1980-12-16

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Whereas the construction of the Q and M Pipe Lines is essential in order to get gas to the people of the Atlantic provinces, and whereas Premier Lough-eed, in Alberta's package on July 25, 1980 to the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), offered on behalf of the government of Alberta to provide equity and debt financing so that the Q and M Pipe Lines could be constructed forthwith, but the Prime Minister rejected this offer, apparently preferring to borrow the money from abroad in the same way he is buying oil from foreigners at world prices, therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Annapolis Valley-Hants (Mr. Nowlan):
That this House require the Prime Minister to appear before the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs to explain why he rejected this offer that would create employment, keep our natural gas in Canada and provide tremendous benefits to our maritime people.


Madam Speaker:: For presentation, this motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


FISHERIES
Mr. Thomas Siddon (Richmond-South Delta):: Madam Speaker, in view of the fact that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has recently allowed two Japanese fishing vessels, the Tenyu Maru and the Tomi Maru, to enter Canadian waters to explore the possibility of establishing a commercial squid fishery, and in turn each vessel has received an allocation of 100 metric tons of black cod after the black cod fishery had been closed-I repeat, after the black cod fishery had been
closed-to Canadian fishermen, I move under the provisions of Standing Order 43, seconded by the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich (Mr. Munro):
That the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans be required to reverse his deplorable decision which allows Japanese Fishing companies to conduct experimental squid studies in Canadian waters, when such studies should have used the services of the Canadian owned Callistratus, or any number of other Canadian vessels which are capable of test-jigging for squid and, further, that the minister be required to explain why he has chosen to reward the Japanese by giving away 200 metric tons of black cod which Canadian fishermen were not allowed to catch.


Madam Speaker:: For presentation, this motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


HOUSING
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops-Shuswap):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. In light of the fact that mortgage rates for people purchasing new homes or renegotiating their mortgages are beginning to approach the 20 percentile range and the fact that all of us as parliamentarians are receiving letters outlining the problems people are facing as they must renegotiate their mortgages, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Beaches (Mr. Young):
That this House express its will and the will of the Canadian people in requesting the major lending institutions of Canada to provide emergency interim financing to those Canadians faced with mortgage renewals to help them get through this period of devastatingly high interest rates.


Madam Speaker:: For presentation, this motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr. Marcel Dionne (Chicoutimi):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 to ask for the

December 16, 1980
unanimous consent of the House to move a motion concerning an important matter.
In view of the fact that the American government will purchase 168 F-18A fighters, or 24 more than the number suggested by the Secretary of Defence of the United States for the year 1980-81, and in view of the fact that this authorization confirms that the F-18A is the best fighter in its category and that the Canadian government made the best possible choice, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Bonaventure-Iles-de-la-Madeleine (Mr. Bujold):
That it be reasserted that these latest developments will have beneficial effects in terms of industrial fall-out throughout the Canadian economy as a whole.


Madam Speaker:: Under the provisions of Standing Order 43, presentation of such a motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


THE MINISTRY
Mr. Doug Lewis (Simcoe North):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In view of the lack of confidence of the members on this side of the House in the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) because of his unreasonable bargaining approach with the oil producing provinces, and in view of the fact that all provinces, those that manufacture petrochemical equipment as well as those that have the oil, are facing huge job losses as the result of the minister's untenable position, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Burlington (Mr. Kempling):
That the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources resign immediately so that the economy of Canada will go forward.


Madam Speaker:: Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House for the presentation of this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.

* (1410)


PENSIONS
Hon. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Madam Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, and
seconded by the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mrs. Mitchell), 1 move:
That this House urges the government, in view of its often-stated recognition of the role of spouses working in their homes, to bring before the House legislation to provide pensions for all homemaker spouses,-
The emphasis is on the word "all".
-not just for the minority at the top who could afford to pay a double premium to the Canada Pension Plan, it being the view of this House that all homemaker spouses are entitled to pensions equivalent to those earned by contributors to the Canada Pension Plan, it being clear also that only such a universal plan will fully recognize the contribution to our society made by those who work in the home.


Madam Speaker:: Presentation of such a motion for debate requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


EXTERNAL AID
Mr. Doug Neil (Moose Jaw):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. In view of recent news report indicating that Michael Manley, the recently defeated prime minister of Jamaica and long-time friend of Canada's Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), has been invited to apply for a Canadian foreign aid scholarship worth up to $60,000, and that there are many worthy Canadian and foreign students whose philosophy and ideals are closer to those of the majority of Canadians than the radical ideals espoused by Mr. Manley, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Gustafson):
That the government instruct Ivan Head, president of the International Development Research Centre, to withdraw the offer to Mr. Manley and to search out and fund students whose philosophy and goals are in line with Canadian and western thinking.


Madam Speaker:: Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to introduce this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


BANKRUPTCIES
Mr. Bill Kempling (Burlington):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. The bankruptcy of Astra Trust has caused massive losses to depositors and share-
December 16, 1980

holders alike, Re-Mor, the mortgage arm of Astra Trust, has bilked millions of dollars from the public through business practices which can be classed as misrepresentation, fraud, deception, bait and switch, and other thoroughly dishonest practices planned and carried out by the management and directors of Astra Trust, Re-Mor and C & M Financial Consultants. Therefore 1 move, seconded by the hon. member for St. Catharines (Mr. Reid):
That the Minister of Finance initiate a judicial inquiry into the Astra Trust affair and include in the inquiry the affairs of Re-Mor and C & M Financial Consultants and require that in particular the inquiry dwell in some detail on the fact that the trust licence for Astra Trust was turned down three times by the Department of Insurance, as well as the province of Ontario, before it was finally issued on November 17, 1977.


Madam Speaker:: Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to introduce the said motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


LABOUR CONDITIONS
Mr. Bob Corbett (Fundy-Royal):: Madam Speaker, another blow to Atlantic Canada as a result of the maritime minister's financial fiasco of October 28, and subsequent indifference to the miseries which are accruing in a compound fashion, has been struck. The Canadian Gypsum Co. Ltd. will close its operations in Hillsborough, New Brunswick, as of December 31 due to a lack of markets, throwing approximately 60 people out of work. The government railway, the CNR, has made application to abandon its line from Salisbury to Hillsborough. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Prince George-Bulkley Valley (Mr. McCuish):
That this government either move immediately to alleviate the desperate straits of Atlantic Canadians typified by communities such as Hillsborough, or level with the people and tell them they do not give a damn about Atlantic Canada so that Atlantic Canadians will realize the hopelessness of their situation and make plans to starve to death.


Madam Speaker:: Presentation of such a motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.
Oral Questions



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Leader of the Opposition):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance who will know that the Economic Council of Canada is forecasting that real wages of Canadians will drop more than 4 per cent this year and next. Will the minister tell the House whether he intends to introduce any new policy to stop that dramatic cut in the ability of average Canadians to buy what they need?


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Madam Speaker, without commenting upon the validity of the forecast made by the Economic Council of Canada, it is not my intention to alter at the present time the budget policies which were introduced on October 28.


Some hon. Members:: Shame!


Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, the minister has indicated that he does not at the present time-whatever that means-intend to do anything about the fact that the real income of Canadians, their ability to earn enough money to buy the things they need, will be dramatically cut. He would know that his government's policies are also cutting out the ability of Canadians to find work. He would know that the number of people who are not even seeking work now, because they feel hopeless and desperate as there is no work for them to find, is up 25 per cent over a year ago. Does the minister intend to introduce any new measures to create the hope of jobs for Canadians who want to go to work?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I know that over the past year the number of jobs in Canada has increased significantly. The last statement from Statistics Canada shows that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Canada over the month had decreased, and that it had decreased in every region of Canada but one. I know these facts as well, Madam Speaker, but despite these facts I did lay out in the budget a series of programs which, in my view, will contribute significantly to the quality of the recovery which Canada needs over the medium term.


Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, the people of Canada are tiring of this bafflegab from the Minister of Finance. They know even if the Minister of Finance intends to ignore it that the number of unemployed in Canada is up and the number of people who are so hopeless about the prospect of getting a job is up dramatically over the last year.
The minister repeated again today that he had no plans "at the present time". Last Wednesday he had no plans at all. On Thursday he said that he had not yet decided to introduce any

December 16, 1980
Oral Questions
new measures "at the present time." On Friday he was blaming Canada's economic problems on the U.S. federal reserve system. 1 am intrigued by the minister's indication that he has no plans "at the present time". What is he holding back from Parliament? Does the minister have any intention at all to bring in in the foreseeable future any new economic measures? If so, will he tell us when we might expect those measures and what specific problems they are designed to address?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, if the answer would be more agreeable to the hon. member if I deleted the phrase "at the present time", I would do so. It is not my intention now, nor will I decide within a week, two weeks or three weeks, to bring forward a new economic strategy for the country, because in the budget on October 28 I formulated an economic strategy which, in my view, is suited to the current economic climate in the country. I do not propose to change that unless there are some factors down the road which would necessitate change. I do not want the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition to draw any conclusions from the use of the expression "at the present time" or the word "yet".


Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, if we have learned one thing about the Minister of Finance, apart from the fact that he has no economic policies, it is that he chooses his language deliberately. This is the third day in five in which he has quite carefully said "no policies yet; no changes at the present time". Now he says there will be no changes unless there is development of some factor down the line.
We want to know whether the government is going to take the budget as its last word. Is it going to ignore the increasing difficulties that his economic policies have caused for the ordinary citizens of this country, or is there going to be a change of heart? Is there going to be a rediscovery of the principles of Father Cody? Is there going to be some willingness on the part of the government to show some compassion for the people of Canada? Are there going to be some new economic measures brought forward by this government within the next three to four months?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, the current difficulties, particularly those facing the Canadian exchange rate and interest rates in the country, have nothing to do with budgetary policies. They come from other sources. The right hon. gentleman ought to draw some distinction between the impact of policies which are included in the budget and other forces which affect Canada because we are part of the world. It is not my intention to have the country drop off the planet, even though that was his policy when he was prime minister.


FINANCE
Hon. John C. Crosbie (St. John's West):: Madam Speaker, the minister's slogan is "Stop the world, I want to get off'. He has done nothing to help economic conditions in Canada today. On Friday the minister disclaimed all responsibility for interest rate policy. He blamed our troubles on the U.S. policy. He said that "it is not a proper application of monetary policy in the current circumstances."
Since the Bank of Canada and the U.S. Federal Reserve Board have both been restricting growth in the money supply and both use higher interest rates because of the inflation threat in order to do that, will the minister now tell us whether he is abandoning his statement in the budget that the Bank of Canada will have his continuing support in holding down the rate of monetary expansion? Has he given a written directive to Governor Bouey that interest rates are not to go up any further in Canada, and has he made any official protests to the United States about the fact that they are pursuing the same monetary policy as he has been pursuing here in Canada?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, the hon. member obviously has misunderstood the point of my comments on Friday. No one is complaining about the effort of the United States government to control inflation. No one is complaining about the effort of the United States to control the money supply. What I have complained about are the very wide swings in interest rates or the volatility in interest rates which have been part and parcel of the administration of the Federal Reserve Bank since last spring. That is the point to which I take exception and to which I believe other countries undoubtedly take exception as well. Since this fluctuation or volatility in short-term interest rates is having a very adverse effect on Canada in a number of ways, I believe it is appropriate for a country like Canada, when such a development is evident, to make its views known.
The hon. member asked me whether I have made an official protest; maybe that is not the expression he used. I regard the word "protest" as too strong, but I have under consideration making my views on this matter known directly to the relevant officials in the United States.


John Carnell Crosbie: Madam Speaker, under this finance minister Canada has the worst of all possible worlds. We have sky-high interest rates, a rapidly foundering Canadian dollar and a floundering government. I have not seen reported any statement by any other finance minister complaining about the U.S. policy with reference to the Federal Reserve Bank.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Carnell Crosbie: The political nyphomaniacs on my left want to be in bed with the government. They cannot stop themselves. They try to interrupt my questions.


Mr. Nielsen:: They do not want to do it legally.
December 16, 1980


John Carnell Crosbie: That's right. They want to go all the way. My question for the Minister of Finance is this. What advice does the Minister of Finance have for the incoming Reagan administration? What economic and monetary policy does he advise them to take? Does he want them to let monetary expansion grow apace? What does he want to do with interest rates and the money supply? Does he want them to increase their deficit? What advice is he prepared to give the U.S. to direct them as to action they should take? When he tells us that, will he also tell the Elouse, if he is not prepared to take responsibility for some policies himself, whether he and his government will resign and make way for those who will take responsibility?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, the only value I see in answering the hon. gentleman is perhaps to put before him one or two facts which may influence his thinking. He constantly accuses the government of being responsible for the current situation.


An hon. Member:: It is.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I would draw to his attention that today in the United States prime commercial rates have been raised to 21 per cent; the equivalent rate in Canada is 17 per cent.


An hon. Member:: That is until Thursday.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: The hon. member knows there is a very close link between capital markets in Canada and in the United States, and that discrepancy, that gap, that differential in interest rates between the two countries, is bound to have an effect on interest rates in Canada and on the exchange value of Canadian currency.
If the hon. member does not accept my analysis, all he has to do is refer to the statement issued last week by the Governor of the Bank of Canada, in whom he had considerable confidence and whose reappointment he recommended, and in that regard I supported him, as did members of our party. In the statement made last week by the Governor of the Bank of Canada, the governor stated that this very problem about which the hon. member is talking and with which the Bank of Canada has been trying to deal in recent weeks does not originate in Canada. I would at least ask the hon. member to try not to confuse the Canadian public by questions which are falsely based and which add nothing to public understanding of what is a very difficult situation that both the governor and the Government of Canada are facing at the present time.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


POLICY RESPECTING INTEREST RATES
Mr. Bob Rae (Broadview-Greenwood):: Madam Speaker, my question is also for the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. I should like to ask him to reflect for a moment on the difference between the statements he has made, and
Oral Questions
again repeated today, in respect of Canada's interest rate policy and statements which have been made by the Prime Minister as recently as December 5. On December 5 the Prime Minister was taking pride in the fact that the Canadian government was following what he described as "an independent interest rate policy", yet both last week in the House of Commons and again today the Minister of Finance has ascribed all of our interest rate woes and policies to those being currently followed in the United States. I should like to ask the minister to come clean on this and simply tell us, is the interest rate policy, currently being followed by the government and by the Bank of Canada, which he supports, an independent interest rate policy which reflects conditions in Canada, or is it a policy which is simply following that of the Federal Reserve Board of the United States?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, the hon. member obviously knows the answer to that question which in the main is rhetorical. He knows you cannot have a differential of four points in interest rates in Canada and in the United States, when the two capital markets are interlinked, without that influence spreading into Canada. There is no way to avoid that.
To say that, however, is not to say that the Governor of the Bank of Canada and the Government of Canada are not following an independent monetary policy, just as we follow an independent foreign policy, an independent trade policy-you name it. However, all these policies are influenced by forces activated in every other country in the world. I hope I do not have to explain that elementary fact to the hon. member who has just asked the question.


Bob Rae: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is equally simple and equally non-rhetorical. I would like to remind the minister that on May 27 last the minister said, and I quote:
-when this government took office, the bank rate was 14 per cent; today it is 11.83 per cent. . . That is quite a result.
On June 19 his colleague, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, said that due to the floating rate policy of the Bank of Canada the rate was coming down. Why is it that when the rates are coming down it is somehow the miraculous result of the policies of the Liberal government, whereas when the rates go up it is because of what is going on in the United States?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I suppose one could ask hon. gentlemen opposite why it is that when interest rates go down they disappear from the question period and why they return when they are going up. That would be the question to ask.


