1975-11-24

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Miss Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43 I rise on a matter of pressing and urgent necessity. In light of the statements by Shahik Al-Hout warning that the PLO would seek to turn world-wide pressure on Canada if Canada rejected any member of the PLO delegation to the conference on human settlements next year, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra (Mr. Clarke):
That this House instruct the minister responsible to inform the UN Secretary General of the conference that while Canada is committed to accepting a delegation from the PLO to the conference on human settlements, we reserve the right as a sovereign state to reject any individual who violates our immigration laws and regulations.


Mr. Speaker:: Pursuant to Standing Order 43 the motion cannot be presented without the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


PROPOSED COMMITTEE STUDY OF ENERGY RESERVES AND FORECASTS-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. James Gillies (Don Valley):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 to present a motion dealing with a matter of pressing and urgent necessity.
The National Energy Board report on oil, tabled in this House at the end of last week, provided new evidence of the unpleasant and even frightening fact that government officials in the NEB and elsewhere have consistently and dramatically over-estimated the depth of this country's energy reserves. This faulty estimating has lead to a series of policy errors on the part of the government. Since we in this House have no evidence to suggest the government has taken any corrective action in this area, and thus, since we can have little or no faith in current government estimates
of energy reserves in this country, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Murta):
That the Standing Committee on National Resources and Public Works be authorized to inquire immediately into the reasons behind the government's consistent mis-estimating of Canada's energy reserves and to recommend corrective action to ensure that future energy forecasts are based on more sound and reliable data.


Mr. Speaker:: Pursuant to Standing Order 43 the motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Adrien Lambert (Bellechasse):: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, I ask the unanimous consent of the House to move a motion of urgent and pressing necessity.
Since the government feels that there is a surplus of industrial milk and that the surplus of fluid milk is sent to processing industries, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Roberval (Mr. Gauthier):
That the House urge the government to restore the fluid milk subsidy, to increase its consumption and decrease the volume of industrial milk.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The House has heard the motion of the hon. member. Under the provisions of Standing Order 43, this motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there such consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: There is not unanimous consent; therefore, the motion cannot be put.


SOCIAL SECURITY
Mr. Jacques Lavoie (Hochelaga):: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, I request unanimous consent of the House to present a motion dealing with an important and urgent matter.

November 24, 1975
National Parks
Considering that the Quebec Minister of Social Affairs has offered the federal government to distribute family allowance cheques before December 5 through its distribution system so that low income families and people on welfare, who are waiting for these cheques, may be able to buy food and other essentials, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe (Mr. Wagner):
That family allowances cheques be distributed within the next three days, either by letter carriers, if they want to, or as suggested by the Quebec government.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The House has heard the hon. member's motion. Pursuant to the terms of Standing Order 43, the motion requires unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Yes.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: As there is not unanimous consent, the motion cannot be put.


NATIONAL PARKS
Mr. Tom Cossitt (Leeds):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity to my constituency concerning the government's proposed $30 million expansion of the St. Lawrence Islands National Park, and particularly arising out of the inconclusive and unsatisfactory meeting held last Thursday between about 500 of my constituents and officials of Parks Canada in what could rapidly become, if not speedily dealt with, another Pickering fiasco. I would move, seconded by the hon. member for Parry Sound-Mus-koka (Mr. Darling):
That the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development accept the invitation that has been extended to him to personally attend with any necessary department officials a public meeting to be open to hundreds of property owners in Leeds who feel that their homes and businesses are threatened by the government's present plans for enlarging the St. Lawrence Islands National Park, that the government be prepared to answer clearly and forthrightly all questions proposed at such a meeting and finally that the people of the area be permitted the democratic right of expressing their views and obtaining answers on this matter before the government proceeds any further whatsoever with its plans.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Pursuant to Standing Order 43 the motion cannot be presented without the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


AIR CANADA
Mr. Dan McKenzie (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity relating to Air Canada and the position of some of its employees here and in the United States. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Central Nova (Mr. MacKay):
That the Minister of Transport look into the situation with regard to the five Air Canada employees in New York City who state that the management of the company has not given them any moral of financial support in their successful efforts to acquit themselves of serious criminal charges of gold theft laid in an apparently hasty way while the employees were at work and that the minister look into and review as well the job security status of those Air Canada employees whose long tenure of service may be jeopardized unfairly by any staff re-alignment policies of the company, if they are not implemented with great care, and report to this House or the standing committee on an appropriate occasion.


Mr. Speaker:: Pursuant to Standing Order 43 the motion cannot be put without the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the right hon. Prime Minister. Last Friday it was indicated on behalf of the government that if the postal union were to accept the fact that the monetary offer by the government was all that was going to be offered, then serious and successful negotiations could take place. I should like to ask the Prime Minister whether the government has been advised that the union accepts the fact that the total monetary package offered by the government in connection with the postal strike cannot go beyond the government's final offer, although there might be some readjustment of the offer, and, if so, are serious negotiations about to resume today?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: I would have to ask the Postmaster General to answer that question. To my knowledge the union has been advised. It has been stated publicly by the Postmaster General and by myself, and that should be advice enough. But I am sure the Postmaster General has made that advice clear in his private discussions, too.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I recognize that the information has no doubt been given to the union. My question relates to
November 24, 1975

whether or not the union has accepted that there is no way in which the government's financial offer will be increased. I should like to ask the Prime Minister whether he has been advised of any significant change of events that would lead to negotiations being resumed in the very near future.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I must say that I have not been advised by the union that they accepted the government's position, and that is presumably why the strike is going on. I do know that there have been some officious meetings with the representatives of the Post Office and of the union. I do not know to what extent they are publicly known and I would hesitate to say any more at this time.


STRIKE OF INSIDE WORKERS-REASON FOR GOVERNMENT'S REFUSAL TO INTRODUCE BACK TO WORK LEGISLATION
Robert Lorne Stanfield: assume the Prime Minister is using the word "officious" in the sense of the French language, as distinguished from official. I would like to ask the Prime Minister the following question. In view of the extent to which the government has already limited the scope of collective bargaining under the government's guidelines laying down the increases in wages which are permissible, how does the government justify its continued refusal to intervene to protect the public interest and what is the government's real reason for not asking parliament to restore this essential service?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I answered these very same questions at the end of last week. My answers are the same.


Mr. Bill Clarke (Vancouver Quadra):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Prime Minister. In view of the fact that the government has called upon parliament for legislation to end strikes three times in the past two years, and in view of the fact that the stoppages in two of these instances, namely, the dock strike at the west coast and the strike at the St. Lawrence ports, were of a much shorter duration than the present 36 days of the postal shutdown, will the Prime Minister now clarify the government's reasons for refusing to introduce back to work legislation so that mail service can be restored while negotiation or mediation is carried on?


Mr. Speaker:: In respect of answers which have been given on previous days to that particular question, of course the situation changes each day, and therefore a fresh question is always permissible, even though the same question had been asked 24 hours earlier, which is special in circumstances of this sort. However, it would be a flagrant abuse of the rules to allow the repetition of a question by two consecutive members on the same day, a question which has been answered by the Prime Minister and which is precisely the one the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra seeks to put.
Oral Questions


THE CANADIAN ECONOMY
Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa-Whitby):: Mr. Speaker,
I have a question for the Prime Minister arising from answers given by the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources on Friday. The Minister of Finance said in the House in reply to a question about the price of oil and the guidelines, and I quote: "they do apply to petroleum companies as they do to anyone else, but not to the OPEC countries", he said with insight. However, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources said in reply to a question by the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands that indeed the white paper makes it clear that the oil industry is in a separate category from those covered by the white paper. I wonder if the Prime Minister would clarify this apparent contradiction between the two ministers' statements.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I apologize, I have not had time to review Hansard for Friday, but I think 1 can explain what puzzles the hon. member. In so far as the price of crude is concerned, obviously the guidelines do not apply because it is set by federal-provincial agreement. It was set for a period of 15 months, I believe, until July 1 next, and the federal and provincial governments plan to get together in the first half of next year to try to arrive at another agreed price for petroleum. In that sense, the guidelines do not apply. The price is set administratively by arrangement.
In another sense, the guidelines do apply, and in that sense the companies will not be able to increase their prices by more than the increase in their costs. That is the general rule of the guidelines, and it will apply to them. In this case the cost of the raw material will be fixed administratively, as I have just indicated. The labour costs will be fixed by bargaining under the rules. There may be other costs, such as executive salaries, and so on. All these various costs will fall under the guidelines, and the pass through rule will apply.


John Edward Broadbent: In view of the fact that the principal reason for price increases in oil in the last few years has been the increase in the wellhead price, which the Prime Minister just said has been settled in the past by negotiations with the provinces, and since, however, the government in its white paper sets out that in terms of its policy it will permit, through a staging process, the wellhead price to rise to world price levels, has the governm'ent not stated its position, in terms of its ultimate effect on the consumer price, that it has decided not to keep the price of oil down in Canada?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The reason the price at the wellhead has been allowed to rise-although considerably less than world prices-is due, first of all, to the decision of the OPEC nations to increase the world price of oil. This put pressure on the NDP and Conservative governments in particular provinces in the west to seek a higher price, preferably world prices, if they could. We resisted the NDP and Tory governments as much as we could and obtained a compromise, which we think is much better for Canadian

November 24, 1975
Oral Questions
people than had we gone to world prices. I must admit that the NDP and Tory governments in the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta were willing to go along with this in the public interest. We were not able to keep the prices as low as perhaps we would have liked, at least in the first stage, but we think that through their co-operation we have finally arrived at a price which is good for the Canadian people. It does cost the consumer a bit more, but I hope the hon. member will realize that those natural resources were under the constitutional jurisdiction of the NDP government in Saskatchewan and the Tory government in Alberta, and we struck what we thought was the best possible compromise.


ANTI-INFLATION PROGRAM-SUGGESTION OIL PRICE INCREASES BE CONDITIONAL UPON MONEY BEING DEVOTED TO EXPLORATION
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I know the Prime Minister would not want to distort the position of the government of Saskatchewan, at least intentionally. Since it is Premier Blakeney's view, both in the past and at present, that no increase should be permitted in the wellhead price of oil unless the future gains from that increase are used for further development-and he attached and always has attached that kind of position to the increase in price-and since at least one of the premiers directly involved has expressed that view, I should like to ask the Prime Minister why the federal government, in its anti-inflation program, does not attach that as a condition of all future price increases and make it mandatory if oil companies are going to get an increase that all such money be devoted to future exploration?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, this question has been dealt with by the previous minister of energy, mines and resources at federal-provincial conferences and in this House. We examined Premier Blakeney's position, which I repeat was one of wanting a considerably higher price for the oil sold-


John Edward Broadbent: For exploration.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -out of Saskatchewan. He had some scheme to put it in a special fund, I believe, in order that it serve the energy needs of the people of Canada. The Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources has given some very specific figures indicating the use to which any increment or windfall that had accrued to the federal government through the increased price, was indeed serving the energy needs of the people of Canada. To mention only one figure, $l1/2 billion was budgeted for the equalization of the price of oil in the eastern part of Canada with the western part of Canada, and a large part of that indeed comes from the fact that we have been able to draw some benefit for the Canadian taxpayer from the export tax on oil products.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Leonel Beaudoin (Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, upon the Minister of Agriculture's return from the World Food Conference in Rome where he must have learned new ways of administering his department, I should like to ask him the following question. Several times I raised the matter of social prejudice suffered by the Canadian dairy industry due to massive imports of cheese. As it seems that total cheese imports for this year reach more than 50 million pounds despite agreements concluded with producers within the overall quota system, can the minister tell the House whether he is prepared to review his position very soon in that regard and what steps he plans to take?


Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, we are living within the agreement on production that we announced last April. We have told the producers the amount to produce and they agreed to what we suggested. They are concerned about the importation of speciality cheese from abroad, but there will not be more than 50 million pounds brought into Canada.


INDUSTRIAL MILK-EFFORTS TO DISPOSE OF SURPLUS IN THIRD WORLD
Léonel Beaudoin: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a supplementary question. Given the overproduction of industrial milk in Canada, is the minister prepared to accept our proposal and send our milk surplus to Third World countries, which badly need it, in order to help them on one hand and, on the other hand, to dispose of our surplus and sustain our milk industry?


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, the main surplus product we have in Canada at the present time is skim milk powder. There is a world surplus of skim milk powder-in Europe, New Zealand and all the countries producing it at the present time. We have ample supplies and are trying to find placement for areas of need but it is most difficult.


Léonel Beaudoin: Mr. Speaker, I have a final supplementary for the right hon. Prime Minister.
So as to be able to take fast and efficient steps to resolve this problem of industrial milk and other agricultural product surpluses, could the right hon. Prime Minister say whether he is prepared to undertake to entrust the Department of Agriculture with the responsibility for importing and exporting dairy products and all other agricultural products?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is asking a question regarding the internal organization of the government. Of course, I respect the hon. member's views, but I assure him that I organize the ministerial council in such a way as to get the maximum output.
November 24, 1975


POST OFFICE
Mr. Gordon Towers (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Postmaster General. In view of the grave injustice being done to hundreds of thousands of Canadians who have money, important merchandise, business contracts, prepaid Christmas mail orders, including Christmas presents for children which cannot be replaced due to insufficient family cash, and other vital mail tied up as a result of the postal strike, may I ask if the Postmaster General can use any mechanism whereby that mail can be released for delivery in the near future, and clear the post office system?


Hon. Bryce Mackasey (Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker, the obvious answer is for the union to come to their senses and bring an end to the strike. In the absence of that, I might mention that 165 post offices are open. The hon. member might relate to me his particular difficulty, as I understand that most Alberta postal office employees are now back at work.


Thomas Gordon Towers: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. This being a national problem, and the bulk of the mail being tied up in large centres like Toronto and Winnipeg, I do not think action in specific cases will clear the system. I wonder if the minister can do something to clear the system once and for all, so that people can either get their orders filled or money back.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, as we approach Christmas I sum up by saying I would rather be Santa Claus than Scrooge.


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE
Mr. Elmer M. MacKay (Central Nova):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General. Since it has become public knowledge that among documents and effects taken by the RCMP from the apartment adjacent to Senator Giguere's were ledger cards of engineers and architects, can the Solicitor General tell the House whether the engineers and architects involved or any of the documentation taken have any connection with the Mirabel project?


Hon. Warren Allmand (Solicitor General):: Mr. Speaker, we do not report the details of police investigations while those investigations are still under way.


INVESTIGATION OF SKY SHOPS-POSSIBLE LENGTH OF INVESTIGATION-REQUEST FOR TABLING OF SEARCH WARRANT AND INVENTORY OF DOCUMENTS SEIZED
Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Can the Solicitor General give the House and country any indication of the apparent
Oral Questions
length of time it will take the RCMP to complete those investigations? Are we talking of days, weeks or months? Also, will the minister table the search warrant and documents detailing the inventory of what was taken, since these documents have already been put on display on national television?


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, I checked with the RCMP and they cannot say definitely when this investigation will be completed. New evidence leads to new sources of inquiry, and so on. It is impossible to give the date-


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Does the minister mean a judicial inquiry?


William Warren Allmand: No, Mr. Speaker. The police investigation is proceeding quite well, but we do not discuss details of police inquiries in the House of Commons. If I may answer the second part of the hon. member's question, I will look into the matter, see if the documents can be tabled and report to the House.


INVESTIGATION OF SKY SHOPS-SCOPE OF INVESTIGATION
Mr. Erik Nielsen (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a supplementary question to the Solicitor General. I appreciate that details of police investigations are not released, although the subject matter is often discussed in the House. As a search warrant is only issued after it is sworn that there are reasonable and probable grounds for the belief that an offence has been committed, and as the search warrant under which the police acted in seizing documents from Senator Giguere's office and residence included "all letters, notes, memoranda and other writings relating to the collection of moneys for the Liberal party of Canada" between certain relevant dates, can the Solicitor General say if the subject matter of the police investigation in this instance is whether all or part of the $95,000 went to the coffers of the treasury of the Liberal party?


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, I must check that, as well. I saw the information which was sworn in order to obtain that search warrant and I talked to the RCMP about it. They tell me that the investigation is of a broader nature than one merely involving Sky Shops.


PUBLIC WORKS
Mr. J. R. Ellis (Hastings):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Public Works. In view of the fact that until recently Senator Giguere was a director of the Cam-peau Corporation, the company building the $160 million Les Terrasses de la Chaudiere in Hull, Quebec, a multi-million urban commercial complex, of which 1.7 million square feet of office space is to be rented by the federal government, has that senator played any role whatsoever

November 24, 1975
Oral Questions
in the official or non-official negotiations pertaining to that project?


Hon. C. M. Drury (Minister of Public Works):: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I can state definitively. The answer is no.


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE
Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, the Solicitor General has already said that he does not discuss details of police reports while an investigation is taking place. I have also heard him say that he does not table reports after an investigation is completed. Will the minister give us any assurance that when these investigations are completed, the police reports will be tabled in the House?


William Warren Allmand: No, Mr. Speaker, I will not. The reason we do not table police reports in many cases is that if a police investigation proves to be negative, it would be completely contrary to the civil rights of the individuals involved to publish the details of the investigation for every one to see. Very often allegations are made against many individuals and it is the responsibility of the police to investigate those allegations. In a great number of cases, the allegations are found to be false. If that is the case, I do not think it is right to publish them in the House of Commons.


INVESTIGATION OF SKY SHOPS-REQUEST FOR PUBLIC INQUIRY
Robert Lorne Stanfield: expected that, Mr. Speaker. I knew that was what the Solicitor General would say. Therefore, I have to ask the members of the government why they keep hiding behind the fact that a police investigation is being made into something that very closely touches the government, parliament and this country. Does the Prime Minister not think it is now time for a public investigation into the whole affair relating to Senator Giguere and alleged conflicts of interest? In view of reports of police raids, search warrants and evidence of substantial sums being paid, a prima facie indication of a substantial conflict of interest, will the Prime Minister set the minds of the Canadian public at ease and order a public inquiry at this time?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I had occasion earlier to remind the House that Senator Giguere offered to testify in front of a committee of the Senate, a committee of his peers, to answer to any aspect that might worry them. I understand from the Solicitor General that the police investigation is proceeding as it should. A great deal of documents have been seized from the Senator. The police investigation is proceeding. If the tables were turned and had we seized under warrant the documents of some Tory member of parliament, we would hear screams about the intervening of the police into the affairs of a member of parliament. I would not, as might
|Mr. Ellis.]
the Leader of the Opposition, be inclined to put into public inquiry areas which are being thoroughly investigated by the police until there is some evidence that the police cannot carry out their role because of some difficulty of which I know nothing at this time.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Andrew Brewin (Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Has Canada entered into an agreement with other nations which produce or can produce nuclear reactors for a new set of safeguards against the diversion into weapon material by purchasers, and will the minister at the first opportunity table in the House any such agreement?


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the nuclear suppliers to arrive at upgraded standards. I have not had an up-to-date report on whether a final agreement has been reached, but when such has happened, I will certainly consider making its contents known to the House.


SALE OF NUCLEAR REACTOR TO SOUTH KOREA-DATE OF COMPLETION OF SALE AND TABLING OF AGREEMENT
Francis Andrew Brewin: Will the minister advise whether the agreement with South Korea for the sale of a nuclear reactor, which sale the minister stated in the House several weeks ago was nearly completed, has been completed and how soon that agreement can be tabled in the House, as the minister agreed it should be?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, the agreement has not been signed with South Korea. The authorizing order-incouncil will be sought at an early date with a view to signing such an agreement. When an agreement is signed, I will certainly make every effort to have its contents available to members of the House. I certainly will table the agreement.


PROPOSED PUBLIC INQUIRY INTO USE OF NUCLEAR ENERGY IN CANADA-GOVERNMENT POSITION
James McPhail Gillies: In the absence of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, Mr. Speaker, I will direct my question to his parliamentary secretary. Considering the latest request from the Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, can the parliamentary secretary tell the House whether the government is planning to launch a public inquiry into the use of nuclear energy in Canada? As the parliamentary secretary probably knows, this weekend this important group called for a re-examination of the use of nuclear energy in Canada, its effect on
November 24, 1975

Oral Questions
the environment and so forth. Is the government planning to soon have an inquiry into the impact of nuclear energy use in Canada?


Mr. Maurice Foster (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, I can say that no decision has been made on this. As the hon. member will know, there is already a public inquiry in the province of Ontario into all other methods of producing electricity. I will take note of the hon. member's suggestion and report back to him.


SOCIAL SECURITY
Jacques Lavoie: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare.
Considering that the Quebec government has offered the federal government to distribute family allowance cheques, so that people in the low income bracket may use this money they have been waiting for since November 20, could the minister advise the House whether he intends to contact the proper authorities and expedite the distribution of the family allowance cheques which these people need to feed themselves?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, the most effective and rapid distribution method remains that proposed by the Minister of Supply and Services. In the case of those who are in need and who immediately require the family allowance equivalent, may I remind the hon. member that the emergency services provided for under the Canada Assistance Plan are available. Every province may take advantage of them to advance all needy families the money they need, and the federal government will share equally in the cost of these advances made to needy families. This is already available, and the provinces have all been encouraged to make use of the emergency services provided under the Canada Assistance Plan.


Jacques Lavoie: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask a supplementary question.
Could the minister tell the House then whether he intends to advise his counterparts in Quebec of what he has just told us? They do not seem to be aware of this opportunity since they do not use it?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I must tell the hon. member that for several days now we have been in contact with every one of the provinces

including Quebec-on this subject.


IMMIGRATION
Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. In view of the threats by Shahik Al-Hout that world-wide pressure will be applied to Canada if we refuse permission to any member of the PLO to attend the Human Settlements Conference next year, will the minister publicly reject this attempt at blackmail by a person who is in this country on a ministerial permit and assure Canadians that the government will exercise her sovereign right to reject admittance to the conference of any person who violates her immigration laws or regulations?


Hon. Robert K. Andras (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: The policy has been clearly stated. It is that members of prohibited organizations will only be allowed in by ministerial permit and then only if it is established that they are not, individually, terrorists or members of terrorist sub-groups. If they were in those categories, permission to enter would be denied.


Miss MacDonald:: A supplementary to the Minister of State for Urban Affairs. In the light of the statement by the Minister of Manpower and Immigration and of recent statements by Shahik Al-Hout, would the minister advise the United Nations Secretary General that Canada will not submit to threats such as we have heard in the past week by any delegation which is using the conference as a propaganda forum for its own political ends?


Hon. Barney Danson (Minister of State for Urban Affairs):: Unfortunately, I did not hear either the original question or the answer given by my colleague. Thus, it is difficult for me to deal with the supplementary. I was rather busy building houses here.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE
Mr. J. P. Nowlan (Annapolis Valley):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Solicitor General. With reference to the search warrant with respect to the residence of Senator Giguere, I should like to ask the minister whether at the same time a warrant was issued to search the premises of the Liberal Party of Canada? Was a request made by the RCMP to do this and, if not, why not?


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, we do not give out details of police investigations in the House of Commons.

November 24, 1975
Oral Questions INCOME TAX


APPLICABILITY OF ACT TO PROVINCIAL CROWN CORPORATIONS
Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Revenue. It has to do with the plan of the Government of Saskatchewan to nationalize the potash industry in that province. In the event such nationalization takes place the loss to the federal treasury in company taxes would be very heavy. I ask the minister whether or not, having regard to the developments which are taking place along this line, not only in Saskatchewan but elsewhere, the government will bring in legislation to provide that a corporation set up by a provincial government in the course of nationalizing an industry within a province will still be liable for income tax?


Hon. Jack Cullen (Minister of National Revenue):: I do
not think we need new legislation. I believe the Minister of Finance has indicated that such a corporation would be liable to taxation.


John George Diefenbaker: To make it perfectly clear, if this potash industry is nationalized, can the minister say directly that the company set up by the government, the government agency, will be liable for income tax? If so, I would think there would be general approbation.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.' I do not like to interfere with a line of questioning but the right hon. gentleman is asking, first of all, whether something might happen after a certain event has taken place, and that is somewhat hypothetical. Moreover, he is asking the minister for a legal opinion here in the House. Perhaps the question might be rephrased. If the minister wishes to answer, I do not want to obstruct the right hon. member; it is a point which I am sure is very interesting to all members. As it is, the right hon. gentleman is asking the minister to give a legal opinion and, moreover, to presuppose the existence of certain circumstances which do not exist now and are therefore hypothetical.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, there is nothing hypothetical about that question. It is being carried out and I am asking whether or not the Canadian people as a whole are to be denied the company income tax. It is as simple as that. It does not ask for a legal opinion in any way, with great deference to Your Honour.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: If the Department of Finance tells us to collect the tax we shall collect the tax.


