44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 21, 2023 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, again, the short answer is yes. One of the things we do cherish and respect in the House is the work of committees.
Being on the transport committee since 2015 with her colleague, we look forward to integrating a lot of the reports that we have completed, whether it be the ports modernization review, the St. Lawrence Seaway review, the labour strategy or the task force that looked after supply chains. The intent of the committee will be to come forward with an integration of those recommendations, and, again, as a whole-of-government approach to ensure that all legislation is very consistent with each other. However, most important is that it aligns so that it best serves those who it is supposed to serve, and those are the customers who are within the supply chains. Of course, it would create net fluidity.
Updating the legislation and updating the means by which we want to move people and goods around the committee is ultimately what the committee, the House and this government are trying to do.
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Mr. Speaker, this legislation is incredibly important to people in my constituency. The issue is not just container ships, which have been mentioned in the supply chain, but bulk carriers, particularly of coal and grain.
I would like to put it on the record that the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority is massively inefficient and incompetent, and the result is we have a backup of a virtually permanent parking lot in our sensitive marine areas. Freighters and bulk carriers that pay nothing for the privilege of free parking are ripping up the benthic organisms on a daily basis and are damaging the habitat of endangered whales.
The legislation would go some way to create an authority for the minister to insist that these ships be moved, but we will need amendments at committee. I want to flag it right now so that members of the transport committee and the new Minister of Transport become aware that this is a hot issue and we are red-hot angry through Saanich—Gulf Islands, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford and Nanaimo—Ladysmith. Let there be no more; we have had it.
I hope the government is ready for amendments.
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Mr. Speaker, I love the candidness of the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. We always know what she is thinking, so I give her credit for that. Absolutely, we do look forward to the member attending committee and coming out with some of those amendments.
As I mentioned earlier in my comments, there is a provision in the bill for the minister to establish exclusion zones for vessels. I am sure we will hear a lot from the member and her partners, who will give us those messages loud and clear. At committee, we will be sure to get that work done on her behalf.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek.
One of the most defining moments since I was elected was when the rail lines in my riding, both the CN and CP rail lines, were washed out. There were over 30 wash-outs in the Fraser Canyon. In fact, one day in November two years ago, I was in a meeting with the minister of emergency preparedness. I walked out of that meeting into a media scrum asking about all the latest drama of the Conservative Party of Canada. I nearly lost it, because on that very day when they were asking about the status of a senator in the Conservative caucus, the rail lines in B.C. had been cut off, our highways had been washed out and our entire transportation infrastructure connecting British Columbia to the rest of Canada was not functioning.
We faced some serious challenges in British Columbia, but the press gallery here did not care about that. In fact, it was not even on its radar that British Columbia was cut off. Unfortunately, Bill C-33, written by the public servants in Ottawa under the former minister, falls very short of what we need in British Columbia to ensure Canada has a competitive infrastructure network to ensure we can export and import goods, and so that our marine ports, our inland ports and airports have the infrastructure they need to maintain a well-functioning, competitive economy.
It goes without saying our infrastructure network creates billions of dollars in economic activity every year, 3.6% of Canada's GDP, and employs hundreds of thousands of people. In addition to that, one in five jobs in Canada are directly related to trade. Therefore, those one in five jobs are directly related to Canada's ability to move, store and efficiently transport the goods we produce here and sell abroad and the goods Canadians consume and import from other countries.
Going back to the landslides that washed out the rail infrastructure both for CN and the CP rail lines in Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, the former minister of transportation started to take very seriously the challenges Canada was facing with supply chains. Good, he did that. He established a task force, to great fanfare, to address some of the pressing issues we had.
I had a chance to look over that report last night. Some of the key recommendations included to unstick the transport supply chain. The report goes into detail about how the Vancouver port authority is ranked right now as one of the worst and inefficient ports in the world. This is largely because of what has already been raised in this debate: we cannot move container traffic out of our ports quickly enough, mainly because we do not have the infrastructure to do so.
