Randy Kamp

[Seniors, June 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the United Nations has proclaimed the first full week in June of each year Seniors Week. I am sure all members of the House would agree that seniors play a very vital and valuable role in our families and communities all across this country, as they do in my riding.

The Conservative Party believes that the government could be doing much more for Canada's seniors. We are committed to ensuring that seniors continue to have quality of life, accessible health care and the ability to stay in their homes longer.

In order to make life better for Canada's seniors, we would end the discriminatory practice of mandatory retirement and let seniors decide when they want to retire. We would make it easier for seniors to get the care they need in their own homes.

We would take tough measures to prevent elder abuse and enact severe punishments for those who commit this crime. We would appoint a minister responsible for seniors to ensure that their unique needs are being properly addressed across government departments.

A Conservative government will stand up for Canada's seniors and do its part to recognize their invaluable contribution to our country.

[Delegated Legislation, June 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise to debate Motion No. 15. I will begin by reminding my colleagues that it is Motion No. 15, not Bill C-52, that we are debating this afternoon.

We are debating the motion of the government that the resolution of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations revoking subsection 36(2) of the Ontario Fishery Regulations not be adopted.

That regulation simply states:

No holder of a commercial fishing licence shall violate any of the terms or conditions of the licence.

It seems to me that the question before us is pretty simple. Considering its legislative mandate, is the conclusion of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations right? The committee concluded that:

--this provision not only lacks legal authority, but trespasses unduly on rights and liberties and represents an unusual and unexpected use of the enabling authority.

The committee concluded that it should be revoked.

Is the committee's conclusion right? If the answer to that question is no, then we need to support the motion of the government. If the answer is yes, then we need to vote against the motion. I think that is the only question before us this afternoon. The question is not “is this regulation useful?” or “is this regulation helpful?” or even “does this regulation work?”

The question is also not the following: would there be any negative consequences without this regulation?

Those are the points made by both the Ontario government and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and even by some of my colleagues here. In fact, as has been quoted already, the Minister of Natural Resources from Ontario has written two passionate letters on the matter before us, one to the minister and one to Conservative members.

For example, he stated:

I am extremely concerned about the serious impacts on Ontario's ability to manage and ensure the conservation of fisheries should the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations table a Report of Disallowance regarding subsection 36(2) of the Ontario Fishery Regulations.

Without this provision, Ontario would literally have its hands tied with respect to enforcement of the commercial fishery.

It is entirely likely that a revocation of subsection 36(2) would result in chaos in the sector and threaten the sustainability of our fisheries resources.

These comments are interesting, even compelling, but with all due respect to the Ontario minister and to some of my colleagues here today, they are not answering the fundamental question before us, that is, is this regulation legal? His comments might be relevant to the debate on Bill C-52, but they are not relevant to the question before us.

Is the standing joint committee right when it says the following? It states:

--this provision not only lacks legal authority, but trespasses unduly on rights and liberties and represents an unusual and unexpected use of the enabling authority.

Is the committee right when it says it should be revoked?

Are the committee members right? Is this regulation legal or not? To answer that question, we need to briefly consider the mandate of the standing joint committee. It is covered in the Statutory Instruments Act in sections 19 and 19.1. Section 19 states that every statutory instrument:

--shall stand permanently referred to any Committee of the House of Commons, of the Senate or of both Houses of Parliament that may be established for the purpose of reviewing and scrutinizing statutory instruments.

Section 19.1 states that once this is done, when the committee reviews a regulation it can make a report to the Senate and the House of Commons “containing...a resolution that all or any portion of a regulation...be revoked”. That is why we are here today.

The Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations, which I also serve on, as well as serving on the fisheries and oceans committee, fleshes out that mandate a little more in its first report of October 21, 2004. It applies certain tests. The committee members are looking to see whether any regulation:

1. is not authorized by the terms of the enabling legislation or has not complied with any condition set forth in the legislation;...

2. imposes a fine, imprisonment or other penalty without express authority having been provided for in the enabling legislation;...

3. trespasses unduly on rights and liberties;

4. makes the rights and liberties of the person unduly dependent on administrative discretion or is not consistent with the rules of natural justice;...

5. amounts to the exercise of a substantive legislative power properly the subject of direct parliamentary enactment;...

For almost all those criteria, the standing joint committee for years has felt that regulation 36(2) of the Ontario fishery regulations violates those criteria.

The terms or conditions of a licence is not a provision of the act or the regulation, so the violation of a term or condition does not constitute a contravention of the act. Therefore, the offence and punishment section of the Fisheries Act, section 78, does not apply.