Bob Rae: Madam Speaker, the definition of a Liberal is clearly someone who does not even know how to blush because

December 16, 1980
Oral Questions
he has lost the capacity to be embarrassed. That answer was unbelievable.
I would like to ask the minister a final supplementary question. Precisely what protests has Governor Bouey made to the United States? When and where did they occur, and precisely what was the response of the American government and the American Federal Reserve Board chairman as a result of the protest made by the Governor of the Bank of Canada?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, 1 will try to give the hon. member as much information as I have at my disposal. The Governor of the Bank of Canada attended a meeting of central bank governors of several countries last week, and at that meeting he expressed the concerns which he later made public in Canada about the volatility and wide fluctuations in the short-term interest rates in the United States. That is the information I have and which 1 am very happy to convey, in an unblushing manner, to the hon. member.


ATOMIC ENERGY CONTROL BOARD
Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for Mines. In view of the recommendations contained in the report of the Ontario legislature's select committee on hydro affairs concerning the Atomic Energy Control Board and the meeting which was held on December 4 here in Ottawa with representatives of the board and the United Steelworkers of America from Elliot Lake-


An hon. Member:: Caucus.


Maurice Brydon Foster: -can the minister assure the House that amendments to the Atomic Energy Control Board regulations will be made to strengthen the health and safety sections of those regulations?


Hon. Judy Erola (Minister of State, Mines):: Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Algoma for his question, although I had great difficulty hearing it.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Judith A. Erola: However, I do believe I got the gist of it. Yes, I too share the hon. member's concern about the health and safety of workers in Elliot Lake. I would like to enlarge upon the question, if I may. As the hon. member knows, the select committee also made some recommendations, and I concur with many of them.


Charles Joseph Clark: Order, Madam Speaker.


Judith A. Erola: I should like to add that I too feel that the AECB regulations do lack teeth. I will suggest to the Minister
of Energy, Mines and Resources that we give the AECB the proper measures to put teeth into its regulations.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. The mere fact that the hon. member is sitting next to the minister is no reason-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Madam Speaker:: -for me to deny the question. The hon. member is entitled to a public answer to his question.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


HOUSING
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Madam Speaker, since interchanges between seatmates are in vogue, I would like to pose my question to the Minister of Finance. He has suggested that interest rates are tied to problems in the United States and to international money markets, but on December 5 his seatmate said, and I quote:
Madam Speaker, the formula introduced by the Minister of Finance is precisely that, an independent interest rate policy. It is set by the free market in Canada. It is not tied to an automatic index of United States interest rates.
During the election campaign we were accused of levying an 18-cent tax to pay for a mortgage interest and property tax credit, but since-


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: It is coming; hon. members opposite just do not like the preamble. The minister has increased the price of gasoline. He has levied his own excise tax on gasoline. He has levied an additional tax on home heating fuel. What has the minister done for home owners?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, it is not what I have done for home owners; it is what the House of Commons did for home owners last December when it stopped the former government from implementing that inequitable tax deductibility plan.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Madam Speaker, if we can swing to another topic which is related, I suggest to the minister that there is one method he could use to free up the tight vacancy rate situation, and that would be to give first-time home owners an incentive which would stimulate the construction industry. What is the minister's policy to help first-time home owners in Canada?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, that is a question of such dimensions that it could not be answered on the orders of the day.
December 16, 1980


Mr. Paproski:: Why not?


Erik Nielsen: So much for home owners.


NATIONAL ENERGY PROGRAM
Hon. Michael Wilson (Etobicoke Centre):: Madam Speaker,
I would like to direct the attention of the House to a policy which is completely within the control of the government, and that is energy policy. At the weekend the chairman of the Economic Council of Canada said that Canada will not reach the goal of self-sufficiency in oil and gas by 1990 without a bigger effort in cutting down oil demand or expanding supply. He also pointed out that we would be in a better position to achieve that goal if Alberta and the producers received a little more revenue than provided in the National Energy Program.
My question is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. In view of the increase in the price of oil imposed by Saudi Arabia this morning of some $2 per barrel, and in view of the proposal by the Economic Council of Canada of providing 50 cents to $1.50 more per barrel in price-that little bit more the chairman talked about-is the minister considering amending the price provisions of the National Energy Program in order to break the deadlock between Alberta and Ottawa and to help get the economy on the rails again?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Madam Speaker, we have indicated our willingness to undertake negotiations with the government of Alberta. These negotiations have started at the officials level. We have indicated that we are willing and ready to meet with the government of Alberta at any time and anywhere.
With respect to the proposal made by the hon. member, if he can give me some indication that the government of Alberta is ready to consider an increase of 50 cents to $1.50 per barrel and would be satisfied with it, obviously this is a matter we will have to discuss. However, as far as we are concerned we are available for negotiations.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Madam Speaker, I had understood that the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources was the one responsible for negotiations with Alberta. I would be very happy to take over his responsibilities if he wishes to give them to me.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Last Thursday the Minister of Finance stated that the National Energy Program did provide a comprehensive framework to get the major energy projects in Canada under way. At the same time, however, the chairman of the Economic Council said that the National Energy Program is a severe inhibition to our economic performance, particularly in
Oral Questions
the area of energy development. In view of that and in view of the action which has been announced by the industry of cutting back their exploration budgets by some 50 per cent, the cancellation of major projects such as Cold Lake, Alsands and Judy Creek, plus the Calgary Herald's estimate that some 350 oil rigs will be moving to the United States next year, does the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources feel that the statement made by the Minister of Finance indicates a woeful misunderstanding of the chaos which has been caused by the National Energy Program? If so, what action is the minister proposing to take to get energy development going again and to create jobs, not just in Alberta but in Welland, Ontario, Hamilton, Stratford, Orillia, Mississauga, Ste. Therese, and in many parts of eastern Canada?


An hon. Member:: Nothing.


Marc Lalonde: Madam Speaker, I welcome the indication from the hon. member that he is ready to cross the floor, and 1 understand him.


An hon. Member:: Answer the question.


Marc Lalonde: I am sure that if he wants to make special representations to the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister will listen to him attentively.


An hon. Member:: You are unbelievable.


An hon. Member:: He is Wilson, not Horner.


An hon. Member:: We are all crossing together.


Marc Lalonde: I understand that some others would like to apply also, but they will have to come after the hon. member.


John Carnell Crosbie: You are a bunch of shipwrecks.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I am glad that the Christmas spirit has invaded the House and this is very good for us, but we must have a question period.


Marc Lalonde: I would invite the hon. member to quote the president of the Economic Council of Canada accurately. The president of the Economic Council has indicated that the lack of an agreement was creating serious difficulty. We share that view and we said that we would prefer to have an agreement with the government of Alberta. We have indicated our willingness to negotiate. I deplore the fact that we have been able to have only one meeting to date with the government of Alberta in spite of our indication that we are available to discuss the agreement. We are still available and I hope that we will be able to reach an agreement which will be satisfactory to all parties concerned.
Oral Questions AIR CANADA

December 16, 1980


FLIGHT ATTENDANTS' DISPUTE-REQUEST FOR IMPROVED OFFER
Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina West):: Madam Speaker, I should like to address a question to the Minister of Labour. It has to do with the dispute between Air Canada and the airline flight attendants. In view of the fact that representatives of the union have requested a meeting and Air Canada has agreed to meet with them on Thursday morning and again on Friday morning, the union hoping that Air Canada will come forward with an improved offer over what the conciliator recommended, but the only thing on the agenda on Thursday morning is a discussion on shutdown procedures and on Friday morning the union is to advise Air Canada about the results of the strike vote, would the minister request the president of Air Canada to be in attendance at those two meetings and to agree to an improvement of the conciliator's offer so that flight attendants receive parity with those of other airlines with regard to wages, vacations and guaranteed days off, with a view to reaching an agreement on Thursday or Friday morning?


Hon. Gerald Regan (Minister of Labour):: Madam Speaker, the hon. member, of course, asks a question about a matter which is of grave concern to a large number of Canadians, and that is the possibility of a strike by airline stewardesses of Air Canada during the Christmas season.


Some hon. Members:: Flight attendants.


An hon. Member:: Sexist.


An hon. Member:: Another Harry Hays!


Gerald Augustine Regan: Flight attendants.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Gerald Augustine Regan: I might say that the present situation is that the commissioner, Stanley Hartt, has reported and the recommendation in the conciliation report has been accepted by Air Canada. The flight attendants' union is voting on the recommendation at this time. The result of their vote will be known late Thursday night or early Friday morning.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Gerald Augustine Regan: I am certain that hon. members are, despite their sense of levity in the Christmas season, concerned about the fact that strike action should be avoided if at all possible in this serious situation. However, the hon. member will recognize that the necessity for any further negotiation between the parties is not evident until the outcome of the vote, which is at present being taken, is determined. I think it would be highly inappropriate to prophesy just how that vote will go. It certainly is the hope of the Department of Labour, and I believe of most Canadians, that an agreement will be achieved without a work stoppage.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Madam Speaker, the minister has about 72 hours, regardless of what the results of the strike ballot are, to
act, but he must assume that the ballot will be in favour of a strike.
In view of the fact that one of the problems is the length of the contract, and in view of the fact that that problem could be solved if parity between Air Canada air flight attendants and those of other airlines were achieved, which would result in a settlement, will the minister persuade the Minister of Transport to instruct or strongly advise the president of Air Canada to be present, and will the minister himself make himself available at the Thursday and Friday morning meetings to obtain a parity settlement, preferably with a 24-month contract or even with a 29-month contract?


Gerald Augustine Regan: Madam Speaker, I must say to the hon. member that the one thing I will not do is to try to carry on conciliation efforts here on the floor of the House. I do not suggest that that is in the best interests of collective bargaining, as the hon. member is well aware. I want to say to him that if he wants to conciliate, I think he should study the facts a little more in relation to what constitutes parity and whether he would also be seeking parity in relation to the hours of work, because that might cast another light on the situation. However, it is the role of the Department of Labour not to take sides but rather to provide assistance to the parties, as we have done throughout this struggle, in an effort to help them achieve an agreement. I think it is wrong for the hon. member to assume that there will be an adverse vote on Thursday night when the report on the vote of the flight attendants is made.


THE BUDGET
Mr. Len Gustafson (Assiniboia):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance. Given the very serious situation which exists in western Canada in the oil industry, particularly in Saskatchewan where his budget is having such a devastating effect that companies are telling us now that the production of every barrel of oil in Saskatchewan is costing them from 25 cents to 70 cents more, to the point that they are considering shutting down production at a time when we should have a booming oil economy in western Canada, will the minister look into the situation, given the fact that the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources seems to sidestep the issue, is unable to reach a pricing agreement and is not serious about the problem which exists in western Canada, and in Saskatchewan in particular?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources has stated on a number of occasions that we are prepared as a government to negotiate and have discussions with the province of Alberta, and with other western provinces, in an effort to reach a solution or agreement that would remove any concerns which may exist.
December 16, 1980

That offer still stands. It seems to me the best way to achieve the good results the hon. member has in mind is to create an atmosphere which will make it possible to begin these discussions and to reach a conclusion satisfactory to both sides. Until that happens it does not seem to me that the hon. member can have his concerns entirely removed.


Leonard J. Gustafson: Madam Speaker, again my question is for the Minister of Finance. The situation in Saskatchewan is so serious that rigs are leaving, service rigs are facing problems and there are no new contracts for the new year. We must have some immediate action in Saskatchewan and in western Canada. Will the minister reconsider his position? Will he bring in a new budget or a mini-budget? Will he jolt his colleague into action?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, the hon. member is speaking about the province of Saskatchewan and tomorrow 1 shall have an opportunity, at a meeting of finance ministers, to discuss the situation in Saskatchewan with the minister for that province, as well as with ministers from other provinces. I will check with him my own impressions that the prospects for economic growth in Saskatchewan are very strong. The growth in that province has been strong in the past year, and from what I know the growth in 1981 in the province of Saskatchewan will be among the best of any province in the whole country.


FINANCE
Robert Alfred Corbett: Madam Speaker, my question is for the member of Parliament from Atlantic Canada who is responsible for the portfolio of finance. As the minister is aware, the Economic Council of Canada, since the budget, has revised its forecast of inflation from 10 per cent to 11.4 per cent. Since the minister's party has taken office the value of the dollar has declined by at least 5 per cent. The minister knows that every drop in the dollar adds four-tenths of 1 per cent to the cost of living, which is about an increase of 2 per cent altogether since they have taken office. Interest rates continue to soar. It is said that a 1.5 per cent increase in bank interest rates adds 41/2 cents to the cost of a pound of pork and 1 Vi cents to the price per pound of beef-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. The preamble to the hon. member's question is rather long and it has been made by several other members. It is all right to hear it once, but after that hon. members should restrain themselves. Could the hon. member come to his question, please?


Robert Alfred Corbett: Madam Speaker, you can rest assured that Canadians are interested in what beef, pork and eggs will cost them.
The hon. member from Atlantic Canada should know that Atlantic Canadians have the lowest per capita income in the
Oral Questions
nation. My question is: In view of the fact that Atlantic Canadians like to eat, what will the Minister of Finance do to ease the crushing burden which Atlantic Canadians are facing today and to get them back into the work place?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, 1 refer the hon. member to the budget-


Some hon. Members:: Oh!


Allan Joseph MacEachen: -which was put before the House on October 28 and which, in my judgment, was probably the most favourable budget to the Atlantic provinces ever introduced. If the hon. member could possibly remove those partisan blinkers, he would recognize the value of that budget to the Atlantic provinces.


Robert Alfred Corbett: Madam Speaker, I point out to the minister that Atlantic Canadians have the highest unemployment as a result of that budget. These are his own people and we are talking about a meat-and-potatoes issue in Atlantic Canada. What meat-and-potatoes action does the minister plan to take to help Atlantic Canadians face a very bleak winter?


CANADA LABOUR CODE
Mr. Derek Blackburn (Brant):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Labour. It is not the question of which I gave him notice earlier today; I thought he would like to know the difference between the two.
Given the fact that the Ontario select committee on hydro affairs has suggested that the referencing of Bill 70, the Ontario health and safety act, to part IV of the Canada Labour code has no legal validity and that the report recommends this practice be tested in the courts within three months, can the minister tell this House if the opinion expressed by the counsel for the Ontario select committee is shared by his advisers? If this is indeed the case, does the minister agree that Ontario's uranium miners have only the goodwill of the company to protect them and no legal recourse to enforce health and safety regulations?


Gerald Augustine Regan: Madam Speaker, the hon. member will, of course, recognize that the question of the validity of the referencing or of any other legal action by the government is a matter which does not fall under my jurisdiction but that of the Minister of Justice.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is for the same minister. Is the minister intending to follow one of the recommendations of the Ontario committee on hydro affairs which would give the AECB the power to impose penalties and bring prosecutions, thus ensuring that all uranium miners in Canada have occupational health and

December 16, 1980
Oral Questions
safety protection backed by the law? Just a few minutes ago the minister responsible for mines said she would agree with this. I would also ask the Minister of Labour, if he agrees, when we can expect that legislation.


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Justice and Minister of State for Social Development):: Madam Speaker, we have received the report at the Department of Justice and we will review it immediately. As soon as we are ready to propose changes, I shall be happy to announce them in the House.