The second thing the report called for was to digitize and create an end-to-end supply chain visibility for efficiency, accountability planning and investment in security. I will note this bill does touch upon a few of those things by allowing other ports of entry to go through the CBSA process of marking where our goods are coming and going.
The task force talked about establishing a supply chain office. When I hear that what I hear is the department in Ottawa has not allocated the right number of people in its department to deal with the first problem, which is unsticking the transportation supply chain. What I read in the expert report is that Ottawa has not been doing a good enough job under its current mandate to make sure goods can flow efficiently in Canada.
The fifth point was to engage indigenous groups. This bill does talk a bit about more consultative powers in conjunction with indigenous people. I will note that in my riding one of the largest employers of indigenous people is the rail lines and the Ashcroft Terminal. Yes, there are tensions from time to time, but I do believe the private sector is already taking reconciliation seriously in the number of indigenous people it is hiring, and those jobs go a long way in those rural and remote communities, especially for first nations.
The next recommendation in the report talks about protecting "corridors, border crossings and gateways from disruptions [and interruptions] to ensure unfettered access for commercial transportation modes and continuity of supply chain movement.” Again, I see this recommendation tied to the first one, to unstick the transportation supply chain. We are not doing a good enough job of moving goods efficiently in Canada.
The next recommendation is to engage the U.S., provinces and territories to achieve reciprocal regulations and practices. Again, it is related to the first point, to unstick the transportation supply chain. We are not doing a good enough job of moving goods efficiently in Canada.
The report discusses revising the mandate of the Canadian transportation authority agency. All in all, with regard to the national task force, the former minister communicated very clearly to Canada and to private enterprise that he was going to take action, that we were going to see some major improvements.
It goes without saying that under the previous Conservative government, billions of dollars were invested in western Canada under the Asia-Pacific gateway.
We had Highway 17 created. Some of our rail lines were twinned in certain places. There were new interchanges and overpasses put in to ensure that goods could move smoothly. We had legislation put in place to improve the commercial viability of our exporters and importers, to make sure that Canadians could get the products they needed and vice versa, globally, again, because Canada is a trading nation.
When we turn to the legislation here today, what I see is a lot of new red tape, new authority and a prescriptive, bureaucratic approach that does not address the key issue that the very minister who put this legislation forward wanted to respond to when he established the national supply chain task force in the first place.
Where does that leave us here today? Small businesses across Canada are decrying the increased shipping costs to access the Asia-Pacific gateway. We have had labour disputes at our ports in British Columbia recently. We have thousands upon thousands of businesses that are not working as quickly as they want to because they are constrained by our supply chains, by our rail networks.
What I want to see from this government, as this legislation moves forward, is to look at rewriting the focus of this bill, to ensure that we accomplish a few key things, namely what measurable improvement can we attribute to this legislation to make goods move more efficiently in Canada? What regulatory hurdles that currently exist can be removed to ensure that our small businesses, our exporters and importers, can get the products they need quickly enough?
I know that in Saskatchewan, farmers are constantly scared about the bottlenecks that we face in British Columbia. Saskatchewan produces some of the best pulses in the world, yet it cannot get those products to market quickly enough because our transportation rail infrastructure is not there.
I know that importers of Korean steel in British Columbia are facing much higher freight costs, largely because of some of the issues raised here today. Those products are sitting on a ship off the coast of Vancouver Island because they cannot get a docking quickly enough at the port of Metro Vancouver. These are all things that this legislation can address but it is not there yet.
It goes without saying that I will not be supporting this legislation but I do hope that, at committee stage, the government can do a 180 and refocus its efforts on the recommendations that are well received from the national supply chain task force, to do something that is going to support small businesses, Canada's overall GDP and competitiveness in a very challenging global economic climate right now.
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Mr. Speaker, in the closing remarks of the member's speech, he said that he will not be supporting the bill, but he hopes that once it gets to committee, the government will accept the recommendations.
My questions are: First, would the member support the bill if it came back with the recommendations, as he indicated? If the answer to that is yes, then why would he not support the bill to get to committee?