But this provision was created with a view to making a contravention of terms and conditions a violation of the act. That is its whole reason for being there. The committee stated:

In effect, the purpose of this regulatory provision is to do indirectly what could not be done directly, namely to impose criminal liability for the breach of a term or condition of a licence.

It should seem clear to us that this is not authorized by the Fisheries Act. The committee stated:

The only purpose of section 36(2) of the Regulations is to make the non-observance of the terms and conditions of a licence, which are not legislative requirements, punishable as if they were.

Now whether we want it to be that way, the act does not allow it to be that way: “It is beyond dispute that Parliament must authorize regulations imposing sanctions or creating offences”.

The Fisheries Act does not. In fact, it does the opposite. It lists in the act those offences that are considered offences as set out in the act. The act also confers the power to make regulations providing for the suspension and cancellation of licences if someone violates the terms and conditions of a licence. That is the sanction the act currently allows the ministry to enforce.

The purpose of the regulation is to treat contraventions of licence conditions, which are administrative requirements, as if they were violations of legislative requirements. The clear and explicit enabling authority for such a provision cannot be found in the Fisheries Act in its current form.

Parliament is left with no alternative but to follow the advice of the standing joint committee and revoke this regulation. The government's motion that the standing joint committee's advice be rejected should be defeated.

[Fisheries Act, June 6th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, yes, there is a lot of work to be done and certainly we on this side of the House and those of us in British Columbia are well aware of this, and I am sure in Newfoundland as well.

Let me just say that I take my role here pretty seriously and one of the questions I always ask myself when looking at any legislation is whether it is clear that it has been significantly thought through to be confident that there are no unintended consequences.

I have asked myself about this and the answer is no, I am not confident and I need to vote against it.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

[Fisheries Act, June 6th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I do not have much to say except to thank my hon. colleague for that information. As I was preparing to speak to this, that was precisely the question I was wondering about.

The government, in its little single page document that it finally distributed at the 11th hour, which I just saw this morning for the very first time, to give us reasons why we should support the bill did not mention anything about that and whether this was a normal approach to doing business.

It occurred to me that it probably was not, otherwise the government would have given us some support for that. I can understand why it is not and I appreciate the hon. member for giving me that information.

[Fisheries Act, June 6th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Scarborough--Rouge River for that reminder but if he were to continue on reading the transcripts he would come to the place where the chairman of the fisheries and oceans committee brought to our attention in our very last meeting that the minister was bringing forward this legislation. In the meeting that the member refers to we had no legislation before us to know what it might be or what it might say. We knew it might solve the legality issues but I assumed we would still have to face the policy issues.

He would know that in the very next meeting the chairman of the committee encouraged us to go to our House leaders to see if we could get this run through the House at all stages with little or actually no debate. When that suggestion was made to us as committee members he will remember that at least one member, myself, raised the concern that there would be policy issues that we in this party might not find acceptable. If other parties did I guess that would be up to them. However It did not sound like good policy to me which is why we are here today.

[Fisheries Act, June 6th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, there is a lot of shooting going on here, but let me take this opportunity to debate Bill C-52, an act to amend the Fisheries Act.

As has already been mentioned, the bill would add the following section after section 9:

Every one acting under the authority of a permission referred to in section 4 or of a lease or licence issued under this Act shall comply with its terms and conditions.

It goes on as well to add the clarification:

For greater certainty, those permissions, leases and licences — including their terms and conditions — are not statutory instruments for the purposes of the Statutory Instruments Act.

On the surface this seems to be a benign addition to the Fisheries Act. What could be wrong with stating that someone who is issued a licence, for example, is expected to comply with the licence's terms and conditions? It would appear to be the government's position that this is little more than a housekeeping measure. I am well aware of the fact that the government made every effort to try to get this passed at all stages.

In the few minutes that I have I will explain why in my opinion this is not benign, and why Parliament should proceed very carefully. In order to do that let me begin by providing a little important background.

Although it is true that the legislation has been presented with little or no advance notice, its genesis has been actually several years in the making. I will attempt to make a long story short.

The Ontario fishery regulations contain a regulation in section 36(2) that provides the following:

No holder of a commercial fishing licence shall violate any of the terms or conditions of the licence.

Although it is stated negatively, one will notice that it is similar in substance to the bill that is before us today. As has already been pointed out, this regulation has troubled the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations for some time. In fact, this provision was dealt with by the committee in its second report in the second session of the 36th Parliament in 2000. It concluded:

The regulation not only lacks legal authority, but trespasses unduly on rights and liberties, and represents an unusual and unexpected use of the enabling authority.

