Rob Nicholson

[International Interests in Mobile Equipment (aircraft equipment) Act, October 18th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be able to make a few comments with respect to Bill C-4, an act to implement the convention on international interests in mobile equipment and the protocol to the convention in mobile equipment on matters specific to aircraft equipment. This would provide a continuation of the development of the security law sector. It is a step forward in the right direction. I think it should be viewed by members and Canadians as part of a continuation of the history of providing security.

Hon. members in the House who know or practice law will know that going back a couple of hundred years the only security generally that one could get was the mortgage on one's property or house. It worked very well because lenders were prepared to lend money on the basis that if they were not repaid the house or property could be seized. As a result, the lowest interest rates were always available for mortgages.

However, with the development of trade and other types of assets, it became necessary to find a way to provide security and obtain financing. For the most part, in the 18th and 19th centuries, that was confined to shipping, which was the common way of trade between countries. Over a couple of centuries, a body of law developed, which was referred to as the admiralty law, that contained a whole host of rules and obligations to govern shipping throughout the world. For the most part it worked well because it lent certainty to individuals who were in the business of trade throughout the world. There were consequences to those individuals or countries that did not pay attention to the rules.

A number of instances took place in the 19th century where ships were seized or impounded in various places around the world and in short order a number of individuals and countries discovered that a royal navy gunboat was in the harbour to back up the security.

As the 20th century developed, that style of enforcement of securities did not lend itself as well to modern trade, not only because of the directness of that approach but because there were other types of security. The development of the aircraft industry in the 20th century meant that other types of security would be necessary.

That has been very difficult because if we do not have a way of enforcing security throughout the world, lenders, understandably, become nervous about forwarding money. If one owned an airplane in Canada and the person wanted to fly to various countries around the world, those providing the financing would, understandably, want to know what would happen if the owner could not pay, especially if the plane were in a part of the world with different laws or perhaps no laws at all. As a result, lenders were very reluctant to forward money on that basis because they could not be certain of the security or of being able to realize on their security if the aircraft or other piece of equipment on which financing had been forwarded were in some other part of the world.

It was difficult for people in the aircraft industry to obtain financing and if they could obtain financing it was very expensive. That really did not work in anyone's interest. It does not work in the interests of those in the aeronautical industry and it does not work, quite frankly, for passengers. Those of us who use airlines want the fares at the lowest possible price but if the aircraft company is having difficulty getting financing that gets passed on the passengers and in turn it is bad for everyone.

I see something like a convention that would include, among other things, as the parliamentary secretary said, aircraft, aircraft engines, helicopters, railway rolling stock which is another type of equipment that moves outside of the country, and, interesting enough, space assets. Presumably we could put security on a satellite.

The good thing about it is that it is one stop shopping. Apparently, it will be available on the Internet so that throughout the world individuals can check to see what the security is on a particular piece of equipment. This would give peace of mind to everyone involved.

Canada has a very important aircraft industry. This will assist it. There has been quite a bit of talk about the struggles within the airline and aircraft industries. If they are able to obtain financing, this will go a long way to helping them. It would benefit everyone.

I asked the parliamentary secretary about the question of provincial jurisdiction and I would like to explore it a little bit further when this matter goes before the transport committee. For the most part contract law is within provincial jurisdiction. Each province has laws and rules that govern contracts. Indeed, the province with which I am most familiar, Ontario, has something similar to that called the personal property security act.

If we obtain financing for an automobile, it gets registered, and it goes into the computer. Anyone interested in buying or otherwise financing our car would be able to quickly find out through a computer station located at registry offices across Ontario what the security interest is in it. The province already has a regime in place, as do other provinces, and it has a huge interest in it.

I, for one, would be very interested to know when other provinces will be ratifying this agreement because we cannot have the federal government ratify something like this when so much of the jurisdiction is with the provinces. In particular, I would be interested in knowing the timeline of the Province of Quebec, which has a huge stake in the particular industry covered by the bill. Indeed, I would be very interested in the comments it may have on this. That is one of the aspects I would like to see addressed in committee and to hear what the provinces have to say.