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Mr. Speaker, until the major issues are unstuck, as the report from the national task force clearly outlines, I do not think the bill can be supported. The minister had an opportunity when he tabled this legislation to rely upon the expert advice he sought in the first place. It would be irresponsible for me to support this legislation in its current format, because the minister himself did not take the recommendations he sought from an expert panel in the first place.
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Uqaqtittiji, I noticed some gaps in the bill. A major one is the lack of acknowledgement of the impact of climate change. The Northwest Passage is opening up and ports in the Arctic are going to become more necessary. I wonder if the member agrees that, when the bill does get to committee, witnesses will need to be called from the Arctic to talk about the importance of ports in the Arctic.
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Mr. Speaker, I do believe that we need to hear about the challenges that the Nunavummiut face with respect to port access, and that is a very legitimate concern that I think should be addressed in the legislation. Canada is an Arctic nation, and I hope that we give it the attention it deserves at the committee stage.
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Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his speech.
Earlier, he talked about red tape, particularly the additional administrative burden. Along with several of my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois, I recently met with representatives from port authorities. They told us that they were consulted on Bill C-33 but nothing from the things they mentioned during consultations was included in this bill. In particular, they asked for more autonomy to ensure their development.
What stands out on reading this bill is that there is more reporting. They are being asked to do even more.
I would like my colleague to tell us, if Bill C-13 is sent for study in committee, whether he would be in favour of having less red tape, particularly for small authorities that that do not always have the capacity to manage all that administrative burden.
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Mr. Speaker, as the member mentioned, I also heard the port directors say that their perspective was not included in the bill.
I hope that the government will listen to the private sector and the port directors at committee stage so that we can improve the bill and promote our economy.
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Mr. Speaker, the speech from my hon. colleague for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon nicely dovetailed with mine on the concern for prairie farmers.
The member mentioned pulse growers in Saskatchewan, but wheat growers in Alberta and barley growers all face the same problem: the massive inefficiencies at the Port of Vancouver where bulk carriers sit idly, which costs everyone. It costs prairie farmers, shippers, customers and our environment in Saanich—Gulf Islands, while these large freighters cool their heels sitting on our coast with free marine parking.
I would like to ask my hon. colleague for his support when my amendments get to committee.
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Mr. Speaker, I have not seen the amendments of the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands yet, but I hope in good spirit, if they are there to improve the flow of goods in Canada, they may be something I could support if I were on the transportation committee.
I will note, representing the Ashcroft Terminal, that they had three specific concerns that they wanted to see addressed in the legislation, as follows: the inclusion of intermodal containers in the final arbitration process, the continuation of extended interswitching and the contracting terms of the shipper contracts provided in the CTA, which may hurt shipper remedy rights moving forward.
I just wanted to put those three things on the record as well. I kind of botched the third one, but I see I am out of time.
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Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to rise and speak to Bill C-33, an act to amend the Customs Act, the Railway Safety Act, the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992, the Marine Transportation Security Act, the Canada Transportation Act and the Canada Marine Act and to make a consequential amendment to another act. That is quite a mouthful, but it is simply known by its short title of “Strengthening the Port System and Railway Safety in Canada Act”.
By way of background, in April 2017, the then minister of transport, the hon. Marc Garneau, launched a review of the Railway Safety Act. Then in 2018, he announced a review of Canada port authorities to optimize their role in the transportation system. In late 2022, the previous minister of transport received the Final Report of the National Supply Chain Task Force, 2022, as other members have noted.
Bill C-33 was brought forward in response to the Railway Safety Act review and the ports modernization review. If passed, this proposed legislation would amend several existing laws, as indicated in the long title of the bill.
What has become increasingly obvious is that urgent action is needed to address supply chain congestion. In fact, this is exactly what the Final Report of the National Supply Chain Task Force 2022 called for: urgent action to immediately address supply chain congestion.
It is rather typical of the government to refuse to take action until the issue has reached a crisis point. We have been waiting four years for a plan to modernize our ports, and this bill fails to address the root causes of supply chain congestion.
While this comes as no surprise, it is nonetheless frustrating that the government continues to propose inadequate legislation to address important issues such as this one. Bill C-33 does not offer solutions to long-standing issues between railway shippers and railway companies. Instead, it seemingly indicates that the status quo is just fine.