OLYMPIC GAMES
Mr. Sinclair Stevens (York-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Prime Minister. Bearing in mind the right hon. gentleman's statements that the government does not intend to pick up any part of the Olym-

pic deficit, could the House be told whether the government has been approached formally or informally, directly or indirectly, by the Government of Quebec, the City of Montreal or by COJO itself with a view to the federal government taking up part of the deficit, and, if so, who made the approach?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The
answer to all those questions is no.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Would the Prime Minister indicate whether any consideration has been given to financing, within the City of Montreal or within the Province of Quebec, certain developments which, if not financed by the federal government, would ordinarily be financed by the province, on the understanding that if the Province of Quebec takes up the deficit incurred by the Olympics the federal government would share in the financing of those other projects?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I do not know what the hon. member has in mind, if he has anything in mind, which I doubt. I wish he would be more explicit.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: When I used the words earlier, "directly or indirectly" I took it they would cover that question.


AIR CANADA
A. Daniel McKenzie: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Transport. Does the minister intend to look into the situation with regard to the five Air Canada employees in New York City who state that the management of the company has not given them any moral or financial support in their successful efforts to acquit themselves of serious criminal charges of gold theft laid, apparently, in an improper way while the employees were at work?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Transport):: I have a report on that situation and I am informed that while the corporation feels it improper to accept responsibility for legal fees-as is the case with almost any other employer- the employees in question were reinstated and with no loss of pay.


A. Daniel McKenzie: Could the minister investigate to see whether these employees are properly bonded?


Otto Emil Lang: I will look into that.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Thomas Charles Cossitt: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Secretary of State for External Affairs regarding

November 24, 1975
Mrs. Joanna Psarski of Georgetown, Ontario, who came to Canada a few years ago as a landed immigrant, along with her husband, and who returned to Poland for a visit on the death of her father and is now being kept in that country. I should like to commend the minister for his attempts to intercede with the Polish government with a view to getting permission for her return, and wonder whether he could bring the House up to date on the present situation as far as Mrs. Psarski's possible return to Canada is concerned.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: No, Mr. Speaker, I cannot bring the House up to date today but I shall attempt to do so later this week.


Thomas Charles Cossitt: Might I address a supplementary to the Prime Minister? If it turns out that Mrs. Psarski is still unable to leave Poland with the permission of the Polish government, will the right hon. gentleman consider facilitating the passage of a unanimous resolution by the House asking the Polish government for its co-operation on humanitarian grounds to allow her to return to her husband in Georgetown?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: It is a fact that in many instances the government of Canada has intervened with heads of state on humanitarian grounds, so the principle of such action is not foreign to us. However, in any particular case I would submit to the judgment of the Secretary of State for External Affairs.


TAR SANDS-POSSIBILITY OF NEW MEASURES TO ENCOURAGE DEVELOPMENT-PERMISSION TO SELL PRODUCT AT WORLD PRICE
Mr. Paul Yewchuk (Athabasca):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to address a question to the Prime Minister. In view of the desirability of Canada being self-sufficient in energy supplies in the foreseeable future, and since the National Energy Board now projects only a six-year supply for this country, can the right hon. gentleman tell us whether the government is contemplating any new initiative by way of tax incentives to encourage further exploration or more speedy development of the tar sands in order to ensure sufficiency of supply?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I would have to make a complete statement of our energy policy in order to answer that question in any satisfactory way, and I do not think this is the time to do so.


Paul Yewchuk: With regard to ensuring quicker development of the Athabasca tar sands, is the government willing to give certain assurances to potential developers there that all their products will be allowed to be marketed and, second, that they can reasonably expect to receive the international price for it?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Here again, the question is general in its nature. However, if it related to any specific request I would have to examine the particular circumstances. On
Oral Questions
the international price, I believe this has been made part of our policy statement in that we would allow the price for such petroleum to reach or to tend toward the international price. I believe the expression "international price" was used, but I am not sure. I am sure a statement has been made in this regard, but perhaps I could take note of the question so the minister will be able to answer when he is back in the House.


CONSUMER AFFAIRS
Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs.
Over the weekend, a consummer association advised me that the price of coffee has shot up exorbitantly. Today, over the radio, the same news was confirmed and the government was blamed for not stepping in. May I ask the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs whether it falls within his jurisdiction to check into the matter and ascertain whether prices have increased inordinately, and what position he intends to take to protect the consumers with regard to the price of coffee?


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that the price of coffee should have gone up so much. The hon. member should know that the product is imported and that we have very little control over the international price which is unfortunately very high indeed. The price has been going up for several months now. Still, I cannot resist the temptation of telling the hon. member, who comes from a rural area, that he should perhaps encourage the people to drink less coffee and more milk.


Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary. I take notice of the suggestion of the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and I shall stress my procedure to meet his wish. However, I would like to ask him very seriously whether the board established under Bill C-73 will have some say in the control over the prices of these imported goods or whether they can be left absolutely free so that those who sell these products will be able to increase their prices immoderately?


André Ouellet: No, Mr. Speaker, for all the other food products sold in stores employing more than 500 people, these stores will have to comply with the government guidelines. It means that these stores will not be allowed to increase the prices by more than the rise in production costs. Where it is not possible to establish these costs the stores will have to set a price level which is not higher than 95 per cent of the average profits these stores made over the five previous years. This procedure is extremely rigorous, Mr. Speaker, and this leads me to say that I am not at all surprised to see some food chains announce a price freeze for the next months.

November 24, 1975
Oral Questions


EXTENDED WARRANTIES ON MOTOR VEHICLES- GOVERNMENT ACTION TO ENFORCE
Mr. John Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that over the last three months it has been brought to the attention of the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs that the major motor car companies did offer extended warranties, which were kept secret, in respect of certain qualitative defects on certain models in the years from 1969 to 1973, and in view of the fact that in July the minister told this House he would ask these motor car companies to co-operate with his department in order to make sure the consumers would get the benefits of these extended warranties and have their cars fixed at the companies' expense, and bearing in mind that these companies have dragged their feet in co-operating with the department and the government, will the minister now tell the House what steps his department intends to take in view of this feet dragging by the car manufacturers?


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, first, my department established a special work force that coordinates its activities and investigates complaints made by consumers. Second, meetings are taking place with representatives of the automobile industry and I can assure the hon. member that my department follows up thoroughly any inquiry filed by consumers. Moreover, the Automobile Protection Association also makes representations on behalf of consumers and submits complaints to the court when necessary.


OLYMPIC GAMES
Mr. Otto Jelinek (High Park-Humber Valley):: Mr. Speaker, last week the President of the Treasury Board stated in this House that further legislation to assist the financing of the trouble-plagued Olympics will not be introduced at this time. Can it be assumed, therefore, that such legislation is in fact being considered for some other time in the future and, if not, can he assure us that no further legislation in fact will be introduced at this or at any other time?


Hon. Jean Chretien (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, the answer to the first part of the question is no. I do not have to comment on the second.


Otto John Jelinek: Mr. Speaker, because of the fact that original cost estimates for the Olympic Games, as we know, have more than tripled, primarily due to the mismanagement of COJO and city of Montreal officials, will the

President of the Treasury Board assure this House that direct federal costs, and I am referring to security, immigration, CBC and others, will not increase from their original estimates as well?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I do not think that the anticipated cost of the federal services which are to be made available for the Olympic Games have increased in a way which may be compared to the higher outlays mentioned in connection with the development of the Olympic site itself and if there is an increase it is marginal.


FISHERIES
Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask a question of the Minister of State (Fisheries).
I want him to refer to my questions of last week concerning the bilateral agreements on territorial waters. With how many countries, besides Norway, does the minister hope to conclude bilateral agreements and has a schedule for such negotiations been established?


Hon. Romeo LeBlanc (Minister of State, Fisheries):: Mr. Speaker, as far as I remember, I can list Spain, Portugal, Poland and the USSR; preliminary discussions are being held with Japan. The first round of talks with the United States did take place. As for the schedule, we have some problems in coordinating dates. We believe that the negotiations with all those countries will be initiated before mid-January.


Donald W. Munro: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question.
Has the minister now turned from multilateral to bilateral negotiations?


Roméo LeBlanc: Not at all, Mr. Speaker, but I must remind the hon. member that, unilateral or multilateral, the extension of the jurisdiction will require bilateral negotiations with the countries which have been fishing off the Canadian coasts.


CANADIAN EGG MARKETING AGENCY
Mr. Frank Hamilton (Swift Current-Maple Creek):: Mr. Speaker, last Friday the Acting Prime Minister stated he was unaware of the resignation of Mr. Worsdale, chairman of CEMA. Could the Minister of Agriculture now confirm whether Mr. Worsdale has resigned and, if so, for what reasons?


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, I know he has resigned, but I have not been
November 24, 1975

talking with Mr. Worsdale and I have not seen any correspondence. As a result, I have no knowledge of why he resigned.


FEDERAL-PROVINCIAL RELATIONS EFFECT OF ASSUMPTION OF OLYMPIC DEBT BY QUEBEC ON TRANSFER PAYMENTS
Mr. F. Oberle (Prince George-Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the President of the Treasury Board and is supplementary to a question of my colleague, the hon. member for York-Simcoe. In light of the announcement by the government of Quebec, that it is to assume some of the responsibility for the planning and building of Olympic facilities, and since this decision will place a strain on the budget of the province of Quebec, will these additional expenses be considered when transfer payments from other provinces are considered?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I do not think that would be a factor in establishing the equalization payments to the provinces, but I will check and report to the hon. member.


PUBLIC SERVICE
Mr. Paul Dick (Lanark-Renfrew-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that the Minister of National Health and Welfare has stated the government wishes to ensure that within a reasonable period of time the ratio of male to female employees in the Public Service in each department, occupational group and level will approximate the proportion of qualified and interested personnel of both sexes available, I am wondering whether the minister is proposing that rather than a straight merit system the government will be introducing legislation or regulations providing for a quota system to assure that an increased percentage of positions will be filled by females?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member cares to look further in the speech I delivered from which he quoted he will find the determination of this government is to ensure proper and fair representation to women in the Public Service of this country.


Paul Wyatt Dick: Mr. Speaker, I would rather not try to be partisan in this matter or get kudos from the backbenchers. What I am trying to determine is whether the minister can explain whether or not they have decided on a quota system or whether they will rule out a quota system.
Order Paper Questions


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member again can look at my speech. I have explained exactly how the system will work. There will be full co-operation by all departments under the direction of the Treasury Board in which the departments are invited to propose targets over the next five years in terms of promotion of women. The Treasury Board will review these targets with the department every year, and we will try to ensure, as I said in the speech, that all interested and able women who want to be promoted in the public service will be properly considered and will have their chance to be promoted.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Marc Lalonde: for leave to introduce Bill C-76, intituled: "An Act to wind up The King George V Silver Jubilee Cancer Fund for Canada and to authorize the sale of the assets and securities of the Fund and to transfer the sale proceeds and the balance of moneys to the National Cancer Institute of Canada".


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr.   J.-J. Blais@Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: 2,878, 3,154, 3,290, 3,313 and 3,328.
I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Macquarrie: 1.	With reference to the answer to Question No. 2,394, is there any department which is prepared to divulge to the people and Parliament the dollar value of military equipment sold to other states and, if not, what is the reason for such secrecy?
2.	(a) To what countries in each year since 1963 has Canada sold military equipment (b) what was the nature of such equipment?


Mr. Marcel Roy (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: 1. Dollar values of all Canadian exports, including military equipment, are published in Statistics Canada Catalogue 65-004 (monthly)

November 24, 1975
Order Paper Questions
"Exports by Commodities". With the exception of items classified under commodity class 930-99 (military weapons ordnance and parts), military equipment exports are not separately identified as such in this publication but are included in their appropriate commodity class. No department other than Industry, Trade and Commerce compiles statistics on all military equipment export sales as separate from all other export sales. Military equipment export
Country	1963	1964	1965	1966
Abu Dhabi				
Argentina	X	X	X	XAustralia	X	X	X	XAustria	X	X	X	XBahrain	Belgium	X	X	X	XBermuda	X	Bolivia	Botswana	Brazil	X	X	X	XBritain	X	X	X	XBrunei	XBurma	X	X	XCameroun	Ceylon	Chile	X	X	X	XColombia	X	X	X	XDenmark	X	X	X	XEcuador	X	Ethiopia	X	X	X	XFinland	France	X	X	X	XFederal Republic of Germany	X	X	X	XGhana	X	X	X	XGreece	X	X	X	XGuyana	Iceland	XIndia	X	X	X	XIndonesia	XIran	X	X	X	XIreland	Israel	X	X	X	XItaly	X	X	X	XJamaica	XJapan	X	X	X	XKenya	X	X	XKorea	Kuwait	X	Luxembourg	Malaysia	X	X	XMexico	X	Mozambique	X	Muscat and Oman	Netherlands	X	X	X	XNew Zealand	X	X	X	XNigeria	Norway	X	X	X	XPakistan	X	X	X	XPanama	Peru	X	X	XPhilippines	X	
sales figures as compiled by the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce contain information provided by Canadian companies on a voluntary and confidential basis and, therefore, details cannot be made available since such disclosure could be considered a breach of confidentiality and could compromise a company's competitive position.
2.	(a) Since 1963 Canada has sold military equipment to the countries as tabulated below:
1967	1968	1969	1970	1971	1972	1973	1974
	X			X			
X	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	XX	X	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	XXX	X	X	X	X	X	x:	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	XX	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	X
[Mr. Roy (Laval).)
November 24, 1975

Country	1963	1964	1965	1966Portugal	X	X	X	XPuerto Rico	Rhodesia	X	X	Saudi Arabia	Singapore	X	X	XSouth Africa	X	X	X	XSpain	X	X	X	XSweden	X	X	X	XSwitzerland	X	X	X	XTaiwan	X	Tanzania	X	Thailand	X	Trinidad	X	XTurkey	X	X	XUganda	X	X	XUnion of Arab Emirates	United States	X	X	X	XVenezuela	X	X	West Indies	X	X	Yugoslavia	X	X	X	XZaire	Zambia	X	X
2. (b) Military equipment sales have included applied research and development, pre-production, production, licence agreements and technical assistance, installation (other than construction) and repair, overhaul and modification. "Off the Shelf" general procurement, construction, fuels and lubricants, basic raw materials and services (such as rentals and transportation) are excluded. Military equipment sold by Canada has been, for the most part, items having a high technological content and includes such items as aircraft, aircraft engines and spares, airframe and engine components and spares, flight simulators, reconnaissance drones and spares, navigation and communication equipment and spares, avionics, marine valves, sonar equipment, ammunition and components, and vehicle parts and spares.


Mr. Reynolds: Has the Solicitor General received a copy of the report from Mr. Ezzat Abdel Fattah on public attitudes towards capital punishment in Canada, and (a) if not, on what date does he expect to receive the report (b) if so, will the report be made public or available to Members of the House of Commons?


William Warren Allmand: Yes. A preliminary copy of the report by Ezzat A. Fattah, Phd., entitled "The Canadian Public and the Death Penalty: a Study of a Social Attitude" was received in March, 1975. The final report was received on October 3, 1975. (a) Not applicable, (b) Publication of the report is now under consideration.


Mr. Howie: What amount of money was budgeted for salaries for the first year of operation of Air Command Headquarters at Winnipeg?
Order Paper Questions
1967	1968 1969	1970 1971	1972	1973	1974X	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	XX	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	XXX	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	XX	X	XX	X	X	X	XX	X	X	X	X	X	X	XHon.	James	Richardson	(Minister	of	National
Defence): The money budgeted for salaries for the first year of operation of Air Command September 1, 1975 to August 31, 1976 is as follows: Military Personnel, $6,286,538; Civilian Personnel, $507,095; Total: $7,793,633.


Mr. McKinnon: 1.	Is it the government's intention to refit HMCS Provider in the near future?
2.	Is the refit to be done at the refit facilities in Halifax and, if not (a) for what reason (b) in what location will it be done?


Hon. James Richardson (Minister of National Defence):: 1. Yes. Present intentions are for the refit to commence in the fall of 1976.
2. No. (a) and (b). It is intended to refit the Provider under contract on the west coast as the ship is based there. A contract refit is planned because the scheduled maintenance requirements for other vessels will fully load HMC Esquimau dockyard facilities.


Mr. McKinnon: What was the (a) military (b) civilian strength of the Department of National Defence and Armed Forces on March 31, 1974 and March 31, 1975?


James Armstrong Richardson: March 31, 1974, Military Strength, 80,563; Civilian Strength, 38,886; March 31, 1975, Military Strength, 78,323; Civilian Strength, 35,050.


Mr. Speaker:: Do the remaining questions stand?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Energy Conservation



GOVERNMENT ORDERS

[Stage Direction]
November 24, 1975

James McPhail Gillies: That this House regrets the government's failure to carry out an effective energy resource conservation program and, in particular, calls upon the government to answer the criticism by the International Energy Agency that "there appears to be a substantial gap between principle and practice ... that the (Canadian) cabinet appears to have accepted the goal of conservation without recognizing the need to implement the goal with specific actions."
He said: Mr. Speaker, this motion, of course, represents the position of this party that the government has done absolutely with regard to energy resource conservation in Canada. In speaking to my motion, I speak not only for the people of Canada but, in effect, for the countries of the world, because the International Energy Agency, an agency of industrialized countries designed to examine what is happening in respect of the use of energy around the world, has seriously condemned Canada for doing so little in the area of energy conservation.
In a period when the world is experiencing perhaps the most serious economic problems and difficulties since the depression, it is heartening to every citizen of this small global planet that countries of the world can get together to develop international programs for conserving energy. It is disheartening to every Canadian that when that agency begins to look at what various countries such as Canada are doing in respect of the conservation of energy, and appoints a sub committee consisting of Spain, Sweden and Belgium to investigate what Canada is doing, it should come to the conclusion that Canada is doing a very little so far as the conservation of energy is concerned. In fact, it reported to its full membership that Canada is not coming to grips at all with energy conservation.
It is not very surprising that it should come to such a conclusion, because in Canada we are spending 11 cents per capita on the conservation of energy, compared to Britain which spends 19 cents per capita for energy conservation and Sweden which spends 31 cents per capita. What is the consequence of the fact that we are doing so little about energy conservation? In 1974, consumption of energy in Canada went up 7.8 per cent, whereas in the United States consumption of energy went down .8 per cent, and that consumption of energy in western Europe went down 1.8 per cent. Throughout the world, where countries are concerned about the profligate use of energy, consumption has been cut back and is dropping, while in this country consumption of energy is rising at a very extensive rate.
It is no wonder, when there is a review by an independent group of countries looking at Canada's problem, that those countries should be appalled by the things they observed. I know the government says it is not astonishing that the consumption of energy went up in Canada when it went down in other countries because, after all, the Canadian economy was for a time more prosperous than the economies of some other countries. But consider this assertion. While it is true that the Canadian GNP went up

a year ago by about 4.5 per cent when our energy consumption went up by about 8 per cent, when we compare this with the situation in a country such as Sweden, which is no different from us in respect of its location, in terms of its northern exposure, we find that there when the GNP went up, energy consumption went down.
We must face the fact that Canada is one of the most wasteful users of energy of any country in the world, and that this cannot be attributed to the fact that our GNP is growing faster than that of other countries, because this is not so. We are not using energy effectively. We have the second highest per capita use of energy of any country in the world. We use more energy, per dollar of gross national product generated, than any other country in the world.
By any measure, Canada has been profligate in the use of energy. How strange it is that now, two years after the development of the energy crisis, we must have a debate in the House of Commons about conservation of energy. How peculiar it is that two years later nothing has been done in this country to conserve energy. One must ask oneself why the government does not do anything about energy consumption and why it does not seem to care. I think the answer to why nothing has been done by the government is the fact that it does not know what the energy situation actually is in the country. The reason they do not know is that they have been fed, or used, or have had to make their decisions and policies on the basis of reports from the National Energy Board and other departments which have been fantastically wrong in their analyses and predictions. The government really does not have any foundation upon which to make any sort of policy.
It is to me incredible that in 1971 we could have had a minister of energy, mines and resources in this country saying that we have enough oil to last us for the next 923 years. It was nice that he could round out the figure. He also said that we had enough gas to last us for the next 328 years. I am referring, of course, to the famous speech made by that minister in Denver in 1971. Only five years ago a government spokesman, a member of the cabinet, said that we have enough energy in this country to suffice for the next 1,000 years, approximately. In 1969 the National Energy Board was saying we should export more because we had these great resources and we had everything we needed. It is evident that the government had no basis on which to make decisions, and because they had no such basis the position they have taken is that they should not do anything at all about the matter.
I know government people will say that there has been some sort of a program. What has it been? A year or so ago, when they wanted the Canadian people to become interested in energy conservation, the government published a book telling Canadians to shut off the lights; and they spent $2.5 million on advertising it. Interestingly enough, when people wrote asking for the book, it was not even available, and what is even more interesting, $2.5 million was spent on advertising when the total amount spent on energy research was only about $1.25 million. What an incredible set of priorities this government has, when it spends twice as much on advertising as it does on research to find ways in which we can conserve energy.
November 24, 1975

To be fair, I must point out that the government did some things of a marginal nature in conservation, such as the removal of the sales tax on some energy users, such as motorboats. Even there, a great debate ensued as to exactly when they did take off that tax. This also applied to snowmobiles and a few things of that sort, but they were very marginal things which could only affect the periphery of the use of energy. They also established an office on energy conservation. Since it has been established hardly anyone has been made aware of what it does.
What should the government do? A great many things could have been done. We could have changed the tax structure on automobiles, making it attractive for people to use more efficient cars. The Ford Foundation in New York has published a report which says that any country that is serious about energy conservation should require that by the year 1980 all cars sold should operate for at least 20 miles per gallon of gasoline. This government has taken no action along this line. It has taken no action on speed limits. Over a year ago the United States government went in the direction of reducing speed limits. Now we find the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Gillespie) planning to meet the provincial premiers on December 12 to discuss the whole question of reducing speed limits- two years too late.
Has the government been making a great thrust to try to get urban transportation built in this country in an effective fashion? No, it has not. Has the government used any imagination in developing tax policies to encourage car pools? Not a thing has been done in that direction. Has there been any tax program or any other sort of program to increase shipment by rail? No, there has not. In the use of energy for transportation the government has no program for conservation of energy-none whatsoever. What has the government done about energy conservation in the area of housing? It recently introduced a major program to stimulate residential construction, but is there anything in that program for energy conservation? No, not a thing. Has the government given any particular advantage to the people who use more insulation in their houses? No, it has not. You would think that the Minister of State for Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson) had never heard-he probably never has-that there may be a need to conserve energy in this country. Was there anything in that program to give advantages to those building houses with solar energy plants? No, not a thing.
So nothing has been done for conservation in transportation or in residential construction. In terms of industrial use, nothing has been done to encourage energy conservation. All that can be concluded is that the government really does not take this matter seriously and does not really believe that energy conservation is an important matter so far as this country is concerned, in spite of the fact that we have a far greater relative increase in energy consumption than any other country in the world.
It is argued, and may well be argued by the government, that the only effective way to conserve energy is to let prices rise. As a matter of fact, the former minister of finance has argued from time to time that it is important for the price of energy to rise so that there will be some type of conservation brought about. I have waited a long time to hear the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald) or
Energy Conservation
the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Gillespie) release to parliament some studies to suggest what sort of conservation would come about with a rise in prices. Of course, none has come forward.
The fact of the matter is that most studies which have been done seem to indicate that higher prices do not change energy consumption much. There are changes in consumption when total levels of economic activity change, but by themselves prices do not change energy consumption a great deal. We in this party have argued and supported the idea that care must be exercised in the way in which price changes are made, given the fact that such rises in price have different impacts in different regions and people with different income levels. But the fact still remains that the important thing is not a rise in the price of energy per se for the sake of conservation but, rather, pricing that ensures that the people who are producing energy, the explorers and developers, have a sufficient rate of return so that they continue to find energy needed for this country. One of the tragic things that happened in the last couple of years was the decision of the government to use energy as a foundation for tax revenue, rather than how to produce the energy which we will need in this nation in the years ahead.
We have reached the incredible situation of a country which should be self-sufficient in energy, particularly in fossil fuels, facing the possibility of finding itself short and having to import the energy it needs in the years ahead. We are at a period when we are profligate in our use of energy resources, we have no program to increase our supply, and we have never considered the problem of conserving what we have in an effective fashion. We are not even looking seriously at alternative sources of energy in this country. As I mentioned earlier, the total amount we are spending on energy research and development in this country is about $1.2 million, and we are spending it in seven departments. The natural result is that no effective work whatsoever is being done.
My colleague, the hon. member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain (Mr. Hamilton) will be speaking on alternative energy sources as this debate goes ahead, but I want to stress that the task force on energy research and development has said, and made clear, that research and development of energy conservation methods has been neglected in Canada, yet research and development should form a significant component of any energy conservation program. The task force says very firmly that the government should be spending about $10 million per year on research into ways in which to conserve energy. We are spending about $1.2 million.
Does it make any difference whether we have an energy conservation program or whether we do anything about conserving energy in the course of the next few years? Of course it does. In the first place, we could run out of our energy. It is incredible to think that this government is so unconcerned about its commitment to future generations that it would allow even the possibility that Canada would run out of energy resources, or that we would permit, because of profligate use now, a shortfall of energy for generations in the future.