Be that as it may, I want to assure the House that we believe on this side of the House that the bill should go forward. This is a step in the right direction and I will be interested to hear from all the players in the industry. I think it will be widely accepted and quite frankly, welcomed. Any time we get anything that is 100 pages long, there may be some surprises in it, but let us deal with it at the second reading stage in committee because I definitely think this is a step in the right direction. I look forward to Canada ratifying it, our provinces ratifying it and indeed, all the other countries of the world getting on board with this regime.

[International Interests in Mobile Equipment (aircraft equipment) Act, October 18th, 2004]

The honeymoon capital of the world.

[International Interests in Mobile Equipment (aircraft equipment) Act, October 18th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary said that this would come into force when provincial legislation was passed. Could the parliamentary secretary let me know how soon he expects to have provincial legislation in place and, in particular, what indication he has from the province of Quebec, which has a huge aeronautical industry within the province, of the timeline for it to pass this? Could he also tell me how many provinces it will take to pass this before it is considered to be in effect after the Canadian Parliament passes it?

[Canada Shipping Act, October 15th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I remember the fall 1993 election very well. The Liberal Party went to no end to tell the country how strongly it was against the United States free trade agreement, how tough it would be with NAFTA, how it would abolish the GST, and these were mistakes of the previous government. After a lifetime of watching Canadian politics, in the end I could not believe that the government would change it, nor did it.

These were the big three things the Liberals talked about for years and in the 1993 election. When they had power, with a majority, they did nothing in those areas. Why? Because, ultimately, they agreed with them. Despite all the bluster and all the noise they made in the election, they supported the big three things from that era.

The hon. member has said that all governments make mistakes. The Liberal government makes a mistake every year by trying to guess the revenues of the country. It has mis-guessed the surplus every year. Mistakes are made, but the government might want to get some new people to advise it. That might be a good move. Why do we not bring in a bill suggesting that whoever has been advising the government for the last seven years as to what its revenues are should be fired. I bet we would get a consensus on that one. Is there anybody in the House who would disagree with bringing in a bill to get new people to advise the Liberals? We would all be better off and Canada as a whole would be better off.

The member is right. Every government makes mistakes, some more so than others. That is why we are here in the 38th Parliament. As he and all members will find, we will work with them to correct those mistakes. We will be glad to do it.

[Canada Shipping Act, October 15th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on behalf of my party with respect to Bill C-3. The bill makes a number of changes. It transfers some responsibility from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to the Minister of Transport.

When I first heard the content of the bill, my initial impression was that these matters already were within the purview of the Minister of Transport. On further investigation I had been led to believe that at one point these matters were part of the responsibility of the Minister of Transport. There were a number of decisions made over the years, and I believe that in 1995 some changes were made.

We heard the parliamentary secretary indicate that in 2001 there were a number of changes that gave responsibilities to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Now the bill changes them back to the Minister of Transport where it should have been in the first place.

We are acknowledging that a mistake was made in transferring these areas of responsibility and the bill corrects the mistakes that were made in the last few years by the Liberal government.

I wish all the mistakes that the government has made could be so easily corrected and with so few consequences. There probably would be unanimous support if we could have a bill that would nullify the sponsorship program for instance. Think of the hundreds of millions of dollars that we could have saved Canadians if that mistake could be corrected. However we are not able to do that at this point.

The bill allows the Canadian Coast Guard to focus on its operational mission. Anything that allows it to get on with that mission is certainly something I would support. Our discussion could be that a minor mistake was made in transferring this responsibility to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, but the mistake has been corrected.

I bet there are many in the Canadian Coast Guard who would agree with me that a much more grievous mistake was the decision to cancel the replacement for the Sea King helicopters. That was a huge mistake. We can only surmise how much better off all of us would be today, including those who protect the country's coastlines and are involved in the security of the country if that mistake had not been perpetrated on our armed forces and the Canadian public.