There is also nothing in the bill to address labour disputes that impact supply chains. While it does clarify that rail blockades are illegal, which was already known, the real issue here is with enforcement. This clarification will do nothing to change the reality of rail blockades. Only the enforcement of our laws will.
Since this bill was tabled, there has been a change of minister. This may be due to a realization by the government that it has failed on this file. It may be an attempt to save face by shuffling ministers around, pretending that the Liberals have recognized their shortcomings and that changes will be made.
However, the pattern has been set. The government will continue to put forward flawed policy and centralize power in Ottawa. Speaking of centralizing power, the ports are supposed to operate at arm's length and work in the best interests of both the national economy and the supply chain. However, the previous minister of transport made it clear in his speech on this bill and while answering a question from my colleague, the member for Chilliwack—Hope, that the government is shortening the arm's length and trying to exercise more control over the ports.
This is an area of deep concern. Ports must have the freedom to operate effectively. This starts with letting them elect their own leadership. The ports do not need Liberal ministers to choose the chairs of local port boards. Ministerial authority to appoint the chair reduces the independence of ports.
This raises the following question: Why does the government believe that it should be the one to appoint the chairs of port authorities? It has not come forward with any reasonable explanation for this measure. Canadians do not need more centralized decision-making in Ottawa.
An unfortunate vice of the government is its hubris, which causes its members to think that they have the Midas touch, despite breaking all that they touch. One only needs to look at how the Prime Minister has run his cabinet for the last eight years, dictating to it and centralizing power in the PMO. This has resulted in disaster after disaster.
Another aspect of this bill that would hamper the work of Canadian ports is the new reporting requirements. These requirements would reduce the efficiency and competitiveness of Canadian ports, and they would be especially burdensome for smaller ports. This is yet another hallmark of the Liberal government: extending its control over larger enterprises and drowning smaller businesses in red tape, reaching the point where they are completely reliant on the government.
Furthermore, overly prescriptive and bureaucratic red tape would increase costs, which would inevitably be passed on to Canadian consumers. Additionally, the new proposed advisory committees could restrict the ability of ports to make decisions that would improve their capacity and efficiency.
Businesses do not need more government regulation; they need more freedom to be able to operate efficiently on their own. They do not need the government to tell them how the business should be run. The people who work in this industry and at these ports know better what they need to do to increase efficiencies. Imposing a one-size-fits-all approach to ports across the country does not take into consideration the unique challenges at different ports.
Decision-making by local port authorities is key to modernizing and improving the efficiency of ports around our country. Again, the additional ministerial powers in this bill would limit local decision-making by port authorities, leading to further delays in modernizing our ports. This, in turn, would reduce their efficiency and impact competitiveness. The result would be higher costs passed on to consumers, contributing further to the cost of living crisis that the government has created in this country.
One piece missing from this bill is the provision of any solutions to long-standing issues between railway shippers and railway companies. This is a crucial part of the supply chain. However, the government has left this out, demonstrating that it has no intent to properly fix the issues that were highlighted in the task force report. This shows a worrying lack of understanding of the important aspects of the supply chain. Instead of taking the opportunity to make changes and address this issue, the government seems to be content to let the opportunity pass as it continues to double down on poor policy.
While Conservatives will always support measures that strengthen our supply chains, we cannot consent to efforts from the Liberal-NDP coalition to centralize power in Ottawa and put ports under the thumbs of Ottawa gatekeepers. Conservatives will not support propping up ineffective gatekeepers, which have only made life more difficult for Canadians. The Liberal-NDP coalition needs to work to remove gatekeepers, not validate them by granting them more power and responsibilities.
Conservatives cannot support an increase in red tape and bureaucracy, especially in our supply chain. While the Liberals want port authorities to be aligned with their objectives, as stated by the previous minister, we believe that ports should operate in the best interests of the national economy and the supply chain.
