Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Government leader, my question is a follow-up to an answer that you gave last month regarding the Canada Infrastructure Bank. At that time, you mentioned two specific projects, including the Manitoba Fibre broadband project, which will create 50 permanent jobs. Although the Canada Infrastructure Bank has been operational since 2017, this is the very first project it has announced in the province of Manitoba. A media report about a year ago said the project was expected to get a financial close last spring. Instead, it wasn’t finalized until last August.

Just like every other Infrastructure Bank announcement, the Manitoba Fibre project has not been completed. In fact, I can’t find any evidence, Senator Gold, that construction has even begun. Leader, has the work begun? If not, when is it expected to start?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Senator Gagné, thank you for your comments. Can you tell us where the bill is at in the other place right now?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Senator Gold, the Royal Canadian Air Force currently has 13 Cormorant search and rescue helicopters that provide search and rescue for our entire country. We recently lost one in a crash at 9 Wing Air Force Base in Gander.

In August 2019, the former Minister of National Defence announced plans to purchase at least two more Cormorants and upgrade the entire fleet of aircraft. However, a recent answer to my question on the Senate Order Paper shows that, almost three years later, there are no active plans to follow through on this promise, and the Department of National Defence is aiming to make a decision this calendar year.

Leader, why is your NDP-Liberal government again failing to provide the men and women of our air force the equipment they need to fulfill their search and rescue operations as promised in 2019?

Senator Plett: Of course, my question was not related to any of what you just said. I was asking why your government failed to deliver on a promise that it made in 2019. Senator Gold, you never even touched upon it. We should have statements instead of Question Period here and then we could answer our own questions, because it seems that’s what we have to do.

Leader, since Russia invaded Ukraine almost three months ago, we have heard a lot of talk about your government and its support of Canada’s defence capabilities. It is clear again that those are just words. The written answer that I received relating to our national search and rescue capability shows there is no plan to station enhanced helicopter capacity to meet search and rescue needs in the Northwest Passage area. The answer also states that the air force is already reduced to borrowing parts between maintenance and operational Cormorants.

Leader, how can you possibly justify such a low state of readiness? Why is your government unable or unwilling to live up to the promises to enhance search and rescue operations in Canada? Please don’t tell me how much you support the air force unless you can tell us why you have not taken these crucial steps.

Senator Plett: Honourable senators, the Government of Canada, regardless of its political stripe, has been supporting important projects over years, long before the expensive and ineffective bureaucracy of the Infrastructure Bank was created. It should continue to support worthwhile projects, even after the Infrastructure Bank is abolished, as a committee of the other place recommended earlier this month.

Leader, last month, you also mentioned the Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link project to Nunavut from Manitoba, a project that the Conservative Party has supported, as you may know. In the memorandum of understanding for this project, which was signed over two years ago, in February 2020, the Infrastructure Bank is said to be playing an advisory role. At the time, the former CEO told the media that the Infrastructure Bank might invest in this project, but it doesn’t appear that it has happened.

Could you also please inquire, leader, as to what the current status is of the project and whether they have invested?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): I will take a page out of Senator Dalphond’s way of asking questions and, clearly, Senator Gold’s way of asking questions, which is of putting forward statements rather than questions. So let me do that as well, Senator Dasko. Thank you very much for your speech.

If we pass this particular motion, it will be passed, in all likelihood, not before Tuesday of next week, which is May 31. Clearly, the very first time that the Transport and Communications Committee would possibly be able to meet, just to organize, would be June 1, which is their slot for their committees. That leaves us exactly four meetings, if we go to the very end of June.

I think you said that, in this iteration of Bill C-10, there have been 30 committee meetings in the other place. Now the Leader of the Government is asking us to do a pre-study and try to rush this through. He says he has no reporting deadline. Clearly, there should be no reporting deadline, because there won’t be time for a pre-study, a regular study or anything without us not doing our proper due diligence that this bill will clearly deserve. We have no indication of when it is coming here.

So I would suggest — I’m doing this the way your colleague did, Senator Gagné. I’m just encouraging her to agree with me. Would you agree, Senator Dasko, that there is simply no adequate time to do proper service or proper justice to this bill?

Senator Plett: So we know where it is not. Of course, I would like to know where it is. They’ve had three meetings so far at second reading — April 1, April 6 and April 12 — and we don’t know when they will have their next meeting. So they have not even considered a vote yet and sending it to committee. Bill C-11 has, at least, made that step, although it also isn’t nearly far enough.

Nevertheless, here is a bill that isn’t even at committee. It has not been referred to committee, let alone had any studies. Again, we are putting the cart before the horse here, and we are studying something that we have no idea when we will get it. We have no idea what it will look like because it may well be amended, and we simply have no idea when it will even go to committee.

Would you not agree, Senator Gagné, that maybe the government should start getting their priorities right over there instead of worrying about our priorities over here? They should get their act together. They should be able to schedule these bills. This, again, is a piece of legislation that is not new to the government. As with Bill C-11, these are bills that were promised — that were presented earlier — and here we are again asking to do a study when we have limited committee time. We are asking to study something that we have no idea what the actual bill will look like when it gets here.

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