CANADA House of Commons Debates VOLUME 144 Ï NUMBER 015 Ï 2nd SESSION Ï 40th PARLIAMENT OFFICIAL REPORT (HANSARD) Friday, February 13, 2009 Speaker: The Honourable Peter Milliken CONTENTS (Table of Contents appears at back of this issue.) Also available on the Parliament of Canada Web Site at the following address: http://www.parl.gc.ca 789 HOUSE OF COMMONS Friday, February 13, 2009 The House met at 10 a.m. on all of us to understand what they bring to Parliament, what they bring to this place to provide that additional knowledge and understanding that can do so much in making good legislation, ensuring that what we are doing is correct and will serve Canadians Prayers over a long period of time, as legislation should. As to the background on the bill, the public consultation began GOVERNMENT ORDERS almost five years ago. There have been meetings on a continuing Ï (1005) basis with provincial and territorial governments. I am sure that there [English] will be some continuing consultation after the bill has passed. TRANSPORTATION OF DANGEROUS GOODS ACT, 1992 The bill is the result of a process that has gone on for quite a long The House resumed from February 12 consideration of the motion time. The safe transport of dangerous goods will remain a shared that Bill C-9, An Act to amend the Transportation of Dangerous responsibility between the Government of Canada, provincial and Goods Act, 1992, be read the second time and referred to a territorial governments and the industry. It will be based on committee. agreements and understandings, and working together to enforce The Deputy Speaker: Resuming debate, the hon. member for requirements for protecting the movement of dangerous goods on Western Arctic. highways in Canada. Mr. Dennis Bevington (Western Arctic, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-9, a bill to amend the Transportation of Transport Canada would remain responsible for enforcing Dangerous Goods Act. This is a bill that was introduced into regulations that govern transport by rail, ship and air. The federal Parliament yesterday by the government and which is a very government still has a very large role to play, not simply in making important piece of legislation in many respects. I am very glad to see legislation but ongoing enforcement, ongoing consideration of how the legislation coming forward. best to ensure that dangerous goods are handled and identified in a Yesterday we had a chance to start debate on a number of issues. I manner that Canadians can remain protected. want to take the time right now to comment a little bit on one of the things that I found very pleasing yesterday. Identification is important as well. I refer to a previous experience I had with the illegal movement of dangerous goods when I was As a New Democratic Party member of Parliament in my second mayor of my small town in the Northwest Territories. We had a case term, I was pleased during the debate to have the counsel of two new once that came out of a practice in Alberta where there is a black NDP MPs, both skilled lawyers in their fields. I speak of course of market for the sale of hazardous products. the new member for Vancouver Kingsway, a person who has had decades of work, although he appears very young, in the labour legislation field and will be a great addition to the House of Ï (1010) Commons in identifying issues that surround the rights of working people and the rights of all of us. I was very pleased to see that. That Individuals could take a 45-gallon drum of hazardous products provided an element that perhaps I did not have as much of in the away and have $1,000 given to them on the black market. If the previous Parliament. hazardous waste is taken away, they do not have to send it to the To my left I have another lawyer, a very skilled environmental disposal site. We found someone in our community who was doing lawyer, our new member for Edmonton—Strathcona, a person I have that and mixing it with home heating oil, burning it in buildings and worked with personally on environmental issues for over 25 years, spraying it all over the community. The movement, identification going back to the days when we worked on issues like the Slave and understanding of where dangerous goods are is very important. River hydro project in northern Alberta. It makes a difference and can make a huge difference to the health and well-being of Canadians if it is not handled correctly or taken These people are a great addition to the House of Commons. care of in a proper fashion. Of course, we are very interested in When we have new members in Parliament, I think it is incumbent making sure that this bill does the job it is supposed to do. 790 COMMONS DEBATES February 13, 2009 Government Orders However, much of the bill does not talk about safety. Much of the security system that would demand of people whatever the minister, bill deals with security, which is another matter of great importance through regulation, would set as a security clearance. to people. The government has said that it wants this bill moving ahead for security, the Olympics and a variety of other reasons. Do we know what those restrictions are? The government says it Within the bill, it would set up a transportation security clearance is not interested in doing anything except catching up to our U.S. system where Canadians would be reviewed for security clearance obligations. This has been reported to me through the department. by the Canadian government. The process would include appeals and disclosure of reasons for denial of clearance, but at the same time the bill is very open on this issue. It is enabling legislation. It The government is not interested in providing security clearance does not lay out the conditions for the security clearances. It simply for somebody hauling dynamite from Ontario to Quebec. That is not provides that the government can do this. what the government is doing here. That may not be what the government is planning to do, but the bill would enable the minister, According to the proposed bill, under transportation security through regulations, to set conditions on security clearances for clearances, we see: every aspect of our transportation system that deals with dangerous 5.2 (1) No prescribed person shall import, offer for transport, handle or transport goods. This is a pretty strong piece of legislation. dangerous goods in a quantity or concentration that is specified by regulation — or that is within a range of quantities or concentrations that is specified by regulation — unless the person has a transportation security clearance granted under subsection (2). The argument against secret laws dates back thousands of years. In 449 B.C. the Romans published the Law of the Twelve Tables (2) The Minister may, for the purposes of this Act, grant or refuse to grant a transportation security clearance to any person or suspend or revoke such a clearance. creating an official public legal code that had to be published so that ordinary people would know the law. The principle that laws must be It is pretty open-ended. The bill has been presented to us in a public has been the foundation of our law system since then. fashion that says that, while we currently have inter-country transport between ourselves and the United States, the U.S. has The government says we need flexibility to protect Canadians, very onerous provisions for security clearance. This would take the and this really concerns me. What we need are laws that protect responsibility of performing clearances from the United States and Canadians, that are laid out so that Canadians understand the put it in the hands of the Canadian government so that shippers who limitation of the law. Giving ministers this kind of overwhelming are working in the transportation of dangerous goods across borders control over a situation, I find difficult. would find that their clearance is established within Canada. That is, ostensibly, its purpose. When things are done by regulation, the vital process of public However, none of this was laid out in the bill. The bill enables the review and debate is short-circuited. Parliament is removed from development of transportation security clearances for virtually any making the laws. As a democrat, as a person who believes in the rule part of our transportation net that handles dangerous goods. Of of Parliament, I find this difficult. I do not believe in enabling course, that is pretty well the entire transportation net because every legislation. I believe in prescriptive legislation that lays out what we carrier, airline, train and ship carries dangerous goods at one time or want to accomplish. another. We have an act that enables the minister to make some fairly large and unknown security decisions about Canadians. That, to us, Just yesterday Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart delivered is a bit of a problem within this act, because we have a Charter of a stern warning to the federal government saying she is strongly Rights and Freedoms. Our sense of privacy here is much different opposed to any legislation that would allow the mass surveillance of than in the United States. It is much more held in trust by Canadians private emails and phone calls. That is part of the government's plan and by their governments. to update Canada's wiretapping laws with new police powers to This act creates a framework that enables the creation of monitor criminal suspects in the digital era of cell phones and chat regulations but gives the Minister of Transport enormous powers lines.