With a country the size of ours, we need an efficient supply chain in which all parts work well together. I believe that the government should go back to the drawing board and draft a bill, which it could present to this House, that makes good, substantive changes to our supply chain and addresses the concerns that were raised by the task force.
A bill purporting to address supply chain congestion must address all the concerns from stakeholders and remove the “Ottawa knows best” solutions that seem to be a hallmark of the government. This bill does neither.
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Mr. Speaker, I really liked the end of my colleague's speech. She referred to the “Ottawa knows best” approach that is often taken. In her speech, she also spoke about the centralizing power that the Liberal-NDP coalition is trying to develop. I completely agree with her.
However, her remarks are somewhat inconsistent with what I heard yesterday. Her leader said that he was going to make infrastructure support for cities conditional on them meeting their housing targets, even though we do not know what those targets are. Is that not an “Ottawa knows best” approach? Is that not just another form of centralization?
I would like my colleague to explain that.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the observations by my colleague in regard to the Ottawa-knows-best approach that the government tends to take. I agree with him that we see more of the same in this bill.
I know that the final report of the national supply chain task force called for urgent action to immediately address supply chain congestion, and I am sure he would agree with me that the bill that has been tabled in the House does absolutely nothing to address the concerns of the task force. Again, additional ministerial powers would simply limit decision-making by local port authorities, which I know members of his caucus are very concerned about, and would lead to further delays in modernizing our ports all across this country.
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Mr. Speaker, in her speech, my colleague talked about something that is worth elaborating on so that we can understand her position. She has an opportunity to illustrate her point to those watching us.
Even though there is not much to Bill C‑33, there is still something that bothers me, specifically the minister's will to have control over the appointment of board chairs of ports across Canada, in other words deciding who goes where. Worse yet, we know that when Liberal ministers do this sort of thing, the people who are selected are not accountable to the public. Their objective is not to develop the ports, but to please the minister. Most of the time, the people who are chosen are friends of the minister or friends of the Liberal Party.
I would like to know whether my colleague thinks that this aspect of the bill is an improvement.
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Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to listen in on the debate on this bill. I would suggest that another hallmark is that the current government is well known for appointing its friends and Liberal supporters, not only to benefit itself when it comes to decisions made by decision-making bodies but also to line the pockets of Liberal insiders and friends. I absolutely do not believe they have done anything to address that status quo in this bill.
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Mr. Speaker, every morning past my little house in northern Ontario, we hear the big rumbling of the train. I always love that sound. My family worked the trains, and when I hear that train whistle in the distance, I feel good. However, that train carries huge tankers of sulfuric acid from the smelter in Rouyn-Noranda, and it goes past my house.
Every morning as I hear that rumble, I want to know that those smelter cars are on tracks that are safe and that our workers are able to make sure they can look after them, because a derailment of that nature would be catastrophic in our region of the north where we have fragile lake systems. It would be catastrophic anywhere in this country, particularly going through many of the cities and communities across the country. We saw the disaster at Lac-Mégantic where so many people died because of a lack of regulation.
I want to ask my colleague about the importance of this. We have been told self-regulation works. It does not. We need to see strong measures to make sure that what we are transporting across this country is transported safely, for the workers, for the communities and for the environment. There is the necessity of making sure the federal government lives up to its responsibility of ensuring that is done.
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Mr. Speaker, Conservatives understand that not only is an efficient transportation system key to ensuring reliable supply chains, but also a safe transportation system, including a safe rail transportation system, is key. We need reliable supply chains if we want to grow Canada's economy. We support measures that strengthen our supply chains, and I believe safety is one of those measures.
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Mr. Speaker, I am going to be speaking about strengthening the board governance of Canada's strategic ports. My riding of Steveston—Richmond East is home to all of the above: rail, air and sea. It is an island city by nature, one which I look forward to the Speaker's visiting sometime.
The governance model that underpins Canada's port authorities was designed to establish responsible stewardship of these key strategic assets and to position them as commercially oriented actors that can act credibly in the marketplace. The day-to-day operations of these port authorities are directed by independent boards of directors that are responsible for ensuring that port planning, decisions and operations are made firmly within the public interest. In this context, the Minister of Transport retains the critical role of setting the strategic direction that guides the work of these boards.
