Mr. Speaker, I too am speaking tonight to Bill C-31.
We see a pattern in these massive omnibus bills from the Conservative government. First of all, the Conservatives stuff these bills with measures that have no business whatsoever being part of a budget implementation act. In the legislation before us, in fact, there are rule changes around administrative tribunals, trademarks, hazardous products, and even rail safety, and these are just a few examples.
The Conservatives have introduced these changes without any public consultation, in most cases. Then they wait and hope that nobody notices the problems in the fine print. However, the problems and the mistakes in the Conservative omnibus legislation always come out in the end. Sometimes they are so blatantly obvious that they are identified in committee. Sometimes it just takes a little time.
The reality is the Justice Nadon fiasco resulted from changes to the Supreme Court Act made in a previous budget implementation act. Had those changes been subjected to more thorough scrutiny at the justice committee, and had the justice committee had the opportunity to actually propose and move amendments and vote on them, we might have actually avoided some of the embarrassment around the failed appointment of Justice Nadon.
There are measures put forward by the government in each of these omnibus budget bills that are there, in fact, to correct errors in previous omnibus bills. It is a deeply flawed process. It creates bad laws that create uncertainty. Ultimately, that is bad for business. It is bad for the Canadian economy. These bad laws hurt the ability of Canadians to grow their businesses, create jobs, and build more prosperous lives.
I would like to identify a few examples of mistakes in this deeply flawed bill. On trademarks, two weeks ago the Canadian Chamber of Commerce took the important step of issuing a call to action to its members in response to the trademark provisions of Bill C-31. It is worried that Bill C-31 would remove the requirement to use a trademark before it can be registered.
As a result to this call to action, we have heard from countless chambers across the country, from Surrey, B.C., to Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador, to the Northwest Territories. Each and every one of these chambers is warning us that these provisions would increase the cost of doing business in Canada.
They are worried that this would lead to greater levels of litigation and to trademark trolling. They also complain that they were not consulted or engaged by the government. They are asking that these trademark provisions of the bill be removed.
Now, these types of changes ought to have been considered more thoroughly by the industry committee, as an example. We are worried upon hearing these concerns from the chambers.
We are also worried about what we are hearing from individual employers. We have heard from Canadian retailer Giant Tiger. We have heard from food manufacturer PepsiCo Canada, which is a significant employer in my riding. Its Frito Lay plant in the Annapolis Valley provides good jobs to the people in my riding. We take these important employers' concerns very seriously.
The government is not listening and is, in fact, heaping scorn on these Canadian businesses for actually having the audacity—or, I would say, courage—to speak truth to power and express concerns about this bill.
These local chambers represent the business leaders in our communities. We have a responsibility to listen to them.
At the finance committee, the Conservatives attacked the credibility of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and its members. They dismissed the concerns of these prominent employers in our communities by suggesting that they were just self-interested lawyers who want to maximize their fees.
I would like to speak about some regional issues, as well. It is not a stretch to say that some of the flaws in this bill would actually threaten jobs in Canada. However, some of the flaws in this bill would actually protect jobs for some specific Conservatives.
Last week the public sector integrity commissioner published his report into wrongdoing by the CEO of Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation, John Lynn. The investigation found that:
Mr. Lynn committed a serious breach of ECBC’s Employment Conduct and Discipline Policy, which was ECBC’s own code of conduct at the time. This finding is as a result of the appointment of four individuals with ties to the Conservative Party of Canada...into executive positions at ECBC with little or no documented justifications and without demonstrating that the appointments were merit-based....There was an element of deliberateness to Mr. Lynn’s actions...Mr. Lynn’s actions were incompatible with the trust that the Government of Canada and the public has placed in him as Chief Executive Officer.
That is a scathing condemnation of the over-the-top pork barrel patronage engaged in by the government with Enterprise Cape Breton.
Under Bill C-31, the individuals who were improperly hired by Mr. Lynn and who are still at ECBC would now become permanent employees of the public service. Furthermore, Bill C-31 singles out the CEO as the only member of the board eligible for termination pay. That is actually part of this legislation.
In light of the commissioner's findings of wrongdoing, the Liberals moved two important amendments to the bill at committee. These amendments would remove the special deal for the CEO to be eligible to receive termination pay and they would also ensure that the employees who were hired as part of the CEO's wrongdoing would not automatically become permanent members of the public service. This cronyism should have been overturned, not entrenched. However, the Conservatives have put their own interests ahead of Canadians' and they voted these amendments down.
There are some other mistakes in the bill. For instance, correcting previous omnibus bill mistakes, in Bill C-4, the government forgot to include the provincial nominee program as a category when it used a budget bill to establish the immigration department's expression of interest program. That is actually corrected in this bill.
During the committee study, we saw something new on the OAS side. The government showed up to clause-by-clause study and actually introduced amendments to correct mistakes in the current omnibus budget bill, not the last one. It showed up at clause-by-clause study to introduce amendments of its own to fix problems created in its own legislation. It is not thinking this through.
It seems the government has made a fairly basic error in the division concerning OAS. The first reading version of the bill would have resulted in the government actually taking GIS away from some of Canada's poorest seniors who had legitimately qualified for it. In this deeply flawed process, the government gave us zero notice of these amendments. Instead, they were introduced as the committee was about to vote on the measures during clause-by-clause study. The government could not tell us when or how the mistake was discovered. It forgot to bring copies of the OAS Act, so we could not actually see how the amendments to the act would change it. We must remember, this act is one of over 40 laws that are being changed by Bill C-31. The government did not even bring enough copies of its amendments for everyone to see. To think this is how we are asking parliamentarians to make important decisions and to change laws in Canada.
It is not just the Conservatives who have looked like the Keystone Cops during the consideration of the bill. The NDP is actually voting against measures to fast-track the new Champlain bridge. Part 6, division 28 of the bill is dedicated to a new Champlain bridge. It would streamline the development and construction process of the bridge so it would be operational by 2018. It is true that this division would also include measures to implement tolls on the bridge, which Liberals oppose. We introduced amendments to remove all of the toll provisions from the bill, but when our amendments were defeated by the Conservatives, we still voted to go ahead with the bridge because building a bridge with a toll is better than no bridge at all and a new government could cancel the toll before it went into effect. ·It is illogical for the NDP to try to halt plans toward the new bridge because of a toll provision that is four years away. That is exactly what would happen if the NDP motion to remove division 28 actually passes.
The bill continues to ignore the challenges faced by veterans in Canada, continues to show contempt for veterans. The bill, through the FATCA provisions, makes the CRA effectively the tax collector for the IRS, and continues to demonstrate disrespect for Parliament and democracy by putting all of these poorly thought out provisions in a budget implementation act as opposed to free-standing legislation, dealt with by committees with the expertise to make the best possible legislative decisions.