TOURISM
Mr. David Smith (Don Valley East):: Madam Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister of State for Small Businesses, who is responsible for tourism. In view of the passage of a bill by the U.S. Congress which relaxes the tax provision for U.S. citizens attending foreign conventions, can the minister advise the House of the impact these changes will have on large metropolitan areas in Canada, particularly metro Toronto?


Hon. Charles Lapointe (Minister of State, Small Businesses):: Madam Speaker, I believe that is extremely-if the crows of the New Democratic Party would keep quiet, I might be able to answer.
Madam Speaker, we are very happy to note that, following representations by this government, the American government has decided to amend its taxation policy governing American conventions held abroad, and I believe this is the best news we could give the hotel industry ot Toronto, Montreal and every other city in Canada before the holiday season.


AIR CANADA
Mr. J. R. Ellis (Prince Edward-Hastings):: Madam Speaker, since I do not want to go the negative route which the hon. member to my left took, I would like to ask the Minister of Transport if he has any plans to ensure that Canadians wishing to fly on Air Canada during the holiday season will not be faced with the threat of a strike and all the problems which that entails.


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Transport):: Madam Speaker, as my colleague the Minister of Labour said, there
are good hopes that the strike will be avoided. Everybody who has read the press reports in recent days knows that Air Canada is taking action in order to cope with a strike situation if need be. That action entails giving priority to long-haul trips over shorter ones, since it is easier for people to make shorter trips than long ones by other modes. The action also entails the training of some people to replace flight attendants if need be.


John Raymond Ellis: Madam Speaker, since this government is obviously run by polls, and since current polls indicate the public is unwilling to accept strikes in this sector, why will the minister not accept his responsibility and ensure that all Canadians who wish to travel have a reasonable holiday?


Jean-Luc Pepin: The flight attendants are in a better position to do that than I am. What I want to tell the House is that Air Canada is taking all necessary steps to do their very best to accommodate the employees in this matter. The Minister of Labour has already referred to what had been done. Let us all hope together that the story will end well.


BANKRUPTCIES
William James Kempling: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. It is obvious from a recent article in The Globe and Mail that a number of Liberal party workers made a bundle out of the Astra Trust shares and benefited from inside information. They are being protected and shielded while hundreds of innocent people have lost their life savings. Will the minister initiate a judicial inquiry into the Astra Trust mess, particularly into allegations by the investigators that a highly placed person in the Liberal party put pressure on the Department of Insurance to issue a trust company licence to Astra Trust after it had been rejected by the province of Ontario, and had been rejected three times by the Department of Insurance following investigations by departmental officials and the RCMP?


Hon. Pierre Bussieres (Minister of State, Finance):: Madam Speaker, I had several opportunities to answer questions about this case and the affiliated companies which come under provincial jurisdiction. I have already indicated that the Ontario Provincial Police economic crimes division has made a serious investigation into the shareholders' activities of Astra and Re-Mor companies. The Department of Insurance is co-operating with the investigators and so is the government. We would all like to see the courts condemn individuals guilty of discreditable deals in Astra Trust or Re-Mor.


William James Kempling: Madam Speaker, I address my supplementary to the same minister. Why did the Department of Insurance request the Ontario Securities Commission not to issue a
December 16, 1980

stop-trading order on Astra Trust when the department was trying to get on top of violations of regulations by Astra Trust? Surely, a stop-trading order would have saved the loss by innocent people of millions of dollars?


Pierre Bussières: Madam Speaker, I would like to get some information from the Superintendent in connection with the specific question put by the member to give him an adequate reply.


PRIVILEGE
Madam Speaker:: The hon. member for Leeds-Grenville (Mr. Cossitt) has produced a two-page document entitled "Sensitive Topics-2nd Session, 30th Parliament" which includes as item (z), "Any question in the name of the honourable member for Leeds". The hon. member alleges that the document "is a copy of a document originating in the Privy Council office" and that the same instructions have been issued for this present Parliament.
However, there is no evidence on the face of the document which could lead to the conclusion, let alone indicate, that it is an emanation of the Government of Canada, although it contains the following words at the top right-hand corner; "Secret-Not to be photocopied or reproduced". The hon. member's question of privilege is to the effect that such alleged instructions interfere with his ability to perform his parliamentary work and other official work.
On the other hand, the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Pinard), speaking for the government, advises the House that "no instruction has been given not to reply to the questions asked", but that "on the contrary, instructions are to try to provide to the hon. member the most complete answers possible to as many questions as we can."
At the outset, let me assure hon. members that a contempt against one Parliament may be raised and is punishable in another Parliament. While it is correct to say that the government is not required by our rules to answer written or oral questions, it would be bold to suggest that no circumstances could ever exist for a prima facie question of privilege to be made where there was a deliberate attempt to deny answers to an hon. member, if it could be shown that such action amounted to improper interference with the hon. member's parliamentary work. In any event, I am not now called upon to determine this. In fact, it is far from clear that the document has any official aspect to it, let alone that it amounts to improper interference.
Under the circumstances, I am compelled to find that there is no prima facie case of privilege. Of course this is without prejudice to the matter being raised in some other way or in
Business of the House
the light of further and additional facts being raised again under the heading of privilege.


MR. FRIESEN-RESERVATION OF RIGHT TO RAISE POSSIBLE QUESTION OF PRIVILEGE
Mr. Benno Friesen (Surrey-White Rock-North Delta):: Madam Speaker, on just returning to the House after speaking on the adjournment debate of Thursday evening, I have looked at Hansard. After studying the answer given to me by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Duclos), I would like to reserve my right, while I determine whether or not I have a question of privilege, to raise a question of privilege.


Madam Speaker:: Since the hon. member was not in the House over the past few days, 1 would remind him that he must give me proper notice and a written statement on the object of his question of privilege.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Hon. Mark MacGuigan (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Madam Speaker, on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the OECD, I would like to table, in both official languages, a copy of a letter from the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) to the Secretary General of that organization.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Pinard:: Madam Speaker, following consultations with my counterparts in the opposition parties, I rise on a point of order to call your attention to a bill to amend the Clean Air Act, of which notice was given and which appears in today's order paper. We have agreed that we would see the bill through the three stages today when government orders are called, that one representative for each party would deal with it on second reading, following which the bill would be referred to Committee of the Whole, and then returned to the House for adoption on third reading. All of which. Madam Speaker, should require little time. With the consent of my colleagues, therefore, this bill should be the first item to be considered when government orders are called later on today.

December 16, 1980
Christmas Recess


Mr. Baker (Nepean-Carleton):: Madam Speaker there have been discussions and that is the agreement which has been made. The speaker for Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition will be the hon. member for Hillsborough (Mr. McMillan).


Stanley Howard Knowles: Yes, Madam Speaker, the agreement has been correctly stated. The speaker for our party will be the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton).


Madam Speaker:: The House has heard the proposal of the hon. President of the Privy Council (Mr. Pinard). It requires unanimous consent, and I understand that the House will give unanimous consent.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


CLEAN AIR ACT
Hon. John Roberts (Minister of State for Science and Technology and Minister of the Environment) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-51, to amend the Clean Air Act.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.
Madam Speaker:: When shall the bill be read a second time? By unanimous consent later this day?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


CORPORATIONS AND LABOUR UNIONS RETURNS ACT
Yvon Pinard: that Bill S-10, to amend the Corporations and Labour Unions Return Act, be read the first time.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Yvon Pinard: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to move the following motion, and after consultation with my colleagues on the other side, it would appear that there is consent to having the motion put immediately and carried without debate. This
of course is the motion which is in my name on page 4 of the order paper, and I quote:
That, when the House adjourns on Friday, December 19, 1980, it shall stand adjourned until Monday, January 12, 1981, provided that at any time prior to that date, if it appears to the satisfaction of Madam Speaker after consultation with the government, that the public interest requires that the House should meet at an earlier time, Madam Speaker may give notice that she is so satisfied, and thereupon the House shall meet at the time stated in such notice, and shall transact its business as if it had been duly adjourned to that time; and
That, in the event of Madam Speaker's being unable to act owing to illness or other cause, the Deputy Speaker, the Deputy Chairman of Committees or the Assistant Deputy Chairman of Committees shall act in her stead for all the purposes of this order.


Madam Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. D. M. Collenette (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Madam Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 745, 1,616 and 1,721.


Mr. Shields: Since August 1, 1978, how many (a) administrative (b) policy consultants were under contract to the Department of Justice and/or any boards, commissions or corporations reporting to the department and, in each case, what amount was paid to them?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: The Department of Justice: Seven.
Name	Date	CostBureau of Management Consultants	Jan.	6/79 -	Sept.	7/79	$ 9,055.00E.A.C. Amy & Sons	Oct.	23/79 -	Feb.	29/80	9,100.00J. E. Rowe	Jan.	1/80 -	Mar.	31/80	3,657.50A. J. Dean	Feb.	4/80 -	Mar.	31/80	2,248.25Dianne Winter	Jan.	21/80 -	Feb.	29/80	1,728.00Ed Meyers	Feb.	3/80 -	Mar.	28/80	800.00J. E. Johnson	Sept.	13/78 -	Nov.	10/78 Total	6,000.00 $32,588.75
Canadian Unity Information Office: None. Tax Review Board: None.
Law Reform Commission of Canada: None. Canadian Human Rights Commission: Two.
December 16, 1980

Name Bureau of Management	Date June	15/79	- July	6/79	Cost $ 2,357.00Consultants Bureau of Management	Sept.	17/79	- Oct.	22/79	5,000.00Consultants	Total	$ 7,357.00


Mr. Robinson (Etobicoke-Lakeshore): 1.	Is the government concerned, because of the U.S. Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Research Development and Demonstration Act, which provided $160 million for the development of an electric vehicle that such an industry in North America will replace a part of the existing motor vehicle industry the result being of little benefit to Canada?
2.	Do the government energy and transportation authorities support the aims and objectives of the Electric Vehicle Association of Canada, to reduce transportation total dependence on oil by substituting electric vehicles in those segments of the market which they can satisfy?
3.	What is the government's policy with respect to electric and hybrid road vehicles and which department is tasked with preparing and implementing such a policy?
4.	Will General Motors' commitment to bring out electric vehicles in the 1984 model year provide any industrial benefits in Canada and, if so, what will be such benefits?


Mr. Robert Bockstael (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport):: 1. The degree to which U.S. electric and hybrid vehicle technology will benefit Canada or replace the existing Canadian motor vehicle industry is unknown at present. U.S. initiatives are being closely monitored by the federal government.
2.	Yes.
3.	The government does not have an explicit specific policy with respect to electric and hybrid road vehicles. The scope and size of federal initiatives with respect to electric and hybrid vehicle technology cuts across the policies and mandates of three major departments: Transport; Energy, Mines and Resources; and Industry, Trade and Commerce. Transport Canada through the Interdepartmental Panel on Transport Research and Development co-ordinates the work of various government departments in this area.
4.	The federal government is not aware of the precise details of General Motors' commitment to bring out electric vehicles in 1984. The issue of industrial benefits will be pursued in ongoing discussions and negotiations between the U.S. and Canada on the Auto Pact, and, of course, with Canadian industry.


Mr. Stewart: 1.	Are funds comprised of contributions from Canadians held on deposit in general revenue by the government and, if so, what are the names of the trust funds?
2.	What, if any, rate of interest is paid by the government to each fund?
3.	What, if any, amount is saved by the government, because it is required to borrow less, by using the trust funds?
Order Paper Questions
4.	What interest earnings have been denied, where interest is not paid, to contributors using current commercial interest rates and what are the names of the trust funds?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Minister of Supply and Services: 1. The
following trust funds comprised of contributions by Canadians are administered by the government:
-Strathcona Trust Fund -Mackenzie King Trust Account.
2.	The interest rates on each fund in 1979-80 were:
-Strathcona Trust Fund: 11.31 per cent (average)
-Mackenzie King Trust Account: 9.28 per cent.
3.	Nil.
4.	None.


David Michael Collenette: Madam Speaker, if questions Nos. 15, 407, and 536 could be made orders for returns, those returns would be tabled immediately.
I should like to draw the attention of the House, in particular of the hon. member for Leeds-Grenville (Mr. Cossitt), to question No. 15 which has been on the order paper for a number of years and is now being answered.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Cossitt:: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In making my point of order may I congratulate the parliamentary secretary and the government on the fact that, after almost four years, they have managed to answer a question, namely, the one concerning Martin Goldfarb and Goldfarb Consultants Limited. Not having seen the answer I cannot really say whether they answered it, but something is coming forth.
1 should like to raise a point of order in regard to three other questions which have been on the order paper for quite some time. One concerns a very simple matter: How many members and who on the Canadian Transport Commission-this is a rough paraphrase of the question-have passes on Air Canada? That question has been on the order paper for approximately two years or more, and still no answer. Perhaps it is because it falls within guideline (q) of the document which I mentioned last week as the guidelines the cabinet uses for answering questions. In any event, I do not know why it should take two years to find out who with the Canadian Transport Commission holds Air Canada passes.
Question No. 121 is a very simple one: How many former Liberal candidates, defeated Liberal members or retired Liberal members, have received various appointments since the last election? It is pretty straightforward. Every day we see one or two more in the newpapers. There must be a total list somewhere, but for some reason for eight months they cannot

December 16, 1980
Order Paper Questions
answer the question. Perhaps there is such a backlog of appointments to come that they would rather wait until we could get the whole list. Seriously, I think we should know that answer.
There are other questions, but 1 should like to mention only one more. Question No. 29 concerns Michael Pitfield, who seems to be the untouchable. It is in regard to the Taschereau papers and certain details concerning why he sent them back, and on whose authority, to the Privy Council office. That has been outstanding for quite some time, and it falls within guideline (f) of questions to be treated sensitively. I should like to know when the government will do something about this question.
If I may be permitted, in closing I should like to indicate that 1 accept the ruling of the Chair today on the question of privilege which I raised. I fully realize that, unless I name my sources and provide more information, it would be very difficult for Madam Speaker to go further with the matter. I hope the House will understand that 1 cannot name the sources because, with a government such as the one in power today, they would be hanging from the Peace Tower about ten minutes from now.


David Michael Collenette: Madam Speaker, just briefly on the serious aspects of the hon. member's comments, I should like to assure him that I will do my best to answer those questions. I am sorry, with the Christmas spirit to which you referred earlier in the question period, that the member is not satisfied with the present I just gave him.


Mr. Towers:: Madam Speaker, I put a question on the order paper on May 8 which concerns metric conversion. In that there have been rumours that the government may be making a metric announcement during the Christmas recess, I was wondering whether the parliamentary secretary would see fit to answer this question prior to the recess.


David Michael Collenette: Madam Speaker, I cannot guarantee to answer any particular question on any given day, but I will look into it.


Madam Speaker:: Is it agreed that the questions enumerated by the parliamentary secretary shall be made orders for returns?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Cossitt: Since April 20, 1968, what is a list and the nature of each item of business received from the government by Mr. Martin Goldfarb, or any companies with which he is associated, including Goldfarb Consultants Limited and, in each case, what was the amount of money paid and, what was the over-all total amount paid for the full period involved?
Return tabled.


Mr. Orlikow: In the past three years, how many former Deputy Ministers or Assistant Deputy Ministers had contracts with a government department, agency or Crown corporation and, in each case (a) what are their names (b) for which department, agency or Crown corporation were such contracts undertaken (c) what compensation did they receive?
Return tabled.


Mr. Orlikow: 1.	For the fiscal year 1978-79, what contracts for professional services were let for studies, surveys and analyses into (a) present or future policies, programs or information analysis and their efficiency and effectiveness (b) the examination of the administration or internal operation of the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs?
2.	How much was committed on each contract and to whom?
Return tabled.