In any case, we look forward to the bill moving on to committee. There are some good aspects in it. The briefing notes put out by the Department of Transport said that if we did this, the Canadian Coast Guard would be able to focus on its operational mission. We would certainly welcome that.

Certain parts of the Canadian coastline, which could be referred to as the south coast of Canada, are in my riding of Niagara Falls. We welcome any enhancement of Coast Guard activities for search and rescue and security. All of these things would be very welcome.

I am particularly pleased to see some improvement in the ability of the Coast Guard to get back to its operational mission because I believe that while we may consider this a minor mistake, there are other mistakes that have been made with respect to the Canadian Coast Guard.

I will relate to the House a discussion which took place in my former capacity as a regional councillor for the region of Niagara. As all levels of government must do, we were going through a budgetary process.

One of the interesting items in that budgetary process was the amount of money being spent by the Niagara regional police. Border security and surveillance were a considerable part of the budget of the Niagara regional police. As soon as I saw it I said that one does not have to be a constitutional expert to know that these matters of international importance and security and securing our border are the responsibility of the federal government. That is very clear.

It was a legitimate question for me to ask even though the Niagara regional police were not complaining about it. They do an excellent job in everything they do, but I had to ask the question. I said that there were federal government agencies that were supposed to do this. The bottom line was, and it did not come from the Niagara regional police because they were too diplomatic, the money was not being spent by the federal government. Despite security taxes and all the difficulties the world has seen over the last few years, the money is not being spent.

Therefore, when I see a bill like this one, I am happy that some consideration is being given to the Coast Guard to free it up to get on with its operational mission. We welcome that. However, I have to go back again and ask why the government has not done that. There is a long tradition of the Niagara regional police taking it upon themselves, picking up the slack and worrying about national security.

Earlier today there were a number of references to the important Privy Council decision that was initiated by five Canadian women that was such a landmark for Canadian women. As I was gathering my thoughts about speaking to this bill, I thought of a Canadian heroine from the Niagara area, Laura Secord.

Laura Secord was a resident of the village of Queenston. She was not a part of the military; she was a civilian. She was like many people in Niagara and so many Canadians. It came to her attention on an afternoon when the Americans had taken over her home that there would be an imminent attack on the British forces. She walked 18 miles from Queenston to Beaver Dams to warn the British that an attack was imminent. I thought, this is a part of our long tradition.

The Niagara regional police in having to worry about and spend money on international security and do the job of the federal government is just part of a long tradition that we have had in that area. It goes back to people like Laura Secord. It goes back to Butler's Rangers who were located in my riding.

Part of my riding now includes the town of Fort Erie. There is a great incident in Canadian history, just before Confederation. Several hundred misguided fools under the name of the Fenians crossed the border from Buffalo into Fort Erie. The first people to meet them were not British regular forces. There were not the Canadian militia. They were a group of farmers from the Niagara area who first met them at Ridgeway. That became the battle of Ridgeway. They stepped into the breach to make sure that our country was protected.

I cannot leave the subject without mentioning the great work of the Lincoln and Welland Regiment and all that it has done to secure our country.

When I look at what is going on with the Coast Guard, the federal government has made a great move here. It has helped the Canadian Coast Guard by taking away some responsibilities and admitting that a mistake was made in the last decade. The government needs to do something more for the Canadian Coast Guard. Give it the tools it needs. It should not be depending on the property taxpayers of the Niagara region for jobs in the area of security and search and rescue that are more properly under the purview of the federal government.

I am pleased to have made these few comments. I welcome this bill. I welcome the government's admission to its mistakes. We are very interested in consensus. It can bring in bills. We will probably be very busy this session if the government brings in bills to correct the mistakes that have been made in the last 10 years. The government can bring them forward and it will find that all parties will welcome correcting that which has been done in the past.