November 24, 1975
Energy Conservation
What an example we are providing for Third World countries which are experiencing tremendous problems as a result of energy shortfalls! We have a government that is unwilling to conserve, to try to tighten its belt or do anything about our energy needs. It is not making it clear to the Canadian people that we have to conserve. Significantly, and most importantly, overutilization of energy is having enormous economic consequences for our country. I think every member of parliament knows the dramatic situation which is occurring with regard to our balance of payments.
Canada is operating with the largest deficit in its balance of payments history. One of the reasons for this great deficit is that we do not any more have our natural resources to export. More importantly, we are importing a large portion of the energy we have to use. With the opening of the Montreal pipeline there will be even less energy to export, and as far as our balance of payments situation is concerned we will have less revenue generated. The solution is not necessarily to export, but to import less, and the way to do that is to use less. The way to use less is to have a meaningful conservation program in this country.
One of the many charges which could be laid at the feet of this government is the fact that in spite of what has happened around the world, in spite of the dramatic situation developed by the OPEC countries, in spite of the fantastic deterioration in our economic position, the government has not deemed it necessary to start any kind of conservation program. It has never taken to the Canadian people the proposition that in our own interests and in the interests of generations which will follow us, we must do something to conserve the use of resources in this country.
There can be no greater indictment of a government that, in spite of the situation around the world and in spite of a negative report by other countries, we are doing nothing about conservation. In spite of what is going on all over the world, in this country we are increasing the use of our energy by about 8 per cent per year, when other countries are doing a commendable job of trying to reduce energy consumption. It is the height of irresponsibility on the part of the government that it has not taken to the Canadian people the responsibility of trying to do something about energy conservation.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James McPhail Gillies: Of the many things with which one could charge this government-apart from lack of leadership in almost all areas of economic policy-when the chips are really down and when history is written, one of the things historians will ask is, where was the government when there was a chance to conserve some of our great natural resources? They will say that they did not care, they did not take the matter to the Canadian people,' they did not ask the Canadian people to do something about it. That is an indictment this government will have to live with for a long, long time. And it will not be simply a political indictment, because it is much more than that. The indictment which will come down on this government from our children and our grandchildren will be that we wasted our resources at a time when we should have been conserving them. I hope the government will take very seriously the

charge that it is doing nothing about energy conservation. The Canadian people want the government to give some leadership in this area so that we will not all have to face the charges which will otherwise be made in the years ahead.


Mr. T. C. Douglas (Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Don Valley (Mr. Gillies) has rendered a useful service to this House and to the people of Canada by placing his motion on the order paper and drawing attention to the failure of the government to implement an effective energy conservation program. The fact is that for many years this country has faced the threat of an oil shortage, to which fact the government has been consistently indifferent. Now that threat has become a reality. This year we will be 100,000 barrels a day short of self-sufficiency, and the estimate is that by next year we will be falling 300,000 barrels per day below self-sufficiency. Yet we go on merrily as though our oil and gas resources were limitless and so far the government has done nothing effective to deal with this serious situation. If we do not do something soon, we will be compelled later to take Draconian measures such as the rationing of gasoline and home heating fuels, which could be a very serious problem indeed and very difficult to administer.
The Government of Canada, along with a number of oil consuming countries, signed an international energy agreement in which, among other things, Canada promised, along with the co-signers to endeavour to reduce energy consumption by 10 per cent. The fact is, of course, that our demand is still going up. A few years ago our consumption was about 1.4 million barrels per day, it is now up to 1.7 million barrels per day, and the estimate put out by oil companies is that by 1980 it will be 2 million barrels a day. Therefore, we can hardly blame our fellow signatories to the international energy agreement when they say that there appears to be a substantial gap between principle and practice and that the Canadian cabinet appears to have accepted the goal of conservation without recognizing the need to implement the goal with specific actions. That is a damning indictment of any government, particularly when it comes from a group of nations which are struggling with the problem of oil shortage.
It is true that the government introduced an energy conservation program on February 6, a program introduced by the previous minister of energy, mines and resources. Those of us who replied at the time the minister introduced that program said it was going to be very largely a public relations effort. That is what it turned out to be. Money spent, in the main, has been spent on advertisements, pamphlets and commercials on radio and television. The public was told that there were 100 ways to save energy and to put money in its pocket. People were told to turn down thermostats and to wear sweaters. They were even told to take fewer baths. I assume that members of the cabinet set an example by scrupulously accepting that admonition. That probably explains why this government is in such bad odour all across Canada.


Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: They are all stinkers!
November 24, 1975


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: What has the government actually done? On February 6, the minister announced a program which was to cost $1.3 million. In the estimates for this year, for the energy conservation office there was half a million dollars, and now the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources has brought in a supplementary estimate for $2,350,000. The initial vote and practically all of the present vote will be used, in the main, for advertising with respect to education, the minister says, among youth, industry and transportation systems; but there have been no effective steps and no co-ordination by the various departments of government in order to bring about conservation of energy.
What the government has failed to realize is that over the years our whole economy has been built on the concept that we can waste our energy resources because we have unlimited quantities on hand. Our economy has been geared to the idea that our consumption should go up annually. For instance, because of the high price of housing in the cities, we have pushed people out into suburban areas and even out into the country, so that they need gasoline to drive to work. The automobile industry has worked on the principle that there is more profit on large cars than small cars and have resisted public pressure for smaller cars. The building codes have been completely unconcerned about saving energy and putting in proper insulation and energy-saving devices. Urban transportation repeatedly has been set aside on the ground that it is really for the poor and the disadvantaged, everybody else should drive a car, and the bigger the car and the more energy consumed, the better.
I do not think we can procrastinate on this question any longer. I think the time has come for the government to use its very considerable powers in a number of areas in order to conserve energy in this country. I want to suggest three areas in which action has to be taken. The first is in the field of transportation, because this is one of the major consumers of energy. There has to be a move toward smaller cars; there have to be means by which the large, heavy gasoline-consuming vehicle becomes less attractive. The government has put a 5 per cent excise tax on larger cars. That will have to be substantially increased. They will have to do much more. As long as large cars give the automobile industry a bigger profit than small cars, they will be produced.
The government could help very considerably in this field by putting in tax disincentives for the automobile industry to make large cars, and tax incentives for them to make small cars. But they are doing nothing like that. The energy conservation office is powerless. According to the press, the director of that office, Mr. David Brooks, wanted to put an energy efficiency tag on all cars in the dealers' showrooms. Such a tag would have shown the amount of gasoline consumed per mile, or the number of miles per gallon of gasoline which could be obtained from that car. The prospective purchaser would then have had some idea whether the car he or she was purchasing was the one that would give more miles to the gallon. Press reports say that the government turned down that proposal. Even that very simple proposal was rejected.
As the hon. member for Don Valley pointed out, the government made an appeal to the provinces to lower the
Energy Conservation
speed limit to 55 miles an hour. British Columbia acceded to the request immediately. This has not only helped with respect to the consumption of gas, but it has helped to reduce accidents in that province. How much pressure was put on the provincial governments? What attempt was made to bring provincial representatives together last February or March to lower the speed limit? Nothing at all. The only people who have benefited from the government's energy conservation program to date are the advertising agencies.
The second field I want to look at is the matter of space heating. Fuel for heating buildings, factories and individual homes accounts for 35 per cent of our oil consumption in this country. One of the first things the government should have done-and ought to do now-was put in the national building code standards which require insulation and proper energy-saving devices. Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation requires that if the houses built under its assistance programs are electrically heated, they must have very high standards of insulation. Those standards should be applied to all houses in which Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation has any equity. This ought to be in the national building code. According to CMHC, the additional cost for a three-bedroom house is anywhere from $200 to $400. The householder would save that amount in fuel costs in the first year or so. The government has done nothing at all about building codes. We merely say to the construction industry that they should take whatever steps are necessary to insulate houses and conserve fuel, but we are still building shells; we are still putting up houses in which there is a tremendous waste of fuel.
The government ought to do something about prestige lighting. The lighting of office buildings and keeping them lit all night is an advertising gimmick. Driving home from the parliament buildings at night I notice that every high-rise office building in central Ottawa is lit to the roof at almost midnight. The government's conduct is no better. I see the National Defence building with every office lit. I see the Lester B. Pearson building lit from top to bottom. I recognize that there may be people in these buildings who have to work at night, but the whole of the buildings do not need to be lit.
Neon signs are another example; they are left burning all night. The government says it has no power to deal with that, but they could rule that this type of lighting constitutes advertising, and if they were to set a percentage on the cost of advertising and say that beyond that figure advertising would not be deductible for income tax purposes, it would very quickly cut down the amount of unnecessary lighting of buildings at night and the unnecessary neon lights that are left burning all through the night.
If the government wanted to set an example to the people of this country, I suggest they could ground the executive jets which ministers use for flying around the country telling people how to save energy. The former minister of energy, mines and resources said, as reported on page 2988 of Hansard for February 6, 1975:
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November 24, 1975
Energy Conservation
-we hope to provide a strong example to the public and private sectors.
The government now has the chance to set an example. It is not good enough for the government to admonish the public in a fatherly way, to indulge in pious platitudes and set up an energy conservation office with a budget which will permit full-page ads in scores of newspapers and commercials on radio and television. This may lead the public to thinking the government is doing something when in fact it is doing nothing. If the government really wants us to conserve energy, it must act in a variety of areas, including urban transit. For four years we have heard about studies and reports on rapid transit, but it has never gone beyond the study stage.
The government should encourage the use of small cars, the adoption of a national building code, the implementation of rapid transit, and make sure that those who would squander this country's rapidly diminishing energy resources are prevented from doing so. If the government does not act, we shall face a serious situation in a few years. This or some other government will be required to institute rationing, along with all its administrative headaches, for we shall then be compelled to curtail the use of a resource which the government, by indifference and procrastination, has allowed to be squandered over the years.


Mr.   C.-A. Gauthier@Roberval: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to cangratulate the sponsor of the motion who blames this government. I quote the motion:
This House regrets the government's failure to carry out an effective energy resource conservation program and, in particular, calls upon the government to answer the criticism by the International Energy Agency that "there appears to be a substantial gap between principle and practice ..."
On reading this motion, I realize that it only deals with the problem of energy conservation. I feel this motion is much too restricted, thus not realistic at all since the great long-term problem at the present time is the research and development of new energy sources. Indeed, at the present time and in the short term, it is very important to conserve our present resources, hence today's debate, but once again we are forced to hold a closed-circuit. I think that all hon. members in this House will agree on this point. I understand very well the hon. member for Don Valley (Mr. Gillies) who blamed the government on the oil issue in particular.
Canadian resources are fairly restricted at the moment since technicians warn us every day that at the current rate, our oil resources will be exhausted within ten years and according to some, even within five years. Without panicking and anticipating disaster, we must face the situation. Of course, the government must be the first to take steps to reassure the Canadian people, since to govern is to look ahead. But I think all Canadians must show goodwill and do their best. To this end, all Canadians must ask themselves what they can do to better conserve oil energy.
That being said, it rests with the government to act in the interests of every Canadian. It should be pointed out that the oil problem does not exist in Canada only; since it is a depleting resource, it creates the same problems as all other vanishing resources, that is in the years of greatest

output, everything is fine, everything is wonderful. Every hope is possible since it is felt that there will be no end to that abundance. Consequently, all the activities of our economic life are geared to that wealth, but it is suddenly realized that the resource will dry up one day and sooner than expected. So the situation turns out to be similar to that of Canada, namely a doubtful future.
If we consider oil-producing countries, we find that they share the same concern. All those countries are looking into the energy problem, energy conservation. I do not accept the allegations of the hon. member for Don Vally who said earlier that Canada had oil reserves for 900 to 1,000 years. The greatest experts in that field suggest that the world reserves which might be immediately developed have a 37-year lifetime at the present production rate, while non-recoverable reserves, with present technology, would only extend production possibilities by about ten years.
At the last world conference on energy, the proven oil reserves recoverable in the whole world have been estimated at 91 billion tons. This makes us realize that even the largest producers should consider saving an energy of such short duration.
In Canada, what has been done and what is being done to conserve oil, gas and all other energy resources? We soon realize that it is not by small measures such as reducing speed on highways or avoiding opening doors too much in winter to save heating fuel, that we will solve the problem of quick depletion of our energy resources. It is surely not by increasing prices further to force the consumer to park his car and walk that we will obtain the desired results in conserving energy. Those who have no means of transport other than their automobile to go to work will have to continue driving no matter the costs since it is a sine qua non condition to earn their living.
The problem does not exist at the consumer level only. We must first study the problem of small consumers but especially that of bigger ones such as Canadian industries that consume two thirds of our whole energy production. We must find a way to reduce this consumption, either through a marked imporvement in the situation or the research for a substitute which will be as efficient for our industries. I am referring to nuclear or even solar energy. Many will jump and shout, as is done too often, that it will cost too much.
Mr. Speaker, I ask those big talkers how much it will cost in Canada in five and at the most ten years to secure another energy source to keep in operation our industries now relying on oil when all our oil resources are gone forever. I say that then it will no longer be a matter of price because it will be too late for Canada.
That is why I say that in addition to programs for the conservation of energy resources, the government must introduce long term programs for the discovery and development of alternative new energy sources to replace oil, gas and even electricity, when these become obsolete.
Faced with these necessities on which the very survival of mankind will depend, we cannot be satisfied with a mere discussion on energy conservation, as proposed in the motion introduced by the hon. member for Don Valley. We
November 24, 1975

should deal instead with the whole question of the possible energy resources which may be available to us in the future; any thing short of that would be an exercise in futility. To return to the question of the conservation of Canadian oil, nobody can deny that the government has already done something in the area of oil exports.
The fact is that, the eastern provinces and Quebec being beset by problems caused by the increase in prices by their former suppliers, the Canadian government had to call on western provinces to divert a certain percentage of their exports towards those Canadian provinces and at the same time reduce exports to the United States.
It will be remembered that in 1974 the National Evergy Board proposed to limit exports to 800,000 barrels a day. Furthermore, on November 23, 1974, the then Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources announced that Canada was cutting its oil exports to the United States down to 650,000 barrels a day.
Very recently, La Presse of November 20, 1975 published an article I want to read which was entitled as follows:
Oil reserves will be depleted in five years.
The Federal government could well be forced to further lower Canadian crude oil exports to the United States in coming years as the National Energy Board just found out that western oil reserves will be depleted in five not eight years.
Those conclusions should be formally submitted today to the cabinet which will decide on the amount of oil available for the U.S. market until 1980.
Instead of curtailing daily exports from 750,000 to 560,000 barrels next year the federal agency proposes to set the maximum at 500,000 barrels a day and end exports in 1980-81-not in 1983 anymore as suggested a few months ago.
To spare U.S. feelings and especially protect U.S. refineries which have been going to western Canada for some twenty years already it is likely that Ottawa will raise to 525,000 barrels a day the maximum recommended by the national board.
That change of mind would be that much more justifiable that the Sarnia-Montreal pipeline will not be in full operation before next summer or fall. Furthermore, the National Energy Board feels that a reversible-flow pipeline should be envisaged to allow, sometime within the next few years, the transport of foreign oil to the very heart of the Golden Triangle in Ontario.
Mr. Speaker, that means therefore that the government has done something with regard to oil exports. I also feel that something has been done to maintain the level of energy productivity in Canada. We need but consider what has been done with regard to the Athabasca oil sands, to the development of which the government has already committed several million dollars.
The government strongly encourages the big companies through income tax exemptions, thus favouring research and exploration, although I doubt that those same companies produce the results the government expects of them. But with regard to domestic consumption, does the government do enough to promote interesting discoveries with a view to reducing the consumption of fuels and thus help conserve those resources which, to our mind, are disappearing much too quickly?
I would like to draw the attention of the government on all the most promising inventions because if we had used them we would have reduced our gas consumption by up to 50 per cent; the inventors have not yet been able to submit their findings to the government or make it accept them, or
Energy Conservation
else these inventions were literally swallowed up by the oil kings against whom the government always seems powerless.
Mr. Speaker, today our cars would be as efficient and consume at least 50 per cent less gas if certain inventions had not been bought by oil sales and production companies. Of course, gas consumption would have been reduced by 50 per cent and the profits of the oil conglomerates would also have gone down by 50 per cent.
But if our government were free and independent of all these international companies, not only would we not now be talking about conservation and reduction of oil consumption, but energy would be only a minor consideration for our industries, our means of transport and all consumer needs. Moreover, if the government had gone beyond conservation and done more to promote research, even though multinational oil companies might have lost a few billion dollars, we could travel today in electric cars and say goodbye to pollution in our cities, which is causing our administrators so many headaches and costing the taxpayers so much money.
It is sad that this did not happen because of the influence of financial trusts on our governments. Even though the governments continue to grovel before national and world finance, the people are waking up so that it will soon become impossible to make them believe in fairy tales. There must be some evolution in the field of energy to enable people to live with future economic principles. And I am convinced that this essential evolution will come from the people themselves because the authorities-and I mean all levels of government-are too lazy to move out of the castles that have been built for them by those who control money, the economic blood of the world. I hope that tomorrow's society will be more human and less financial, and that it will be a society where financial power is submitted to man instead of man being submitted to money as today.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, the motion before us today, put by the hon. member for Don Valley (Mr. Gillies), affords us a good opportunity to discuss the government's energy conservation program, the need for it and the need for its expansion. I must explain to hon. members present that the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Gillespie) is not here this afternoon; he is visiting my constituency of Algoma, the uranium energy capital of Canada, Elliot Lake. Unfortunately, he is travelling without my assistance on this trip, one which has been in preparation for a month or so. I do not know whether this motion today was by the design of the hon. member for Don Valley; however, I am sure it was not. But the minister will be here this evening and he will be taking part in the debate.	.
No one will deny the importance of the subject which the hon. member for Don Valley has raised. Although we do not agree with the precise wording of the motion, we do agree that all governments, industry, and the Canadian public generally should come to grips with the need for better conservation of our energy resources. There should be no mistake; Canada must, and will, move forward into
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Energy Conservation
an era in which conservation is as important a part of our energy policy as increase in supply has been. I call attention to the amount of legislation placed before the House having to do with increases in supply during the fall of 1973 and throughout 1974. On the other hand, the conservation program was really only launched early in the present year. The government will continue to bring forward additional measures which will be in keeping with this new status of energy conservation.
Changes of the magnitude required will not be easy or painless. For a long time Canada has been living in what an English author has called a "fuel's paradise", ignoring the fact that our consumption of energy was growing at rates in no way sustainable even if supply prospects were far more optimistic than in fact they are. That is why I say changes cannot be made without difficulty and without some pain. I trust that when, in the near future, the government publishes measures requiring approval and action, we shall find that everyone is with us in our efforts to conserve energy in all regions of Canada, in all sectors of our industry and in all phases of our personal lives.
Let me turn, now, to the IEA report which is really the substance of the motion before us. The motion cites conclusions from a report prepared at the International Energy Agency in Paris last spring. In order to make this report more widely available and to ensure that its conclusions can be read in context, arrangements have been made whereby hon. members can obtain copies from the office of energy conservation. Unfortunately, the official report of IEA is available only in English, otherwise I would be glad to table it this afternoon for hon. members.
A report similar to this one on the Canadian situation was prepared with regard to each of the 17 member nations of the International Energy Agency. While Canada has participated actively in this evaluation work, we are not free to release any of the other reports. Each nation can release only the results of its own study. However, I might add that in a preliminary ranking of national conservation programs Canada ranked tenth among the 17 nations. This is not a worthy position but neither is it as bad as is implied by the motion before the House. The full report contains considerable praise for the Canadian program. Furthermore, some of the criticism is based on analyses of energy demand forecasts which, at the time the report was prepared, were still those contained in phase one of our energy policy studies, that is, forecasts consistent with the low prices which were then still prevailing throughout Canada. Since that time, the government has taken steps to permit energy prices to begin rising toward world levels and consumption forecasts have been revised sharply downward.
In other words, when the report was being prepared last spring, forecasts were being based on phase one of the energy report and the comparatively low prices which prevailed in the early summer of 1973. This is particularly significant since the most important criticism in the IEA report was directed to our low energy prices. I am sure that if we moved toward raising those prices to the level of world prices any more rapidly than we are presently doing, we would encounter a fair amount of criticism from members on the other side of the House.
Nervetheless, we have to accept in considerable part the statement quoted in the motion, which is to be found on

the final page of the IEA report. Though we have created an office of energy conservation, though an imaginative program was presented to the House last February, and though we have taken part in numerous discussions with other governments both inside and outside Canada, the measures which have been specifically undertaken to conserve energy are as follows: First, the removal of the federal sales tax on insulating materials brought about in the last budget. Second, the introduction of an excise tax related to weight on the largest automobiles, and the imposition of a 10 per cent tax on private aircraft and on marine motors of more than 20 horsepower. Third, the introduction of stricter insulation requirements in the building code followed by Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
Both the hon. member for Don Valley and the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands (Mr. Douglas) suggested that no action had been taken. In fact, the index of the Canadian code governing residential construction has been doubled from a factor of R-6 to R-12. The latter figure was previously specified for electrically heated homes but it now applies to all homes governed by the code, the one used by CMHC. The fourth item is the levying of a 10 per cent per gallon tax increase on motor gasoline for non-business use. I suggest that this is not a bad record though it falls far short of what is needed.
It was the contrast between the strong statements made by ministers of this government and the relatively few changes introduced to date which occasioned the statement about the existence of a substantial gap between principle and practice. However, I can assure the House that the cabinet does recognize the need to implement the goal of energy conservation with specific actions. Consider what has been done in nine months relative to the five-part program put forward by the minister of energy, mines and resources last February. This is a five-part program, part one of which called for putting the federal government's own house in order. Considerable progress has been achieved in this regard. With certain exceptions, lights are now turned off in most government buildings at night. I believe there are only one or two which require specific mechanical changes before this can be accomplished. A standing order requires the purchase of only compact or sub-compact vehicles unless continuing requirements indicate the need for a larger vehicle. A 55 miles per hour speed limit has been introduced for federal vehicles.
I might say, in responding to the hon. member for Don Valley on that point, that it was the federal government which gave leadership in reducing the speed limit for automobiles in this country, and now at least two provinces have adopted this policy. Meetings were held among officials last spring and it has been a subject raised at other meetings, as well, of conservation officials at the director level in an attempt to get the speed limit reduced. A survey conducted by the Canadian Press a few days ago indicated there were several other governments which indicated they were going to move toward a lower speed limit.
The computer-aided building design and operation team in the Department of Public Works, one of the best anywhere, has been expanded and given authority to establish training programs throughout Canada so that these tech-
November 24, 1975

niques, which can save from 25 per cent to 50 per cent in annual energy consumption, can be made available to the public. Strenuous efforts are being made by the Department of Supply and Services to introduce energy criteria into the purchasing system.
This part of the program is, therefore, well under way. In fact, progress is sufficiently strong that we feel confident in asserting that within a very few weeks we will be setting a target of an across the board 10 per cent cut in government energy consumption in the next fiscal year- that is, 1976-77-and a further target of stabilizing federal energy consumption for the following ten years. One might wonder if such a cut is possible, given the demands on government. However, an imaginative and far-reaching program in the Department of National Defence has shown that such savings, and indeed more, are possible.
Part two of the program put forward last February involved consultation with private groups and provincial governments. Since that time, numerous meetings have been held with industry, a conference with major industrial leaders has been held, and a public meeting at which industry will indicate its own conservation goals has been scheduled for next March. Meetings have also been held with groups supporting energy conservation from a number of points of view across Canada, and a beginning has been made in talking with public utilities.
Perhaps more important, continuing consultation has been maintained with the provinces. I think it is only fair to admit that response to our initiatives among the provincial governments has been mixed. The fact is that many of the direct approaches to energy conservation lie within provincial jurisdiction. Reduction of speed limits is a good example, and in this respect we were very pleased to see the recent announcement by the province of Ontario as well as the province of British Columbia. However, we are equally disheartened by the statement of the minister of highways of Nova Scotia who rejected any move to lower speed limits. I find this a rather strange state of affairs. From a general perspective, we have to take note of the fact that Canada was almost alone among the nations of the world last year in increasing its consumption of motor gasoline, and the picture is not too much better for this year. From the perspective of a province whose gasoline prices are subsidized by the rest of Canada, the statement is equally difficult to accept. Were Nova Scotians paying the full cost of the imported petroleum they consume, they might well be willing to reduce their consumption voluntarily. They might even find the efficiency of transport thereby increased, not decreased.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Stop attacking the Liberal government down there.