David Michael Collenette: Madam Speaker, I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Madam Speaker:: The questions enumerated by the parliamentary secretary have been answered. Shall the remaining questions be allowed to stand?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


John (Moody) Roberts: that Bill C-51, to amend the Clean Air Act, be read the second time and by unanimous consent be referred to Committee of the Whole.
He said: Madam Speaker, the purpose of the amendments to the Clean Air Act now before the House is to provide the United States with essentially the same legislative protection as that offered Canada under section 115 of the United States clean air act. Such reciprocal protection is needed under the terms of section 115 to enable United States federal authorities to initiate a process to require state governments to reduce emissions adversely affecting Canada. This is of particular importance to us in relation to acid rain, but also it could be applied to more localized concerns.
The proposed amendments contain four basic elements. First, they provide the governor in council, on the advice of the
December 16, 1980

Minister of the Environment, with discretionary authority to regulate individual emission sources or classes of sources which cause or contribute to air pollution, which, in his opinion, is endangering or may be anticipated to endanger the health, safety or welfare of persons in another country.
Second, they require the Minister of the Environment, before providing advice to the governor in council, to receive through appropriate channels and to take account of related representations from the foreign country adversely affected or likely to be adversely affected by pollutants from Canadian sources.
Third, they require the Minister of the Environment, before providing advice to the governor in council, to consult with the province or provinces concerned and to seek the application of provincial law to control the source or sources to a level judged adequate by the minister.
Fourth, they specify that the authority provided in these amendments would be exercised only on behalf of a country which, in the opinion of the governor in council, provides Canada with comparable legislative protection.
It is my view that an objective analysis of Canada's response over the years to incidents of transboundary pollution originating in Canada would show clearly that, working with and through the provinces involved, we have acted in the spirit which is represented by these proposed amendments. To put it another way, we have traditionally taken full account of United States' concerns, and the provinces have generally been willing to modify their pollution control requirements where good evidence of actual or likely damage to the United States has been forthcoming. I have no reason to believe that this responsible attitude on the part of the provinces will change in the future. Indeed, it is my hope that the pollution control authority provided to the federal government under these amendments will never need to be used. That is the message which I instructed my officials to convey in their conversations with provincial officials about these amendments, and which I subsequently underlined personally in letters to each of my provincial counterparts.
Having said that, I am aware that historic good practice does not, in a strictly legal sense, provide the reciprocity called for in section 115 of the United States clean air act, nor does it address a serious perceptual problem which we have encountered among United States political figures and officials. Bluntly stated, that problem is that the apparent imbalance in legal protection afforded by one country to the other reflects in the minds of a number of influential Americans a difference in our commitment to provide the consequent physical protection. However unfair that perception-and I think it is unfair-it is one which must be overcome. I believe that these amendments, if accepted by the House today, will greatly assist us in that effort.
There is another important benefit to be obtained from these amendments. The speed and unanimity with which this House is prepared to pass them reflect very clearly our collective view, representing the people of Canada, that the need to control acid rain requires extraordinary and rapid measures.
Clean Air Act
That is a message which we in this House are sending to the administration, Congress, and people of the United States.
Hon. members will recall that the Canadian ambassador to Washington and I signed, last August, in company with the United States Secretary of State and the Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, a memorandum of intent which, in addition to calling for the negotiation of an air quality agreement, specifically called upon each country to use its existing legislation to abate international air pollution. The passage of these amendments to our Clean Air Act will now enable the United States administration to use section 115 to honour this pledge.
In closing, I want to pay tribute to several members of the House. Bringing forth this legislative proposal today has been an exercise in consultation and co-operation by parties on all sides of the House. It recognizes the importance which all parties attach to dealing with these matters as effectively as we can. Often we are divided by partisan differences, but frequently as well we find ourselves united in dealing with a problem which faces our country.
I want to pay tribute particularly to the hon. member for Hillsborough (Mr. McMillan) and to the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton) who, as the critics for their respective parties in the area for which I am responsible, have shown friendly and forthcoming co-operation so as to accomplish something in a short period of time. I would also like to thank all three House leaders for their efforts in ensuring expeditious and prompt action on this proposal before the House.


Steve Eugene Paproski: And all other members.


Mr. Tom McMillan (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to participate in this short debate on a bill to amend the Clean Air Act. Both on my own behalf, as environment critic for the Progressive Conservative Party, and on behalf of my party, I welcome the initiative which the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Roberts) has taken to have Canada's Clean Air Act amended.
On the surface, the proposed amendment appears minor but, in fact, it would greatly strengthen our country's ability to co-operate with our United States neighbours in attacking the long-range transport of air pollutants, of which the most serious for both countries is acid rain.
As the minister has just pointed out, the United States clean air act allows the relevant authorities in the United States to take certain actions against polluters in that country who are damaging the health or welfare of another country. Such action, however, can be taken by the United States government only if the other country offers reciprocal protection to the United States. At present, because Canada's Clean Air Act does not offer that reciprocal protection, the American government cannot act as expeditiously as it otherwise could against interests in the United States who are polluting the Canadian environment. This bill we are debating, and which I

December 16, 1980
Clean Air Act
hope we will pass this afternoon, is designed to establish the required reciprocity.
In my view the action we are taking in Parliament today is important on at least two counts. First, it demonstrates, as the minister has pointed out, both to the Canadian public and perhaps more important to the American public, that all political parties in the Canadian Parliament are united in a resolve to deal with the growing problem of acid rain as it affects Canada and the United States. So concerned are we, that Liberals, New Democrats and Progressive Conservatives alike are willing to set aside our legitimate partisanship to make possible the speedy passage of this bill. If all goes well, the House will proceed through all three stages of the bill in this afternoon's sitting, although the normal course might have taken weeks, if not months.
Second, apart from the symbolic importance of the passage of the bill, our quick action today will increase pressure on the United States federal and state governments to abate acid rain-causing emissions in the United States that harm not only their country but our country as well.
As the minister and hon. members of the House know, other members and I are members of a special subcommittee on acid rain established a few months ago by the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry. The subcommittee has been conducting public hearings across Canada, as well as meeting with legislators and experts in Canada and in other countries.
In the fall we visited Washington, D.C., where we met with Republican and Democratic senators, and members of the House of Representatives, perhaps a couple of dozen in all, who were concerned about acid rain. The clear message that we got from our American colleagues-and I echo the sentiment expressed by the minister-was that the United States public is largely unaware of the acid rain problem either in the United States or in Canada, and that most politicians in the United States have yet to treat the issue with any real degree of seriousness. Yet, in Canada, acid rain has been described variously as the "killer pollutant", the "rain of death", an "environmental time bomb", the "worst environmental hazard Canada has ever faced", and an "international emergency". I am sure the minister will agree with me that there is no reason to believe the problem is any more severe here than it is in the United States.
In the two countries some areas now receive precipitation five to 40 times more acidic than natural rain. Some readings have been shown to contain 400 times the normal amount of acid. In Canada and in the United States that lethal pollutant is killing lakes, rivers and streams. It is devastating forests and crop lands. It is even harming human health.
In northern New York state, for example, all of the fish are gone from more than 100 Adirondack lakes. The air pollution on White Mountain, which is 5,000 feet high, is commonly worse than that of mid-town New York City. By the same token, in Ontario some 2,000 to 4,000 lakes have been declared biologically dead, that is, unable to sustain fish or plant life. Some 48,000 more lakes are said to be threatened.
A recent Canada-United States scientific survey, in which the minister can take pride, has documented that the problem of acid rain is more geographically widespread and more severe than even the worst assessments had previously indicated. The study has determined that all of North America, east of a line between Hudson Bay and New Orleans, is suffering from acid rain, and that trouble spots have been identified in the west.
In my region of the Atlantic provinces, acid rain has wiped out salmon fishing in some 12 rivers, and in my own province of Prince Edward Island, which had hitherto been considered relatively invulnerable to the effects of acid rain, concern about the problem is fast approaching one of alarm. Not only is acid rain a serious problem in both Canada and the United States, each country is responsible for a substantial part of the acid rain that falls on the other. Acid rain often drops miles, even countries, away from its original source. We know that every year about four million metric tons of acid rain-causing sulphur dioxide cross from the United State into Canada. For its part, Canada emits about five million tonnes, of which one million tonnes cross into the United States.
1 do not intend to speak at any length this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, but in my concluding remarks I want to stress that neither country can afford to be complacent if the other fails to act against the acid rain-causing emissions within its borders.
When members of the subcommittee to which 1 referred were in Washington, D.C., United States Senators and Congressmen urged our committee on acid rain to consider seriously ways in which our parliamentarians at all levels might make direct representations to the United States federal and state legislatures to heighten their awareness of the acid rain problem. Although such an approach might not conform to diplomatic niceties or protocol, in my view and in the view of my party it is one which the minister might want to consider and is a worthy one. It cannot be denied that dramatic, perhaps unprecedented action is required to promote public awareness of the problem among the United States public and U.S. government officials. It is to be hoped that passage of Bill C-51 is a step in the same direction. I urge upon hon. members that no amount of preaching by Canadians will do any good if we in this country do not take strong measures to deal with the problem within our own borders.
I commend the Minister of the Environment for his vigorous opposition to the United States' multibillion dollar plan to convert power plants from oil to coal, which is a major source of sulphur dioxide that contributes to the acid rain problem. The head of the United States environmental protection agency, Mr. Douglas Costle, has estimated that acid rainfall may well increase by 16 per cent to 20 per cent in the northeastern tier states within the next decade if the plan for coal conversion proceeds. He has conceded that the spillover into Canada will be serious. This has been documented by Canadian scientists.
December 16, 1980

How can we Canadians be effective in opposing that kind of development in the United States if we ourselves are embarking on identical measures in Canada? The finance minister's budget provides for the establishment of a $175 million fund to finance, on a grant basis, up to 75 per cent of the cost of conversions of oil-fired electricity plants to high sulphur content coal in the Atlantic provinces, my region of the country. To be fair, there is a proviso in the program and in the budget that those conversions must be accomplished in an "environmentally acceptable" way. The minister confirmed that in this House and in other forums. However, neither the federal government nor the relevant provinces have made known how the conversions will be proceeded with in an environmentally acceptable fashion. No specific strategy has been enunciated, articulated, or made known to this House as to how those technologies will be required, or at least encouraged.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Nova Scotia Power Corporation was quoted last week in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald as saying that, in the coming year, Nova Scotia will generate more power from coal than from imported oil for the first time in many decades.
Coal conversions in the Atlantic region and in other parts of Canada is a welcome prospect in terms of energy self-sufficiency, but an alarming one from an environmental point of view. Our failure to instal proper environmental technologies in new and converted coal-fire plants is an open invitation to our American neighbours to be similarly negligent themselves.
My party believes that federal and provincial governments should exercise caution in their efforts to revive the coal industry in Canada and to encourage the substitution of high sulphur coal for oil. Certainly the wider use of coal is one way we can lessen our dependence on foreign energy sources, so we support those conversions. Nonetheless, without appropriate safeguards, the costs of that option, especially the damage to our natural environment, could well outweigh the benefits.
As for the provincial governments, my party, and I in particular, believe they should vigorously enforce their control orders on acid rain-causing emissions. Equally important, the provinces should, at regular intervals, reassess whether those control orders are tough enough in light of advances in pollution control technologies.
Together, the federal and provincial governments should put as much pressure as possible on the United States to curb their sulphur dioxide and nitrogen emissions, especially from coalburning thermal power plants. A bilateral agreement on the abatement of acid rain on both sides of the border must remain the principal target for Canada and the United States. Negotiations toward that end, however, must not be used by either country as an excuse for inaction in the meantime. Many interim measures, including a virile enforcement of existing regulations, can and should be taken.
Funding for acid rain research must remain a priority for Canadians. I welcome the recent announcement by the Minister of the Environment of greatly increased funding for such research. Four million dollars was originally earmarked for 1980-81, and now the amount will be $7.5 million. By 1984 the
Clean Air Act
amount will be up to $29.5 million. Nevertheless, let us not overestimate the scope of the planned research effort. The total amount of money the federal government will be devoting to acid rain research scarcely exceeds its advertising budget for telling Canadians about the splendors of its constitutional package. Far too little is known, for example, about the effects of acid rain on forest growth, on agricultural crops, and on human health. Nor has enough scientific research been focused on the mitigation of the adverse effects of acid rain.
Only by devising and implementing a total strategy against acid rain can we in Canada demonstrate to our American friends that we are serious in our efforts to deal with the problem. I am proud to be associated with Bill C-51 as an essential component of that strategy. I congratulate the minister for the initiative he has taken today and urge him to continue to follow through with the other elements of the required program.


Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the amendment which is intended to give Canada reciprocal legislation to that provided by section 115 of the United States clean air act. I agree with the previous speakers that the unanimous parliamentary support given to this bill today should indicate to our neighbours how seriously Canadians view the issue of trans-boundary air pollution.
This reciprocal legislation is required so that the Canadian and American federal authorities can start to move to control acid airborne pollutants produced in one country which affect the other.
The United States legislation limits the formal review process for modifying state control of offending pollutants to those countries which offer reciprocal protection to the United States. Canada does not at present offer such equal legislation, and we must have appropriate legislation protection for the United States from air pollutants emitted in Canada. In fact, Canada does not at present have an international agreement with the United States, as required under section 7(1 )(b) of the Canadian Clean Air Act. One is under discussion, but unfortunately progress is slow.
Provincial requirements and restrictions regarding long-range transportation of air pollutants vary across Canada. Pollution sources in Canada which affect the United States can be subjected to emission standards under this legislation. It is certainly the hope of the New Democratic Party and, 1 am sure, of all members of this House, that the speedy passage and importance attached to this amending bill will be viewed with due recognition by the United States. Comparable action is available under section 115 of the U.S. clean air act.
Of course our long-term goals must be to reduce acid emissions and precipitation to benign environmental levels. Hopefully the U.S. Congress will consider amending the American legislation in the very near future, to deal with long-range transportation of air pollutants.
I note, particularly, that provinces must first be consulted where the source or sources of pollutants are located. This, I am sure, in most cases will cause the diminution of pollutants