I certainly look forward to the bill going to the transport committee. I and other members of that committee can decide on the witnesses we would like to have. I look forward to the bill proceeding through parliament.

[Canada Shipping Act, October 15th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, there have been extensive consultations. It is up to the committee to decide if it would like to have further consultations.

I wonder if the parliamentary secretary could clear up one thing for me. This order in council came into effect on December 12, 2003. He referred to the Prime Minister. I believe on that date we had two prime ministers. That was the date on which the former prime minister from Shawinigan transferred authority over to the new Prime Minister. I wonder if he could tell me which prime minister he was referring to when this order in council was made.

[Canada Shipping Act, October 15th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, let me congratulate the member on his appointment as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport.

I can tell the hon. member that we on this side welcome the introduction of this bill. It is my understanding it is consistent with some recommendations of members of all parties on the fisheries committee. I look forward to having this bill go to the transport committee.

The hon. member mentioned that this is a bill that has been requested by marine stakeholders. The committee can always decide what witnesses it will call from the industry, but perhaps the parliamentary secretary could confirm for me whether members of the Canadian shipping industry were consulted prior to the orders in council in this particular bill. Were they generally in support of the bill?

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it has been a long time since I have had the opportunity to address the chamber at length. I was a member of Parliament from 1984 to 1993. I remember speaking on behalf of the minister and the government on the child pornography bill in June 1993. It did cross my mind, at least fleetingly, as to whether I might ever get the opportunity to speak again in the House, but I was completely satisfied because of the importance of that legislation. In fact, that was the last thing I ever talked about in Parliament. It certainly was worthwhile. I look forward to the government introducing further changes in this bill.

I want to say at the outset, as I said 20 years ago, what a privilege it is and how wonderful it is to be in this chamber and how appreciative I am of the voters of the riding of Niagara Falls for giving me the opportunity once again. The riding consists of three communities. One of them is the town of Fort Erie, one of the great gateways to Canada. At the other end of the riding we have the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, which was the first capital of Upper Canada and boasts Canada's only Lord Mayor, and of course there is my hometown of Niagara Falls, Ontario.

I have said with respect to Niagara Falls, and I sincerely believe it, that no person can ever claim to have lived a complete life unless he or she has experienced Niagara Falls. I am very proud and grateful to come from that part of the world.

Let me congratulate the Speaker, the member for Kingston and the Islands, and congratulate you, Mr. Speaker, and the residents of Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon. I said to you privately something I will say publicly: I think it is a very great honour to sit in that particular chair and you should take a great deal of pride in that. It is a fact that in the last 137 years no legislative chamber in the world has a better record of protecting the rights of its citizens or of standing up for what is right in the country than the Canadian House of Commons. There is none, Mr. Speaker, so you and all those who, like you, have sat in that chair, can take this kind of pride in the fact that you are a part of this process.

I have been asked many times since I have been back about what has changed and what has not changed. I can tell the House about one of the things that has not changed. It comes within your purview, Mr. Speaker, and it is the individuals who provide you with advice from the table and the individuals who provide maintenance, clean our offices, provide security and drive the buses. I have invariably found them to be polite and friendly and they have made it a complete pleasure to work in this place. That has not changed in the ten and a half years since I have been here. I know I speak for every member of Parliament when I say how much help the people who work on Parliament Hill have been to us. That is the good thing.

I can tell members about something else that has not changed. I had the opportunity to listen to the first Speech from the Throne from the present government, in 1993. I do not know if you get the same feeling, Mr. Speaker, although of course you are completely neutral on these things, I know, but it is like I am hearing the same thing all over again. It has the same priorities. The same topics got covered. One gets the feeling that the same Speech from the Throne is being recycled every couple of years. To me, that was a great disappointment.

It is a disappointment as well for another reason. Mr. Speaker will know the history of the Prime Minister of today. For many years he has wanted to be and has planned for being Prime Minister of this country. That is his right, of course, as a Canadian citizen. He comes from a very distinguished political family.

