Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to discuss Bill C-49, an act to amend the Canada Transportation Act and other Acts respecting transportation and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts. Bill C-49 is an omnibus bill that creates an air passengers' bill of rights, and introduces a new regime for railways and rail shippers.

This bill would establish a new air passengers' bill of rights and liberalize the international ownership restrictions on Canadian air carriers. As well, it would allow the Minister of Transport to consider and approve applications for joint ventures between two or more air carriers providing air services.

Further, it would amend regulations governing Canada's freight rail system, and mandate the installation of locomotive voice and video recorders in locomotive cabs.

Bill C-49 would expand the Governor in Council's power to require major railway companies to provide information relating to rates, service, and performance, and amend Canada's Marine Act so that port authorities are eligible for loans through the infrastructure bank.

In total, this bill substantially amends 13 different acts and would have enormous consequences for all three modes of transport.

My first concern with Bill C-49 is that this legislation drastically weakens legislative protections for western Canadian shippers and farmers.

Instead of making travel more expensive and unattainable for many Canadians, we need to focus on proactive measures to make travel less expensive and more convenient for all travellers. Maybe we should start by repealing the carbon tax, instead of legislating reactive compensation that only a small portion of passengers will benefit from.

Further, this bill provides few specifics on the proposed air passengers' bill of rights, and is not supported in its current form by many airline passenger advocates, including Gabor Lukacs and Jeremy Cooperstock from the Consumers' Association of Canada. They oppose this bill, as they consider its measures of little value to support passengers. If advocates for an air passengers’ bill of rights do not support this, it speaks volumes to this legislation.

Port authorities and their wholly-owned subsidiaries will be able to receive loans and loan guarantees from the Canada infrastructure bank. My Conservative colleagues and I strongly oppose the creation of an infrastructure bank.

A further concern that is raised by this bill is that of staffing. The Canadian Transportation Agency and Transport Canada will require significant new staffing to handle all the additional data collection and regulatory powers this legislation introduces.

This bill would lead to drastic changes in every means of transportation. With respect to air transportation, in particular, I have a few concerns. This bill does not specify the compensation levels for passengers under the proposed bill of rights. Voting for this bill would give the Minister of Transport and the Canadian Transportation Agency a blank cheque to set monetary compensation for passengers in the future with no oversight. That is wrong.

The bill also raises a concern that the Minister of Transport will have significant new powers to approve or overrule proposed joint ventures between airlines. This will lessen the role of the independent and non-partisan Competition Bureau.

Further, the bill would allow airport authorities to charge airlines and passengers for extra security lanes. This has the potential to lead to new airport security changes on top of the air traveller security changes presently levied by the Government of Canada.

There are also going to be major changes to rail transportation and safety, which the government cannot ignore. Unfortunately, the rail portion of Bill C-49 is a major reversal of the policies introduced by former ministers of agriculture and transportation in our Conservative government in 2014.

The first issue I would like to draw attention to is interswitching, an operation performed by railway companies whereby one carrier picks up cars from a customer or shipper and hands them off to another carrier that performs the line haul or transports them the majority of the linear distance of the overall railway movement.

The new long-haul interswitching remedy created by Bill C-49 is a renamed copy of competitive line rates, which are hardly ever used. The new long-haul interswitching rate will be more difficult to use for shippers and will not serve as a useful tool in negotiations with the railroad. This will be a problem. The entire long-haul interswitching program can be waived by the Minister of Transport if the minister believes that the railroad is in financial distress. I cannot support this.

Further, the 30 kilometre interswitching rate will be set each year. It will take into consideration the railroads' infrastructure needs across the entire network. I want to highlight that this will likely increase the regulated rate paid by shippers for interswitching and discourage the practice.

For toxic inhalation hazard material, shippers will not be able to apply for the long-haul interswitching remedy. This will negatively impact hundreds of shippers.

While long-haul interswitching will extend to 1,200 kilometres or 50% of the total haul distance, the first interswitching location for many captive shippers in northern Alberta and northern B.C. would be located within the Kamloops—Vancouver corridor where interswitching is not allowed beyond 30 kilometres, therefore removing their ability to utilize this remedy to increase railway competition. We should not be stifling competition in this country. It is this sort of legislation that is making it more expensive and less attractive to do business in Canada.

It is clear that Bill C-49 would create surrounding air and rail transport, but it does not stop there. Marine transport will also be impacted if the bill is passed. My concerns here are twofold. First, the Canada Marine Act will be amended to permit port authorities and their wholly-owned subsidiaries to receive loans and loan guarantees from the Canada infrastructure bank. Second, the Coasting Trade Act will be amended to allow ships that are not registered in Canada to move empty containers between Halifax and Montreal. This is simply illogical.

It is for these reasons that I will not be able to support the legislation.

Bob Saroya

Transcript

Government Orders

Discussions (0)