Official Hansard
moved that Bill C-39, An Act respecting certain measures to strengthen the economy, be read the second time and referred to a committee. He said: Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise in the House today to speak to this important bill, the most important piece of economic legislation in decades. Canada’s prosperity has always depended on our ability to transport goods over long distances. It is in our DNA, an inherent part of who we are, because of the very nature of our geography. Today, our ability to move goods at the speed and scale necessary for prosperity is being tested. Global supply chains are shifting. Competition is intensifying. Long-standing trade relationships can, unfortunately, no longer be taken for granted. For Canada, that means something fundamental. As an open economy, we must respond. We must become more resilient, more diversified, more globally competitive and more capable of standing on our own. We must respond by strengthening our economic sovereignty, while continuing to be a strong and reliable partner to countries around the world. In this new environment, the old ways of thinking, the old ways of doing business and the old ways of looking at the world are no longer enough. They are not fast enough, big enough, resilient enough or reliable enough. In fact, they must be reimagined sometimes in their entirety. As Canadians, we must take control of our own destiny and build the capacity to stand on our own, while strengthening the partnerships that matter most. We succeed as a country, one and all, today and tomorrow, by building the supply chains of the future. Ports; railways; roads; airports; trade corridors; the way we work, make decisions and process our information; and the speed at which we build will all have to change. Over the past year, I have had the opportunity to travel across our country and speak with Canadians from coast to coast to coast. I have also met with chambers of commerce, councils and businesses. I have spoken with workers at length about the challenges we are facing. We came up with some proposals together, and, most importantly, I took the time to listen carefully to what people across Canada had to say. Earlier this year, Transport Canada released two discussion papers that outlined proposals, and we listened once again. Bill C‑39 is the result of all that work, a whole-of-government effort involving numerous discussion papers across various departments. This bill is one of the most important economic pieces of legislation in a generation. It is the result of a number of departments coming together, and it explains exactly how we are going to turn those advantages into opportunities. Let us get into the specifics of the bill. I would like to begin with what we call trade corridors. We are an export nation. Canada’s transportation system is the backbone of our export nation, enabling the safe, secure and efficient movement of goods. It gets key products onto shelves at home and abroad and others to ports for overseas shipping, and it directly impacts affordability for Canadians. Over the past few years, our government has worked hard to improve that infrastructure. Through the national trade corridors fund, we have invested more than $4 billion in over 200 projects across the country. Our goal in doing all of this has been simple: to scale up and improve capacity so that there is less waiting, smoother flow and faster results. This important work has continued with the trade diversification corridors fund and the Arctic infrastructure fund, as well as the new Canada strong fund, which will be used to make commercial equity investments in major nation-building Canadian projects and companies, alongside private sector investors. With Bill C-39, we are going further, with the ability to designate specific geographic areas or important routes as national trade corridors and then set clear performance goals. The overall goal would shift from increasing capacity to improving efficiency and reliability. In other words, we would be helping different parts of the system, such as ports, railways, airports, trucking and warehouses, work together better and then track how well things are running. A national corridor council would also be created to find problem areas that cause delays and suggest ways to improve the system, improve efficiency and help different players make more coordinated decisions. Overall, these changes would move goods faster from where they are made to ports, reduce delays at these busy points and make shipping more reliable for exporters. That reliability is about more than efficiency. It is about giving Canadian businesses options. Last year, the Prime Minister set an ambitious goal for Canada to double its non-U.S. exports within a decade. That goal has inspired this piece of legislation. It is no small feat, but it is absolutely necessary if we are to make our economy more resilient and less vulnerable to the risks that come with relying too much on a single market or country. Canada has what the world is looking for. While that is true, we also need to take action. We need to make our country so accessible and predictable that other countries want to expand their trade with us. That means that trade hubs, especially ports, must operate at the speed of business. They need to be able to make decisions and raise capital more flexibly. They need to work together better, move goods faster and track them better to reduce bottlenecks and cut costs, making Canada a much more attractive economic partner. Here is how we are going to do that. The proposed legislative amendments would strengthen the governance of port authorities by requiring regular assessments and third-party assessments that would be submitted to the minister. Other provisions would require regular updates to land use plans and business plans and would modernize the way fees are fixed for ports owned and operated by Transport Canada. Ports would benefit from greater financial flexibility and new revenue-generating opportunities. This would, of course, be accompanied by increased oversight and the creation of a regulatory authority that could require operators to provide data so that we can more accurately gauge the performance of our supply chains. However, it is not enough for one port or port authority to act alone. These changes must be coordinated, and port authorities must strengthen their collaboration along trade corridors to scale Canada’s trade gateways up enough to compete internationally and to strengthen our domestic supply chains. I want to be very clear. Canada is not privatizing its ports. Canada owns the land. Our port authorities are independent, self-funded bodies that have been given the responsibility for managing these lands on behalf of the Government of Canada. They basically act as landlords who then lease plots of land to private terminal operators. These operators build and operate the essential infrastructure on which our Canadian farmers, producers and manufacturers depend. What this bill does is increase the flexibility that our port authorities have to pursue new trade opportunities and to adapt to the changing landscape of international trade. Our ports must be agile, reliable and efficient. They must have the resources they need to meet our goal of doubling our trade with partners other than the United States over the next 10 years. We are therefore proposing to establish a national trade corridors council, which will be