What disappoints me about the Speech from the Throne is this. I would have that thought for him and those around us, having spent so many years in his trying to become Prime Minister, there would have been something that would have been a little unique, something a little original, something we have not heard before, a new idea in the Speech from the Throne.

I defy anyone to come up with anything in here that has not been recycled with the same old same old. To me, quite frankly, that was a disappointment too.

As well, I am sure the list of topics covered by the Speech from the Throne must be a disappointment to many Canadians. During the election campaign somebody asked me what I thought of the Liberal's day care plan. I told them the truth and said that I thought it was about the same as the last two times I heard it. I am no more or less impressed with it than the last few times I have heard it. It seems to me that it must be very discouraging for people to hear that sort of thing again and again. Part of the problem with this is that it is an area within provincial jurisdiction.

I remember being on a child care committee in the late 1980s. A woman from Snowbank in the Northwest Territories said to us that if we were talking about national standards in day care that she hoped it would not be Toronto's national standards that we were talking about. I was intrigued by what this woman had to say. She said that she knew what was coming. I should mention that not all of us were from Toronto. The woman said to us that if we were to come up with regulations that the children should be out one hour every day because that is healthy for them, that in Snowbank at many times of the year these children would die.

We should not come up with national standards for the city of Toronto because we will get into variations and regional standards. That will be the government's problem. It keeps promising a national child care policy but what we will see, and quite rightly, is that the provinces will speak up on this issue. When they finally sit down with the Prime Minister they will say that they regulate the area and that they know what is best in this particular area.

I suspect that the government will do much the same as what it did in health care if it is serious about it this time. I have no idea whether it is any more serious this time than the last four or five times. The government promised it, but if anything happens it will be the government handing out cheques with not much federal involvement at all. Those who think there will be major changes in this area should not hold their breath.

I was disappointed as well by some of the other things that were not covered. For instance, the government says in its Speech from the Throne on economic strategy that promotion of trade and investment is the fifth pillar of the government's economic strategy. Is that not wonderful? It did not address one of the major issues that can hold this country back in its economic development and that is what is happening at Canada's borders.

Just this morning about half a dozen truckers called my office from the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge along the Niagara River indicating they could not get their trucks into Canada. There are a number of issues, such as the labour issue on the Canadian side, and I urge the minister and the government to get these things settled. These things have been going on for a couple of years. The customs people must be reclassified. If the government wants them to do more work, to take greater responsibility and to get more involved with security it should pay them accordingly and get these things done. This has dragged on as well as the problems generally that we are having at the border. The Americans are very interested in security and I can appreciate that, but if the traffic does not move along Canada's borders it will hurt this country economically, not just along the borders but right across the country.

Economic decisions are being made right now by companies that are not expanding into Canada because they are worried about moving goods and services. The government can talk all the platitudes it wants and keep recycling it, I do not care--and I hope the Canadian voters will have a different view of this at the next election--but it should do something about our borders. If it opens up those borders it will find the consensus that I think it has found elusive up to this point.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it is somewhat the tradition that on a member's maiden speech the person does not receive any questions, so I am just going to make a comment. I would like to congratulate the hon. member on a very well thought out and well reasoned maiden address to the House of Commons. I disagree with his conclusions, but nonetheless I was very impressed to hear his thoughts.

He and I are graduates of the University of Windsor's law school. I was very pleased to see him elected to the House of Commons. He has had a very distinguished career as a lawyer. He will bring pride to the community which he represents. In his concluding remarks he said that he is here to make a difference and of that I have no doubt. I certainly wish him well in the coming years.

[Port Security, October 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, that is the problem. He says that they are talking about these things. They have been planning these things for a long time, and that is the problem with the Liberals. They are always planning but nothing ever happens.

They said that they would meet International Court security standards by July 1, yet the minister said that the ports were still sieves. Will the minister apologize to Canadians for compromising our security, and stop reading books about the problems and start fixing it?