Maurice Brydon Foster: This government is committed to phasing in the effects of higher energy prices and has attempted to mitigate the impact on regions that use imported oil. Let me say right now that such a policy is severely jeopardized if the response by the provinces is an unwillingness to conserve.
The third part of the program announced last February was related to public information and advertising. Here we take second place to no nation in the world. Indeed, the IEA report itself refers to this program in terms of its
Energy Conservation
great imagination and drive". The report goes on to suggest that "some of its productions could be studied with benefit by other IEA nations". Work on this program is continuing. For example, new material is being prepared to be used in primary and secondary school curricula, a booklet on improved furnace servicing for the home owner has just been published, and informative advertising in newspapers and on television and radio programs is going forward. Finally, let me invite each member to watch a special cartoon feature on Boxing Day, entitled "The Energy Carol" in which Mr. Scrooge will be visited by the ghosts of energy past, energy present, and energy future.


Mr. Baldwin:: Burn all Hansards containing Liberal speeches.


Maurice Brydon Foster: The fourth part of this program focused on the need for specific conservation measures. I have already outlined the measures taken to date. It is no doubt the absence of further measures in this category that is responsible for the statement quoted in the motion. Let me assure hon. members once again that this government is far from satisfied with the current situation. At a recent meeting of the International Energy Agency a revised, indicative list of energy conservation measures was developed that must be given serious consideration in the further strengthening of national conservation programs. I have copies of that indicative list and if hon. members would like me to table it, I would be pleased to do so. I think it is an important list, one that is used by the International Energy Agency.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner (London East)):: Does the hon. member have permission to table it?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, a private member cannot table anything in this House. He can have it put in Hansard without reading it. Just imagine what would happen if all of us could put things on the table.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner (London East)):: Is the
parliamentary secretary speaking on behalf of the minister? If he is, he has permission to table the document.


Gerald William Baldwin: No, he does not have my permission.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Without seeking permission to table it, Mr. Speaker, I would be glad to let members know that the information is available. I am sure it will be of interest at least to some. I should like to invite each member of this House to review the list and consider how well Canada as a whole, and members' individual constituencies in particular, can live up to the standards on that list. However, to initiate a new action phase we will be bringing measures forward in the very near future. Perhaps we have been too cautious in some of the actions taken to date. Surely it is not too much to tell Canadians that they are going to be required to drive smaller cars and use more efficient appliances.
Surely it is not too much to require of industry that it develop reusable and recyclable products and that it find ways to use waste heat and waste materials to conserve energy. Surely it is not too much to require of our public
November 24, 1975

Energy Conservation
buildings, hotels and offices that temperatures be lower in the winter and higher in the summer. Surely it is not too much to reduce speeds on our highways and by commercial aircraft, and to ask that all modes of transport operate with higher load factors. Surely it is not too much to require that pricing practices of utilities be such that consumers are rewarded, rather than being penalized, when they practice conservation.
The government expects within a very few weeks to have programs to do many of these things. However, not all lie within federal jurisdiction and not all can be accomplished quickly. The important thing is to make a start at each jurisdictional level and then to require changes as rapidly as possible as we move toward a new situation in energy.
Let me illustrate the potential savings from only one of the measures that is being considered. It happens to involve transportation, which the IEA report describes as a sector in which "much more needs to be done". If, through minimum efficiency standards, the average efficiency of Canadian automobiles could be raised from the present 17.5 miles per gallon to 28 miles per gallon by 1985-a shift that is both technologically and economically feasible with no change in the structure of the automobile industry and with very little effect on consumers-the consumption of gasoline would drop from the present 600,000 barrels per day to just over 400,000 barrels per day. This potential saving is all the more impressive because it is based on an assumption that the number of automobiles in Canada will expand in the next decade from eight million to eleven million and that each automobile is driven as much as are those in the existing fleet. Despite these strong forces for expansion, a simple increase in automobile efficiency would bring us to less than zero energy growth for motor gasoline over the next decade. Savings are so large, and costs so small, that one wonders how anyone can object to such a conservation measure.
Let me conclude by referring briefly to the fifth and final portion of the government's program which involves the longer term future. Conservation has been variously described as an opportunity, an ethic and a way of life. It is all these things. We no longer have a choice about whether we are going to conserve. In an era in which energy costs are rising dramatically, in which energy supplies are becoming smaller and smaller relative to the demand, and in which great concern is being voiced about worldwide effects of excessive energy demand, a vigorous and profound program of energy conservation is essential. Indeed, it may be the optimum policy for Canada.
It is seldom recognized how powerful are the effects of even small efforts at conservation. For every 0.1 per cent that the rate of growth of energy consumption can be reduced between now and 1990, there will be a reduction in energy use in 1990 by the equivalent of one Syncrude-sized tar sands plant or five Pickering-sized CANDU nuclear stations. That is capital saved and inflation moderated. In any one year, for each 1.0 per cent drop in energy consumption-something that can be achieved easily by thermostat adjustments, or by driving slightly less, or by good furnace maintenance-consumers save about $200 million at the retail level, which would reduce future capital cost for

energy supply by more than $0.5 billion. Assuming the 1 per cent annual saving were achieved only for heating oil in the maritimes and Quebec, oil import subsidy payments would drop by $12 million. When the fight against inflation is so critical to our national well-being, when the need for imported petroleum threatens our balance of payments, and when excessive consumption diminishes our competitive position, such savings cannot be ignored.
Let me finally assure this House of two things. First, the government will be implementing additional energy conservation measures in the near future. These measures will affect many sectors and regions of our economy, but they are the least that we can do to protect our own position, to meet our international responsibilities and to avoid even worse disruption in the future. But, second, this House must be aware that the measures that have already been introduced and those that will be introduced to conserve energy represent only the first, immediate and easiest steps towards conservation.
In the longer term, this government will be coming forward with more important and far-reaching and, I must add, more costly measures. We are at a point where we must give at least as much attention to measures to reduce the demand for energy as we give to ways to increase the supply, and we must give equivalent consideration to investments in energy conservation as we have been giving to investments in energy production.


Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, my heart goes out to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Foster) for having been forced to read a report like that. I used to think of this as just the posturing of the ex-minister of energy, mines and resources, but now it is very clear from the fairy story we have heard this afternoon that it should be called "Alastair in Wonderland" instead of "Donald in Wonderland".
First, we have a representative of the Crown stand up in this House and say that after all that was said in this critical report by the International Energy Agency, we are only tenth on the list instead of seventeenth. That is the government's defence. Then he goes on to put forward the argument that in the national building code, which has been in existence for several years, there is a requirement that the thickness of insulation be doubled. The question we must ask, in plain honesty is, how many builders follow the national building code? Everyone knows builders follow the municipal building codes.
Second, as one of my colleagues to my left pointed out, there is no effort at all to put before the people who are building the homes what this will mean in cost. I think in respect of the government's highfalutin' report, which a year ago I described as a posture, one of the delay factors can be found in an article in one of our leading newspapers, the Globe and Mail, which writes:
The office charged with developing the federal government's energy conservation program is finding that, in the words of research officer Brian Kelly, "the wheels of progress grind slowly."
It's also had to forgo a research director for a while in the name of bilingualism.
I shall not say any more. In structuring up these programs, when the whole world is anxious to see all the nations reduce their demands for the limited fossil fuels
November 24, 1975

which seem to be available, we wonder about whether or not a person speaks French. That is about the size of it. I do not think the people of Quebec will worry for a month or two, or for two or three years, in respect of such an important program, when we need technically trained people to handle these things, if some people do not speak French.
In essence, what the hon. member for Don Valley (Mr. Gillies) said in plain, earthy terms is that approximately half of the energy produced and utilized in Canada today is wasted in our present system, whether it is in respect of the automobile, transportation, or whatever. The parliamentary secretary suggested that one of the types of waste is our failure to move, technologically. I think we are all aware of the inefficiency of the gasoline motor which we have had for the last 50 years. We know that changes will be made in less than ten years from now because of individual breakthroughs. But where is the federal government in this research? Is that part of the $1.3 billion? In no way!
[DOT] <1630)
There is another type of ignorance on the part of the government that is holding us back. I am referring to the fact that one of the reasons we are under pressure today on the supply of fossil fuels is that we have not run out of them. What we have run out of is proven, traditional fossil fuels in an oil well. We have 1,000 billion barrels of fossil fuels in the tar sands, or oil sands of Alberta and Saskatchewan, and if we hope to recover a mere 300 billion of that- which is several hundred years' supply-we cannot do it with the present method of financing. In the last two years I have put forward in the House financing techniques that would bring the cost of producing synthetic oil of higher quality than traditional oil out of these tar sands at $3 a barrel, instead of the $11 a barrel that this government, together with Ontario, the province of Alberta and the private companies are planning.
All I could get from the then minister of finance, after I had asked him to study carefully these proposals and told him that the large companies of the world were willing to come in with much lower interest rates if that type of financing were used, was that industry does not use this method of financing. What he meant, of course, was that Canadian business does not use this method of financing, because what Canadian business is going through is obvious to all of us. I am simply pointing out that the crisis we are supposed to be experiencing is not a crisis of supply; we have all the energy we need, if we applied to these problem the knowledge that the engineers and the scientists have, as well as ordinary principles of economics.
I want to move on to the subject of other forms of energy. I think it is well known that we have to stop this waste. Before I leave this subject, let me say one more thing. I will give an example of the type of waste which it would cost nothing to stop. I am referring to our provincial hydro systems which we have in all the provinces as well as in the territories. Not one of these provincial hydro companies has moved in the matter of management of peak loads. In the province of Ontario, the hydro company has asked the provincial government to allow them to raise hydro wholesale rates by 27 per cent, without mentioning
Energy Conservation
how the cost could be held down by simply exercising peak load management.
In plain terms, out of 24 hours a day, in dense residential areas such as are found in Ontario and Quebec, only seven hours have traditional peak loads. If you take all those peaks out of those seven hours, at no cost to provincial hydro, you simply change your rate structure. There are half a dozen ways of doing it. You can charge half as much wholesale during the 17 hours, raise the rates during the seven-hour peak to double and let the individual manufacturer or householder decide whether he wants expensive power of cheap power. That would reduce by 20 per cent, approximately, the need for capital structures in place to provide the large reserve capacities to meet the peaks. This is elementary, fundamental economics which have been ignored because for years we have been getting along by stealing oil from producers at a few cents a barrel. Now that the producers are refusing to sell oil at the price the oil barons gave to them, and are asking for a price competitive with that of other fuels, we have to start thinking hard about the elementary, fundamental principles of economics.
I put that concept before the government, not because they have too much to do with provincial hydro companies but because they will have something to tell them, at least, if the people in the provincial governments are not able to advise their hydro companies how to do it. If you want to find an example of this, look at the tiny state of Vermont, only a few hundred miles from here, which has adopted this practice for over two years. It is a practice which is working. Everybody knows this, except the provincial hydro systems. I am putting this concept before the federal government for another very simple reason. Sometimes you have to tell the provinces how to do things without interfering with their constitutional rights. You have the right to advise them.
This brings me to my main point. I want to speak, now, about alternative forms of energy. Even though energy is largely in the field of provincial and private use, the function of the federal government is in research and development. In dealing with alternative forms of energy I will not bother with the exotic ones unless I have time at the end of my remarks. I just want to remind the House, again, that one of the great forms of energy that has always been available to man since he had knowledge of the wheel is the translation of the sun's power in the form of wind into electrical energy. We used to use this system on the farms many years ago, but farmers were glad to give it up because of the noisy type of propellers they had on the windmills; the generators were not of a quality which would stand up to high-speed operation, and provincial hydro systems operated along the road, so it was easier to turn on a switch rather than service the wind-power source.
The reason farmers did not like the wind-power source was that they had to save up excess power in high wind periods. I am simply suggesting to the minister, through his parliamentary secretary, that all this was 40 years ago. Today, thanks to the scientists of the National Research Council and of other countries in the last couple of years, Canada has pioneered in the development of a modern, sound and efficient windmill which runs with elliptical instead of circular blades. In any part of the country where

November 24, 1975
Energy Conservation
there is an average wind speed of ten miles an hour, a person can supply his own fuel in the form of electricity.
But, of course, you come to the fact that with these modern windmills you have storage to consider. Once again, the technical knowledge is there and batteries are not necessary any longer. You simply get permission from the hydro company in the province to hook up a windmill to your meter, and whenever you are producing more power than you can use for heat and light in your home, the meter runs backward and you get a credit. This is not something that is ahead of our time; it is going on today. Ontario Hydro has said publicly that it is technically possible. Also, it is actually happening in Wisconsin. There is no trouble with the phasing and voltage in Wisconsin; you can buy a particular type of box to make sure the phasing and voltage are correct. The only trouble that has arisen between the people who are using that system and the Wisconsin power company is disagreement over whether a person should be paid, for producing surplus power, at wholesale or at retail prices. I would think the solution of this problem would not create great difficulty and that we could consider adopting such a system in Canada. At the federal level, with all the research already done, we could suggest to private individuals that we have the knowledge available on how to produce wind power. It is really available only to those in the suburbs and farm areas, but it would add tremendously to the input of power into the very large storage system called the transmission system.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but the time allotted to him has expired.


Some hon. Members:: Carry on.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The only way the hon. member can be allowed to continue would be by unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will not abuse it. I have probably been speaking too slowly. I mentioned something about wind power. There would be no cost to the federal government. I have spoken about heat pumps several times in the House. Full page ads have been used by Westinghouse and by Canadian General Electric, but what is the federal government doing to tell individuals in southern Canada-that means all of us south of Timmins-about how to use a heat pump and what it costs? It works the same as a fridge heating homes and cooling them in the summer. Four hundred employees of Ontario Hydro are putting this system in the Nanticoke work area down in Norfolk county; they have been directed by their management to use this type of heat.
With a heat pump, the heat comes from the air for nothing; all that is needed is the power to run the fans, as is the case with a fridge. All this is technical knowledge which has been available to the commercial market for the last 50 years; but instead, we get all these booklets which have won awards all over the world for being slick pamphlets but which do not say anything except that we

should save energy by pulling the blinds at night. Most people pull the blinds already. We are told to save energy by sleeping two in a bed. I keep coming back to that.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Or bundling, as my colleague, the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin), calls it. I say that we should tell people the facts about heat pumps-who produces them, what they cost, how much can be saved, and where they can be obtained. The same applies to solar heating. I know the federal government this spring gave a grant of $54,000 to an engineer at Gananoque who had spent $2,000 on his home in taking some solar plates, to bring the heat down to his basement and storing it in columns of wax in a box six feet long, four feet wide and four feet in depth. He was told that that heat box could conserve enough of the solar heat hitting his roof to provide 70 per cent of his heat requirements. Last year, because the sun shone so much, he obtained 100 per cent of his heat requirements from the sun, having made a capital expenditure of $2,000 on his roof. Hon. members can examine it and tell the people across Canada about it. I could go out and talk about solar furnaces.


An hon. Member:: Did you say $2,000?


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Yes, $2,000 was the capital cost of the solar plates. Today, in the city of Ottawa, we are trying to produce a device for providing plates for $20 or $30 instead of the $200 or $300 which is being spent now.
I do not want to bore the House with all the details, with the excuse of speaking over my time, but I want to conclude with a fervent appeal to the government to read what is being published, not in "far out" magazines but in the most responsible magazines one can find. One example is "Pipeline and Gas Journal". I will just read a statement or two from it. Hon. members may recall that back in 1972 I asked the then minister of energy, mines and resources whether his department would look into its files to find all the requests for help and funding for research into biomass. There was not a soul in the House or in the gallery who knew what biomass was. Now they all know. That is a new way of saying, "That's a bunch of biomass". But biomass is not a joking matter. I refer to the October issue of "Pipeline and Gas Journal," the most prestigious journal for the industry in North America. This is not new, but it should be read:
For example, at a yield of 50 tons/acre-year of dry biomass with a heating value of 6500 Btu/duy lb., about 169,000 square miles (a square that is 411 miles on each side) is required at an over-all thermal efficiency of conversion to SNG of 35 per cent to satisfy the U.S. natural gas demand.
Translated into language we can understand, this information was made available two years ago in the NASA report, but now it has hit the table of big business. A square 400 miles by 400 miles, the size of Alabama and Georgia, using a 35 per cent conversion factor, based on the research of the bureau of mines and others, could supply all the natural gas needed by the United States. In our area, a much smaller amount would be needed. I am simply saying, in plain and simple terms, that if we cannot get natural gas out of wells in the ground, the farmer can grow
November 24, 1975

it. Four hundred square miles is all that is needed, using only one-third of the energy produced, to produce all the natural gas needed by the United States. Quite frankly, that comes out of trees. One can grow pine trees and produce natural gas. However, I have quoted this in previous speeches and I should like to go on and give a table of values. These are all worked out. I know the sources.
According to "Pipeline and Gas Journal" of October of this year, if we consider the present price of natural gas as laid down in Toronto, the present estimated price of gasification of coal at site of $1.61 as the unit, the cost from these sources will be about half-73 cents to $1.17. I should like to read from a very distinguished Canadian magazine called "Executive". This is actually taken from the report of the Science Council of Canada, and it reads as follows:
-energy plantations may be able to compete with fossil fuel for energy generation ... In spite of our technical inability to harvest plankton efficiently, the energy from this source could presently compete with oil at $11 a barrel or so.
It continues:
Alberta's agriculture department says the fermentation of cattle manure could provide 6 per cent of the province's needs. The Science Council reckons that all the energy needs of the country's farmers could be met with methane produced from one-third of all crop residue and one-fifth of all animal wastes.
And so on. I wish to finish my remarks by saying that the biomass technique means low capital investment, high energy return and gives a final cost which is lower by half than the price we will have to pay for existing energy sources of nuclear energy, coal gasification, and so on. I suggest to the government that we cannot rush into this. In essence, we must make the knowledge of the scientists- incidentally, Canada has led the way at the University of Manitoba and the University of Waterloo, and now the University of Toronto is taking it up-gathered at all these meetings over the last year in Canada available and understandable to the public. I think our farmers and individual Canadians should have access to this information. People want to save money. Within the space of five to ten years we could increase the total energy mix 25 per cent to 30 per cent by using these alternative sources, at a price lower than we are now paying for energy.
If we can get this additional supply source by utilizing waste from the growth potential of our farms-and, as the hon. member for Don Valley said, it represents half of our total consumption-we should, as the century ends, not only get rid of any tendency to worsen our international account but we could be supplying our excess energy to the world as well as lowering costs here.
This is why I can support'this motion which chides the government for not doing anything effective about the problem of conservation. I say, again, that conservation is not just restrictive and trying to control consumption; conservation, in its best sense, is the best use of our resources. That means recycling and that means the lowest cost. The government does not need to provide large sums of money, but just to tell individuals in Canada, provincial governments and municipal governments of ways to save money and ways to make money. I think that would be their most useful function, and then we would not have to move motions condemning them for doing nothing about conservation.
Energy Conservation


Mr. S. Victor Railton (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to congratulate the previous speaker for bringing in the question of biomass. I was almost prepared to take that lightly, but he has almost persuaded me there is something in it. If there is, then that would be quickly found out by all nations of the world. We are wasting an awful lot of money drilling for oil in such places as the far north, and if biomass is going to supply us with energy, we should be getting after it.
I intend to discuss this matter of energy conservation, as referred to in the motion of the hon. member for Don Valley (Mr. Gillies), from two viewpoints. In the first place, I think we have to review the present tight situation in the world, and in Canada in particular. A great many voices and groups in Canada have raised quite a babel. These are the nationalists, the ecologists, the oil industry, the provinces rich and poor in oil, the householders or consumers, industry at large, and the sort of dissonance in the other energy source industries such as hydro, thermal electric, the gas companies, coal mining companies and their employees, as well as nuclear energy systems. Out of all this clamour-and, I believe, in some ways the clamour has been beneficial-we must try to find out how the shortage came about and how the conservation programs can help Canada through the lean period that is coming. I want to be more specific about that lean period later on.
I should just like to give a short review of the situation. Until comparatively recently, Canada was using energy, just like every industrialized country, in a profligate manner. One reason was the misinformation we had about our own petroleum reserves. Because they were potentially present in large quantity, we thought they were in our hands to use. We were ignorant of the exact amount and the expense of bringing them to market. Another reason for the overuse of our oil was the increasing world demand for energy, and other material resources as well, which was putting up the price. The quadrupling of the price of oil by OPEC in 1973 was almost a predictable next step, although in our opinion it was pretty cruel.
The Department of Energy, Mines and Resources was about the only branch of government awakening to the implications of the increasing world shortages of oil. They were not caught napping completely; I should like to emphasize that. Three months before the OPEC ultimatum, the department had enunciated phase one of "An Energy Policy for Canada." It saw the need for rapid planning for both a short and long-term policy for the future-50 years at least. The department realized that this country was faced with the need to use our energy resources carefully and intelligently. It realized that conservation, a new word in the energy world, would have to be the permanent policy of this government with regard to the consumption of petroleum and hydrocarbons-in fact, all kinds of energy.
What the OPEC action had done was to change suddenly not only energy use concepts but also to cause a crisis economically. The world was already suffering from deep-seated inflation caused by increasing demands, even from the emerging nations. They wanted commodities and energy, and these had been distributed most inequitably throughout the world. When the price of any product
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November 24, 1975
Energy Conservation
strikes world markets with such rapidity, distribution and consumption problems are multiplied immediately. As we well remember, inflation jumped at once even in so-called stable economies. It has taken two years to understand and organize our own Canadian to the economic chaos in the world. This, in turn, has forced us to accept inflation as an evil which, in our case, can only be beaten by every section of our society voluntarily agreeing to the control guidelines on profits, prices, salaries and wages. However, that is another subject.
This rapid shock in 1973 forced the federal government to join with the provinces in taking a hard look at our problem in the light of our confederation framework. At that time, in 1973, we were in balance in oil; that is, we were producing enough for ourselves and somewhat more. We all know that the lack of transport from west to east forced us to import one million barrels daily to make up for our exports to the United States. Federal and provincial governments were all concerned about our need to develop our own resources, our need to transport oil from west to east, and also to try to keep Canadian oil prices equitable throughout Canada and, if possible, below world prices. We should be grateful that today Canadian prices are $4 to $5 per barrel under the world price.
A group of decisions was made after our federal-provincial conferences. Temporary transportation measures were taken for use inside Canada. Then extension of the interprovincial pipeline from Sarnia to Montreal was undertaken. The House will remember how we pressed into service ships going from British Columbia, through the Panama canal and on to the east coast. Apart from transportation costs, we thought Canada could enjoy one-price oil. Revenue from oil was to be properly divided amongst governments, producers and consumers and leave enough for oil industry incentives as well as exploration, research and development. When I speak of research and development, I mean tar sands techniques, gasification of coal and liquefaction of gas, as well as pipeline problems from the Delta and the High Arctic, exports of oil were to go at world prices, but Canadians would enjoy a lower price. The Energy Supplies Allocation Board would function early in our conservation program and thus be ready for future emergencies.
Do hon. members remember our agonizing, unnecessarily long debate on Petro-Can? That corporation has two special functions among others, those being to decide on the rate of development of Canadian gas and oil reserves and to buy oil for Canada at a favourable price. Furthermore, uranium nuclear plants were to be pushed, as it were, and interprovincial power exchanges and grids encouraged. In addition, the department established an office of energy resource development. A full inventory of Canadian resources in uranium, coal, oil and gas was undertaken. In spite of this, some hon. members allege that the government has done nothing. The government went so far as to establish an office of energy conservation which co-ordinates the activities of all organizations and institutions, governmental and otherwise, in pushing forward conservation principles and effects. The government has studied the National Energy Board's review of oil export policy. So