responsible for consulting with indigenous peoples, provinces, territories, municipalities and other stakeholders and for making recommendations to strengthen collaboration among ports within each designated trade corridor. Roughly 80% of Canada’s trade by volume with countries other than the U.S. moves by sea. This measure would help ports expand, plan for the long term and meet growing global demand. We also want to talk about regulatory certainty and red tape reduction. A clear and simple regulatory system will bring a consistent foundation to support businesses to invest, grow and stay competitive while keeping strong safety and environmental standards. This bill proposes legislative changes to improve efficiency, cut time-consuming administrative burdens, reduce costs to businesses and support a more competitive transportation system. The proposed changes would simplify rules and approvals while maintaining Canada’s world-leading standards. For example, we would remove many duplicate reviews where other processes already apply. We call it a “one project, one review” approach, with a streamlined process, parallel assessments and clearer timelines. We would also align more quickly with international standards, speed up approvals for lower-risk projects, reduce some unnecessary reporting requirements and provide flexibility during emergencies. Finally, to complement efforts being led by the Major Projects Office, Transport Canada would establish a transportation project office within the department to strengthen federal permitting, coordination and Crown consultation for some transportation projects. Taken together, these measures aim to support competitive and resilient supply chains, improve system flexibility and help move key goods more efficiently at a reduced cost to businesses and Canadians. Next, I want to address our plan to improve the digitization of trade. This is one of the greatest opportunities available to us. Many Canadian exporters still rely on paper-based systems, which is slowing the movement of goods and increasing costs. Customs forms, bills of lading and certificates of origin are often processed sequentially by several different authorities. That is an outdated way of doing things. In some cases, red tape can add days to the customs clearance process. Meanwhile, our competitors, including Singapore, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands and New Zealand, have embraced the future and already have end-to-end digitized trade systems. A 2025 report by Access Partnership estimates that paperless trade in Canada could reduce trade costs for businesses by up to 4.2%. Documents are sent just once and are passed along simultaneously. Goods clear customs in a matter of hours, rather than days. The bill would change that. Its measures would support trade digitization. In many cases, this would enable companies to provide information only once and share it securely across multiple federal departments and agencies, in accordance with the “tell us once” principle. The legislation would also clarify the legal validity of transferable electronic documents, such as bills of lading, to encourage their use in international trade processes. These digitized trade processes would allow goods to move faster, providing businesses with greater predictability and strengthening Canada’s competitiveness and reputation. The shift to digital would reduce documentation errors and administrative delays while promoting more efficient supply chain management. Crucially, this kind of efficiency could help unlock up to $100 billion in economic potential. Perhaps nowhere is that potential more evident than in the Major Projects Office, which must accelerate and streamline the federal approval process for high-priority infrastructure projects and nation-building projects. By creating a single entry point for all these projects, we would reduce the timeline for federal review and decision-making to no more than one year. Other changes would allow us to have a single project authority and a single project decision. The associated regulatory environment would become streamlined and efficient. I have already pointed out that transportation and our supply chains are the backbone of our country’s economy, but without a stable and skilled workforce, supply chains cannot function. Dozens of work stoppages in recent years, including major rail shutdowns, have shown how quickly instability can ripple across the economy. That affects workers, that affects businesses and that affects Canada’s reputation as a reliable trading partner. When these shutdowns occur, hundreds of thousands of unionized jobs in manufacturing locations, in factories, in coal mines and in energy projects are all put at risk as well. That is why we would strengthen labour stability to keep supply chains moving, with well-paid workers with solid collective agreements. Practical solutions within this bill would offer things like better dispute resolution, improved labour mobility, skills training and workforce development. We need long-term solutions for recruitment, retention and resilience, because building and operating modern supply chains require people with world-leading skills, like Canadians have, and require those people to be deployed in the right places. We need to be building that workforce now. I reject the criticism that this bill would not contribute to stability in our supply chains. This government is investing and putting in place measures to support workers, to support employers and to reach agreements where they are best reached, which is at the table. We will continue to invest in processes and regulations that allow getting collective agreements and getting the people we need. The best people in the world work in our national supply chains in many of Canada’s leading labour unions, and we should help them stay on the job. They want to be on the job, and they are proud to do the jobs that they do. The changes we are proposing will help establish a more modern and responsive transportation network that can withstand economic pressures, improve the performance of our trade corridors and unlock new capabilities. As the Prime Minister said, the world will not go back to the way it was. The old order is not coming back. We need to respond, adapt and move forward. As I was saying, we need to build the country and the systems that are behind the best country in the world, including supply chains. We need to build the supply chains and systems of the future. We need to build a Canada that is more connected to the world, more competitive, safer, less vulnerable to a single market and better able to stand on its own. We must act. We must act now as we move toward this new horizon. In conclusion, this bill is an important piece of economic legislation. It gets at the very foundation of our economic system, which is our transportation networks, which is the way we deal with investment proposals and projects of all sizes, from one end of the country to the other. It streamlines processes but does not lower standards. It helps labour and employers reach collective agreements and does not look to labour conflict. It helps to make our transportation systems more efficient and more effective and to reduce costs for businesses, for exporters and, especially, for Canadians on the grocery shelves and everywhere. I am so proud to recommend to this House Bill C-39, the building Canada strong act, and I look forward to the debate we will have in this chamber.
