bills that should be separate pieces of legislation that come before the House and are voted on at separate committees by the members. Instead everything is thrown into one budget bill.
Because there are so many areas that the bill touches on, I am only going to be able to mention three or four this evening, unfortunately, but I want to speak first of all about the changes to FATCA. This is the foreign account tax compliance act, and Bill C-31 moves to implement a Canada-U.S. intergovernmental agreement about FATCA.
What is FATCA? The bill means that Canadian-U.S. dual citizens would find that they would have their financial information scrutinized by the American government, even though they perhaps have not lived or worked in the United States for many years, and this would include people who happen to be born in the U.S. but have not lived there perhaps most of their lives.
What the agreement would do is facilitate the transfer of sensitive Canadian financial information, individuals' financial information, to the United States. There are serious concerns that this would violate the privacy of a number of Canadians. In fact, it could adversely affect up to one million Canadians who could be affected by the bill, people who happen to be here but also hold American citizenship; so this is a great concern. In my constituency, many people have written to me or visited me, very concerned about what this means.
It appears that the agreement was negotiated with the protection of the banks in mind, as opposed to the individual protection of individual Canadian citizens. This entire agreement is included in this omnibus budget bill, as opposed to having something that is so fundamental and so important and affects so many Canadians carved out as a separate bill that could be debated and given due consideration. That is very troubling.
One of the key problems with the FATCA provisions in the bill is that there is nothing in this that would inform Canadians that their privacy is being violated, that their information is being turned over to the IRS. We proposed some reasonable amendments to these provisions, but as usual, they were all rejected by the Conservatives.
Next, I want to talk about the rail safety provisions, or lack of rail safety provisions, in the bill.
The bill would allow the government to change and repeal a wide variety of railway safety regulations, including standards for engineering worker training, hours of work, and maintenance and performance, all without informing the public. There would be no public debate on these changes. These could be done in secret, by cabinet, and could affect the transport of dangerous goods.
Now, I do want to say that, in my riding of Parkdale—High Park, in Toronto, we have three different rail lines that traverse our riding. Community members there have been very concerned about the transport of dangerous goods. Certainly, they have seen what happened in Lac-Mégantic and other parts of the country and in the U.S. and have expressed serious concerns. They have signed petitions. They have been trying to have a meeting with Department of Transport officials. I am hoping the minister will approve that, at some point, and allow the officials to come. They are very concerned about this, and to have a situation where changes could be made that could affect community safety when the public may not even be aware of it is the opposite of transparency and a cause for great concern. I do want to flag that.
Third, I want to flag the issue of trademarks and copyright.
I sit on the industry committee—I am the industry critic—and parts of the bill did come to the industry committee. Although we did not get to vote on anything, because it all goes back to finance, one thing we did hear was testimony about trademarks.
I want to quote the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada because, while the government says that the changes it has made on trademarks are to have compliance with international agreements, in fact, the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada says that the proposed elimination of the need to use trademarks prior to their registration presents a serious concern. These are the experts saying this. It goes beyond what is required by accession to the three international treaties and may disadvantage Canadian trademark owners.
What we heard in testimony reinforces that and amplifies that because, going against all past practice and previous legislation, trademarks could now be registered without ever using them and so we could have trademark trolls, who register all of these trademarks and then a legitimate business that wants to get that trademark for its legitimate business concerns would have to get into expensive litigation and take on these trademark trolls just in order to brand their small business. This is the opposite, again, of transparency and of even logic. We have heard no good rationale from officials, from the minister, or anyone as to why this is taking place.
Therefore, there are serious concerns. Again, these trademark changes are something that should be in a separate piece of legislation and be made available for adequate study at the industry committee. Instead, they are rushed through the finance committee with this omnibus budget bill.
Last, I have to talk about the lack of commitment to infrastructure.
We already have a $300 billion infrastructure deficit in the GTA, in Toronto, where I am from. We finished last out of 19 global cities, when it comes to commute times, yet we have a government that, in the previous budget, cut $5.8 billion in infrastructure funding. There are future commitments to infrastructure, but they are way down the road, and our city and, indeed, the country are in urgent need of quick action. We need to see spending, now, by the government. We should be doubling the gas tax, so we can invest in our communities across the country. The budget would do nothing to help redress the infrastructure deficit.
I look forward to the questions from my colleagues in the House.