hon. members can see that the government has done a great deal.
Some interesting facts have emerged from all these studies. Rates of development of all energy sources have been evaluated. We now realize that we can have moderate growth in demand, and supply our needs until the year 2000, but at great economic and some environmental expense. Even in the next ten years it will cost us $100 billion to supply our domestic needs. At present, energy development costs represent 3 per cent of our GNP. The future cost will represent double this figure, or 6 per cent of GNP, leaving less for housing, education and social development. It is obvious, therefore, that a conservation program has become absolutely imperative.
Our conservation program will reduce the rate of resource production and the volume of oil imports. We know that we will have a gap or hiatus in our own capacity with respect to oil and gas production in the early 1980s. That, as I say, is well known. Conservation measures will also reduce appreciably the insistent demand for capital and allow other needed developments. This program will allow our resources to last a great deal longer.
It is clear that conservation is synonymous with good management throughout the Canadian economy. It is said that if we can arrange for energy demand levels in 1990 to be 20 per cent below those projected in "An Energy Policy for Canada, Phase I," we shall effect savings equivalent to the cost of 12 tar sands plants, or over $12 billion. This can be accomplished by a 1 per cent reduction in our annual energy demand growth rate. I suggest that the figures I have mentioned merit consideration. It seems impractical to effect conservation by letting energy prices rise formidably, at will. Still, we know that in years to come we shall be forced to pay higher energy prices. We do not want to force our people to conserve merely by making them pay higher prices immediately.
The price freeze on energy has given us time to adapt to a new ethic in conservation, and to develop phased increases in costs. The government has developed a five-phase program, about which the parliamentary secretary spoke. It will divide responsibility between the four categories of user: households, manufacturers of plastics and fertilizers, industry in general, and governments federal, provincial, municipal, etc. Each user in these four categories accounts for 25 per cent of our total energy consumption.
Let me say a word about each phase of the program. Phase one is the in-house, federal government conservation program. The federal government itself is a significant user of energy and is making its contribution by saving and setting an example. It is revising its guidelines regarding the heating, lighting and cooling of government buildings. I know some hon. members are shocked to see lights left burning all night in some government buildings. You cannot switch off those lights as such buildings were planned and built long before an energy shortage was envisaged. The government's new code will deal with the efficiency of steam plants, and there will be some building changes. In addition, the government will use smaller automobiles and impose a 55 miles an hour speed limit on its own cars. It will increase the use of recycled paper. Incidentally, it is interesting to note that conservation
November 24, 1975

methods practiced in one building have already saved us

Under phase two, consultations are being held on a continuing basis with provincial governments, industry and labour. They are all being encouraged to institute conservation programs of their own. Provinces are being asked to reduce highway speed limits and revise gas and electric utility rate structures, to favour lower consumption. Last April we met with industrial leaders and urged each firm to apply individual conservation programs. I think they are trying to do this. Under phase three, a program of advertising was instituted in daily and weekly newspapers, radio and television, as well as in school brochures and booklets.
Phase four involves energy conservation measures consistent with elimination of waste and promotion of energy efficiency throughout the economy. This is to be done by imposing certain standards and regulations, tagging appliances with hints for efficiency and bringing in better insulation standards which were adopted by CMHC. It is proposed to take the tax off insulating materials; I do not think this has been implemented so far. In addition, I believe there is under way in the Department of Public Works a program involving energy systems analysis, or computer programs regarding federal public buildings. In addition, phase four envisages a program of consumer information on standards, an attempt to change certain standards and the introduction of certain tax measures.
We are studying questions like railway efficiency vis-avis the use of energy. Actually, the studies were given very wide terms of reference. As I say, we are studying the efficient use of energy in connection with freight rates and, as I mentioned just now, the use of recycling and packaging, the training of inspectors, and recommendations for use of returnable beverage containers. Provincial governments and municipalities were to deal with outdoor lighting, licence fees, speed limits, etc. They were admonished to institute programs in this regard as soon as possible.
I now come to phase five. This is a program stretching far into the future. Society, since the industrial revolution, has been based on production and consumption. It will be our task to change that emphasis and to emphasize services. There is now to be a premium on quality, not quantity. A change is required from raw competition to sharing, even to compassion. This will be the new emphasis. We must all change our allegiance and become a conserver society. This will mean that our new economic realities will dictate not only new domestic policies, but new international policy. The energy difficulties we face in Canada are not insurmountable, but solutions will require efforts on the part of all Canadians in the realms of cooperation, conservation and elimination of waste.


Mr. Jim Balfour (Regina East):: Mr. Speaker, it should be clear to us now that Canada will not be able to float, unscathed and undisturbed, above the energy crisis of today and of the future. Like the other industrialized nations of the western world, we are on a collision course with the hard truth that we must import energy to drive our cars, run our industry, heat our homes and generally
Energy Conservation
continue to sustain a lifestyle to which we have become accustomed. This year Canada will be a net importer of oil to the extent of approximately 100,000 barrels a day. It is a hard fact that Canada will not be able to satisfy domestic requirements with domestic production even when in 1981 the tap to the United States is effectively turned off.
Assuming the National Energy Board's reported recommendations that the export quota be reduced to 500,000 barrels a day from 750,000 barrels a day, the deficit of the oil subsidization program will be about $400 million. There should be no doubt that for the future Canada's balance of payments position will be gravely affected by increased oil imports required to satisfy an ever-burgeoning demand-a situation which will be gravely exacerbated by our inability to sustain any substantial balance of exports to our neighbour to the south.
Canada's increasing demands for energy show no sign of abating. Indeed, in 1974 Canada's consumption of energy rose by almost 8 per cent, compared to a fall of 2.8 per cent in United States consumption and 1.8 per cent in western European consumption. Canadians are also among the least efficient users of energy in the world. We rank second only to the United States in the consumption of energy per capita. In addition, statistics show that Canada requires more energy to produce $1 of GNP-national income-than any other major industrialized nation in the world.
We use almost twice as much energy per capita as Sweden, whose northerly location gives her a climate similar to our own in many areas. My colleagues have already, and will continue to do so, commented on this government's feeble response to the conservation problem and I do not intend to dwell further on that aspect of today's topic. Instead, I think it is important that we question what this government is doing to ensure that exploration for more needed resources is encouraged: in short, the problem of security of supply. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the response to that question thus far has been negative.
The fact of the matter is that the government has discouraged exploration through its regressive tax regime, its failure to put in place ground rules for frontier exploration, and its unsettled policies and ad hockery in other areas, all of which have served only to discourage risk-taking and resource development investment in this country. To illustrate these points, Mr. Speaker, I need only point to the June 23 budget which retained the most regressive measures of the budgets of May and November, 1974, namely, the denial of a deduction from income of provincial royalties, mining taxes and similar charges, the implementation of the earned depletion scheme and the 30 per cent declining balance limitation in respect of exploration and development expenses.
I think it is important to elaborate to some extent on what the denial of a deduction from income of provincial royalties, mining taxes and similar charges, really means to the industry. In layman's terms, it disallows as an expense to oil, gas and other mineral producers every penny of the stiff royalties and their equivalents being taken by the provinces. This double-taxation measure levies income taxes on resource companies for money they do not receive. It drains away a sizeable part of the cash flow left to Alberta producers after provincial royalties, and leaves British Columbia and Saskatchewan producers
29956-42/4

November 24, 1975
Energy Conservation
in an even worse position than before the OPEC price boosts.
Alberta has wisely reacted with moves that effectively reduce its royalties, giving back to producers the provincial share of the federal levy of income tax on royalties while providing expanded incentives to encourage new exploration and development in that province. British Columbia and Saskatchewan have made minor concessions but continue to be far too greedy to attract additional risk capital, and indeed the latest initiative by the NDP government of my province of Saskatchewan, in relation to the potash industry, effectively forecloses any significant resource or industrial investment from the private sector for the foreseeable future.
Restricted production and the provincial and federal royalties and tax levies have reduced the tax flow of Canada's producers by hundreds of millions of dollars this year, thus restricting the availability of capital for exploration and development. With the investor climate so bleak, reinvested and new dollars are falling far short of our needs if Canada's energy security is to be achieved. The oil and gas industry badly needs an increase in its net take after royalties and taxes to fulfil its task of replacing and expanding known reserves. Existing policies indicate more than anything else that this government is more interested in wrangling with the provinces for bigger pieces of the resources' pie than it is in providing an atmosphere of economic stability and profitability for this very important industry.
Much has been written and said about the tax measures foisted upon the extractive industries in Canada, the petroleum industry in particular, and the failure to achieve a sensible and lasting policy may well do irreparable damage to this vital segment of the Canadian economy. As stated by the then federal minister of finance:
The over-all Canadian tax policy must have regard for the position of the resource industries in terms of international competition and in terms of the financial resources they require to bring forward the supplies needed in the years ahead.
I concede, Mr. Speaker, that the answers are not easy, but it does seem clear that both the petroleum and mining industries are being overtaxed. Within the short space of three years the resource corporations of Canada have moved from the lowest to the highest taxed segment of industry and appear to be the victims of the worst federal-provincial squabble over tax revenues in many years. The problem is a deepseated one which will require a change in outlook on the part of all concerned and a determination to do what is best for Canada, rather than squabbling like little boys.
Apart from the question of royalty or tax rates imposed by the provinces, the problems of the extractive industries have been complicated by the decision of the federal government to disallow all such payments in computing income for federal income tax purposes. Such charges, in moderation, are a proper deduction for the extractive industries as they are, in effect, part of the cost of acquiring the raw resources. As such, they are no different than the cost of goods to a retailer or the cost of raw material to a manufacturer.
The only discernible difference is that the amounts are paid, not to individuals or corporations who would be

taxable upon the receipts but to provincial governments which are not taxable. This was not a problem in the past when royalty or tax rates were seen as a reasonable commercial charge for the extraction and consumption of nonrenewable resources. It is a problem when the charge ceases to be a commercial levy and becomes an income tax, in effect, upon profits. While one can sympathize with Ottawa's predicament, it nevertheless seems that a complete disallowance of all payments and the like which find their way into the provincial treasuries is wrong in principle. It is wrong because a deduction would be allowed if the payment were made to private enterprise. It is wrong because the cost of supplies is a proper deduction from income. The fact that the resources are owned by the provinces does not justify a different treatment except to the extent that the provinces are playing games.
The provinces themselves are also wrong in the sense that they have attempted to collect an income tax from both the industry and the federal government in a disguised form and, in some cases, seem intent upon nationalizing the industry. However, one cannot help but wonder why, with the benefit of historical and extraterritorial data, a mechanism could not have been developed whereby provincial taxes and royalties, including such stratagems as payments in kind or sales at less than market value, would be allowed as a deductible expense for federal income tax purposes to the extent that they did not exceed certain limits. While some study would have to be undertaken, it does not seem unreasonable to suggest that a limit based upon the market value of production, or the profit therefrom, would not be too difficult to develop. After all, some resources are privately owned and commercial royalty or profit-sharing agreements do exist.
Other countries have shared the same experiences or problems and it should not be too difficult to develop an acceptable formula with regard to past practice in Canada and what is sensible in terms of current conditions. Such an approach would have been a sensible compromise, would have allowed the provinces a reasonable return for the extraction of non-renewable resources, and would have allowed the industry sufficient room to get on with its job. It is to be hoped that the provinces will now re-examine their taxation and royalty policies with a view to ensuring that all our resource industries can remain economically viable and produce benefits for all. It may be a tall order, but failure to do so could be disastrous to the Canadian economy.
It is clear that the measures contained in the June budget were designed primarily to force the provinces to back down on their royalty demands and allow the federal government to appropriate a bigger share of revenues from resources income. But, Mr. Speaker, because the government is so anxious to stick its finger into the pie, the chef has cut back on pie production. Overtaxation, lack of ground rules for exploration north of the sixtieth parallel, and ad hockery in policy-making generally has created a milieu in which risk-takers will simply decline to undertake necessary risks. The western Canadian drilling industry will be hard pressed to reach even the level of work achieved in 1974. The number of wells completed during the first nine months of this year was almost 5 per cent
November 24, 1975

below the same period in 1974, and, with continuing emphasis on shallow gas plays, footage was down 9.4 per cent. The tally for 1975 is expected to be only 3,800 wells and 12.9 million feet of hole, compared to 4,070 wells and
13.7	million feet of hole last year.
Recent statistics indicate a total of 2,849 exploratory and development wells were completed in western Canada, including all areas north of the sixtieth parallel, in the first three quarters of 1975, for a decrease of 138 from the first three quarters of 1974, while footage was more than one million feet to 9.6 million feet. The disappointing decrease in activity was reflected in the average rig count, which fell to 127 units for the nine months-a drop of 18 per cent from last year. This represents a utilization rate of only
46.7	per cent of the 272 rigs available for work. The number of rigs working in eastern Canada-Quebec, the Atlantic provinces and offshore-averaged three, compared to four last year.
The statistics speak for themselves. Both development drilling and wildcat drilling activity is substantially reduced from last year. In short, Mr. Speaker, thanks in large part to the policies of the federal government, Canada has substantially less exploration for desperately needed sources of energy at a time when substantially increased activity is required. The task of developing new energy resources deserves, and should be given, the highest priority by the federal government and appropriate policies and regulations put in place to ensure that the necessary capital will be available and the necessary exploration and development work carried out as rationally and expeditiously as possible.
As indicated many times by various sources, between now and 1985 the petroleum industry in Canada will have to spend some $50 billion to find and develop new resources and to install necessary transportation systems. Additional billions will have to be spent on the downstream side to expand refining capacity and product distribution systems. Where is this money to come from? Well, Mr. Speaker, it will have to come from several sources, including existing companies' internal cash flow, the attraction of investment and cash flows from other nonpetroleum industry companies and from a multitude of private investors both within and outside Canada. This magnitude of investment, however, is contingent on a financially healthy petroleum and natural gas industry and the recognition by governments of the exceptionally long lead times and extremely high risks involved in this industry. Co-operation, rather than confrontation, with the industry and the provinces is required.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 40, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment
Energy Conservation
are as follows: the hon. member for Richmond (Mr. Beaudoin)-Industry-Footwear-Request	for probing of
imports; the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles)-Veterans Affairs-Date of decision on bill to implement recommendations of committee on war prisoners' and widows' pensions.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Gillies:
That this House regrets the government's failure to carry out an effective energy resource conservation program and, in particular, calls upon the government to answer the criticism by the International Energy Agency that "there appears to be a substantial gap between principle and practice ... that the (Canadian) cabinet appears to have accepted the goal of conservation without recognizing the need to implement the goal with specific actions."
James Balfour: Mr. Speaker, other areas of the world are competing for development dollars and there is every evidence that Canadian technical expertise and personnel are being lured away by greener pastures in the United States and elsewhere. I call upon the government to encourage, rather than discourage, exploration and provide a suitable operating environment within which the industry can perform its function. If this is not done, the people of Canada will be the losers.


Mr. Frank Maine (Wellington):: Mr. Speaker, first I should like to congratulate the hon. member for Don Valley (Mr. Gillies) for bringing this motion to the attention of the House and to the country generally. There is no question that all Canadians need to be more aware of the energy situation and of the options open to us. Conservation is unquestionably a major aspect of these issues. Let me hasten to add that I am in complete agreement with the hon. member for Roberval (Mr. Gauthier) who pointed out that the motion before us is too limited. Conservation is only one aspect of the multivariable energy program.
To put conservation in perspective I should like to say a few words about the total energy program. In the short term there is little doubt no time exists for research and development to be done. We shall be obliged to use existing rrteterials, gas and oil, along with other technology which is readily available. I refer to nuclear fission, the CANDU reactor. Its technology is available; it is a matter of capital. Coal is the other source of energy in the short term. It is readily available and the economics are favourable here. We have the technology to convert coal into coke, a by-product of the steel industry, and into electricity through thermal plants. The difficulty here is that of mining the coal and transporting it to the marketplace- again a matter of economics.

November 24, 1975
Energy Conservation
In the medium term, when we lose self-sufficiency in oil supplies we shall be turning to the tar sands and frontier sources such as the Arctic, offshore supplies, and so on, in an economic framework substantially different from that which exists today.
In the long term, and I mean 25 years to the year 2000, we will see either solar energy or fusion energy being harnessed, and we should be backing both those areas now to make sure we have those answers in 25 years.
The other two programs are really stop-gap measures to buy us time and long-term answers through either solar or fusion energy techniques. The other novel techniques mentioned in the Science Council's report on Canada's energy opportunities, which was published last March, really will not make a major contribution to our energy requirements, whether they be bio-mass, geothermal, tidal, or power from wind or fuel cells. It is really a red herring to give them undue precedence in our order of priorities.
In buying time for long-term solutions there is no question that conservation is a major ingredient, but it is only one factor in the over-all problem of energy research and development across the whole area I have outlined.
It was a great disappointment when I saw in last June's budget that $42 million had been cut from the energy research and development program. I can understand the reason for this, with the major problem facing us today being one of inflation and the great clamour from the public to cut back on government spending. There is no question but that in the short-term we have some problems to face in the inflation era which are going to affect our energy research and development programs. I am not happy with that, but I understand it. I feel there is no question at all but that we must lick inflation and lick it now, because any money being spent on or earmarked for energy research and development will have little effect as inflation eats into its value.
So in the short term we see the programs not going as fast as we would like or as fast as we deem necessary. I think we will see in the next budget, corning up next spring, a real blood bath as far as restrictions on and cutbacks to government spending are concerned. The public is asking for them and the public is going to get
them,	but the public is going to be unhappy about this as the public was unhappy about the ten cents excise tax on gasoline last summer. However, as I told my constituents
then,	that is only the first step. There are many more steps as we slowly edge our way up to higher energy costs in the future. I have told them not to scream about the fact that they are going to need more money to pay for higher gasoline costs. That is not the message.
The message is that if people are going to continue wasting energy as they have been doing, they will have to pay more for it. If they do not want to pay more money for energy then they had better conserve in their utilization of energy, whether it be by driving at slower speeds, driving automobiles with more efficient engines, or travelling less mileage. The option is theirs and the message is clear. They will have to conserve on the use of energy. The time of cheap energy has gone, and we are moving into an era of more expensive energy.

It is this whole change in attitude that has to come in respect of energy use in Canada. When we were told on Thanksgiving Day that our lifestyles are going to be wrenched, this is the translation of that phrase into real direction. We have to use less energy, or face the consequences.
I feel this is not in the direction of government intervention by legislation, or by interference in the private sector, but rather a program of using the tools of the free enterprise system. These are the ones we should use in the supply and demand picture. They are the economic tools that were mentioned earlier by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain (Mr. Hamilton).
I disagree strongly with the comments of the hon. member for Don Valley that the government has done nothing. There are several things that have been done. The hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands (Mr. Douglas) suggested that we should use taxation further to encourage people to use smaller cars in the transportation sector. That is exactly what has been done with the ten cents excise tax on gasoline. It was purposely meant to do that; that is, discourage the use of gasoline. Industry was exempt from this taxation.


Francis William (Frank) Maine: It increases revenue to pay the bills for a one-price oil system in Canada. This system is intended to buffer the shock of higher priced energy we will be faced with in the future. The Liberal government has tried to ease us rather than shock us into this precipitous ascent in the price that other nations in the world have faced, as well as the precipitous ascent in price resulting from inflation.
I think it is a reasonable philosophy to adjust our economy slowly rather than wrench it overnight as was done in the case of nations that had to go to oil prices on a world scale immediately. So I say that the ten cents excise was a first step, but there will be more steps as we go to commodity prices for energy.
Electricity is going to be the key. The price of natural gas has already started to rise, and oil prices have gone up and are going up higher in the future. We will soon have a commodity situation in which there will be no artificial economic incentives to use one form of energy as against another. This will depend on a matter of geography rather than economics, and this will dictate the source of energy being used. The gas and oil companies which are screaming about what is being done in this regard had better realize the need for us in the long term to go to a situation where we are not providing artificial incentives in the use of one form of energy over another.
In respect of the matter of the government having done something about this, I should like to mention the Science Council's report on energy use that came out last March, its report on energy conservation that came out last July, and more recently, within the last few weeks, the council's publication called "Conserver Society/Notes". Let me quote one paragraph from that report, which shows not only the concern of the Science Council in its attempt to advise Canadians across the country but the fact that this is not just the most recent effort of the council. The paragraph states:


An hon. Member:: It was meant to increase revenue.
November 24, 1975

The Conserver Society was a notion that originated with the Science Council of Canada and was set down in our 1973 Report on National Resources Policy. We are proud of its authorship and are ready to argue its merit. It is not a concept of futurology and it is not "zero growth". Rather it embodies the central principle that Canadians must become more responsible than we are now about the use and conservation of our resources. We recognize that many critical materials are finite in supply and we seriously question the continuation of unrestricted consumption of them.
Further, as proponents of the Conserver Society, we appreciate that decisions so frequently made today in pursuit of short-term goals may incur serious, and perhaps unacceptable, long-term social costs which should be analyzed before they are accepted.
In our opinion, these views are practical, down-to-earth and relevant.
I feel that we can aptly demonstrate that something is being done. It may be slow, but all things of government are slow in this democratic process of which we are so proud. There is more to be done, and one of the things is to get the Canadian public to appreciate the changes that have to be made. For that reason I am very grateful for this debate today in that it enables us to do just that.


Mr. Robert C. Coates (Cumberland-Colchester North):: Mr. Speaker, I am always pleased to participate in a debate that has energy as the key point, and I am pleased with the contributions made by hon. members on all sides of the House. The hon. member for Don Valley (Mr. Gillies) is to be congratulated for moving this motion and for the kind of contribution he has made, thus setting the standard for the debate as exemplified by the speeches which have already been made.
Coming from the Maritime provinces I am pleased with this opportunity of speaking because I come from one of the areas in Canada where the energy resources of the nation are critical to the people not only today but in the days ahead.
All governments have endeavoured to react to the world situation as far as industry is concerned. Governments here and in many other areas in the world have not been able to react in the way we anticipated. As the last speaker suggested, this may be because this is a democratic country in which governments move much slower than we would hope, and certainly much slower than the governments of other countries involved, such as Russia, China, and others on this globe.
From an Atlantic provinces' point of view I must say it is absolutely essential that we obtain guarantees from the government that the artificial economic disparities that exist today are not going to worsen. Our experience has shown that this results in a much heavier burden being placed on the business community, particularly because of the higher cost energy we have today.
I think members of parliament should assume that the people are as lethargic in many ways as governments appear to be, and should set an example by telling the people we realize there are very complicated and difficult days ahead so far as energy resource development is concerned, and that we are endeavouring in whatever way we can to react to this in an effort to put in motion those schemes which will give a greater assurance to the people of the areas that will be affected by the high cost energy syndrome that exists in the world that they will be pro-
Energy Conservation
vided with energy in all forms required, at a cost which will allow the industries which exist to be attracted to the areas of regional disparity in a continuous way, so that we do not lose the forward momentum that has been developing recently to overcome some of our problems.
I should like to talk about two things in this regard. One relates to a national power grid. The second relates to the development of power from the Bay of Fundy tides. This is not something new or different. The Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Cullen) shakes his head. I am sure it is not because he does not agree with me. In his career he has been a strong supporter of Fundy tidal power.
I am determined to bring once again before this House the potential that is available from the tides of Fundy. I think it is very important for us to look at one of the many problems which face this nation so far as the conservation of energy is concerned and in guaranteeing to people in all parts of this nation that they will have access to resources which may be available only in some areas of the nation. In this regard I am speaking about a national power grid.
I wish to pay tribute to the right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker) who a long time ago, in 1959, made a speech in Kitimat, British Columbia, in which he put forward the guidelines that he believed should be followed to provide a national power grid. He gave the responsibility to the hon. member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain (Mr. Hamilton) at that time to initiate discussions with the various governments in the country so that we might develop a national power grid. At that same time the then Prime Minister and that minister put into place an agreement with the Maritime provinces that produced an inter-connecting grid in that part of Canada which is of inestimable value so far as the power users of that area are concerned.
It is pleasing to note that the present government is now moving forward on that particular inter-connection so that it might be connected to Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador.


An hon. Member:: It is about time.


