44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 21, 2023 10:00AM
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, 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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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, 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, 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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- Sep/21/23 2:59:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the NDP-Liberal government, Canadians are seeing record inflation as grocery prices skyrocket, thanks to the carbon tax.
Tiff Macklem, the Bank of Canada governor, agrees that Trudeau's tax on gas and groceries increases inflation. In the case of onions, the cost is up 69%. We do not have to wonder why food bank usage at the University of Ottawa is up over 258%. The Prime Minister is simply not worth the cost.
Will the Prime Minister eliminate the carbon tax so students can afford to eat?
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