Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to address Bill C-39, the building Canada strong act. I would also like to take the opportunity to welcome my colleagues to this new parliamentary session. This is the first time I have spoken since we came back. I hope that we will have a good session of constructive work and that we will move quickly on all the bills that we need to move forward and pass. When we talk about building Canada strong, we often think of major projects. We think of infrastructure. This includes ports, railways and major investments. In my view, a strong Canada starts in our communities. It starts at home. I proudly represent the riding of Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, which is located in the Lower Laurentians of Quebec and includes the cities of Boisbriand, Rosemère, Deux-Montagnes and Saint-Eustache. I am very proud of these communities. I meet families and workers there, as well as entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized business owners. I meet people from the manufacturing sector who want to continue to produce and create good local jobs. What they want from us is simple. They want stability. They want clear rules. They want to be able to invest. They want to be able to hire as well as grow their businesses. They want us to get things done. This issue is even more important today. We live in a world where economic uncertainty has become a daily reality. We see it particularly clearly in our trade relationship with the United States. Just a few months ago, entrepreneurs in my riding were telling me about plans to expand. They were talking to me about growing their businesses, buying new equipment and hiring more workers. I was told about plans in Saint-Eustache and elsewhere in the Lower Laurentians. Today, the context has changed. With the uncertainty coming from the United States, some entrepreneurs are being more cautious. Some are re-evaluating their plans, while others prefer to wait before making a major decision. I can understand them. I was an entrepreneur before I got into politics. Expanding a plant, buying equipment and hiring workers are big decisions. A business needs to know where the markets will be. It needs to know what it will be able to get in return for its goods. It also needs to know that it will be able to deliver its products to its customers. It needs predictability. We do not control every decision made south of the border, but we can act on what we control here in Canada. We can make our processes more efficient, strengthen our infrastructure, diversify our markets and create a climate where businesses have more confidence to invest within Canada. A significant portion of Bill C‑39 focuses specifically on how we review major projects in Canada. Currently, a proponent may have to work with multiple departments. They may also need to go through a process to get the necessary authorizations. Bill C‑39 seeks to better coordinate these efforts. For certain designated projects, a decision should be made within a year once the required studies and information have been provided. A one-year timeline would be fantastic. The bill also calls for better coordination of assessments, federal authorizations and, of course, consultations with indigenous groups. In my view, the idea is simple. Companies that want to invest in Canada need to know the rules. They need to know what the steps are. They also need to know how quickly a decision can be made. That does not mean that we are setting aside our environmental responsibilities, nor does it mean that we are setting aside consultations with indigenous peoples We need to do things right, but we also need to be able to do them efficiently. We can build faster, and we can build responsibly. Another aspect of Bill C‑39 is particularly important to me. I have been a member of the Standing Committee on International Trade for several years, and I am thinking here of supply chains and trade corridors. At committee, we talk a lot about trade agreements. In fact, we have signed about 20 of them in the past year. We are talking about new markets. We are talking about exporting more Canadian products. However, trade agreements are not enough. We need to be able to deliver the products. I will give a very concrete example that we heard at the Standing Committee on International Trade. Earlier this year, we heard from Antoine Morin, senior vice-president at Olymel, a company with a strong presence in Quebec’s pork production market. We are talking about Canadian exports to Japan, a very important market. Some of that pork is sold fresh, never frozen. It is a very valuable commodity that needs to be delivered in a very specific time frame. Mr. Morin explained that Olymel uses the port of Vancouver as its main gateway to Asia. He also explained what happens when there is a service disruption or a strike. When fresh pork piles up at the port, the company has to make a decision quickly. They may need to freeze a product that has to be sold fresh. They may also need to redirect it to another market. The product is not necessarily lost, but some of its value may be. They also have to pay for storage. There are delays and additional pressure on trading partners. Olymel explained that roughly 250 containers pass through the port of Vancouver every week. That represents a lot of money and a lot of jobs in Quebec and Canada. When service is disrupted, up to 50 containers a day could be delayed. If a disruption lasts for as long as a week, losses can run into the millions of dollars. That is real money. Getting a container of fresh pork to market requires producers, factory workers, shippers, railways, the port and, at the end of the chain, customers in Asia waiting for their product. When just one link in that supply chain fails, the consequences can be felt everywhere. That is why reliability matters. Our partners need to know that when they buy a Canadian product, we can deliver it on time. We need to be able to deliver on time. It is a matter of trust. It is also a matter of Canada’s reputation. That is why Bill C‑39 proposes, among other things, the designation of trade corridors. The bill would also allow for the creation of a national trade corridors council. This council would track the movement of goods, analyze significant disruptions and recommend solutions. The bill also provides for the possibility of establishing a transportation project office. The goal is to better coordinate federal authorizations related to transportation projects. This objective is particularly important for Quebec. Quebec has the St. Lawrence River, ports, and road and rail networks. Quebec has businesses that sell products across Canada and around the world. The Lower Laurentians is part of that network. A business in Boisbriand may depend on a supplier on the other side of the country. A business in Saint‑Eustache may have customers in the United States, Europe or Asia. Everything is connected. A trade agreement can open the door, but we still have to deliver the goods. We also need to talk about workers because we cannot have a strong economy without the men and women who keep it running every day. Bill C-39 will not do away with labour disputes, but it does seek to encourage the parties to begin bargaining earlier. It seeks to strengthen the use of mediation and to provide more opportunities for workers and employers to come to an agreement on their own. It is important to note that workers must be able to defend their interests and rights, while employers need stability and predictability. The best solutions are often those that the parties are able to negotiate themselves. The bill also seeks to strengthen occupational health and safety resources. It provides for additional resources for the Canada Industrial Relations Board. If we look at what happened with Olymel, we see just how closely related labour relations and supply chains are. A disruption can have consequences far beyond the place where it occurs. I want to come back to my riding of Rivière‑des‑Mille‑Îles. When we debate an important bill here in Ottawa, we always need to be thinking of the people we are doing this work for. I am thinking of the business owners that I know in my riding. Some of them had plans to expand. Today, they are being more cautious about those plans.