Robert Carman Coates: Yes, I would have to agree that it is about time, but I am not arguing about things that are happening now. I am pleased that they are happening. I say thank God this is happening. This is vitally important to the Atlantic provinces. I would have liked to have seen it happen sooner.
I note that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Foster) not too long ago made a speech somewhere in this country which I was pleased to read, in which he spoke of a national power grid and the things that would have to be done so that it could come about. I should like to say to him I am pleased to see that he and members of his department have finally dusted off a great deal of the work done by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain to bring about a national power grid.
I must admit that this was not at that time as exciting a venture to some provinces, especially Ontario and Quebec, as it is today when they see a different situation than that which confronted them in 1963. I accept the fact that sometimes governments can move only as fast as the part-

November 24, 1975
Energy Conservation
ners with whom they are involved. I know the hon. member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain had problems in this regard concerning the package at that time. However,
I reiterate that I am glad to see that the government is finally moving in a direction that will assist materially in the conservation and provision of energy as well as in its movement from one part of the country to another.
Now I should like to turn to the matter of Fundy tidal power and the most recent report that has been produced. I believe this report was produced in 1974. It recommended a number of things. I must say I am pleased that my leader, when the first report was undertaken in 1969, was a partner to the undertaking as the premier of the Province of Nova Scotia. That report which came down in 1969 was called a review board report. Since then it has been updated by the review board, and I hope it will be further updated by the report which I understand now has been signed and which I hope is being pursued with a degree of vigour that was not evident between September, 1974, and recently when the agreement was signed.
I must say I was shocked because the information given to me in the House of Commons by the then minister of energy, mines and resources, the present Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald), was not in keeping with the information presented to me by the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. MacEachen), who happens to be the minister from Nova Scotia, and whom I asked whether certain things would be set in motion in relation to some of the recommendations contained in the September, 1974, review board report. I was told in the house of Commons that progress was being made on the new study that was being recommended, and the Secretary of State for External Affairs told me that the agreement had not even been signed for the initiation of the new study about which I had written the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
There is no way anyone can tell me there was not a lot of double talk in what I, as a member of parliament from the Maritime provinces, which are desperately interested in seeing this further study undertaken, received from the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and the Secretary of State for External Affairs who in effect indicated that there was not even an agreement signed among the participating partners. That is not the way in which we will get things done in this country, and if the government is condemned for the lack of seriousness which it displays about the energy crisis which exists in this country it will be condemned for the sort of thing that was happening to me and to the people in the Atlantic provinces who were being led astray by the statements made in the House of Commons. It is a shocking thing that upsets the hon. member for Don Valley and every other member of the House who is seriously concerned about this energy crisis and about our potential energy resources which are not being tapped and realistically investigated, appraised, and explored so that Canadians can be assured that they will have the energy required.
Let me give you an example of the frustration that develops when one talks to members of the government in an endeavour to see something come about that is vitally important to the future of the Atlantic provinces. I have here a report entitled, "Bay of Fundy Tidal Power Review

Board-Preliminary Reassessment of Feasibility of Tidal Power Development in the Bay of Fundy", which was issued in September of 1974. It is a big title, and the problem in getting the report under way was as big. As page nine of the report the following is stated:
Consideration will be given to the possibility of developing smaller capacity sites whose output could be absorbed in the Maritime systems, either in the raw or retimed energy form.
What that means is that the government could move forward on smaller projects at this time, and I assume that the smaller projects we are taking about would be in Shepody Bay and Cumberland Bay basin as compared with Minas Basin, which would be a much bigger undertaking and which presents many more problems associated with the harnessing of power in that area. The report goes on to state:
As well, large capacity sites, whose output would primarily have to be transmitted, at least initially ... will be examined.
It is on reading page 13 of the report that I discovered what was really happening so far as Fundy tidal power is concerned. I wrote to the Secretary of State for External Affairs because it was my belief that the proposal contained in subsection (i) of section 7 of the report on page 13 should be carried out in my constituency. The proposal contained in subsection (i) states as follows:
The Review Board suggests that the studies be contracted and that a project manager under the direction of a management group would undertake co-ordination and control of the activities of the study contractors, integrate the results of the separate studies and prepare the necessary reports. The estimated cost of staffing the small office envisaged is of the order of $300,000 for the two-year period.
It was my belief that we had located at Amherst an organization that can do the work that is being proposed in this recommendation. It is called the Resource Management Service and it is operated under the aegis of the Council of Maritime Premiers. Formerly it was operated by the Department of Regional Economic Expansion and prior to that it was under ARDA, and even prior to that under the MMRA.
That particular organization has tremendous facilities. It is financed and operated by the three provincial governments. It could put forward the data that is required to produce the requirements suggested in this report as being necessary before a final decision is made on the development of power from the tides of Fundy. I believe that if the office were set up at Amherst there would be a great deal of expediency provided to the government if it were really interested in getting an answer to the questions that were being asked in the report.
That was when I wrote the minister to ask if he would meet a delegation, or assist me in having a meeting with the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources so that he could meet a delegation from that community to point out to him what was available in this facility in the town of Amherst. What happened? The minister wrote me back, not only not assisting me to secure such a meeting but saying that I was a little premature because there had not even been an agreement signed, after the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources had for months been answering questions in the House that things were proceeding favourably.
November 24, 1975

That is the kind of double talk that people in the Altan-tic provinces hate to hear, because they discover that the government at times is not really serious about the energy problems facing the country and that people will be saddled with the same problems next year and the year after which they are saddled with now because of lethargy toward and disinterest in Atlantic Canada, of which we accuse the government so often. Only if we get the country on the rails and get the energy problems on the way to a solution can we hope to overcome the problems we face today. I hope that this debate will help to spur the government on to produce some of the resources in our country so we will know tomorrow that things are a hell of a lot better than they are today.


Mr. Peters:: May I call it six o'clock?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it agreed that we call it six o'clock?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It being six o'clock I do now leave the chair until 8 p.m. tonight.
At six o'clock the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.
William Arnold Peters: Madam Speaker, I believe this is one of the better debates we have had on opposition days, and I think the House owes a great deal of thanks to the hon. member for Don Valley (Mr. Gillies) for having introduced the subject. I am not too impressed with government representatives who have indicated that the government has done a considerable amount in the field of conservation. That does not appear to be the fact. It is generally understood by most people who have studied the problem of energy that if conservation is not embarked upon we may be in serious difficulty.
I had the opportunity earlier this afternoon of talking to two gentlemen from the city of London who indicated that things were pretty dull in here and that this is a pretty dull debate. That was their impression, and I think it is the impression of this country as well. They asked me what the debate was about; I explained it to them, and they said there should be more interest in this subject. However, they listened for some while and did not find the subject to be of interest.
The fact is that we in this House are not sure whether there is a shortage of petroleum and fossil fuels as an energy source. A few years ago companies were indicating that we would have gas and oil for the next 100 or 200 years, and that there were large reserves, particularly gas reserves. Yet very shortly after that those same companies indicated that a shortage had developed in Canada, and that a shortage was developing around the world. No matter what we in this House think about it, the general public in Canada does not believe there is an energy shortage. Canadians believe that they have been hoodwinked by the oil companies and that the oil companies
Energy Conservation
have decided to take it easy with regard to producing fossil fuel for our energy requirements because they believe "the seven sisters" have time to wait and, if they wait, they will receive a bigger return on their investment.
I wonder, and I am sure other members wonder, if we in this House really have the ability to ascertain whether there is a shortage of fuel and if there is, what the timetable may be and what we can do about it. Every time I read a report of the Energy Board I find that it is not the report of the Energy Board-it is the suggestions made by the oil companies which tell the board what our potential is, what our long term and short term forecasts may be. The Energy Board does not seem to have the ability to look at those figures and ascertain whether they are correct or just ballpark figures. For that reason the general public in Canada does not believe there is an energy shortage. As long as the public does not believe there is an energy shortage it will not take the subject very seriously. The government does not take it very seriously either. It has established an energy conservation board, but last year the budget provided it with only $1,300,000. Most of that money went into advertising.
We heard the minister make such silly statements as, "Pull down the blinds to keep the house warm; put on a sweater; and drive your automobile at a slower speed." If there really is an energy shortage then some of the things which have been suggested today should be given top priority. I am not sure there is a shortage, but if there is, and if we do not do anything about conservation on a long term basis are we not fiddling while Rome burns? Are we not being irresponsible by not ascertaining for ourselves whether there is in fact an energy shortage or whether we are being hoodwinked by the energy experts. Who in this country are the big seven oil companies?
I listened with a great deal of attention and interest to the hon. member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain (Mr. Hamilton) outline some of the alternative sources of energy we should be investigating, and it almost sounded like Buck Rogers in a Science fiction novel. Those other sources of energy have been investigated and developed to a considerable degree.
I am sure that without much effort most of the people in this country could find for themselves an alternative source of energy which would allow them to conserve probably 50 per cent of the energy they are now consuming. If people will do this, then it behooves corporations like Ontario Hydro to get off the boob tube, to start conserving, and to provide methods of conservation rather than advertising the use of more energy for this reason or that.
All energy suppliers are advertising. Every day oil companies are advertising their wares, competing with other companies which supply exactly the same grade of oil or gasoline. They are still being allowed to expand very rapidly the number of outlets each company has, rather than making a decision that one community will be served by one company and another community served by another company. There is no need for duplication. In effect, much of the capital costs they have been putting into real estate in the last ten years could be brought to an end, with resultant savings.

November 24, 1975
Energy Conservation
In reading the report, Madam Speaker, you no longer hear of the tertiary methods of reclaiming oil from our oil wells; you only read of the vast amount of money that would be necessary if we are to expand our industry into the undeveloped areas. Very little is said about the things that can be done to produce more oil from the fields we already have.
A great deal has been said about the tar sands and how valuable they may be in the future. We all know there is a large reserve there, and we also know it will take large amounts of money to develop the projects that are outlined in the projections that have been made to the end of the century. If it is not necessary to undertake these huge expenditures at the present time then we should not do so. I think it behooves the government to find out exactly what our reserves are and what our needs will be, rather than letting the industry make the decisions about the resources we have and what will be done with them.
It has been said that we have assisted in the development of smaller cars and have developed out tax structure from that end. I do not think it is that there is a greater saving on a small car than on a large car. In my province there is a tax concession if the car is American made, but there is no good small American car; they are inferior and the automobile companies made them that way-the Maverick was no good, the Pinto also, and the Firenza was no good. Every one of these cars was thrown together.


Daniel Joseph MacDonald: You are losing votes.


William Arnold Peters: I do not really care. If that is the way I have to get votes it really does not interest me.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


William Arnold Peters: I have always considered the voters who vote for me to be reasonable people. If they cannot tell a bad car from a good one then they will continue to buy bad cars and vote some other way-they may vote for my opposition.
It is a fact, and most hon. members will agree, that the three or four small cars developed in this country have been poor cars. They have been thrown together. Ford has a small car on the market, the Capri, but it is an imported car. I doubt if you could buy a Capri in Ontario and get the tax rebate. It is not an American car but an imported one. I do not think you will get the rebate on the Colt which comes from Japan, nor on the Mazda which the Ford company is importing as the Courier of its truck line. Many of these cars coming from Europe and Japan are well engineered and designed, and have high performance. They sell at a high price in this country, and in many ways are not competitive with the big American car. The reason, of course, is the currency of those countries in relation to ours.
I strongly urge the government not to consider buying the Bobcat just because it is an American car. It should buy it simply because it is a good car, not because it is an American car that has four cylinders. The government has not given any assistance to the development of a small car in this country, yet a car with four cylinders will obviously use less gasoline than one with eight cylinders.

When I studied internal combustion engines in technical school I learned there is a ratio determining the amount of air to the amount of gasoline which takes the form of combustion. This can be varied by compression ratios and temperature ratios, but you must have so much gasoline for the amount of air that goes into those cylinders. If there are eight cylinders they take twice as much as four cylinders.
I think it is foolish to expect the general public to believe we are serious about conservation when we have not done much about it. The hon. member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain mentioned high, low, and peak periods. There is a very expensive project in my area which operates for a little over one hour each day in the peak period. The plant cost approximately $50 million and was built to supply power for just one hour a day. That seems a very expensive proposition.


Donald W. Munro: A national grid.


William Arnold Peters: I am all for a national grid. It seems foolish to allow the province of Quebec to look all over the world for some way of getting rid of the power that will be generated by the James Bay project when there will be a shortage of power in the Maritime provinces and Ontario. An exchange of power could readily be arranged if we had a national power grid. The hon. member who raised this point comes from a party that proposed a national grid when it was in power, but the matter has not been pursued.
Many projects could be undertaken, and I think the Canadian public would be willing to co-operate. But the government will fail in its conservation program, this country will fail in its conservation program and this country should fail in its conservation program if we do not get independent figures that will be respected by all people in Canada, both in industry and the general public. Unless we can provide those figures I think we are going to spend a lot more money on advertising, in putting out small booklets, on running an office without very much money to establish our position in conservation, when most people in Canada do not believe we have a shortage in most energy sources.
I should like to close with a point that I do not think has been mentioned today, that is, the problem of uranium. Uranium is an excellent source of energy. It will probably grow into a source that will produce perpetual power as the years go by. If plutonium can be handled in the right type of reactor it becomes a breeder and could produce tremendous amounts of power. If this is so we will have gone a long way to establishing perpetual power. But I suggest we are not at that stage, and that Canada should husband carefully its uranium industry.
We are doing with uranium what we did with oil four or five years ago when we listened to the oil companies. They told us we had unlimited supplies of oil, that we should sell it to the United States while it was useful and before it became obsolete as a fuel. We know what happened. Similarly I suggest that our uranium supplies are not unlimited and that most major sources in this country have been discovered. Therefore the government should not encourage the sale of CANDU reactors around the world, as they
November 24, 1975

may cause some difficulty. At present we do not know how much our electrical power needs will increase and be met with the use of nuclear reactors. That being so, we should conserve our nuclear resources and not sell reactors.
Let the government husband our uranium, a resource which will play an ever increasing role during the next 20 years. If we sell CANDU reactors and the material to power them, we may find that history will repeat itself. We shall be unable to meet our own needs because we shall have sold our resource foolishly, without knowing how much is left for our own use.


Mr. Ross Milne (Peel-Dufferin-Simcoe):: Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to participate in the debate on this important motion dealing with a subject which is of great importance at this time. Surely nothing is more important for the future of Canada than our being self-sufficient in energy and agricultural production. The government's recently tabled white paper on the restraint program dealt with future spending priorities and underlined energy production, agricultural production, and housing. The question of energy is given the high priority it rightly deserves. If we are to be self-sufficient in energy we must embark on a successful exploration and conservation program. Self-sufficiency will only come about if we are successful in both these areas in the years ahead.
To me conservation means the elimination of waste and increased efficiency of energy utilization. This is important because, as previous speakers suggested, a good 50 per cent of all energy we use is wasted. In other words, we effectively utilize only about 50 per cent of the energy we produce. This figure should be of fundamental concern. We shall use more energy, much of it electrical, generated by the use of oil, gas and coal, but the efficiency figure will continue to decrease as we use more and more highly refined energy. Therefore conservation measures are in the best interests of Canada and economically important.
Let me dwell for a moment on the economic aspects of energy production. First, not only will development of new types of energy be very expensive, delivery will also be a problem. For instance, it takes increasing amounts of energy merely to develop new energy resources. About 25 per cent of the Syncrude output will be absorbed by energy extraction processes. The Mackenzie Valley pipeline, if and when it is built, will use a considerable amount of energy merely for the movement of the gas throughput. Clearly, new energy resources will be less efficient than previously.
What can we do to meet the challenge? It is possible to reduce demand, perhaps between 15 per cent and 20 per cent below projections for the year 2000. If we do this we shall be able to reduce the size of the delivery system by two thirds of the size of the present delivery system. This, in turn, can have an important bearing on the investment the industry will need to make in the years ahead. If we can reduce projected demand increases each year even by 1 per cent, the savings will be substantial, in the order of $2 billion. This represents a large amount of capital investment saved.
We should consider the question of energy under two headings. First, we ought to establish the conservation ethic with the Canadian people. We must ask people to reduce their use of energy even though this may have some
Energy Conservation
impact on their standard of living. We must convince them to reduce waste, perhaps to reduce the discretionary use of energy. Second, we must emphasize the more efficient utilization of energy. This will entail superior designs for buildings, cars, appliances, and better industrial processes. Conservation of this kind will he dependant on better engineering and technology, as designers will design products which will use energy more efficiently without interfering with the life style of people. Perhaps in this area the biggest savings are possible.
I think we ought to be concerned about use of nonrenewable resources. Perhaps in the final analysis we need not be overly concerned about amounts of energy still available, as a great many energy resources are yet to be developed and delivered. But this is not the case with respect to many other non-renewable resources. About half the world's population lives in undeveloped countries containing many non-renewable resources which contribute greatly to our present high standard of living. We have seen a significant transfer of those non-renewable resources from the underdeveloped countries to that one fifth of the world's population living in industrialized countries.
We must consider two questions concerning use of energy. If we continue to use vast amounts at present rates, if we consume so much more per capita than others do in the world, for how long can we be assured of security of supply? The population of the world will increase. It is predicted that the populations of underdeveloped countries will increase significantly. These people entertain expectations of higher standards of living. To accomplish their ends they will need to use much more energy, and many more renewable resources than ever before. So as time goes on the problem, and its urgency of solution, will be compounded.
May I mention some specific areas of concern? I suppose most people are concerned about large increases in natural gas use, and I am speaking of natural gas as a highly refined form of energy. Many realize that natural gas for long been underpriced relative to the price of other forms of energy. Natural gas has been environmentally acceptable; indeed, a good percentage of industries have switched to natural gas, after using coal, bunker C oil or some other residual oil, in answer to environmental pressures put on them. Consequently there have been a pronounced shift in the last few years in the energy business. The question is, should we allow highly refined forms of energy like natural gas to be used in the generating of electricity, or under heavy boilers?
It seems to me that if we are concerned about the future of our economy and energy supplies, and want to maintain our competitive advantage in the world, we should consider the use of natural gas in the chemical industry, paint industry, or in connection with plastics. I think we ought to give this matter serious consideration. I have often wondered what really is the best approach. Should we be working toward an equalized pricing structure with other forms of energy, or some type of program that designates the use of natural gas, reserving it for certain types of industry where a lot of jobs are associated?

November 24, 1975
Energy Conservation
I wish to make a few comments about our industrial sector. The industrial sector in Canada uses well over one third of the energy produced and consumed in Canada. If I may say so, they use it about as inefficiently as any sector of our economy. We in this House often have debates on energy, building standards, the insulation of residential homes, and so on. In terms of the total construction across Canada, very few large industrial buildings contain any significant amount of insulation other than a minimal amount in the ceilings. Very few have a centralized exhaust system.
In most industrial buildings where there is an industrial process, involving a considerable amount of heat there is an extremely high exhaust rate. None of this heat is being reclaimed. Most plants that use a good deal of water or other liquids for cooling, dump that liquid into the drain without any attempt to recover energy.
In terms of the tremendous amount of energy going into our industrial sector, the possibility of reclaiming a good deal of this is very high. We might ask why this has never been approached before. The point made by a number of speakers today is that the economics have not been there before. The traditional practice is to build the cheapest building possible and to have a large number of exhaust locations through the ceiling or around the perimeter. The economics have perhaps not been there until now to collect the exhaust, and have a central exhaust where you can reclaim heat.
There has been another very important reason. I feel strongly that we should be taking more action in this area. Most people involved in the industrial sector will tell you that the availability and real reliability of heat claiming equipment is not high. Many are convinced it would make good enonomic sense to install heat reclaiming equipment for air or water. Those types of equipment are available in theory and some are available commercially.
Most people in the industrial sector are not convinced that if they install this equipment that it will operate trouble free or that it will approach the efficiency level it is designed to do.
We need to do a good deal of work and give a good deal of assistance to the industrial sector in the same way that we have in rural extension in the agricultural industry to ensure them that heat reclaiming equipment can be made to work. If necessary we should be involved in the development of it.
Many people have good ideas about energy conservation related to industry. However, they are reluctant to take on the whole project development cost themselves, most of all to install this equipment and not really know about the reliability. Perhaps this is a larger risk than they want to undertake by themselves.
Most of the industrial processes in this country are selected for labour input efficiency, the number of man hours per ton or per unit. Until recently, if at all, no consideration has been given to the amount of energy per ton or per unit of output. If you look at industrial processes they can vary 200 or 300 per cent, even from competitor to competitor.

We are coming to the point where we should be giving industry some leadership and encouragement to do a good energy audit in their plants to determine in each of these industries and each of the processes the amount of energy actually being used. We should be publishing standards so that industrial people can compare their performance of a plant or a certain process to see whether it is efficient or inefficient.
The time has come to convince them that they should spend a good deal of money in terms of capital to upgrade their industrial processes to make them more energy efficient. It has been possible to do that for 20 years or more in order to make them more labour efficient. It is only at this point in time that we have had the opportunity to talk to them about being more energy efficient.
To demonstrate the savings that are possible, one need only look at the commercial sector. When I say the commercial sector I think of the larger office complexes and hotels, the towers which you find in the central part of most cities. Most of those buildings operate at between 25 and 30 per cent efficiency. It does not take a good deal of design or ability in the engineering field to raise that to 50 to 75 per cent. The biggest problem has been that many of the structures are built with the idea that they will be sold or rented and whoever eventually rents or buys the structures will pay the energy costs. Therefore the person designing and erecting the building has no interest in the energy efficiency of it. I suggest that is probably going to change. People selling or renting buildings will have to answer with regard to energy efficiency. This is a very significant cost for purchasers or renters to undertake.
I will give an example. In five minutes you could probably walk from here to buildings that are using 200,000 BTU per square foot per year. Using a simple ordinary heat reclaim, that figure could be reduced almost 50 per cent to 120,000 BTU per square foot per year. Some of the more advanced designs of office buildings around the centres of our cities use only about 60,000. A very realistic figure to reach is 75,000. That is about one third of the standard. This is only using heat reclaim, storage of chilled water, and engineering principles that are very well known. In fact in most buildings there is an improved comfort level and the productivity level of people in them is actually higher with these types of systems.
To date the problem has been to convince people to spend a good deal more money on their initial cost to receive this kind of energy saving over the life of the building. What we need is a very aggressive program to sell people on the concept that they have to spend money to save money in the capitalization of a building.
If you review the life of some of these buildings it is amazing to find that the initial capital cost of some of these towers only represents about one third of the cost of owning it over the life of the building.
Close to 50 per cent of the total cost of owning a building over its life is to purchase the energy, maintenance and operation within it. We are talking about almost half the cost. Most of the time when we are doing engineering or design work we are trying to meet a very low first cost, when in fact we are incurring a much larger cost over the life of the building. There are many things that can be done.
November 24, 1975

I am encouraged by the example of the federal government in some government buildings. This is no more than giving leadership in the operation of mechanical systems in terms of the ventilation, lighting schedules, and hot water heating. It has taken 12 to 15 per cent of the energy requirements per square foot per year out of those buildings. I am not at all convinced that those operational programs have gone nearly as far as they could or should. However, it does demonstrate what can be done.
I am greatly encouraged to see in the over all conservation program of the government that it intends to word closely with both the industrial and commercial sector in giving leadership in the engineering and design aspect of it, setting out good computer programs to be used by the consulting engineers and architects. It would thus be possible to devise for each and every building the best type of system in terms of first cost, owning cost, and the amount of energy it would use. Some of the newer office buildings use not much more than half the number of lights which were installed in similar buildings only five years ago, yet the lighting level may be 20 per cent higher. This illustrates what could be done.
Greater consideration might be given through our tax system to those installing energy conservation systems. Over the years a number of concessions have been made to environmental cost and it seems we should be equally concerned about the promotion of energy-saving measures. I would like to see a fast write-off for people who instal equipment specifically designed to conserve energy. This would apply mainly to the commercial sector and to current activity, though in time the concession could be extended to cover the refurbishing of older buildings constructed at a time when we were not greatly concerned about saving energy. These are the buildings we ought to be doing something about now.
I also feel the government should play an important role in setting out design levels which manufacturers of domestic appliances such as air conditioners and similar appliances would have to meet. If one looks through the results of U.S. research in this field one finds that there is maybe as much as 100 per cent variation in the amount of energy used in the course of the performance of two outwardly similar machines. At present we require in Canada that all electrical products be approved by the Canadian Standards Association. Most Canadian manufacturers submit their designs to the association at this point of time, and though there might be some objection-


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: Order. I regret to interrupt the hon. member but the time allotted to him has expired.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Carry on.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


William Ross Milne: I appreciate the opportunity to continue, Madam Speaker. I shall take only another minute or two. I think there is a good case to be made for setting out
Energy Conservation
specific design levels in connection with many of the appliances we use, and for requiring manufacturers to meet those standards covering the amount of energy their products use to perform any given task.
A lot has been said about mass transit, speed limits, and smaller, more efficient cars. I think we are very fortunate in Canada to have kept our railroads up over the years. I say this having regard to some of the problems faced by our neighbours to the south in terms of moving large quantities of materials. I believe it requires something like 670 btu's to move a ton on the railroad, about 2,800 on a truck, and about 42,000 on an airplane. So it seems to me a basic strategy would be to divert as much freight as possible from trucks to the railways.
It amazes me why more of the trucks I see on highway 401 do not move by piggy back on the railway. At times it is almost like watching a train of big tractor trailers moving along that highway. Then again, in the riding from which I come one sees perhaps 500 to 600 gravel trucks a day moving from the escarpment to the city. Since we are interested in preserving energy it would seem to me there is a good case for diverting some of this traffic to the railroads. I am encouraged to think that the electrification of the railroads is being seriously considered, a move which promises certain rewards from the angle of efficiency.
Another thing we should be working toward is better co-ordination between the energy conservation program of the federal government, the various provincial governments, some of the public utilities, and the engineers of the bigger companies. I believe we all share the same concern. We might be better off if there were a highly co-ordinated program; divide the responsibility and let each sector take a serious approach to it.