Put simply, it was and is the position of the committee that regulations imposing sanctions or creating offences must be expressly authorized by Parliament. It is important to understand that because it is the same principle in play with the legislation before us today. Without this measure, a term or condition of a licence is not considered a provision of the act, so the violation of such a term or condition does not constitute a contravention of the act or regulations. However, the regulation in question in Bill C-52 makes it a legal responsibility to abide by the terms and conditions of a licence. It follows then that any contravention of those terms becomes a violation of the act and attracts the offence and punishment section of the Fisheries Act, section 78. The sanctions in that section are considerable so let me read them into the record:

an offence punishable on summary conviction and liable, for a first offence, to a fine not exceeding one hundred thousand dollars and, for any subsequent offence, to a fine not exceeding one hundred thousand dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year, or to both; or

an indictable offence and liable, for a first offence, to a fine not exceeding five hundred thousand dollars and, for any subsequent offence, to a fine not exceeding five hundred thousand dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, or to both.

Those are pretty significant penalties, so we ought to be very careful here.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has continued to maintain that the questionable regulation is valid in spite of the continued disagreement of the scrutiny of regulations committee. It has argued in the past, for example, that the regulation merely imposes a standard of conduct or a requirement. The scrutiny of regulations committee concluded that the argument is best characterized as disingenuous.

In spite of the belief that the regulation was valid, the minister twice introduced a bill in the 37th Parliament that was intended to provide a legislative solution. Both died on the order paper.

To finally make a long story short, the scrutiny of regulations committee lost patience with the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. On May 9 it issued a disallowance report to send a clear message that the offence-creating regulation was not authorized by the act and the process to have it revoked was started. That appeared to catch the attention of the minister and he finally introduced the bill that is before us today.

An obvious question is, does this solve the legal problems highlighted by the scrutiny of regulations committee? In fact, the committee was asked that very question when similar legislation was introduced in the last Parliament. The committee answered unequivocally, “We are pleased to confirm that the proposed amendments would, if adopted, remove the basis for the joint committee's objections”.

That is the good news. I do not think anyone disagrees that this bill will solve the minister's legal problems. However, and this is the crucial point, that does not mean Bill C-52 is good legislation. In fact, the standing joint committee recognized that other important issues need to be addressed. In that same letter from which I just quoted, the committee went on to add:

Our acknowledgment that amendments included in Bill C-43 --

--the bill number in the last Parliament--

--would resolve the Committee's objections to the legality of the relevant regulatory provisions does not imply an endorsement of those amendments. Particularly as regards the proposed section 10(1), which would impose a legal duty to comply with the terms and conditions of the licence, we can conceive that some parliamentarians might object to subjecting such non-compliance to penal sanctions that include imprisonment. To deprive a citizen of his liberty on the ground that the citizen has failed to abide by a requirement imposed by a public official in the exercise of administrative power, such as a term or condition of a licence, could be thought undesirable as a matter of legislative policy.

In fact, that is the question before us. As parliamentarians, do we object, do we find it undesirable that non-compliance of a requirement imposed by a public employee in the exercise of an administrative power can result in penal sanctions that could include imprisonment? I do not know about you, Madam Speaker, but when I go to jail, I prefer it to be for violating a law that has been passed by a parliament or for contravening a regulation that has been subjected to thorough scrutiny.

I am one of those parliamentarians that objects to putting this kind of arbitrary power in the hands of a public official.

Let me mention as well that I have the duty of being on both the fisheries committee and the scrutiny of regulations committee. Contrary to the way the member for Scarborough—Rouge River has recalled it, yes, we agreed that if this bill was passed it would address the concern of the committee regarding the legality. I did not hear any agreement to revoking that regulation.

Even in our last meeting we expressed the problems that were addressed in this letter. Yes, this solves the minister's legal problems and we know he knows that he has a problem. We still have a legislative policy issue that we need to resolve.