For 20 years, this governance model has served Canada well. It has provided Canadians with world-class services while ensuring that capacity grew in support of Canada's economy in a gradual and financially sustainable manner. At the same time, Canada and the world have evolved. Our trade with the world is growing and is increasingly diversified. The shipping lines that support the trade have consolidated and are building even bigger ships, and the logistical connections between transportation services and shippers are growing in intensity and technological innovation. These developments underline the importance of ensuring that our ports can adapt to serve our national supply chains and global connections to the world.
At the same time, it is important to recognize that ports undertake their national mandates in very local contexts. As Canada's ports have grown, so too has public interest in their operations. In the eyes of indigenous and local communities, port governance is not only a question of orchestrating safe marine trade but is also now, more than ever, intertwined with environmental sustainability and our important national agenda for reconciliation. Simply put, Canada port authorities are being called upon to be more adaptable and responsive to an increasingly complex operating context. Things have changed since they were created over 20 years ago.
At the centre of government's approach to ensuring that port governance keeps pace are three important objectives: ensuring that port boards have the right people in the right positions to manage these strategic assets, structuring ongoing engagement with indigenous and local communities to better inform decision-making, and enhancing reporting to enable better public engagement, accountability and oversight. I will speak to these three objectives in turn.
Having the right composition and people in place on boards of directors is key to supporting enhanced board performance. This is why the government is proposing to add an additional prairie province director on the boards of the Thunder Bay and Prince Rupert port authorities in recognition of the role these ports play in the export of prairie commodities. In addition, greater flexibility is being proposed to enable more than one municipal directorship in instances where a port is located in more than one municipality. Recognizing board leadership of these strategic assets is critical, and Bill C-33 proposes to enable the Minister of Transport to designate the board chair from among and in consultation with the directors.
With respect to engagement with indigenous and local communities, this bill proposes to establishment structured mechanisms to enable more meaningful and ongoing dialogue. The port modernization review undertook extensive stakeholder consultations. During these engagements, it was noted that the depth and quality of relationships among port authorities, indigenous and local communities can vary. Such relationships are key to aligning expectations and goals and to informing port decisions that have economic, environmental and social implications. As a result, this bill proposes the establishment of three separate advisory committees at the port management level for engaging with indigenous nations, local communities and local governments. These committees would enable more meaningful and structured opportunities for engagement.
The third key governance objective this bill seeks to advance is increased reporting as a means of promoting transparency in port planning and operations, including environmental performance. Bill C-33 would reinforce port authorities' due diligence in planning by requiring them to provide land use plans on a five-year cycle. This would facilitate input from local communities and stakeholders in the port planning process. In addition, the proposed measures would modernize financial reporting and disclosure requirements that align with internationally recognized standards. Bill C-33 would further require port authorities to publicly report on greenhouse emissions and establish climate adaptation plans. These measures would position ports to be leaders in managing climate risks. Importantly, these new environmental reporting requirements would align with the government's ambitious climate change agenda and would be consistent with the requirements for other public institutions.
To promote ongoing improvements to port governance aimed at ensuring that these entities remain best in class, Bill C-33 would require port authorities to undergo a triennial assessment of board governance practices. This is an important best practice in corporate governance that befits assets of such national importance. These assessments would evaluate the effectiveness of and adherence to governance practices, including those related to record-keeping practices, the use of skills matrices and the promotion of diversity in recruitment. The results of these assessments would be shared with Transport Canada to inform future policies that help port governance remain best in class. Taken together, these important governance reforms would establish more proficient, transparent and accountable port authority boards consistent with the important role played by ports as instruments of public policy.
These measures build on the successful foundation established in the 1990s, when the Canada Marine Act was first enacted. They would update port governance to modern realities and serve to better align national and local realities, and they would do so by maintaining ports that are nimble market actors and can better support Canada's connections to the world.
We are pleased to advance these reforms. Bill C-33 would fundamentally reposition Canada's port authorities and maintain these world-class facilities that underpin our critical supply chains and national economy.
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