December 16, 1980
Clean Air Act
to acceptable, benign, environmental levels, thus providing for better relations with our neighbours to the south. I am confident that neither the provincial nor federal legislatures wish to have incidents such as the Trail smelter case of 1930 recur. I quote briefly from the most recent issue of the Environmental Law Reporter:
The first formal recognition of the atmosphere as a resource requiring international protection was the 1962 Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons Tests, which prohibited nuclear testing "if such explosion causes radioactive debris to be present outside the territorial limits" of the state conducting the explosion. Since then a broad range of programs involving research, monitoring, and the tentative development of international air pollution guidelines have been undertaken to promote international protection of the atmosphere. In particular, the European Economic Community, the United Nations, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development have been active in this regard.
I go on and quote again:
Several international organizations have attempted to formulate general principles concerning the responsibility of states for the extraterritorial damages caused by pollution. Probably the most influential of international statements on this subject is the 1972 Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, which provides that:
Principle 21
States have, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law, the sovereign right to exploit their own resources pursuant to their own environmental policies, and the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other states or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction.
Principle 22
States shall co-operate to develop further the international law regarding liability and compensation for the victims of pollution and other environmental damage caused by activities within the jurisdiction or control of such States to areas beyond their jurisdiction.
I believe the amendment to the Canadian Clean Air Act today goes some distance in moving toward those two principles. Let me quote again:
Also pertinent is an earlier application of this doctrine in the course of resolving a United States-Canada air pollution dispute during the 1920s and 1930s. Fumes from a smelter at Trail, British Columbia were causing damage in adjacent areas of the State of Washington. As part of an extended United States-Canada dialogue on the dispute, a tribunal was created to rule on several of the key issues. In a widely quoted dictum the tribunal stated that:
"No state has a right to use or permit the use of its territory in such a manner as to cause injury by fumes in or to the territory of another or the persons or property therein, when the case is of serious consequence and the injury is established by clear and convincing evidence."
Significantly, the tribunal required both payment of damages and the establishment of a regime to abate and monitor pollution from the smeller.
Certainly I hope that is the direction we are going to move following the speedy passage of this bill.
Let me now deal briefly with just how serious the acid transport and precipitation problem is to both Canada and our neighbour, the United States.
Many areas of Canada and the United States now experience precipitation, as pointed out by my colleague, the hon.
member for Hillsborough (Mr. McMillan), from 25 to, at times, 400 times more acidic than natural rainfall.
The minister is on record as estimating required abatement costs of at least $400 million per year over the next few years. Experts appearing earlier this year before a committee of this House estimated costs in Europe to range between 2 per cent and 3 per cent of their gross national product just in terms of damage to crops, natural resources, buildings, cars and so on.
The difficulties of low-level acid pollution are exacerbated by many factors; for example, various acid compounds can be deposited over the years and accumulate, causing serious environmental and often irresolvable damage, as we see in respect of many of our lakes in Canada.
A case in point is acid precipitation in Canada during the winter months. The acid is released cumulatively from the snow into creeks where sudden high acidic levels damage fish eggs, smolts and aquatic organisms, and now we find as well, bird and mammalian life.
In Canada sulphur dioxide is largely produced by the smelting of sulphite ores, whereas in the United States it is produced by the burning of fossil fuels in electrical generating plants. In both countries nitrogen oxides are produced by the combustion of fossil fuels, primarily in the transportation sector. In Canada sulphur dioxide is produced at a rate of about five million tons per year, whereas in the United States it is about 25 million tons per year. In Canada nitrous oxide is now being produced at the rate of about two million tons per year, whereas in the United States it is now about 22 million tons per year.
The Canada-U.S. research consultation group, which recently released its report, estimates that both S02 and N02 emissions will increase dramatically in the future if we do not soon do something about it. With thousands of lakes now dead in Canada, and that is throughout Canada-for example, even in my riding of Skeena there is a serious acid rain problem in the Terrace area from smelters in that area, so it is a broad geographic problem in Canada and is very graphically becoming a global one-and with tens of thousands of lakes dying, and we are now just starting to get an accurate record in respect of trees, crops, buildings and health-this is again a relatively unknown hazard to us at this point-it is surely time to move on this legislation and also on strong financial budgetary moves to keep our environment healthy and industrial development benign.
In my view, I do not think it is good enough for us to know how much it costs to make the effects of acid rain and nitrous oxide benign in our environment. I think it is incumbent upon legislatures and on the Parliament of this country to deal effectively with it, either by introducing legislation such as "user-pay" so that the producer has to absorb the majority of those costs or, if necessary, to do a complete economic evaluation and move forward in the budget to provide the funds necessary to scrub those very dangerous and harmful oxides from the stacks prior to their being emitted into the atmosphere.
:'i- v
$$$!

December 16, 1980

Dr. Leonard Hamilton, head of environmental assessment at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, suggests now that acid rain may be killing 5,000 Canadians per year.
This legislation before us will make source control possible, so let us look at a few costs. The United States Environmental Protection Agency estimates the cost of a limestone scrubbing system for a new 500 megawatt power plant, which would remove 90 per cent of the sulphur from 3.5 per cent sulphur content coal, at only $135 per kilowatt, or $67.5 million for the entire plant. That is not exorbitantly high for the sort of protection at which we are looking.
The Canadian Environmental Law Association recently estimated that a retrofit for a similar plant would cost about 30 per cent more.
In concluding, three scenarios have been proposed by consultants to Environment Canada for existing plants, and taking this up to 1990. The "lax" scenario which would see 45 per cent reduction of sulphur dioxide would cost $1.3 billion; the "moderate" one which would see 55 per cent reduction in sulphur dioxide would cost $1.5 billion; and the "strict", which would reduce S02 emissions by 87 per cent, would cost some $2 billion. In looking at it, as my hon. colleague, the member for Hillsborough has pointed out, the United States is dumping approximately five times as much long-range transported air pollution on us as we do on them, in terms of it being between four and five million tons per year coming north from the United States and about one million tons of pollutants going from Canada south. In eastern Canada about one half of the S02 deposited there is coming from the United States.
However, in giving final support and speedy approval to this bill, let us consider that it is the first step in moving toward a healthy global policy, and that the next step is that we hear from the minister an allocation of funds to clean up our "collective polluting act" in Canada. We have long awaited a response from our neighbours to the south but hope they will soon do the same.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, considered in committee, reported, read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, from Thursday, December 11, consideration of the motion of Mr. Lalonde that Bill C-48, to regulate oil and gas interests in Canada lands and to amend the Oil and Gas Production and Conservation Act, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on National Resources and Public Works.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: When debate was interrupted, the hon. member for Western Arctic (Mr. Nickerson) had the floor. Is he prepared to continue?
Canada Oil and Gas Act


Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I understand that I have a little less than ten minutes.
When I was speaking earlier on this matter I was engaged in what might be described as a general castigation of the rather inane policies of the government contained in the legislation before us, but for a few minutes I would like to zero in on an area which has not really been addressed by other speakers on this bill. That area covers certain legal concerns I have about the bill.
The first is that if any prosecution is to take place under this legislation, and if any appeal from an administrative decision by the minister or one of the people he might appoint to a position of authority is taken, that appeal goes to the Federal Court of Canada. In fact, with respect to all matters under this legislation, the Federal Court of Canada is the court of competent jurisdiction. I would like to know the reason for the change because, prior to this legislation, oil and gas rights in the territories have been deeded pursuant to regulation made under the Territorial Lands Act. In that respect I believe the court of competent jurisdiction is the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories and, were an offence to be committed in Yukon, the case would be heard before the Supreme Court of the Yukon Territory. 1 am rather suspicious of the motives behind this change in the bill.
Why would the government want to transfer that jurisdiction from the territorial courts to the Federal Court of Canada? Why does the government want people to come down to argue cases in Toronto, when those cases should be heard in Frobisher Bay, Inuvik or Whitehorse?


An hon. Member:: Good point.


Dave Nickerson: I am glad somebody agrees with me.
I think the people of the territories should be in a position to see justice being done in these matters, and I hope that concern can be reviewed.
With respect to my second legal point, I refer to clause 57 and the ensuing clauses concerning various punishments. This is the offences and prosecutions section of the bill. If Your Honour will permit me, I would like to read clause 57(1) because this is the most important of those clauses. Clause 57(1) states the following:
Every person who contravenes or fails to comply with any provision of this act or the regulations or any final decision, declaration, determination, direction-
Whatever that means, and whoever it is who will give that direction.
-or order that applies to him under this act is guilty of an offence and is liable
(a)	on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding one hundred thousand
dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year, or to both; or
(b)	on conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding one million dollars or
to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years-
Of course, again the option is for the court to impose both sanctions.
Where an offence is continued for more than one day, those fines apply with respect to every day, so in effect we are talking about a $1 million per day fine.

December 16, 1980
Canada Oil and Gas Act
It appears to me that there are two things wrong with this. First, the Crown has the option with respect to any offence under this legislation, regardless of how minor it might be, to proceed by way of summary conviction or by way of indictment. Not too long ago in this chamber my colleague, the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert), gave a very good dissertation on this same subject with respect to the Income Tax Act.
Second, it appears to me that the penalties contained in this clause might be described as vicious. They might come under the definition of cruel and unusual punishment, when we consider the offences to which they apply. Without looking into this legislation one might think that the offences involved would be such things as deliberately endangering the lives of people working on an offshore drilling rig, but that is not included in this legislation. That would be dealt with under the criminal negligence provisions of the Criminal Code, or under the Canada Shipping Act.
The offence of deliberately and negligently allowing major oil spills to occur, or this type of offence, would not be prosecuted under this legislation. It would be dealt with under the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, so what we are really talking about here is the payment of royalties and taxes to the federal government and the provision of certain types of information.
I think we should review the penalty provisions because they seem to me to be very harsh, especially when we look at clause 58 which, contrary to the usually accepted Canadian legal way of doing things, says that one is guilty unless one can prove one's innocence. It is sufficient for the Crown to prove that an offence has been committed, and then the accused has to prove that the offence was committed without his knowledge or consent. Otherwise the opposite is presumed. This applies, under clause 59, to officers, directors or agents of the companies involved. This clause is extremely punitive, and when we get to committee I certainly hope we will be able to make some improvements to the offences and prosecutions section of this legislation.
I wonder if Your Honour could advise me of how many minutes I have left.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Four.


Dave Nickerson: So much for that subject.
In my remaining few minutes I will give the House my concept of the vision of hon. members opposite with respect to the oil and gas industry in the north and offshore areas in the years to come. We see embodied in this bill the Liberal philosophies of centralization, socialization, and rigid central control. I think I have mentioned this before. With respect to bureaucratic control, I can see that this legislation was drafted largely within government departments. I do not know how much actual influence the minister has had on the drafting.
I wonder why there is a split in jurisdiction contemplated under this legislation. I wonder why, for certain areas within the so-called Canada lands, a term to which I take great
exception, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) has jurisdiction, and in the other parts the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Munro) has jurisdiction. It is the recommendation of the special representative on constitutional development in the territories of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) that the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development get out of that particular area of administration, and what is more natural and what makes more sense than to have the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources look after energy, mines and resources?
In this bill it seems that everything has to be run from Ottawa. What I would like to see established is administrative offices in the Northwest Territories similar to the ones that the government of Alberta has in Calgary, and similar to the ones that the government of Saskatchewan has in Regina. If everyone has to come to Ottawa to get exploration agreements and leases, we in the territories will never develop proper oil centres on the scale of the one in Calgary. It would make sense to me if we were to make Inuvik, which is in the centre of the rich delta area, into an oil centre. Some day I would like to see a second Calgary established in the Mackenzie Delta.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


An hon. Member:: That is vision, although they do not have any over there.


Dave Nickerson: That is for sure. You can see that when you read through the act.
Finally, I should like to register my objection to what I see as the future of the oil and gas industry in the north, as it is controlled by Petro-Canada on the one hand and by large companies on the other. There does not seem to be any room in this bill for the little guys, for the people who reside in the Northwest Territories. It seems that the northerners will be sitting on the sidelines while Petro-Canada and its associates do the work and take the credit for it, make all the money out of it, and leave us with very little to get out of it. At present I do not know of one lease or permit held by a resident northerner, and if this bill is to pass I do not think there is a likelihood of that occurring in the future.
In conclusion I should like to repeat that 1 am pleased that this legislation was brought before us so that, after ten years, we can look at it and we can recommend changes. In its present form it does not seem to do very much for Canada, either in the long or in the short term. Certainly it does not seem to do very much for the north. I hope that when it goes to committee we will have the opportunity to make our objections known, and we hope that the government will listen carefully to them so that a legislative and a tax environment can be created which will make it attractive for people to invest in the north and in our offshore areas. We hope that in the near future production will be started in those areas which will do much to help Canada's oil and gas self-sufficiency.
December 16, 1980


Mr. Gilbert Parent (Welland):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to engage in the debate on Bill C-48 because I believe that this bill, as much as any other we have seen since this Thirty-first Parliament opened, will affect all the people of Canada. Many issues are at present of concern to Canadians, not the least of which are the economy, inflation, and unemployment, and I recognize that each and everyone of us here is in some way affected.
In discussing the energy bill before us I have chosen to try to point out some of the underlying causes of the misunderstanding or the insensitivity of one region of this country with regard to another. I do not propose to use many figures and percentages, because I believe we have been almost figured to death by people like ourselves going out west and trying to show conclusively that our proposals are best for the whole of Canada, as well as by people coming from Alberta and telling us in their great ad campaigns that indeed their figures are the right ones. One fellow even made the ungracious comment that the guys in Ottawa are "nuts".
Sonic hon. Members: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Gilbert Parent: I think that throwing such barbs back and forth is uncalled for, and 1 think it is time that we reasoned out the whole problem together. It is my feeling that the deliberations which have taken place between the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) and their provincial counterparts, while receiving widespread coverage in the media, seem to be viewed by many Canadians as if they were some kind of a game of tug and pull. Pretty soon we will start engaging in political fisticuffs, if we have not reached that point yet. It appears that these fisticuffs will be observed by a captive audience which will be called immobile, freezing in the dark, or bankrupt, depending on the part of the nation from which they come.
As I mentioned before, it is my intention to bring a voice of understanding and calm into the loud rhetoric flying back and forth across our airwaves and, indeed, in this House. I propose in some small way to try to articulate my point of view of what the government is trying to do here for Canada as a whole, not only for people in the east, west or north of Canada, but on a global scale, and to try to achieve communality among Canadians.
Someone said that the needs of man to survive are probably fourfold. Food is one, shelter is another, warmth is the third, and love is the fourth. Ottawa has been involved in the first two for some time, that is, food and shelter. We have marketing boards to take care of our food, and we have the minister of housing taking care of our shelters. I see the minister in the House with us right now and I compliment him for the policies he has brought forth, because I think they are great policies.
I hope that the subject of love is not one which will provoke a debate as to whether it is the federal or provincial responsibility, because God help us if it is ever left for us only to decide.
Canada Oil and Gas Act
Warmth is fast becoming part of the federal-provincial volleys because of the energy crisis which began in the 1970s. Ironically enough, this crisis started out in countries which, in the worst of times, have never had to worry about warmth. I refer here specifically to countries in the Middle East. In my opinion we do not have an energy crisis per se, similar to the crises being experienced, for example, in Japan, Turkey, Germany, or even by our neighbours to the immediate south. We have been assured and reassured that this nation holds within its boundaries sufficient natural resources to satisfy all our domestic needs, not necessarily in conventional oil but in natural coal, uranium, heavy oil, the tar sands, and our ever-growing tough technological capacity to find new energy producing and saving resources.
It was out in Alberta for some three weeks in the summer of 1979 because I wanted to see for myself just what we had in the area of natural resources, and 1 wanted to speak to the people involved in the production of oil in western Canada. I wanted to hear what they had to say, and I did. I went there not necessarily to preach the gospel, in the sense of the good news from the people of Ottawa and what we are doing, but I wanted to hear what they had to say. I wanted to see for myself what they were doing for their fellow citizens in Alberta, in the west, and their fellow citizens right across Canada.
Mr. Speaker, I was happy to note that these are hard-working people in the west. They ask no great favours of us. They asked for the chance to work and grow in this country. This is basically what all Canadians are asking for, a chance to work, to grow, and a chance to be a part of Canada. The more we become wrapped up in 10 per cent of this and 3 per cent of that, the more we lose sight of the fact that we are a nation joined together by common ideals and common goals. Those goals, I believe, are for the betterment of every man, woman and child in Canada. Our crisis, therefore, is not one of energy or of potential energy. Our crisis is one of the conflict, of disagreement and, in a good many cases, mea culpa for all of us. It is a case of insensitivity and misunderstanding.
The crux of the matter, of course, is the stand of the three major producing provinces and the federal government. These three provinces are considered to be what I will call "western Canada". They are in conflict with the stand of the federal government, which appears to me to be sometimes considered like a mythical fiefdom whose importance, authority, judgment, capabilities, ebb and flow, are based sometimes on how they are perceived by the provinces and their wishes and, yes, many times by their whims. To ensure fair, equitable, and reasonable access to the rest of the provinces which make up central Canada, the maritimes along with the territories, I believe we must develop a policy which is fair and equitable to the people of the producing provinces as well as to the people of the industrial heartland of Canada and, indeed, to all the consumers in all of the provinces. I include here the maritimes and the territories.

