Transport committee  Yes. We would leave the rest as is and take out the word “only”, which is what's constraining it now.

Transport committee  The clause would read as follows: b) la réglementation et les mesures publiques stratégiques sont utilisées si elles sont nécessaires [...] It’s positive rather than negative.

Transport committee  Perhaps we can offer a compromise to Mr. McGuinty. I get the sense that your concern, the way you're expressing it, is that we are limiting the government's ability to intervene, and that really it's because of the word “only”. If we remove the word “only” and say instead, “occur if they are necessary to achieve” these objectives, would that achieve your objectives?

Transport committee  We believe “if it is necessary” is where the intervention should happen. I thought it was consistent with what you were putting forward, that the government intervenes where it is necessary to do so. We're not constraining ourselves in that way. But generally the government isn't going to intervene.

Transport committee  I have a little further elaboration. I would like to correct Mr. Julian, who said that “environmental” wasn't there. It's currently in the bill. We have to remember that the bill was last updated in 1995 and came into force in 1996. If you look at what has happened in the transportation sector, we have had a devolution of the airports to private sector entities--no longer the government.

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  We would agree with Mr. Jean that we wouldn't have an issue with adding safety and security in the list of outcomes. Mr. McGuinty deleted the words “occur only if they are necessary”. As we were speaking about proposed paragraph 5(a), it basically says that competition and market forces are the prime agents.

Transport committee  It is identical to what is in the former Bill C-44.

Transport committee  We did not word it like that . . .

Transport committee  We are against the amendment because the proposed clause 5(b) reads that when competition and market forces do not allow the objectives to be met, at that time, the government should intervene. That is the rationale for clause 2(b): when the market does not produce the expected results, we use regulations or government investment to get there.

Transport committee  In our view, in fact, it highlights it more than in the previous bill. In the previous bill, as Alain said earlier, it enumerates all of the entities that are considered users in this bill. So you have shippers, and you have communities; you have everybody. In this one, all the users are categorized as one, and the one that stands out is enumerated in proposed paragraph 5(d), which is including the persons with disabilities.

Transport committee  When there is a complaint filed--it doesn't matter which part of the act it is--there's usually the section of the act that deals with the adequacy of the service. In fact, the way it was being proposed, it talked about an adequate system. So it's the adequacy of the system, not the service.

Transport committee  It would depend on the service to which you're speaking, but for example, there are provisions in the act that deal specifically with the recourses available if the service isn't provided or if there are complaints about the service. It's not through the statement that you would deal with it.

Transport committee  We would like to try and standardize the declaration in all transportation legislation, for example, the Marine Act and the Carriage by Air Act. If you compare this declaration to others, you will see that they are very similar. So, we try to reproduce the same declaration in all legislation of an economic nature.

Transport committee  It is to state the principles recommended for the transportation system. For example, in the Transport Canada mandate, in French, we always use words such as “compétitif et économique.” In English, it’s “efficient.” In French, I think the words to use would be “bien adapté” rather than just the word “rentable.”