Donald W. Munro: Mr. Speaker, I should like the hon. member for Peel-Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Milne) to realize that there are not many members to whom we would agree to an extension of time. But he was being so constructive in his approach that, following the suggestions made from this side of the House and urged for so long, we felt it was time a speaker on the other side had a chance to put something constructive on the record.
The policies he was suggesting are in the main exhortative. I think something more persuasive is required, something in the nature of a fiscal inducement.
I rise in shame and extreme concern to enter the debate this evening because of the knowledge that Canada has been castigated by the international community in an international report for failing-and here I quote from our motion, which in turn quotes from the report-to give practical form to its pretentions in the field of energy conservation. Or, in the words of the report as appearing, "to have accepted the goal of conservation without recognizing the need to implement the goal with specific actions".
I am distressed to feel we need this evening to underline this shortcoming, yet it must be drawn to the attention of the Canadian people that this shortcoming does exist. I draw some comfort from the fact that it is the Canadian cabinet which is criticized in this fashion as appearing to

November 24, 1975
Energy Conservation
have accepted a goal without following through. But the blame spreads, Canada is the loser, and for this reason I find it extraordinary that the speakers on the other side, the last speaker excepted, should try to apologize their way out of the position the government has taken.
The hon. member for Timiskaming (Mr. Peters) told us he was not sure whether there was an energy shortage now or not. That is not the point, Madam Speaker. We need conservation measures now and we are not getting them. In their absence, succeeding generations will vilify us. We are the guardians of our resources and we should hold them in trust for those who follow. We ought not to go down in history, as go down we will unless we change our ways, as profligate wasters of our nation's patrimony. It is a horrible thing to think that this generation will be looked upon in that way by generations to come.
As I say, we need a policy of energy conservation, and we need to consider alternate sources of energy. There is a wide choice, and many have been mentioned tonight. It may be worth while to list some of the non-renewable on the one hand and the renewables on the other. I do not think the list need be exhaustive, but there are at least ten that are worth mentioning.
On the non-renewable side there are, of course, hydrocarbons, liquid petroleum, gas, and coal. There is, of course, nuclear fuel, which has been mentioned on a number of occasions. On the renewable side those which are more or less indefinitely renewable-eternally is a pretty strong word-are thermal, and there is much thermal energy being wasted in Canada. There is tidal power. The hon. member for Cumberland-Colchester North (Mr. Coates) mentioned that this afternoon. So we have tidal power, and I suggest possibly there is surf power which we have not yet exploited. On the west coast of Canada there are pounding surfs that beat up on our beaches. This is power that should be capable of being harnessed. There is also the generation of electricity from hydro, wind, energy from wood and energy from bio-mass of which we have heard, and solar energy.
Solar energy is rather interesting. We seem to be so close and yet so far from being able to capture and use solar energy. I was talking to someone in the energy field the other day and he produced an absolutely staggering thought for me. I think the figure he used was two days, but even if it were two weeks, he suggested the sun poured down on the earth in that time as much energy as we poor humans can produce in a whole year. Some of this energy is being used. It is being used by our plants and we consume it later in the form of food, but the vast portion of it is wasted. It even comes through the thickest clouds and reaches us in ways that we know not how to capture. We must turn to the development of ways of doing so.
There are probably other forms of energy that we should be taking advantage of, each of which has its own advantages to offer, and each of which has its own problems to be overcome. Each of these sources must be mastered if we are to survive and preserve for the generations to come those energy sources now available to us.
Let me speak briefly about research and development, that neglected child of this government. I understand that

just a little more than $1 million per year is being devoted to research and development in this field by the government.
I am having a great deal of difficulty, Madam Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: Order, please. There are a number of private debates going on which perhaps could be held at the sides behind the curtains, so that the Speaker could hear the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich (Mr. Munro).


Donald W. Munro: I would even enjoy the opportunity of hearing myself, but I was not even able to do that.
I had reached the point of research and development in my remarks. There is a great need for research funds to assist exploration in these areas of potential use to mankind in order to determine which ones have the most to offer Canada in our present dilemma.
Whatever my friend, the hon. member for Timiskaming may say, we are drawing down our reserves of energy by the extent to which we use them, and we will eventually run out. Those are the non-renewable resources. Coal also has much to offer. I think if we could convert some of the jaw energy that is being used tonight into some form of usable energy we might be able to illuminate the Lester Pearson Hall without having a bill to pay at the end of the month. Of course other base products are also available.
There is one particular area of research and development I should like to draw to your attention this evening. In an earlier debate I mentioned the Wally Wagon, the product of a group of students of the University of British Columbia about two or three years ago. It was in December, 1973. I mentioned it as an example of inspired engineering aimed at solving a problem that was before us. It is also an example of the failure of the government to do anything to help. Governments are elected to show leadership. This government is showing none in this area. It is hopelessly deficient, even more deficient than the funds it extends research and development.
The Wally Wagon was powered by liquified gas under pressure. This is very easily refueled. It was a small compact car which served a commuter purpose. It handled the difficulties of urban parking and it dealt with the aspects of pollution. It was only eight feet long, or about 100 inches, compared to the 200 or 250 inches of the brutes we see running around now, occupying space for parking, polluting our air, and guzzling our gas.
This vehicle, named after Walter Gage, President of the University of British Columbia, was entered in a competition in Detroit in 1972 or 1973 and it lead in all categories including efficiency, design, convenience, economy, and it almost was pollution-free. It won against 64 other entries.
This is a tribute to the youth of this country who, on their own initiative, worked out a design to meet the requirements of the present day. I have seen this car and it is a little gem. Do you know where it is today? It is sitting under wraps in an engineering building at the University of British Columbia. It could very easily have gone into production, but there were no funds to carry it forward. It had a couple of wrinkles they wanted to get out, but there were no funds for that. It was just put aside, and there it
November 24, 1975

sits. I would like to offer to buy it. I would be very proud to bring it here and drive it back and forth in Ottawa to show what can be done. I would like to have one at home as well in Victoria, and I would be proud also to show what our young engineers can do. There was just the one model, and there it is under wraps.
It is interesting to note that a second experiment is being undertaken by that same faculty at the same university. This time the car is not to be powered by liquified gas but by electricity. They are working on a new type of power transmission from storage batteries, which produce direct current, powering the engine by alternating current. The batteries are recharged each night so that it will operate the following day without problem. It can travel at about 50 miles an hour.
This vehicle is not in somebody's mind, it is actually rolling along the boulevards at the University of British Columbia. Where did they get the funds for it? They did not get them from the government.
They put forward a proposal under the Habitat Program to the Minister of State for Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson). They said they would like $500,000 to get the thing going. You would never believe the answer they got. They were told this was piddling stuff-half a million; why did they not ask for something worth while? They were told the department did not consider a request for funds under a million. It was a modest demand-well, it was not modest, actually. Five hundred thousand dollars is not modest in my language. They felt they should keep it within reasonable limits.
Their request was rejected on the grounds that they had not asked for enough. I find this absolutely incredible. However, by the time they got around to asking for a million there were no funds left. Somebody else had sopped them up. All the while of course we are handing out something like $90 million, on such things as LIP grants, which could better be put into long-range thinking and research and development.
At the moment we are talking about research. Development comes later. But no; we have a large program for things of very short duration intended presumably to sop up some of the unemployment. Here, however, is a project which, if carried through, could enter the world field today at a time of need for energy conservation. It is a project involving a car that would be economically operable and cheap to produce. There is nothing to help these people get it going. The government simply is not serious.
Energy Conservation
The report that the international group came out with unfortunately is right. The government is not serious in its profession of support for research. It is not serious even in its profession of belief in conservation. I wish the words of the hon. member for Peel-Dufferin-Simcoe could be heard by his group. I hope he stands up in the caucus and says the same thing, because the government is not serious. I even except that exciting program on Boxing Day for which we are awaiting with baited breath. What is it? Is it Good King Wenceslaus coming out? I bet it is. The parliamentary secretary promised us this great feast on Boxing Day. I do not know whether I will bother to tune in to it because I believe what we need rather than a television program is a positive program in respect of research.
Development, of course, is the second phase. Why does the government not open up the fiscal road that would encourage development, leading to production, of one or other of the vehicles I mentioned, or some other energy conservation projects such as a new way to capture some of the energies we cannot yet manage? We have been talking about the wind. There is also solar energy. I know there is quite enough wind here and I would like to eliminate a lot of it that comes from the other side. But the government's tax policies are designed to discourage rather than encourage development.
This afternoon I heard that these people at the University of British Columbia are turning out to be a very disillusioned group. They have put their whole hearts into the production of these two vehicles of completely different concept, one of liquefied natural gas and the other of stored electricity. They are receiving no help and they wonder what the government is doing. I could tell them what it is doing-nothing.
The Canadian Patents Development Limited operation is a colossal failure. It was put together in order to help those who work at government laboratories so that if they should come up with some patentable operation they would be assisted in getting it patented, on the market and working. This is no good. It is not working.
What we need in this country is something more like what the British have introduced in the form of a national research development corporation, a corps of engineers to which people who have ideas could go, such as our boys from UBC, or someone who has some ideas in respect of solar energy or ways to harness the wind. We need this not only so that the idea or device will not be stolen but also so that the people concerned may obtain positive assistance in respect of further research in this area and, if the research pans out, further developmental assistance or development inducements in the way of capital investment in their particular enterprise.
We are getting none of this from the present government. I find it deplorable and shameful that we should have to underline the fact that we are remiss in this very important area, and are in our present dilemma where our normal recognized energy costs have soared beyond the reach of many people living on this planet. Yet we do nothing. We say, "We are all right, Joe". But what about the other man?

November 24, 1975
Energy Conservation


Hon. Alastair Gillespie (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Madam Speaker, I very much welcome the opportunity to participate in the debate this evening. I have listened very carefully to several wide ranging and informative speeches. Perhaps there are some other adjectives I will add in the course of my remarks this evening. In particular I enjoyed the contribution of the hon. member for Peel-Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Milne). I think the hon. member for Peel-Dufferin-Simcoe has made a specialty of the energy field and I know all members benefited from his contribution.
I also enjoyed very much the remarks of the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich (Mr. Munro). I think he touched on a number of very interesting points. I hope all members here had an opportunity to hear the hon. member for Algoma East (Mr. Foster), my parliamentary secretary, earlier this afternoon. If anyone was unfortunate enough to have missed his speech I very much hope he will read it tomorrow because I am sure all members would benefit from it.
One of the main points which I believe has come out in this debate is the importance all members attach to energy conservation. Let me say right from the outset that I share their views, their feelings, on the importance of energy conservation. The government shares their views and is convinced that energy conservation must play a very much larger part in our working lives. Indeed the reason my parliamentary secretary, the hon. member for Algoma East, led off the debate on the government side was that I was today in his constituency. I was talking to the people in the community of Elliot Lake, a community very much concerned with the supply side of our energy resources, although very much concerned also on the conservation side.
I do not think I can put it any better than by saying that we do have a growing gap, a supply-demand gap, which will get worse or widen before it starts to close. There are two essential ways to approach this. One is to increase our energy on the supply side. That is one reason why I was in Elliot Lake today. The other, of course, is to dampen down the increase on the demand side, which is the energy conservation argument.
In the course of my remarks today I note that we are wasting our scarce resources. More particularly we will be faced with soaring capital costs to provide the energy, some of it essential, but some of it we could save thereby saving on the capital cost.
The estimates I have seen indicate that in the next ten years we will require an expenditure of $110 billion to cover such capital investments as new pipelines, tar sands extraction plants, electrical generating stations, power lines, uranium and coal mine developments, and gas and oil wells. That amount of $110 billion in the next ten years is an incredibly large amount, representing roughly about $20,000 for each Canadian family over the next ten years. I think all members must ask themselves where will that money come from at a time when we have greater competition for the scarce capital resources of this country than ever before.

What sort of sacrifices will we have to make for other essential services if we are forced to invest $110 billion for energy? Certainly something will have to go. Other essential services will not get their share, and I am talking about essential services such as public transportation, new factories, houses, or hospitals, and you could add many more to that list. When one considers the potential magnitude of such capital costs and future inflationary pressures-I want to emphasize inflationary pressures because I think there is a close tie between conservation measures and anti-inflationary measures-the value of energy conservation becomes clear.
If, for example, by 1985 we could cut back the annual growth in total energy consumption by 20 per cent below growth rates of the 1960's-thinking of growth rates of the 1960's as something over 5 per cent-which means down to around 4 per cent for the next ten years and then 3 per cent in the balance of the century, the next 15 years up to the year 2,000-still an increase each year-if we could cut it back we could save the equivalent of the output of 15 Syncrude plants costing approximately $2 billion each.
Those are the sort of magnitudes which we in the government and all of us as members of parliament are grappling with at present. It is not just something the government by itself can do something about; it is something which members on all sides of the House will have to do something about. We must get out and sell the importance of energy conservation to the Canadian people.


Gerald William Baldwin: Tell the truth. Come clean with us.


Alastair William Gillespie: Before we get too far in this debate it might be helpful if I were to put some numbers on the record. Some members of the opposition have suggested that in the IEA report of the OECD it was stated that Canada had had an increase in energy consumption last year when everybody else had a decrease. I would suggest to you that that is a rather selective choice of statistics, because I could refer hon. members to page 2 of the report in 1973-1974 which shows that the total primary energy in Canada increased by 5.5 per cent. The report points out that in 1974-75 the total primary energy declined 1.9 per cent. So I think it is totally false for any member of the opposition to indicate that we have not had some decline in our energy consumption in the past year.


Gerald William Baldwin: I heard him make that report in Strasbourg-he was convincing.


Alastair William Gillespie: It may be that the opposition members have been selective and chosen just the gasoline sector. If they have, they are right. It is quite right that the consumption of motor gasoline in Canada has increased in the last year, 1975 over 1974, by 4.6 per cent. But if you want to see this in balance we should add that our home heating oil consumption during the same period declined by 6.9 per cent.


Mr. Lambert (Edmonton West):: Last winter was mild.


Alastair William Gillespie: And electricity declined by 15.3 per cent.
I am not saying that the Canadian people can take much credit for this. What I am saying is that we have made a start in the direction of energy conservation. The total oil account, as I have indicated, is in the order of decline year over year of about 1.9 per cent.
November 24, 1975

A number of criticisms have been levelled in the debate today. There have been suggestions that the government has no program, that it has done nothing.


An hon. Member:: Right.


Alastair William Gillespie: Hon. members will recognize that these are wild exaggerations.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Alastair William Gillespie: They are a sort of rhetorical flourish for the House of Commons that are absolutely without substance.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


An hon. Member:: That is a shameful exhibition.


Donald W. Munro: Exhortations, that is all.


Alastair William Gillespie: Several hon. members have suggested that the International Energy Authority has criticized Canada for an ineffective advertising campaign or because it had created an ineffective board in the energy conservation office.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Alastair William Gillespie: I hear the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) opposite me say "right".


Gerald William Baldwin: I never said a word.


Alastair William Gillespie: It is on the record.


Gerald William Baldwin: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I did not say "right". If I had said anything at all, it would have been "wrong".


Alastair William Gillespie: Let me tell you what the report in fact states.


James McPhail Gillies: On page 10.


Alastair William Gillespie: On page 9. This may come as a surprise to the hon. member for Don Valley (Mr. Gillies) but the report states:
The Energy Conservation Office is clearly a force to be reckoned with. It conducts a public information program of great imagination and drive. Some of its productions could be studied with benefit by other IEA countries. It already has a number of considerable achievements to its credit. For example, it has been influential in securing a requirement for energy accounting to be included in any project involving federal money.
It does not seem to me that hon. members opposite have taken the time to read what the International Energy Authority had to say about the Canadian program.
There have been other suggestions that we were criticized-


James McPhail Gillies: I rise on a point of order. I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if the minister would read the last paragraph, which is a summary of the whole report, on page 10, to put this in proper perspective?


Some hon. Members:: Order!
Energy Conservation


Alastair William Gillespie: Mr. Speaker, I would be very pleased to have a question from the hon. member at the end of my remarks, if he cares to put one to me.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An hon. Member:: Read page 10, Alastair.


Alastair William Gillespie: Let me just remind hon. members that if they had taken the time and trouble to look at our supplementary estimates-


Gerald William Baldwin: We sure looked at them.


Alastair William Gillespie: I am delighted to hear you have, because hon. members will find in those supplementary estimates an item of $2,500,000 plus, for additional advertising to carry the message which has been applauded by the International Energy Authority.


Gerald William Baldwin: What Liberal got that contract?


Alastair William Gillespie: I want to introduce a balance to this debate. I want to read a paragraph from the report of the International Energy Authority which is critical of the Canadian government.
While there is evidence that certain major sectors of the Canadian economy, which are highly energy intensive, have taken steps to reduce unit energy costs (aluminum is an impressive example), it is doubtful whether Canada's pricing policy is in Canada's best interest in the context of a meaningful conservation program. Even allowing for the arguments associated with comparative advantage, the gap between Canadian energy prices and world prices would appear too big.
That is a very serious observation about which all Canadians and all members of parliament ought to think very hard about. It seems to me that the opposition, and the Conservatives in particular, should think pretty hard about that suggestion. I wonder whether the hon. member for Don Valley, for example, would agree with the suggestion in the report that we should have narrowed the price gap last year. If I recall correctly, it seems to me that the Conservatives opposite were arguing very strenuously that we had raised the price too high, or that we should not have raised it at all. If I remember the debates earlier this year, it seems to me that the NDP took a rather similar view, that we should not have raised the price as high as we did, and that we should not have narrowed the margin as much as we did. Clearly they cannot have it both ways.
I suggest that the government has introduced a judicious balance between the inflationary forces and pressures associated with a higher increase on the one hand, and the need to get the energy conservation message across on the other. Several hon. members suggested that government buildings in Ottawa are beacons at night, and they were right if they were talking about several weeks ago.


An hon. Member:: What about External Affairs?


Alastair William Gillespie: When I became minister I myself was concerned about some of these buildings. The Lester B. Pearson building has been mentioned as an example. If the hon. member had taken the trouble to drive past the External Affairs buildings, as I did the other night around eleven o'clock, I think he would find that probably less

November 24, 1975
Energy Conservation
than a third of the lights were on at that time, and being a reasonable and fair man he would probably admit that there were likely to be a few people working at that time. I understand that he himself works very late at night. Being a reasonable man I am sure he would also realize that there would be cleaning staff involved, so that I think he will see that there has been a good deal of progress.
Not so very long ago the lights at the Taxation Data Centre seemed to be on all night, but I made a personal check the other night and found that better than half of those lights had been turned off. The point I am trying to make is that there has been an important response with regard to federal government buildings. It will still take a little longer because much of the wiring and switching has to be changed, but that is coming.


Mr. Baker (Grenville-Carleton):: Who got the contract?


Alastair William Gillespie: There were suggestions that we introduced a program last February and have done nothing since. Let me repeat what the hon. member for Algoma said. There are a number of important measures being taken. I am not saying they are all we want to go with, because clearly we will be asking hon. members to take further action, but I think these sorts of measures indicate the kind of lead the federal government is giving on the question of energy conservation.
The federal sales tax on insulating materials was completely removed in the last budget. An excise tax related to weight has been introduced on the largest automobiles, and a 10 per cent tax levied on private aircraft and marine motors of more than 20 horsepower. Insulation requirements have been increased in the building code, followed by Central Housing and Mortgage Corporation, and a ten cents per gallon tax increase, so bitterly attacked by the opposition, was levied on motor gasoline for non business use.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Shame!


M. Gillespie:: I remind hon. members opposite that probably the single most effective deterrent to increasing energy consumption is a higher price. Every other country has found that to be true. The opposition choose not to look at these important truths; they choose to look only at the peripheral.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Alastair William Gillespie: A good deal has been said about speed limits. Last year, and earlier this year my predecessor stated that it would be a commitment of the government to reduce the maximum speed for federal vehicles to 55 miles an hour, and we invited all the provinces of Canada to follow this lead. I think it is probably the single most important move which can be taken at the present time to drive home to Canadian people the importance of energy conservation.
I went down to Washington less than three weeks ago to talk to federal energy administration officials and to ask them what had been their experience. I had heard stories, and many hon. members have heard stories, that there is a federal speed limit imposed in the United States but that it

is not being observed. Quite the contrary is true; time and again I have run into Canadians who have been down to the United States who have told me that it is being observed, and that while there are surely some pockets where it is not being observed with the same even handedness as perhaps in upper New York state, there are probably exceptions to any policy of this kind.
Generally speaking there is a broad commitment in the Unites States to the 55 miles an hour speed limit. I have met and talked to a number of the energy ministers of the Canadian provinces, and I was very pleased that the province of Ontario has decided to follow the leads of the federal government and the province of British Columbia in limiting the speed to 60 miles an hour on some expressways and 55 miles an hour on others. When asked my opinion about a 60 miles an hour limit, my answer to that is that it is better than a 70 miles an hour limit. I would have preferred 55, but it is certainly better than 70, and I very much hope that the other provinces in Canada will introduce measures to reduce their speed limits.
I shall be meeting with the energy ministers of the provinces on December 12, and at that time we will be discussing a number of matters related to our energy future. One of them will be the question of energy conservation, and part of that agenda item will be to try to obtain a national 55 miles an hour speed limit across the country.
Before closing I wish just to touch on one or two other items which are important in terms of energy conservation. I should like to commend the Canadian Automobile Association; hon. members may be aware that a very substantial public relations program has been launched by that association. I think it is a very responsible program- and that association has a membership of a million or more motorists in Canada-which is aimed at getting across to them the importance of energy conservation and the various ways they can conserve the energy used by their automobiles.
I have talked to public utilities-not all of them but many-and I have impressed upon them the importance we attach to energy conservation. They have assured me that they have changed completely what had been their program of pushing, selling, and promoting the use of more energy, in favour of programs designed to persuade people to use energy more effectively and efficiently to meet energy conservation goals.
There was some reference to the question of energy research and development. The hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich referred to this in his remarks. I share with him the feeling that more has to be devoted to energy conservation. I am sure he is aware, as are other hon. members, that at the present time the federal government is spending over $100 million per year on energy research and development. A large part of that is for nuclear energy, of course, but it covers a wide range of programs. At the present time my cabinet colleagues and I are considering the list of priorities. I can tell you that energy conservation will be at the top of the list as far as new programs are concerned.
November 24, 1975


Donald W. Munro: Alternative sources?


Alastair William Gillespie: Yes, there are new sources as separate from the question of energy conservation. Energy conservation stands on its own, and in terms of new programs it stands at the top of the list.
Let me conclude by saying that energy conservation is everybody's program. It is not the government's program, it is not industry's program-it is everybody's program. Every member of this House has a responsibility to promote energy conservation. Energy conservation perhaps more than any other single approach at the present time will help solve some of our long term problems on energy, and at the same time assist us in our anti-inflation fight.