Canada Oil and Gas Act
Because current world prices have escalated to such dizzying heights, Mr. Speaker, and in such a relatively short period of time, the federal government is once again trying to apply what I call "some special treatment to exceptional circumstances". That is what we have now, exceptional circumstances, to which we are trying to apply some special treatment.
Canada was built because people were willing to share with one another. Once again we are trying to establish domestic prices, this time domestic prices for our energy resources. These are prices which will be different from world prices, not in order to benefit Ottawa but in order to benefit all Canadians. This is not a new procedure, it has been done before. Based on other exceptional circumstances the federal government established pricing structures which were lower or higher than the world price to protect the needs of Canadians, not western Canadians necessarily, and not eastern Canadians, but all of us.
Remember that international copper prices rose sharply in 1969. But we kept the Canadian prices low and we restrained exports to ensure that Canadians were supplied first, and adequately. To me this was a sensible policy in order to take care of our own citizens. The year 1969 was a bumper year for these types of problems. When the international price of wheat plummeted, we legislated a minimum price per bushel of domestically consumed grain to protect the Canadian supplier. This was wheat which was produced primarily in the west. At that time it was a reasonable policy.
I note here that the 1969 experience with copper involved mainly copper from Ontario. So once again it was one part of the country having to carry the burden for another.
The energy issue has raised many questions in Canada about the rights and privileges of being a Canadian, about the responsibilities of governments at every level, and the wisdom of federal policies related to energy. I add here that this Canadianism, as I understand it, is one where we say we are willing, at some time in our development, to share those things which we have with our fellow citizens. Where is the conflict with respect to that? Is it because we want to be at each other's throats? Is it because we want to say that what is mine is mine and what is yours is mine? No, not that at all. What we are trying to say and what we are trying to do is to build this nation.
We have lived through 113 years with conflicts. We have just come through one of the most heart-wrenching periods in the history of Canada, and 1 refer to the Quebec referendum. Many of my colleagues on this side of the House were there for that fight, and were there for many heart-wrenching experiences where families were split. We went through it together. We, the members of Parliament who are here, and those people in Quebec who had to be part of this, came through it. As a result, I believe we came out of it a little stronger.
I pray that this growing phenomenon, this growing sickness which we have now of separatism, whenever we disagree with the government, will come to an end. Surely we cannot expect
December 16, 1980
everyone to agree with everything all the time. That does not make sense. This is a democracy, and strong men and women will have different opinions and different ideas about different subjects at any given time in our development. So now, when we have a bit of disagreement why is it right away we say, "Separate. Let us get out of here"? Where will these people go? Where do they want to go? Do they want to set up their own little kingdom? Do they think they can live alone better than they can with a commonality, with a family which is Canada made up of Canadians?
When we were in conflict during the Second World War I never heard of anyone saying that they were fighting for Ontario alone, or fighting for Alberta alone. When they went over there they wore the uniform of Canada and, yes, when they made their sacrifices they made them for the whole country, not for just one little part. It is now left to us, in our heritage, to come face to face with the problems we have and to look at them squarely in the eye. For God's sake, it is not for us to say, "Separate, because we do not agree with you." This does not make sense. It is not reasonable. Surely we have come far enough together that we can reason together. [Translation]
Mr. Speaker, if we cannot understand one another or share what we have now, what chances have we got in the years ahead? What can we tell our children and our grandchildren? That we could not talk to each other? That we could not reach agreement? That we were more interested in owning things than in having a country of our own? Mr. Speaker, one must always ask oneself what is most important. What is more important today: to have a few dollars, to own more cars, more television sets and so on, or to have a country we can call our own, a country for us and our children? I say, Mr. Speaker, the time has come to talk to each other and to say: Now, listen: that's enough whining, enough shouting; time has come to listen and, as my hon. colleague said, to take positive steps for our country.
There is no argument that each province regulates natural resource activities within its borders. This has never been under dispute. The BNA Act delineates this fact very clearly. However, oil and gas are vital commodities. The well-being of the Canadian way of life is very dependent on both, and every consumer and every activity depend upon them. Because of this dependency, the federal government believes that all Canadians are now faced with exceptional circumstances which call for special treatment.
The special treatment really involves the federal government asking the people of the energy rich provinces to share their good fortune to ensure that adequate supplies of energy are available to all Canadians at reasonable prices and with reasonable surety. It seems to me that we should consider this kind of sharing as a privilege which is attendant on being a Canadian.
December 16, 1980

If this means we have to wave the flag, then I will wave the flag, because both in this House and outside this House and from the roof tops, I am not ashamed to shout that I am a Canadian nationalist. Many people are asked whether they are French, English, Ukrainian or whatever. I speak French, but I am not French; and 1 speak English, but 1 am not English either. Basically, I claim to be a Canadian, and 1 claim the right to go anywhere in this country. I claim the right to speak in the language of my choice wherever I am, and I claim the right to share in the good fortune of my fellow Canadians. In return, my fellow Canadians have the right to demand that I share what I have.


Mr. Thacker:: Reduce the tariff.


Gilbert Parent: Immediately we hear people shouting "reduce the tariff', or reduce this or that. Rather than getting involved in reducing this or that, 1 would prefer to get involved in sharing more of what we have here in the east, the industrial heartland. This industrial heartland could easily shift to the west, and why should it not shift to the west?


John Carnell Crosbie: Why are you stopping it?


Gilbert Parent: Many hon. members from the other side right away jump in with their cries of suppression and their cries that the government does not understand this or that. If these hon. members wish to join in the debate, then they are more than welcome. Let them bring their vindictiveness, their hatred, and their divisiveness, but I do not wish to get involved in that kind of mud. I do not want to have to climb to the top of this-

-"manure", one might say, and join them in saying, "We must shout, we must fight." Why fight all the time? Why should we always be at one another's throats? That is not what Canada is all about. Mr. Speaker, we must take time to listen to one another, and increasingly so.

What are some of the responsibilities of the government in times of exceptional circumstances such as we now face? Should the federal government be involved in more than trying to ensure self-sufficiency and leave oil companies and the west to do the job? We are already self-sufficient in total energy. We export more gas, coal, heavy oil, uranium and electricity than we import oil. But our reliance on the oil we do import leaves our national economy vulnerable and that is why initiatives are being planned which will help to increase the Canadian production of oil. This will occur in the west, offshore Newfoundland, Baffin Island and in other areas. All this collectively is ours. That is why we want to make better use of the oil which we produce, and why we want to convert some oil users to other more plentiful resources which will do the job just as well as the oil which we import.
We do not think that all oil used in future should be measured by the cost of current production. Oil that was found years ago is cheap to produce and should be cheaper to buy.
Canada Oil and Gas Act
Oil which was found later is more expensive to produce and should be higher priced.
There is no question that we will continue to pay world prices for imported oil, at least until the day Canada becomes self-sufficient which, I hope, with all members in this House, comes before the end of this decade. At that time we will no longer require the oil produced in other nations. That is what we are talking about in this so-called blended price-cheaper prices for the old oil and higher prices for the new oil.
We have said to our colleagues in the west that we will pay $38 per barrel for the development of the oil sands, a price which is above the world price. In addition, every time the cost of living rises, the increase will be added to the price. Surely that is reasonable, and should be considered by our colleagues. As I see it, the government is intent on accomplishing three things in the Field of energy-ensuring that all Canadians have fair and reasonable access to energy, ensuring that the producers of energy receive fair and reasonable payment for their goods produced, and ensuring that Canada starts toward selfsufficiency in energy through a number of initiatives funded through the federal government.
Many times I have heard hon. members say that we are trying to stick it to the west again, that we are trying to take too much from the oil companies and from the provinces. If the people of Canada, through their federal government, have paid for 50 per cent, 50 cents out of every dollar that has ever gone to exploration for oil in Canada, is it too much to ask that those people receive 24 per cent off? I do not know where the logic is. It is interesting to note that the federal government has paid in excess of 95 per cent of the exploration costs of Dome Petroleum.


Thomas Edward Siddon: They have not.


Gilbert Parent: Yes, they have, my friend. If the hon. member will check the figures he will see that I am right.


Thomas Edward Siddon: You are talking about tax policy.


Gilbert Parent: All we are asking for is 25 per cent which would go to the people of Canada who have paid the whole shot. Is that too much? I do not think that it is.


Mr. Waddell:: Why don't you take the other 5 per cent and take control?


Gilbert Parent: We have hon. members on the far right saying that we should take it all. They happen to believe in nationalization.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: You have already paid out for 95 per cent.


Gilbert Parent: Those in the official opposition believe that the Canadian people should get nothing. I believe that there is a middle ground where, while we will not be able to get all the people to agree, surely the mass of Canadians will be able to see that by understanding, sharing, and perhaps by giving a little on either end, we should be able to arrive at an answer which will be good for all Canadians.

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Canada Oil and Gas Act


Mr. Blaikie:: Not by listening to you.


Gilbert Parent: Now we have the man who, it was said the other day, has trouble with his sphincter muscle. He looks like that.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I am responding to the anal quality of your remarks.


Gilbert Parent: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, that I have been drawn down to the hon. member's level. 1 had every good intention when I started my speech. The eventual resolution of the domestic conflict on oil, plus the establishment of new and expanding industries in western Canada, will serve to create a continuum that will cycle and recycle benefits to all Canadians, be they easterners, westerners, northerners, southerners, or centralists.
The heritage of Canadian oil and gas in the west will aid competitiveness in the total industrial and manufacturing base by providing energy at less than world prices, a position and advantage which no doubt are strongly envied by other industrialized nations. Not only will our citizens in the west gain prosperity-and 1 really believe they will-from their own resources, but their growing manufacturing base will enjoy the same competitive edge.
The heritage of Canadian oil and gas in western Canada will also provide all Canadians with help and assistance to make the transition to a more secure energy future. This is the responsibility of those who possess the tools with which to accomplish the transition nationally, thereby creating our secure energy future. 1 have no doubt that when history is written we will find that Canadians responded to that responsibility with understanding, logic, and common sense.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Kilgour:: I rise on a point of order. Will the hon. member for Welland (Mr. Parent) allow me a question?


Gilbert Parent: Certainly.


David Kilgour: The hon. member for Welland indicated, if I heard him correctly, that we need a hydrocarbon policy which is both open, "fair, and acceptable". Would the hon. member tell us if he has a scintilla of evidence to indicate that the policy proposed in the budget is acceptable to any of the four western provinces?


Gilbert Parent: In response to that question, when the hon. member says "a scintilla of evidence", on what would he rely for evidence? Would he say, if we spoke to enough people and they seemed to be in favour of those policies, that this would be evidence? Would he say, if the leaders of the provinces come to an agreement and say "yes, what you are doing is reasonable", that this would be evidence?


Thomas Edward Siddon: The majority of the people.


Gilbert Parent: The problems in what the member referred to as the west, the four provinces, are different. There are many people in the four western provinces who are more than receptive to our policies.
Having said that, also I know there are many people there who believe that the policies should be more generous. In trying to please everyone, we do the best we can with what we have, always keeping in mind that what we are trying to do is the best thing for the country as a whole.
In direct response to the member's question, my evidence is my own empirical evidence from the people with whom I have spoken, the things I have read, and my own convictions. If I may share with the hon. member, Canadians generally in the western provinces and in all the provinces are willing to share what they have so that we can build a better nation.


Mr. Peter Ittinuar (Nunatsiaq):: Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member for Welland (Mr. Parent) for his wise, fine, and eloquent criticism of Bill C-48. Also I congratulate for once the hon. member for the Western Arctic (Mr. Nickerson) for his astute observations on this bill and what it does not mean for the people of the north. Some day-perhaps during this term-I should like to address the House on what would be a comprehensive energy policy for the north. Certainly I do not think Bill C-48 is such a policy.
Briefly I should like to address what is only vaguely referred to in the bill, the environment and the people. The government's budget, the National Energy Program, and the recent report of the Economic Council of Canada indicate the extent to which economists are relying on energy investment to stimulate growth in the Canadian economy. It is commonly agreed that the slowdown in economic growth in the United States and OECD countries makes the search for solutions to Canada's economic problems even more urgent. However, the government's commitment to huge energy projects as the salvation of our economy is more than a little disturbing to northerners.
The government appears to think that in an atmosphere of economic crisis it can push through legislation to accelerate exploration and development on "Canada lands" and abdicate its responsibility to northerners. I say that the government has not practised its responsibility as well as it should have.
The federal government is supposed to act as the trustee of territorial lands. It now appears that it regards that role lightly, in the face of possible short-term economic benefits. The bill does not address several very important issues related to pushing ahead with exploration and development in the north.
As the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell) said on Friday, Canadians should benefit from a bigger share of resource profits as compared to the exorbitant profits taken by multinationals operating in the country. However, steps must be taken to ensure that obvious problems of conflict of interest are avoided. It seems potentially dangerous that the
December 16, 1980

