Peter Milliken

[House Of Commons Standing Orders, February 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I think you will find a disposition on this side of the House to limit speeches to 10 minutes with the usual 5-minute questions and comments thereafter.

[House Of Commons Standing Orders, February 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Laurier-Sainte-Marie. His comments were highly constructive and his suggestions are much appreciated.

I do not agree with his suggestion that votes should take place only on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. It is a problem in this House because we only sit 130 days a year, roughly, under the new system introduced by the former government. Every three or four weeks the House adjourns for one or two weeks. At Easter, for instance, there is a two-week recess. It is at such times that members should be travelling to their constituencies, not now when the House is sitting. In my opinion, when the House is in session, the members should be here.

There is enough time to work in the constituencies on weekends and during the weeks when the House is not sitting. That is why I do not agree with him that we should not hold votes on Thursdays. Those are simply my thoughts on his speech.

I think that he may have misunderstood the government's intention in putting this proposal before the House today because we did propose a change to the second reading of bills as he suggested. We will only have a very short three-hour debate on the motion to refer the bill to a standing committee after the first reading.

He indicated that the House would lose the right to hold a debate on the principle of a bill at second reading, that is true. But, at the same time, the committee to which the bill is referred will have a lot of opportunities to review the bill.

As a member of the Bloc Quebecois, he did not have the opportunity to do committee work in the last Parliament. If he had been a member of a committee, he would have realized that many proposed amendments are inadmissible as the principle of the bill has already been voted on by the House itself.

The committee members cannot change this principle. What is this principle? This argument is always debated by the committees, and an amendment which proposes a major change to a bill is deemed to have altered the principle of the bill; thus, the amendment becomes inadmissible. It is a problem.

The new procedure will eliminate this problem and the hon. members will have to opportunity to put forward many amendments that were previously inadmissible. So I hope that when he sees this new procedure put into practice, he will support our proposal. This procedure will eliminate, with other opportunities, the second reading debate in the House. I hope that he will see our proposal in this light because I think it helps to understand our meaning. I hope that this explanation will help him.

[Crown Liability And Proceedings Act, February 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, in view of the excellent progress we have made and the co-operation that has been forthcoming on all sides of the House, I think Your Honour will find a disposition on the part of all members to call it four o'clock.

[Crown Liability And Proceedings Act, February 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to answer the question raised by the hon. member for New Westminster-Burnaby. It was a very careful question and slightly tricky from the legal point of view.

The decisions that will be registered in the Federal Court of Canada and that thereby become enforceable in Canada will be decisions that are made against the Government of Canada for breaches of its international obligations.

My understanding is that having been made against Canada, the decision becomes an enforceable obligation of the Government of Canada by virtue of its registration in the Federal Court of Canada and the Government of Canada, like all good citizens, complies in all respects with the orders of its courts. Therefore, there should not be further need for enforcement. If it is a fine that has been levied on the Government of Canada payable to the other countries, the Government of Canada would then comply with the order of its domestic court and pay the money to one of the other countries if that is who the fine were payable to.

So I think that is the answer to the hon. member's question. Because it is a court order in Canada by a Canadian court, the Government of Canada would pay it. He will note that the

amendment is to, I believe, the Crown Liability Act which is designed to allow the courts to make the orders against the crown.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee.)

[Crown Liability And Proceedings Act, February 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to introduce debate on the second reading of Bill C-4, an act to amend the Crown Liability and Proceedings Act.

Last summer Canada, the United States and Mexico concluded two agreements which were additional and complementary to the North American Free Trade Agreement. One of these agreements is the North American agreement on environmental co-operation. This agreement commits the three countries to environmentally sustainable economic growth, to effective enforcement by each country of its environmental laws and regulations and to increased co-operation in the development of such laws and regulations.

The other is the North American agreement on labour co-operation which promotes improvement of working conditions in the North American workplace for all workers.

Under these complementary agreements, the three countries must not only enforce their labour and environmental legislation but also correct any pattern of failure to effectively enforce the existing legislation. These complementary agreements have created international obligations for Canada.

In order to enforce these obligations each agreement provides for the establishment of panels to make findings of fact and determinations. In carrying out these functions a panel may in its determination require a country to adopt an action plan to correct any failures to enforce its own laws or standards. In certain cases the panel determination may require the offending party to pay a fine.

The proposed amendments to the Crown Liability and Proceedings Act, for which the Minister of Justice is responsible, are before us today to permit domestic enforcement by the Federal Court of Canada of determinations relating to Canada's international obligations which may be made by these trinational panels. Without these amendments no mechanism exists in Canadian law whereby our domestic courts can be employed to

require the government to live up to its international obligations.

Canada respects the rule of law. It does not have a problem with using its national legal framework to enforce international rights and obligations.

I would like to outline briefly the process of how penalties will be enforced against Canada under the agreements.

In the highly unlikely event that Canada were to fail effectively to enforce its environmental and labour laws and standards and had demonstrated a persistent pattern of failure to do so, a trinational environmental or labour panel could require Canada to adopt action plans to correct the problems identified by the panels. Canada could also be subject to fines which are called monetary enforcement assessments in the bill. Very politely, I may add.

Under the agreements any failure to comply with an action plan approved or established by a panel or to pay a fine levied against Canada can only be enforced through the filing of the panel's determination with the Federal Court of Canada. It would then become a judgment of that court and is enforceable as such against the federal crown.

A panel determination that is made an order of the federal court would be enforceable in the same manner as any other order of the court subject to certain limitations.

This mechanism could not impose such an order on a provincial court unless the province has signed the agreement in question and the order relates to an area of provincial jurisdiction. In such a case, the province would have to amend its enabling legislation so that the order can be tabled in the province's superior court of competent jurisdiction. Such amendments would have the same effect as Bill C-4 for the federal government.

Canada negotiated the right to set up this process thereby avoiding other remedies such as trade retaliation which will be applied in the case of the United States and Mexico. Many of us heard about this negotiating process and the results of the process frequently during the election campaign.

I would also draw the attention of the House to provisions in the bill which promote the finality of the enforcement procedures. Under the proposed legislation there would be no right of appeal against a panel determination or an order or decision made by the Federal Court in any enforcement proceedings.

Because this is a strictly international determination which calls for particular expertise and complex international issues, Canadian courts would not be allowed to override the panel's determination.

The bill also contains a privative clause to exclude domestic judicial review of the panel proceedings, panel determinations, enforcement proceedings taken in the Federal Court and orders and decisions made by the Federal Court in any enforcement proceedings.

This provision is similar in some respects to one already in place concerning the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The government is presenting these amendments early in the parliamentary session to fulfil its commitment towards the United States and Mexico.

In an exchange of diplomatic notes with the United States and Mexico on the coming into force of NAFTA, the minister promised on behalf of the government to ask Parliament for permission to implement these extra-judicial settlement mechanisms at the national level. He made a commitment to submit this request as soon as possible.

I commend this bill to the House for consideration and I urge all hon. members to lend their support.

[Questions On The Order Paper, February 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[Committees Of The House, February 4th, 1994]

I move that the second report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs presented to the House earlier this day be concurred in.

(Motion agreed to.)

[Committees Of The House, February 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the second report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding changes in the membership of standing committees pursuant to Standing Order 104.

If the House gives its consent I intend to move concurrence in the report later this day.

[Questions On The Order Paper, February 3rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[Questions On The Order Paper, February 2nd, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.