Some hon. Members:: Page 10. We want page 10.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, in the early part of the day, just prior to this very important debate when the minister was in the riding of Algoma worrying his parliamentary secretary to death, a motion under Standing Order 43 was put by the hon. member for Don Valley (Mr. Gillies) which I think was a fair beginning for the day we have had in this House. This has been a very good debate and I want to congratulate the hon. member for Don Valley as I think he has done a great service to this House and Canada-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Walter David Baker: -in bringing to their attention the neglect of the government and the shameful situation that has arisen from that neglect. That motion in effect called for an investigation as a result of the new evidence of the unpleasant and even frightening fact that government officials in the National Energy Board and elsewhere had consistently and dramatically over estimated the depth of the country's energy reserves.
The motion refers to the criticism not by any party in opposition but by the International Energy Agency, an organization which could only be construed as non-partisan. It said that "there appears to be a substantial gap between principle and practice;" that the Canadian cabinet "appears to have accepted the goal of conservation without recognizing the need to implement the goal with specific actions".
A reference was made earlier to page 10, but the minister refused to put on the record the conclusion of this non-partisan report. I think it is important that this be on the record in this debate and I shall now quote from page 10. I think even the most biased supporter of the government, the most blind of the trained seals, would have to agree that this is a condemnation of the government. Here is what it says:
In short, and without under estimating the complexity of the problems, there appears to be a substantial gap between principle and practice. It would appear that the central policy adopted by the cabinet has not yet proved strong enough to get rapid decisions. That is, the cabinet appears to have accepted the goal of conservation without recognizing the need to implement the goal with specific actions. For example, there is an impressive list of short term measures-
I want to digress for a moment. We just heard a view of that from the minister a few moments ago. To continue:
-which do not involve large unit investment, only a few of which have been approved. There is a more impressive list of impending short term measures. There is, furthermore, little evidence as yet of any major impact of energy conservation in terms of long term measures.
Energy Conservation
That is the end of page 10 which the minister chose to ignore when he addressed the House a few moments ago.


Some hon. Members:: Shame!


Walter David Baker: I know he has been affected by the rarified and delightful air of northern Ontario but I am sure that omission could not be excused even on those grounds. The fact is that the best the minister could do was to say that the leadership with respect to conservation in Canada had to be provided by the Canadian Automobile Association and not by the government. That was the essence of what he said.


Alastair William Gillespie: Oh, come on!


Walter David Baker: He made a fine speech. He trotted out all the statistics. He trotted out the great problem we have ahead of us. We all know we have a problem, Mr. Speaker. What we are asking is for that group that has the mandate to lead-a mandate that is perhaps regretted now by some of the Canadian people-should give more than lip service to the programs that are necessary, given the truth of the minister's statistics with respect to the problem.
That is what we wanted from the minister-why we waited with bated breath for his return from northern Ontario in the Minister of Agriculture's (Mr. Whelan) jet.
What did we get? We got more of the same kind of lip service that we got from his predecessor when he brought forward that magnificent advertising program a short while ago. That advertising program of the government, the conservation effect of which is recognized around the world as perhaps the most ineffective of all of the institutions in that department-those two things are not even an excuse-an excuse for a conservation policy.
The minister said we had to look at increasing the supply as part of the policy, and we had to demand the enthusiasm of Canadians. He is quite right, but the question that comes to mind is, what effective action is the minister going to take? Has there been any announcement of new initiatives with respect to transportation-to move people to the use of public transportation? Not one. Has there been any announcement with respect to diverting traffic from the highways to the railroads? Not one. Has there been any announcement with respect to tax incentives to have a smaller automobile produced in this country as part of the North American scene? No. Smaller automobiles have been produced but not in sufficient numbers to have any effect. The minister had better recognize that. This has been happening in spite of the minister's program and not because of it.
The best he could come up with was the bandages and band-aids that have characterized the government's policy with respect to conservation and a host of other things. He mentioned the crowning glory of the government's conservation program, the ten cents a gallon excise tax on gasoline. What will that tax do? I will tell you-absolutely nothing. It will not stop the use of cars, as many must use them because our present public transport systems are inadequate to meet the need. Therefore the tax will merely make motoring more expensive for motorists who must use their cars. If I am wrong I am sure the minister will stand up and trot out statistics to prove me wrong; but he is not doing that.
What are the government's long term views? I suggest that the government's record in the field of research and

November 24, 1975
Energy Conservation
development, provision of new energy forms and services-in all those matters we discussed today-is dismal. Yes, it's record is dismal.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I'll bet lots of lights are still burning.


Walter David Baker: That is why the hon.
member for Don Valley proposed the motion before the House, and why we expected the minister on his return from northern Ontario to repeat in this House part of the speech he had made up there. We expected more from this minister; we expected a commitment, not lip service; action not words. We expected more than the sort of Boxing Day announcement he was considering. We expected the federal government to show leadership with respect to energy conversation-


Alastair William Gillespie: Conservation! That is all this is- conversation.


Walter David Baker: I beg your pardon; I meant conservation. I suspect what is going through my mind is going through the mind of any member who listened to the contributions from the government side. With the exception of the hon. member for Peel-Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Milne), who gave an excellent speech on the long-term aspects of the problem, hon. members on the government side made a dismal contribution on conservation. The minister's performance was no better. Frankly I expected more.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I didn't.


Walter David Baker: I did not expect
window dressing. I expected policy pronouncements. I shall go home tonight dejected and downhearted because I did not hear what I ought to have heard.


A. Daniel McKenzie: Mr. Speaker, before speaking on this important motion let me say that one thing puzzles me about the proposed 55 miles an hour speed limit. I can see the sense of restricting four cylinder cars to 55 miles an hour, but I wish the minister or some other automotive expert would explain to me how a 455 horsepower V-8 engine is to operate at peak efficiency if speed is to be restricted to 55 miles an hour. The engine will carbon up, operate less efficiently, and use more gasoline. If my assessment is wrong I hope someone will tell me. If we are to restrict the speed limit to 55 miles an hour, we should not allow engines of 450 and 500 horsepower to be built.


Alastair William Gillespie: Buy a car with a small engine and save gasoline.


A. Daniel McKenzie: Mr. Speaker, the minister completely missed my point. There are thousands of huge V-8 engined cars on the road and the owners will tell you that those cars will not operate properly at low speeds. Gasoline mileage will be poor if those cars cannot be driven at 70 miles an hour at least.
I now wish to comment on an important conference held in Winnipeg in 1973. I am referring to the International Biomass Energy Conference, attended by delegates from all around the world. They presented sound alternatives and suggestions for renewing our sources of energy. I have heard little from the government or minister with regard to biomass energy, and alternative source of energy. I find, on checking the estimates, that the government granted
only $3,400 this year for research in the field. The money is to go to the University of Manitoba.
May I now refer to a portion of the 1973 report? Scientists at the conference said that oil and gas can be made from agricultural waste. They also said that large amounts of organic solid wastes having their origin from farm animals and agricultural crops are generated annually in the United States. On a dry basis this amounts to hundreds of millions of tons each year and is becoming a more serious pollution problem each succeeding year. Really, the conference was considering the use of manure. There is lots of manure going to waste in Canada. Conference scientists held that the indiscriminate disposal of these wastes is not only seriously affecting the ecology but is overlooking a potentially significant source of energy at a time when the country needs a more abundant supply of clean energy.
The Bureau of Mines of the United States Department of the Interior is exploring three processes for converting these wastes into low-sulphur synthetic fuels, thereby contributing to the solution of two critical problems simultaneously. I am not aware of any similar program in Canada.
The first process converts organic solid wastes to oil by treatment with carbon monoxide and steam under pressure at elevated temperatures. The net yield of low-sulphur liquid fuel from this source is about 1.3 barrels per ton of dry organic waste. This oil product can be readily stored, transported, and burned cleanly to provide energy.
A second process is direct gasification of organic waste with hydrogen to produce substitute pipeline gas. About 6,000 scf of pipeline gas are produced per ton of dry organic waste. The hydrogen for the process is generated from the residual char from the hydro-gasification.
Further, with the current energy crisis reflecting the increasing scarcity of non-renewable fossil fuels, the prospect of using renewable sources of energy is becoming more attractive. There are now several examples of the use of waste materials for energy. Many pulp and paper plants heat boilers with "hog fuel"-bark, branches, and other wastes from forestry operations. The benefits are twofold; material which previously might have been pumped into streams, causing pollution, can be used to save money on energy costs.
In Hawaii plans exist to provide 80 per cent of that island's electrical generation from plants fired by sugar cane bagasse. Not only will fuel costs be reduced and the balance of payments situation improved, but the sugar cane industry can be expanded. Sugar cane wastes are a source of pollution and their disposal is strictly controlled. Their use as a fuel is an excellent means of low pollution disposal.
Scientists say that it will be necessary to harvest an renew trees in a 300 to 400 square mile area to fuel a 400 megawatt generating plant. Costs competitive with fossil fuel generation are projected.
All growing matter, including renewable plant and animal material, and plant and animal material stored in the form of non-renewable fossil fuel, is given to term biomass. How much biomass is available for energy production in the world today? The answer to this question was encouraging enough to prompt the formation of the Biomass Energy Institute in Winnipeg during 1971. The institute is a non-profit organization which co-ordinates

November 24, 1975

and promotes research and development into renewable biomass energy sources.
A major step in the co-ordination process was taken with the sponsoring of the first international biomass energy conference in 1973, when 18 speakers dealt with the three major questions facing biomass energy. They are, first, is it available in useful quantities? Second, can it be easily and efficiently converted to useful forms? Third, is its implementation and use economically feasible? I say that it is, Mr. Speaker.
Our energy requirements will also increase with food requirements; but, theoretically, if all biomass were collected in western Canada and used for energy in 1980, it could amount to almost all our Canadian natural gas requirements, or 25 per cent of our total requirement. Projecting our figures to the year 2000, we could expect easily to double the 1980 figure.
Crops will never be grown exclusively for energy production because of the projected high demand for food, but straw and other crop residues from food production will be used for energy production. These residues can now be collected easily and farmers will do so if the economics are attractive. In heavy crop years these residues cannot be incorporated into the soil and regulations may soon prohibit their burning.
I would also like to point out the problem that certain industries are experiencing because of fuel shortages, in particular natural gas. The cement industry can use alternate fuels in the manufacture of cement, namely, oil or coal. However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that Canada's domestic production of oil will be hard pressed to meet normal oil demand, let alone any shift in energy consumption from natural gas to oil. The same argument can be used with respect to coal. In other words, the over-all diminishing fuel picture cannot hope to meet the growing demand for energy in the future.
Even if assumptions were made that alternate fuels were available to allow for a shift in energy consumption from natural gas and that the price of fuels will be equivalent on a BTU-content basis, the increased capital and operating costs associated with converting the Inland-Ocean cement plants would be significant. For example, the initial capital costs to convert the four western Canadian plants to coal systems would total approximately $9 million. Operating cost would be higher with a coal system because of the handling and coal processing required.
If Inland-Ocean were required to convert to coal, the increased capital and operating costs would have to be passed on to the consumer. Since cement is a basic building material, increased cement prices would naturally result in increased construction costs. The point here, and the concern of the cement industry, is that they are not going to have enough natural gas to operate their plants.
On a number of occasions in the past I have urged the government to promote the polar pipeline through Manitoba. The government has a 45 per cent interest in the Panarctic pipeline. I certainly hope the minister and the government are making every effort to promote this pipeline. Let me point out that Manitoba faces a serious short-
Energy Conservation
age of natural gas. New homes and businesses must find alternative fuels to supply heat and power.
Two alternative routes have been suggested for this pipeline. One route would put it through eastern Keewatin and Manitoba; the other, across Hudson Strait and down through northern Quebec. May I list my reasons for thinking the Manitoba route is the cheapest and most logical alternative. Consider the matter of construction. The Manitoba route would be an all-land route, while the Quebec route would involve the spanning of a large body of water, Hudson Strait. The building of pipelines on land involves, of course, a well understood and much practised technology; building under water does not involve any well understood technology. Surely problems would arise in connection with the under water route.
Let us also consider construction aids. In this regard the Manitoba route is far ahead of the Quebec route. The main aid to construction would be the Hudson Bay railway, which would run parallel to the pipeline from Churchill to The Pas for 510 miles. That route would provide the builders of the pipeline with cheap transportation help. The very presence of a railway and highway means that supplies could be transported quickly and cheaply to construction areas.
In the first phase of construction, materials would be taken to Churchill and loaded on supply boats, which would deliver materials to points along the Hudson Bay coast where construction would be taking place. In the later phases of construction, materials would simply be unloaded along the railway and highway at a point where construction had proceeded. As a sideline, this would provide a much needed shot in the arm for the port of Churchill and the railway.
In my remaining few moments I wish to point out that we must do all that we can to promote solar energy. It was certainly encouraging to read today that the government is going to be using solar energy to heat partially some of its new buildings.
A recent United States committee report said that country could already have been saving about three million barrels of oil a day-about half its current oil imports-if it had heeded the advice of a presidential commission in 1952 to develop solar energy. Even without a strong government program, however, solar technology has been developed and there is in place a small but significant manufacturing capacity. "With appropriate and wise government action, the industry could and would take off," the report said. "The nation could and should establish immediately the goal of providing at least 30 per cent of its building heating and cooling, and water heating increases each year from now until then," the committee report urged.
To achieve such a goal the report recommended enactment of tax incentives, and perhaps low-interest or guaranteed loans, to encourage rapid application of solar heating and cooling.
On a recent trip to Israel I noted that the majority of homes use solar energy to heat their water supply. They are certainly showing leadership in that area. However, I see very little being done in this country with regard to solar energy. I hope the minister will be pursuing that.

November 24, 1975
Adjournment Debate


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. It being ten o'clock, it is my duty to inform the House that pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 58(11), the proceedings on the motion of the hon. member for Don Valley (Mr. Gillies) have expired.


MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate have passed Bill C-25, an Act to protect human health and the environment from substances that contaminate the environment, without amendment.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 40 deemed to have been moved.

Léonel Beaudoin: Mr. Speaker, according to the provisions of the Standing Order, I have raised a question to draw to the attention of the House the serious problems now facing the Canadian footwear industry. I make a new attempt today because I consider on one hand that, as a result of our difficult economic conditions, we must protect our industries and on the other hand, I must tacke more particularly that problem because in my constituency the footwear industry is important, especially the town of Richmond which has several plants. Our regional economy heavily relies on the footwear industry which even provides the subsistence of many families.
It should first be pointed out that it is not a new problem. Already these last few years our industry has been experiencing difficulties and constantly losing ground. For instance on May 3, 1971, on page 10 of La Presse one could read the following headline in big letters:


DESPAIR GRIPS FOOTWEAR INDUSTRY
[Stage Direction]
The article contained a statement by Mr. Eugene Ran-court, then president of one of the footwear unions, who said that in the ten preceding years at least 34 plants had gone out of business in Quebec alone, which lead to the layoff of hundreds of workers.
Ottawa was then urged to limit imports to a reasonable percentage. If I take the trouble of describing the conditions in 1971, it is because they are strangely similar to the ones we have now, which means that practically the problem has not really been solved and has even worsened.

That is why very recently the Footwear Manufacturers Association of Canada launched a campaign to make the government realize the pressing necessity of intervening as soon as possible with very definite measures to save that important sector of economic activity. It is with this view, Mr. Speaker, that I rise in this House tonight to ask this question.
First of all, I would like to draw the attention of the government, and in particular of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Jamieson), on the data that must be well established before anything else. As a matter of fact, the history of the footwear industry in Canada since 1956 is merely one of loss of a large market which was most promising. In 1956, Canada imported 12 per cent of the Canadian footwear production while in 1969, imports had reached 79 per cent. In 1956, Canada produced 58.8 million pairs of shoes and imported 6.9 million while in 1969, our production was about 58 million pairs while imports had increased from 6.9 to 46 million.
These figures are self-explanatory. Foreign competition is therefore great and has very serious consequences in Canada. The situation was somewhat better in 1973 for instance, when some 31 million pairs of shoes were imported, but as Mr. Jean-Paul Hanna, the president of the association, indicated at the official opening of the Canadian International Footwear Exhibition in September 1974, even though at first imports seemed to be slowing down, by the end of the year they had recuperated to reach a total net increase of 3.7 per cent.
Already in 1973 the leather industry had asked the government for increased protection against foreign shoe imports. They were afraid the number of imported shoes might reach 41,000,000 pairs, while shoes produced in Canada might fall down to 18,000,000 pairs.
In its brief to the government, the association asked for a reduction of imports, so that in 1975, in other words this year, Canadian manufacturers might supply 75 per cent of the shoe market. Now, we see today that this objective is far from being reached. On the contrary, orders for shoes from Quebec and Canadian manufacturers have dropped by 38 per cent at the beginning of this year compared to last year. On that subject, Mr. Jean-Guy Maheu, the vicechairman of the association said the following:
If this trend were to be maintained throughout the year, 35 plants would have to close.
More than 10 per cent of the labour force have been dismissed since the beginning of the year and many have been dismissed temporarily. I think, Mr. Speaker, that these facts alone are sufficient to sound the alarm, to urge us to give immediate consideration to that problem and prevent an irreparable catastrophe. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce tried in 1973 to correct the situation by setting up what he called "his sectorial strategy for the footwear and tanning industry".
In the light of past experience since then, we realize however that, to all practical intents and purposes, that sectorial strategy can be efficient only if we ensure our Canadian production a good Canadian market. One has to be blind not to see that we must first guarantee the survival of our industries by ensuring them a good per-
November 24, 1975
[Stage Direction]
centage of our local market. Then, we can import. Otherwise, we will risk the danger of destroying that industry, increasing unemployment and adding to the sad state of affairs whereby Canadians produce less and less and consume more and more foreign goods.
I deplore the fact that in the last few months big chain stores, such as Eaton's, for instance, seem to be buying directly from foreign manufacturers of footwear, instead of ordering them from importers, which saves them another 30 to 35 per cent. Those chain stores should remember that they live off the income of Canadians who, to buy the goods they need, have to work; we certainly will not achieve that goal if we destroy our industries through our imports.
It is far from being proven that imported footwear is preferred by Canadians both for price and quality or durability. But that is not the point. The point is whether the government is prepared to let Canada see its industries go down, and let this country become a consumer of foreign products, or whether we accept the challenge immediately by bringing back to the surface our viable industries and becoming again a productive country, by consuming first our production and even setting export goals afterwards in areas where that is possible.
I appreciated a lot the brief submitted sometime ago by the Canadian Shoe Manufacturers Association before the Canadian committee on trade and commerce and customs tariffs. It proposes in particular that the government reduce imports to a reasonable proportion, that it take immediate steps in the area of maintaining customs tariffs, that it extend the jurisdiction of the Textile and Clothing Board to footwear and that it initiate negotiations with other governments to come to an international agreement governing the footwear trade and including the setting of a quota.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I regret to have to interrupt the hon. member but the time allotted to him is now expired.


Marcel-Claude Roy: Mr. Speaker, I want first to commend the hon. member for the interest he showed about the footwear industry. May I be permitted to refer him now to the statement made by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Jamieson) on November 20 last on the sectorial strategy of the tanning and the footwear industries and of which a study report was tabled in this House on December 21, 1973. In reply to his question I want to inform the non. member that the implementation of that strategy which includes several elements and measures which are closely related is moving forward at a satisfactory pace. The hon. member suggested this problem was not new but I would like to take this opportunity to explain the solutions which are now new to deal with this problem. Those steps that I mentioned will have an effect on international trade and will ensure the protection of the footwear industry in Canada. For example, under the trade policy included in that strategy the government took various steps to help Canadian manufacturers, and here are a few examples: leather footwear was exempted from the general preference condition; second, the Department of National Revenue has noted on four occasions that shoes
Adjournment Debate
from certain countries were undervalued and that this affected the prices on the Canadian market-action has since been taken in this regard; third, manufacturers obtained tariff reductions on three occasions on materials not available in Canada. Several cases are now under study.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, I would like to note that while this sectorial strategy applied only to the leather footwear and tanning industries in the beginning, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce is now considering extending its advantages to the rubber footwear subsector. This action follows the annulment, on August 28 of this year, of the general preferential tariff for rubber footwear and the reinstatement of the most favoured nation 20 per cent tariff.
As the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce stated on November 20 of this year, the government will continue to examine periodically the status of the footwear industry and to determine if other action is required in the future.
I therefore congratulate the hon. member for the interest that he has shown in this important industry. Moreover, as other members also said during the Liberal party caucus, we should continue to review regularly the situation of the footwear industry in Canada.


VETERANS AFFAIRS-DATE OF DECISION ON BILL TO IMPLEMENT RECOMMENDATIONS OF COMMITTEE ON WAR PRISONERS AND WIDOWS' PENSIONS
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, last Thursday, November 20, as recorded in Hansard at page 9274, I put this question to the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. MacDonald):
In view of the fact that the President of the Privy Council has assured me on four or five Thursdays in a row that a certain matter is under consideration, can the minister tell us whether a favourable decision has been reached with respect to it? I refer to the bill to implement the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs concerning Canadian veterans who were prisoners of war and concerning the provision of pensions to veterans' widows?
The reply of the Minister of Veterans Affairs was in these words:
I can confirm the statement made by the House leader but that is as far as I can go today.
That was last Thursday and this is Monday of a new week, so I am hoping for an answer tonight.
I am most grateful to the Minister of Veterans Affairs for being here for tonight's late show. I suppose there are times when members on the opposition side of the House use the question period, or even the late show, to try to embarrass some unco-operative minister, but I assure the Minister of Veterans Affairs that that is by no means the attitude with which I address him on this question. I believe he is every bit as anxious as I am to get this legislation before parliament. I suppose if I were to put to him the question I really want to pose it would be this: what can we do to help the minister to win this battle with his colleagues who make up the cabinet?

November 24, 1975
Adjournment Debate
We are, of course, talking about the report of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs which that committee made to the House of June 12 of this year. That report arose out of our study on the Hermann Report having to do with prisoners of war in Northwest Europe, but our studies went a bit further. Indeed the recommendations the committee made were four. I spelled them out in some detail during a late show on Monday, October 27, as recorded in Hansard at pages 8598 and 8599, so I shall refrain from repeating all that detail tonight. I would just indicate what the four recommendations were.
First, we asked that there be a special piece of legislation dealing with prisoners of war. Second, we asked that the provisions regarding Canadian veterans who were prisoners of war at Hong Kong be improved, that instead of the pension being 50 per cent including any disability assessment it be 50 per cent for all who were at Hong Kong, with any disability assessment being added on top of that with a ceiling of 100 per cent. Our third recommendation was that there be a scale of benefits for veterans who were prisoners of war in Europe. Briefly the scale was that for incarceration of up to one and one-half years the pension would be 10 per cent. For incarceration of from one and-one-half to two and one-half year it should be 15 per cent, and for incarceration of two and one-half years or over the pension should be 20 per cent. Our fourth recommendation had to do with widows of veterans. In particular we asked for a change in the well known 48 per cent rule. Our plea is that for widows of veterans in cases where the veterans' disability pension is less than 48 per cent there should be a pro rata widow's pension instead of none at all.
Now, the minister is as familiar with all this as I am, if not more so, and I say again that I know he is just as anxious as I am to get this legislation before the House. I am sure his parliamentary secretary now sitting behind him agrees with me, and I suspect that he too is hoping to hear a good answer tonight.
It is a puzzle to us how a matter like this can be around this long, and how the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Sharp) can tell me Thursday after Thursday after Thursday that the matter is still being considered by the government, and yet we cannot obtain an answer. I welcome very
strongly the words of the minister the last time he answered a question of mine during a late show when he expressed the hope that the restraint program which is now around us will not apply to prisoners of war or to widows of veterans. We back him 1,000 per cent on that.
So, Mr. Speaker, there it is. The Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs gave a great deal of thought and attention to these matters. We were unanimous in our desire that these recommendations be implemented. I hope the minister can tell us tonight how soon he might be able to make an announcement and, if not, that he will tell us what we can do to help him.


Daniel Joseph MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be able to reply to the question of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) concerning the decision to implement the recommendations of the standing committee regarding prisoners of war and widow's pensions.
Hon. members will recall that my parliamentary secretary spoke concerning the same matter on October 30, 1975, as reported at page 8735 of Hansard. At that time he reminded hon. members that the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs at its meeting of June 22, 1972, requested that a study be undertaken to identify any physiological or psychological long-term effects which their incarceration may have had on ex-prisoners of war of the European theatre, numbering approximately 7,500. The government accepted this recommendation and on January 31, 1973, the study was undertaken by Dr. J. Douglas Hermann, a distinguished Canadian surgeon. Dr. Hermann's report was tabled in the House of Commons on Monday, November 18,
1974.	It was subsequently referred to the standing committee for study on Wednesday, March 26, 1975, and the committee reported back to the House on Thursday, June 12,
1975.
In the meantime I have held consultations on this very important subject with my colleagues. As I confirmed last Thursday, this matter is still under active consideration by the government.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.19 p.m.

Tuesday, November 25, 1975