25 per cent shareholder of resources is also charged with granting licences and leases, while at the same time purporting to protect the interests of the environment and northern residents. The potential for a conflict of interest cannot be overlooked. It is a problem which must be faced as the state becomes more and more involved in the resource sector.
Legislation such as Bill C-48 should contain specific provisions which reflect the government's commitment to the interests of its northern residents and the environment. Even when the federal government had no direct stake in northern resources, its record has been poor, to say the least, when it came to protecting the environment and northern residents against the negative impacts of development, and there are negative impacts. Northerners cannot be blamed if they are skeptical of the government's latest scheme, when it stands to profit directly from accelerated exploration and production of non-renewable resources in the territories.
One way the government could demonstrate its good faith would be to provide us with a comprehensive plan for development of both renewable and non-renewable resources. Such a plan is absolutely essential if we are to avoid a continuation of ad hoc exploitation of northern resources, and create an atmosphere of security and confidence in the future. Rapid development of non-renewable resources in the north poses a serious threat to the traditional land and sea-based economy which is in existence today. I cannot think of anywhere else in Canada where people are asked to sacrifice their present economic base for short-term benefit of the residents in other parts of the country. Northerners are being asked to do that, trusting in blind faith that somehow the future will be assured.
A comprehensive plan for northern development should not be an afterthought; it should be the foundation on which to build legislation. Environmental protection should have a high priority in northern development plans. The need for more environmental studies has been repeated time and again. On last Friday the hon. member for Hillsborough (Mr. McMillan) proved that point very succinctly and clearly. The recent EARP report on the Arctic pilot project is one example among many I could mention. The Environment Assessment Review Panel report stated in its over-all conclusion that:
Without further research on marine mammals guided by the advice of Inuit and of government scientists . . . the pane! is unable to recommend that the project is environmentally acceptable.
However, it is still unclear when such studies will be completed, and by whom.
Although the need for studies is recognized by government, the provision for an environmental studies revolving fund in clause 49-a misguided clause, I might add-does not go far enough in solving the problem of producing environmental research, and its proposed operation is unsatisfactorily vague. The environmental studies revolving fund is to be administered by the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources and the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, the two departments with direct interest in development. Clause 49(6) gives the two ministers of those departments total
Canada Oil and Gas Act
discretion as to what kinds of studies are to be done, and by whom.
As far as government research is concerned, the Department of the Environment, whose mandate is environmental protection, and the Department of Oceans and Fisheries, seem like more logical choices to perform the role of environmental watchdog but I do not believe they are very interested in this case. Furthermore, there is no indication in this section that native groups and independent public-interest research groups will have any opportunity to have a voice in environmental decisions, or a hand in those funds.
In any case it seems rather pointless to keep gathering environmental data on individual projects outside the context of a rational and comprehensive long-term plan for northern development. There is another oversight in this section which is rather disturbing to me. The north holds more than energy resources. There are people living in the north. Studies of the socioeconomic impact of development are just as important as environmental impact studies, since the two are inextricably linked.
In view of the magnitude and critical importance of environmental and socioeconomic studies, the $15 million ceiling set in proposed section 49(10) seems rather arbitrary, since the document does not state whether the total is $15 million, or $15 million for each separate fund, so one is tempted to think numbers were picked out of the air. This entire clause requires closer scrutiny in committee. 1 believe this point has been mentioned by other speakers from both sides of the House.
Another objection to this bill is to be found in the government's failure to acknowledge the issue of native claims as they relate to non-renewable resource development. The document does not say whether the federal government would be prepared to remove from disposition those areas where native people have unextinguished aboriginal title. Neither does it say whether the government is willing to negotiate certain minimum economic rights, such as equity and employment, through a land claims negotiation about which the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is now negotiating with the northern people.
The document does not say whether native people, having unextinguished claim to the land, will be eligible to collect a share of royalties earned from development, although, this was done last Friday through equities and an equity formula for a mine in the Keewatin region.
Similarly, this document fails to acknowledge the provincial aspirations of the territories. In the interim period prior to obtaining provincial status, will the territories have an opportunity to share in revenue accruing from non-renewable resource development? How can the territories be expected to evolve to a position of relative economic self-sufficiency without any substantial revenue base?
The 25 per cent interest in resources which this bill proposes provides a pretty strong incentive for the federal government not to relinquish control over any land in the north. The

December 16, 1980
Canada Oil and Gas Act
territorial government and native groups are united in opposing large-scale energy projects at this time. They do not want exploration and development to press ahead until there are some guarantees that they will not have to pay the socioeconomic costs and reap none of the benefits.
On June 20 of this year the Northwest Territories legislative assembly passed a motion on deferral of the Norman Wells pipeline. The motion stated:
There is a growing consciousness and concern amongst all people in the Northwest Territories about the merits of large development projects which take resources from the north without proper benefit and compensation to residents of the Northwest Territories.
"The National Energy Program" document characterized northern aspirations as legitimate and rightful, and stated "the need for frontier resources is not so great that it must override our social goals and obligations". These principles must be applauded, but I do not believe the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) has ever read them. However, phrases take you only so far. What is required now is some evidence that the government abides by the principles it espouses.
Bill C-48 does not provide evidence northerners require to feel secure in their future. What we would like to see are some provisions that guarantee northerners a share of the resource riches in their lands, and also guarantee some control over development. The federal government movement to strengthen its control over Canada lands jeopardizes the potential for increased northern control. It is ironic the residents of Canada's "energy storehouse" pay the highest energy prices in Canada. This document offers no guarantee that, with the depletion of northern energy resources, energy supplies will be available to northerners at cheaper or southern prices.
It should not be the case that northern interests are sacrified for the interests of "Canadians". We are Canadians, and as such our interests should be considered as part of the whole. The government can demonstrate its respect and consideration for northern Canadians by including our interests and our proposals when it proposes major policy initiatives such as the National Energy Program and Bill C-48.


Mr. Peter Lang (Kitchener):: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to participate in the continuation of the debate on the National Energy Program, in particular Bill C-48, an act to regulate oil and gas interests in Canada lands and to amend the Oil and Gas Production and Conservation Act.
In view of the continuing claim of both Newfoundland and Nova Scotia to jurisdiction over lands off the east coast, it is important to refer the matter of ownership quickly to the Supreme Court for resolution. Uncertainty over the legal control over such areas is not conducive to the early development of resource potential. Discussions with the Atlantic provinces in the past have reviewed revenue-sharing arrangements and the according to the provinces of a substantial voice in matters of direct concern to them including, in particular, the need to minimize social, environmental, and economic disruption in the region. It is imperative that we take these needs into account in the management of offshore resources.
In spite of earnest discussions, most recently in the context of the constitutional talks, this issue has not been resolved. In the north it is necessary to provide strong incentives for exploration, in keeping with our need to know the location, extent of resources and development proposals. It is especially so for those which involve export of resources, that might otherwise offer a safety net for Canada's energy future. These will be critically examined in view of their anticipated social, environmental and economic effects.
The purposes of this new legislation are to establish a modernized, regulatory regime for the management of the Canada lands; to ensure active development of oil and gas rights; to increase Canadian ownership; to ensure that a high level of Canadian goods and services is employed in oil and gas activities carried out on the Canada lands, and to ensure that Canada receives a fair share of the economic rent.


Mr. Mayer:: You don't know the definition of economic rent.


Peter Joseph Lang: The main elements of this legislation are stiffer work requirements, involving vigorous and sustained exploration efforts to be negotiated through exploration agreements. A minimum of 50 per cent Canadian ownership will be required for any production from the Canada lands. Applicants for exploration and production rights will have to show how their operations will bring industrial and employment benefits for Canadians. In addition to a basic royalty of 10 per cent, a progressive incremental royalty will be established, based upon the profitability of each producing field.
The Oil and Gas Production and Conservation Act will be amended to impose more vigorous requirements for environmental protection, to confirm the responsibility of operators for the costs of evaluating production systems, and to reserve for Petro-Canada, or some other designated Crown corporation, a 25 per cent carried interest, which will be convertible to a working interest at any time prior to authorization or production. Although this 25 per cent interest has received considerable criticism, this quarter interest is not unreasonable if one considers similar arrangements elsewhere in the world which regulate development on the one hand and foreign ownership on the other.
Four oil producing western bloc nations, Great Britain, Norway, Mexico, and Australia all have more stringent development and foreign ownership regulations than we do in Canada. Great Britain, for instance, has first claim on a 51 per cent share of oil production, subject to negotiation of purchase at market prices. It also takes part in joint ventures with foreign-owned oil companies. But again it retains control of all projects.
Norway is another case in point. Its public company, Statoil, is authorized to take up to a 50 per cent interest in any block of land it does not already hold. It does this after an oil or gas find has been located, and makes no payment for past exploration expenditures. It can also increase its option to 70 per cent at its own discretion.
December 16, 1980

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, as the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) has already pointed out, this 25 per cent provision is simply one way of getting back for the Canadian taxpayer a fair share of what he or she has contributed over the years for exploration in these areas of Canada. In many cases this has amounted to 93 per cent, 95 per cent and sometimes 103 per cent of the cost of that exploration.
The National Energy Program is designed to free us from dependence on OPEC, leading ultimately to independence in terms of imported oil, and hence energy self-sufficiency. Second, the National Energy Program offers Canadians the opportunity to participate in the energy industry in general, expanding the role of public sector companies and encouraging the growth of Canadian companies to allow all of us to share in the benefits of energy industry expansion.
The National Energy Program also establishes a petroleum and revenue sharing system that stresses the need for fairness to all Canadians no matter where they live in Canada. The government has moved very decisively toward implementing the National Energy Program. Its aim is to encourage the discovery and production of Canadian oil and gas, and to protect the consumer and the economy by having a gradual increase in prices that is less than the Conservative proposals, and that does not exacerbate inflation as would the Crosbie budget's rapid progression toward world prices. The pricing structure, along with the numerous incentives, also provides the economic climate necessary for the development of our resources of natural gas, oil, and alternate energy resources.
In many ways this debate has followed a predictable course. On one side the NDP is saying to the government, "You are not doing enough, we need more government intervention, nationalize the industry." The position the NDP has taken on this question and on many others would leave our economy and deficit in such bad shape there is no way we would be able to support the social programs for which the NDP is so fond of trying to take credit. As you know, Mr. Speaker, the vast majority of our social programs have been put through by Liberal governments.
This brings me to another point, the posturing of the Conservative party with regard to their rhetoric of concern for the little guy. If they were so concerned about the little guy, then why did the Conservative party, exactly one year ago last Thursday, introduce a budget that would have cost consumers $40 billion more than the Liberal budget and energy policy? They talk about their energy tax credit, but the Liberal energy program saves the consumers 12 times more than the amount provided by their energy tax credit.
In light of that budget of one year ago, which most of the Conservative members here voted for, how can these same individuals, and particularly the hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Crombie), now be talking in a self-righteous manner about protecting the little guy? Furthermore, when one looks at the facts, it has been Liberal governments which have acted for the little guy. It has been Liberal governments that have introduced old age security, the guaranteed income supple-
Canada Oil and Gas Act
ment, the Canada Pension Plan, family allowances, medicare, and many other programs.
The Conservatives do a lot of talking, but where was there any social concern in their budget of last year for the little guy, and where is their track record of social legislation? Where was there a GIS in the Crosbie budget? It is a very sad track record indeed. I would suggest to the hon. member for Rosedale that he is living in a glass house and throwing stones made up of inaccurate information. This government, the Liberal government, fulfils its social responsibilities in balance with an economically realistic budget and National Energy Program.
Much of what has been said by the Tories concerning the industries' reaction to the Canada lands initiatives and many other aspects of the National Energy Program is, to say the least, exaggerated. They have, for instance, chosen to highlight instances of drilling rigs leaving the country, and have said that this has resulted in a slowdown in the industry. The facts are quite the contrary.
Before the National Energy Program was announced, the president of the Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors, Mr. Selby Porter, was quoted in the Globe and Mail as saying that the use of drilling rigs in Canada was expected to drop to 59 per cent of available capacity over the next 15 months. The reason he gave was that the equipment market was oversupplied. The reason they are oversupplied is because we have a surplus of gas, with capped wells, and no immediate incentives for drilling. This was before the budget. With the National Energy Program and the budget, we have a gas bank and this problem has been taken care of. With 572 rigs in western Canada, and 475 operative, our rig deployment rate is 83 per cent. Five years ago the deployment rate was 48 per cent. Interestingly, Mr. Porter also added that the longterm outlook for the industry was optimistic, and that the demand for services would continue to grow. So, as you can see, there is very little actual substance to the Tory arguments.
Generally speaking, when the government brought down the National Energy Program we did not expect industry to be overjoyed, since we have increased the national government's share of revenue largely at their expense. What we did expect from the industry was a realistic appraisal of the situation, and this is what is currently transpiring. It does not take a financial wizard to understand that there is money to be made in oil and gas in this country, and slowly but surely the industry is coming to realize that the federal government has a national responsibility for our energy and economic future, and that this responsibility requires a greater slice of the revenue pie.


An hon. Member:: Want to bet?


Peter Joseph Lang: Somebody says, "Want to bet?" The hon. member for Etobicoke Centre (Mr. Wilson), the Conservative energy critic, was expounding in the House the other day on how this government is the national government and has the national responsibility for energy development. I suggest members opposite get their lines of communication straightened out so we know where they stand on the energy issue.

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Criminal Code
The government is flexible on oil pricing, is aware of the concerns of the west, and is open to negotiation. It is extremely important that both sides co-operate in these negotiations for the energy and economic security of all Canadians. I was in the west four times last summer. 1 spoke with Bill Richards, the president of Dome, Bob Blair of Nova, Jim Grey of Canadian Hunter, and Bob Pierce of Nova. I am well aware of the entrepreneurial spirit and the spirit of productivity that exist in Alberta and throughout the west. It is the purpose of the National Energy Program to foster a climate so that this can continue for the benefit of energy exploration and development for all Canadians.
I see my time is running out. I have further points to make, which I will do at eight o'clock.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: 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 are as follows: the hon. member for Fundy-Royal (Mr. Corbett)-Research and Development-Job-creation programs- Policy of department; the hon. member for Calgary North (Mr. Wright)-Energy-Inquiry respecting contingency plans to assist unemployed oil well drillers; the hon. member for Regina East (Mr. de Jong)-Hazardous substances-Shipment of Vitavax pesticide to Nepal and India.
It being five o'clock the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper, namely, public bills, private bills, and notices of motions.


PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BILLS
[Stage Direction]
Motions Nos. 17 and 18 allowed to stand by unanimous consent.

Benno Friesen: that Bill C-219, to amend the Criminal Code (parental
abduction of children), be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs.
He said: Mr. Speaker, Bill C-219 is essentially the same bill I tabled first in the fall of 1976. One of the sad commentaries on our society is that there is an increasingly alarming trend to marriage break-ups. In far too many of these situations there is growing acrimony, and the victims of the acrimony are the helpless children of those marriages. It is becoming increasingly apparent also that it is the parent who does not have custody of the child who will frequently take issue with the other parent by snatching the child who has been assigned in custody. The hopeless victim is always the child.
It seemed to me when I first encountered this problem that we do not have protection for children by way of the Criminal Code under that section dealing with kidnapping. There is protection from this kind of violence for those children in what we might call a normal, wholesome marriage, home and family life, yet there is no protection under the law, at least no adequate protection, for those children who are the potential victims of a marriage break-up. For that reason I tabled what was then Bill C-221 in the fall of 1976. That bill was debated in March, 1977. At that time there was growing acceptance of the principle of the bill; that is, that kidnapping under the provisions of the bill should no longer be a matter dealt with under the civil code but should be dealt with under the Criminal Code. In this way there would be real substance to the protection that ought to exist for children.
At that time the subject matter of my bill was referred to the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs for further study. The subject of the bill was supported by all parties, and I think the principle has unanimous support now in the House. I must say, to the credit of all hon. members, the subject matter has never been dealt with in a politically partisan way but has always been seen as a social issue which has to be dealt with outside party politics.
If there is an awareness in the House about this issue, there is also a growing awareness in the country. There are thousands of cases of the kind 1 have described occurring in Canada. I have had many representations received in my office regarding this type of case. These are cases involving virtually helpless parents who have had their children snatched from them by the other parent, usually, but not always, the father. The parent with custody granted by the court becomes a helpless victim while the child, on many occasions, becomes the subject of abuse at the hands of the parent who snatched the child. There seems to be no elementary or emotional security for these children in their formative years. They sometimes become scarred for life through such an experience.
Four years ago when we first debated this issue I mentioned the first case that had come to my attention involving the son of one of my constituents, a Mrs. Lois Preston. Her son was snatched away and carried about from pillar to post across Canada, mainly throughout Ontario and sometimes into the United States, for a period of about three years. During that three-year period he had something like 12 aliases. By the time he was found three years later the poor child hardly even knew
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who he was. That boy has been scarred for life as a result of that experience. Cases of this kind have occurred over and over again across Canada and throughout the world. To this day my office is receiving notices of additional cases which have come to light.
There has been some progress made since the introduction of this bill four years ago. Across Canada, with the exception of two provinces, there is reciprocity regarding the matter of child custody. If a child is abducted in British Columbia and taken to Manitoba, the Manitoba courts will now recognize the custody order granted in British Columbia. The big problem is in finding the children. As the law stands now it is not strong enough to support custody orders.
Several organizations have come forward to give approval to the provisions of this bill, and 1 might mention the National Council of Women as well as a new organization called Abducted Children's Rights of Canada. Mrs. Lilia Karu of Ontario has formed this new organization to advocate this kind of protection. I believe one of the members on the government side who will speak in support of this bill is that lady's member of Parliament. The organization sponsored by Lois Preston, Parents of Kidnapped Children, has been advocating this principle for a number of years.
Just about a year and a half ago I attended the Interparliamentary Union Conference in Caracas, Venezuela. At that time I spoke to a motion asking that union to pass a motion urging governments to grant reciprocity of custody around the world. That motion was unanimously adopted by the interparliamentary union. Just a month or two ago Canada became a signatory to The Hague Convention by which western European and North American countries are to grant reciprocity of custody. So there has been some progress.
There has also been some stagnation. As I have pointed out several times, this matter is now four years old, and since I first introduced the subject matter in the form of a bill there have been countless more children kidnapped by parents, and their security has been jeopardized in those intervening four years because of our negligence in passing this kind of protective legislation.
I might add that most of the cases involving these abducted children on our flies four years ago have still not been resolved, specifically because of this lack of protection. Consequently the security needs of the most vulnerable children of our land are not being met. The irony is that at this time the constitutional committee is debating a charter of rights and freedoms for our people, yet the most vulnerable in our land really do not have security of person because of our failure to put teeth into the legislation.
It seems to me all we lack in this country is the political will to resolve this problem and end the inherent anguish in these human tragedies scattered across our land. There is great torment to those parents who wonder where their children are, and there is great anguish on the part of those children who wonder if they will ever see their other parents again and where their next home will be. It seems to me what we need is
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some political resolve to end the anguish these children are experiencing.