The government appears to be quite committed to getting this bill passed. The Liberals must believe it is important. In fact, as has been quoted already, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans sent a letter to the joint chairs of the scrutiny of regulations committee on April 19. In the letter he referred to a letter that he had received from the Ontario minister of natural resources. In that letter the minister sent to the committee he said:

As you will see in Minister Ramsay's letter, revoking subsection 36(2) of the OFR [Ontario fisheries regulations] would have severe negative implications on Ontario's commercial fishery and threaten sustainability of Ontario's fisheries resources.In transmitting Minister Ramsay's letter I would like to impress upon the committee that revoking subsection 36(2) of the OFR would have serious negative effects on fisheries conservation and management in Ontario. I would also like to re-emphasize my intention to carry out a broader renewal --

The letter from Minister Ramsay went on to state:

Terms and conditions are currently the only mechanisms by which Ontario can establish allowable quota, areas where fishing can occur, designates who can take fish under a licence, reporting for commercial fishing licences. Without this provision, Ontario would literally have its hands tied with respect to enforcement of the commercial fishery. It is entirely likely that the revocation of subsection 36(2) would result in chaos in this sector and threaten the sustainability of our fisheries resources.

Of course, this is the threat the minister wants to leave before us. He will probably tell us on Wednesday that if we revoke the regulation and defeat the legislation we will be left with chaos in Ontario and, maybe by extension, elsewhere in the country. That, I think, is to misunderstand the situation a little.

The scrutiny of regulations committee responded to that in its most recent report. It states:

In closing, the Committee wishes to briefly address the statement by the Ontario Minister of Natural Resources that:

I just quoted that statement. The report goes on to say:

To the extent this comment suggests that disallowance of section 36(2) would impair the ability to impose terms and conditions of licences, it does not reflect a clear understanding of the nature of section 36(2). Disallowance of that section may change the manner of enforcing compliance with terms and conditions of licences, but would certainly not affect in any way the ability to impose such terms and conditions.

We need to ask and answer what remedies would be left to the government if the legislation is defeated, as I think it should be. As the letter has pointed out, the mechanism of imposing those terms and conditions is still there. It is another question whether the department should have that ability to impose those but it still does under the current Fisheries Act.

The government would still have the ability to impose these terms and conditions but what will the mechanisms be to enforce those? Under the act it still has the power to revoke or cancel a licence. I understand that the minister does not like that option but that is an option left open to him.

Another option, which has been mentioned in more detail by my colleague from Delta—Richmond East, is that we could expect the ministry, if it wants to regulate the industry, to put forth its regulations. It should go through the process, those things that are subject to the Statutory Instruments Act and gazette them. It should tell fishermen what they can expect if they sign on to these licences, what the terms and conditions will be and what they can expect if they violate these conditions.

This appears to me to be flawed legislation. The unintended consequences could be enormous. If I were a fisherman, I would be very concerned about this and I know many of them are. On behalf of many fishermen in my riding of Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, I will be voting against this.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, May 30th, 2005]

Frankly, Mr. Speaker, I am a little confused by what the hon. member for Halifax was saying. It sounded like she was critical of the official opposition for doing due diligence and looking at a bill in the way that it is supposed to be looked at. I find that astounding.

In light of the fact that this other half of the budget, Bill C-48, had no planning and has no accountability measures, we have no idea how that money is going to be spent. If I were to ask the hon. member if the average student, for example, is going to get any part of that money and what mechanism would be there for getting it, it is not in the bill so she would just be making it up.

This motion is about the Atlantic accord, so my question is about why she and her party voted against the Atlantic accord on March 9.

[Fisheries, May 20th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, we can only wish that the government would work as hard to ensure the survival of Pacific salmon as it does to its own survival.

Our report and the post-season review of Justice Williams highlighted the fact that there was a serious problem with enforcement and called for increased enforcement efforts. However, an internal DFO document reveals that there is a plan to reduce the number of fisheries officers in the Pacific region, so we are very concerned about the future of this resource.

Why is the minister continuing to refuse to fix the problem and make a real commitment to enforcement on the Fraser River?

[Fisheries, May 20th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, when the fisheries committee tabled its report on the disastrous 2004 sockeye salmon fishery, it included, along with its 12 unanimous recommendations, a request for a response within 60 days. It did so because of the concern that some serious problems needed to be corrected before the 2005 season.

Those 60 days expire tomorrow. Will the minister tell us today if he is going to continue to ignore us or is he going to implement our recommendations?

[Age of Consent, May 19th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I agree that it is not a simple problem, that it is somewhat complex and there is not going to be an easy answer to solve all of the problems. I think that the hon. member is also concerned about coming up with a solution. I do not think he is interested in politicizing this.

It seems to me that part of the solution is to address the issue of enforcement. If the question is whether compliance is taking place, he knows that we did not hear any evidence that would lead us to believe that we could answer yes to that. There is a compliance problem. If people are not complying, then we need to find a way to encourage them to comply. That involves enforcement.

The member can understand why those of us who live along the Fraser River would be concerned that there does not seem to be a solution in place for this year.