Mr. Ron Irwin (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice and Minister of State for Social Development):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to address a few remarks to Bill C-219, a private member's bill sponsored by the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock-North Delta (Mr. Friesen). This is a very important bill which has been put forward in similar form in the past by the government but for one reason or another has never been passed. It was first introduced on May 1, 1978, as Bill C-51, but lapsed because of the adjournment of the House. It was reintroduced on November 21, 1978, as Bill C-21, but again was not dealt with because an election was called.
As I have indicated, both Bill C-51 and Bill C-21 were government bills. It is apparent that the government and the hon. member are of similar mind when it comes to the problem of child abuse. On two occasions this subject matter was sent to the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs. These were in March of 1977 and February of 1978. In May and July of 1977 the committee heard several expert witnesses.
i have read carefully the wording of Bill C-21 and the hon. member's Bill C-219, and they appear to be identical, right down to the explanatory notes.
One of the most traumatic, if not the most traumatic experience is the breaking up of a family. Usually the most difficult part of separation is not the division of money, of the furniture of the house but, rather, the access to and custody of the children of the marriage. In most cases the desire of each parent to keep the child or, at the very least, to have regular access, is motivated by deep affection for the child. Notwithstanding the rancour and the time involved, the overwhelming majority of cases are solved either by mutual consent and a separation agreement, by a court order, or a combination of both. Notwithstanding the difficulty and tension involved in reaching a mutual understanding, which often continues even beyond the formalization of an agreement, very seldom is there child abduction.
Although we are dealing here today with situations which technically would include denial of access, or prolonged access where one parent denies access to the other parent or keeps the child too long, these matters can still be dealt with in the civil courts.
What the hon. member's bill would do would be to go a long way toward alleviating the tragic experience of having a child kidnapped by one of the parents, to the utter despair of the wronged parent. I hope once we pass a measure similar to what the hon. member is proposing-and I am sure we will- the deterrent alone, namely, making child abduction a criminal offence, will be sufficient to prevent most extreme cases.
What we have now, in both legal and technical terms, is a situation which is quite unsatisfactory. Without a civil court order there is nothing that can be done quickly, unless one has
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a lot of money, to return a child who has been abducted, notwithstanding that it is in the best interests of the child. To act in a civil action is both expensive and lengthy and, if there is a question of jurisdiction, in many cases ineffective.
Moreover, the wronged parent does not have access to police investigation under what we have now, and the parent who has abducted the child can move very short distances, especially in large metropolitan centres, and virtually disappear. The parent cannot disappear forever, but in the interim period there can be serious effects on the child.
In the interim-and that is what we are talking about- there must be more protection than there is now. We must be concerned about the welfare of the child, and we must be much more concerned about the parent who loses that child. I doubt if what my hon. friend is putting forward will keep any more marriages together, but it will certainly ensure more fairness in those cases where abduction occurs.
Although it is difficult to estimate the number of abductions in Canada, there are some figures as to propensity, and there are figures which show potential abductions by reason of the increase in the number of family breakdowns. As I indicated, I do not have Canadian figures, but I suspect that per capita percentage increases are similar in Canada to those in our neighbour, the United States. The recent paper "Parental Child Stealing: Participants and the Victimization Process", presented August 20 to 24, 1980, by Michael W. Agopian, assistant professor in the administration of justice department of the California Lutheran College, points out, and I quote:
Divorce is rapidly increasing in America. In 1978 Americans divorced 1,122,000 times.
The rate of divorce has increased steadily, and from the 1960 rate of 2.2 divorces per 100,000 population, the divorce rate peaked at 5.1 per 100,000 in 1978.
The number of children involved in divorce has nearly tripled between 1960 and 1976, increasing from 463,000 to 1,117,000 children.
Today almost two million children live in one-parent families.
And recently, more fathers have become desirous of custody of their children.
Single fatherhood increased 32 per cent between 1970 and 1978 in America, with nearly one million children under the age of 18 living with their male parents.
Such a rapid increase in the divorce rate signals the potential for an epidemic of parental child stealing.
These changing and fluid times make legislation such as the hon. member is proposing that much more imperative. In looking back over the years during which I practised law, it was more the problem of parental abduction within Canada, from province to province, than abduction from Canada to a foreign country, that concerned me. When this occurred within Canada, the repercussions of returning the child were staggering, even from province to province. Facing abduction from country to country was like facing a brick wall. Almost invariably the wronged parent would have to go to the other country and, in essence, kidnap the child back. One can well imagine the effect this tug of war between two persons the child loves would ultimately have on the child, and both parents would love the child because both would be trying to get custody.
To ensure some international order, I am pleased to say that Canada is at the forefront of countries pushing for international rules. At The Hague conference of 1980 and The Hague conference of 1979 Canada forcefully put forward suggestions for international rules. Twenty-three nations worked to prepare "The Hague Draft Convention on International Child Abduction", and from this draft a formal convention was approved. On October 25, 1980, Canada, France, Greece and Switzerland were the first countries to sign this international convention.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, may I say that I have been with parents who have experienced parental child abduction. I have witnessed the utter frustration and utter helplessness of these parents. I have seen how ineffective our courts have been in these cases, simply because we have not given them the tools, 1 have spoken to Crown attorneys and police officers who wanted to help but could not.
Having seen this and experienced this, I applaud the hon. member's efforts. I hope it will be the prod that prompts the government to move quickly.


Mr. Bob Ogle (Saskatoon East):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to add my remarks to those which have been made by the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock-North Delta (Mr. Friesen) and the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Irwin) on this modern social problem which has such devastating effects upon innocent children. I suspect that pretty well every hon. member in the House at some time has been approached by somebody in his or her constituency, or by some other party, with respect to this problem.
As a member of Parliament I have had the problem brought to my attention on numerous occasions, and speaking from my pastoral experience as a parish priest, I know how profoundly devastating is the situation in those cases which were brought to my attention. Our society has changed radically, as I think most people will agree.
As is indicated in the statistics given by the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie, what has changed most profoundly in present-day society in Canada, and in north America as a whole, is the stability of marriage. It is marriage breakdown, and marriage instability which occurs so frequently nowadays, which bring this problem to our attention.
I can say that in my pastoral experience I have officiated in 1,000 marriage ceremonies, which is many people and many new marriages. Each time that I prepared myself for that very serious moment in people's lives I always stood back in my own mind and asked myself whether a really good thing was happening, whether the two people being married were really ready to be married. Of course, one could not answer that with absolute certainty.
I know from close personal experience that many young people today approaching marriage-I make a clear distinction between the word "marriage" and the word "wedding" because people prepare themselves for weddings but sometimes
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they are not prepared for marriage-are not approaching this very serious moment in their lives with the full understanding that they are taking upon themselves a commitment, a contract, an agreement or a covenant for a mutual, exclusive, permanent union in which, with hope and love, they are preparing themselves to give to each other as responsible adult people ready to confront the difficulties which are part and parcel of every human marriage. As the statistics which were given in the House would indicate, many marriages today are not staying together.
Before I go on to speak about the act of kidnapping, let me question whether or not our society is helping to prepare young people for marriage. It is easier to get a marriage licence than it is to get a driver's licence, the reason being that before getting the latter licence you must take instructions and learn how to drive. However, all you need before getting a marriage licence is to be old enough, to have the $5 or whatever is required, and to have taken a blood test.
Becoming married could be the beginning of a journey into a lifetime of happiness, or it could be the beginning of a journey into a lifetime of hell. So I think that society should take a close look at the requirements before a marriage licence is given and perhaps require some counselling before a licence is granted. I have had a good bit of experience in marriage preparation courses, marriage counselling, and so on, which is sought by many young people. On the other hand there are many young people who do not seek to have answers before they start on the road of married life.
I should like to say that 1 have had the privilege, as have many others, of coming from a very happy home. I think that this has had a great deal to do with everything I have done in life. It was through no choice of my own that I came from a happy home, it was just my good fortune, a blessing, or whatever we want to call it. I can never remember my parents saying a word in anger to each other, and I can well remember the day my mother died when my father said, in his grief, "This is the only thing she ever did to hurt me." It is a privilege to have come from such a home, and I appreciate the fact that many, many people have not had that privilege.
Today, we as legislators have the serious responsibility of having to face the problem of marriage breakdown and of having to face the problem dealt with in the bill put forward by the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock-North Delta, namely, that after a breakdown has taken place and marriage has finally come to an end, if children are involved there will always be heartache, sorrow, pain, and distress. No matter how the family courts, the lawyers, the priests or the ministers, and the social workers involved, deal with this, pain and agony will be present. But we still have to do something to protect people against extra strain, extra sorrow, and extra pain.
Now I would like to read a section from some material which tells us how the law we now have, imperfect as it is, has improved since the time when English society decided to pass a law to protect children. It was written by E. G. Ewaschuk, director, criminal law amendments, Department of Justice. He wrote:
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Since the common law misdemeanours of kidnapping and forcible abduction required an element of force, which is usually not required to persuade a young child to go somewhere, the statutory offence of child-stealing was created in 1814 by the enactment of "An Act for the More Effectual Prevention of Child Stealing".
He went on to explain that even in those days it was not uncommon for children to be kidnapped.
In the section of the act of that time there was the following provision:
-That nothing in the act shall extend, or be construed to extend, to any person who shall have claimed to be the father of an illegitimate child, or to have any right or title in law, to the possession of such child, on account of his getting possession of such child, or taking such child out of the possession of the mother thereof, or other person or persons having the lawful charge thereof.
The act simply said that the father, notwithstanding whoever happened to be taking responsibility for the child, was free to go and take the child at any time. Since then, as other speakers in this debate have indicated, there has been a growth in the notion that in the settlement which follows a breakdown of marriage, this may not be the best way to handle the matter. Now there are stipulations which permit the mother, at times, and the father at other times, to be responsible for the children of the marriage. In my experience, this act of stealing the child is almost invariably strongly linked with the abuse of alcohol, or alcoholism, which might have accounted for the breakdown of the marriage in the first place. In these cases either the mother or father has become addicted to alcohol. As a result they are no longer able to maintain a happy home, marriages break down, separation follows and divorce results. As might be expected, children are frequently given to the spouse who is not the alcoholic. However, in the strange love-hate relationship which follows, the person who has not been given custody, in a kind of revengeful mood, finds the child and somehow or other steals it away. Frequently, as has been indicated already, the one who steals the child runs away with it and disappears.
Many people are aware of how the movie industry in this past year attempted to bring this case home in a very real way, in the academy award winning movie called "Kramer v. Kramer". I think in that movie the stress and strain of the marriage, the change in the personalities of the people involved, the breakdown, the separation and the change in attitude toward the child from both parties was well demonstrated. I know of many cases which have the elements of the problems demonstrated in that movie.
One commendable feature of this bill is that it attempts to deal with the problem of jurisdiction. Now there is a sort of cure which is available in some instances, as the speaker from Surrey-White Rock-North Delta pointed out with respect to the issue of custody and jurisdiction. Karen Weiler of Osgoode Hall pointed out in an article:
The issue of custody, difficult to determine at best, is rendered more complex when interjurisdictional problems arise. Basically, one parent will be seeking to regain custody of the child which has been "snatched", while the other will attempt to obtain judicial sanction for his or her actions. The extent to which a court will intervene in settling the dispute is often unpredictable by virtue of the fact that a court may assume jurisdiction on several different bases.

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The author of the article goes on to explain the complicated reality of who is able to treat the matter when the child is in one place, one parent is in another and the other parent is somewhere else; when both of them have moved, or when a move to another country is involved or when two states in the United States are involved or different provinces in Canada. It is a very complicated situation.
In summing up, I support the general notion which has been proposed by the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock-North-Delta and supported by the hon. member from Sault Ste. Marie in this area of protecting children. They are the ones who really do suffer from the breakdown of marriages as we know them. It is essential we find a way to make it possible for these children to have freedom to develop with the least possible destruction to their personalities and their future.


Gordon Edward Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock-North Delta (Mr. Friesen) for the very excellent bill which he has presented to the House. Apparently, this bill has been receiving widespread publicity, as I have received letters from my constituents urging me to support it.
1 support this bill and I congratulate the hon. member for putting it before the House. I urge hon. members on the government benches to not talk this bill out. This bill will not embarrass the government. It will help boys and girls. It will not cost any money. It will give boys and girls a chance to live a reasonably normal life-how many boys and girls I do not know. So I urge all hon. members not to talk this bill out but to give it their full support in order that it may become the law in this country.
Some 30 years ago I found that the same type of procedures were going on as those described today. In those years probably seven out of ten cases were caused by the use of liquor. Liquor has the property of breaking down principles and morals in a home. When liquor becomes so necessary in the life of a man or a woman, it gradually takes precedence over their own offspring and then, as one hon. member has already said, that love, which is so wonderful, turns to hate, which is so terrible. But the child is the one I really worry about.
I had a boy come to the boys' camp which I have operated for a number of years. When he arrived I was told he was a bad kid and that we should not really take him. I asked the chap who spoke to me, "Is the lad having another holiday?" He said: "No, he will never get a holiday. His dad is a drunkard and his mother is a drunkard. He will never get a holiday." I said, "We will take him into camp. That is what our camp is for." During the week he was there I found that the boy was a splendid lad. He was a lad who co-operated and enjoyed the sports. He would say thank you to the cooks after almost every meal he had. The day before he went home I called him over and said, "Bobby, tomorrow we all go home." He said, "I hate the thought of it." And that, Mr. Speaker, from a ten-year-old boy. I said, "Well, Bobby, the purpose of this camp is to make you appreciate your home, your mother and your dad. We have a good time out here but we cannot
replace mother and dad." He said, "Well, I hardly ever see my mother and dad. They are always in the beer parlour."
A year later that boy was in the position mentioned by the hon. member who presented this bill. His parents separated, neither one of them wanted the boy. He was a splendid boy. He was hustled off to another relative. I do not have much sympathy for the parents. I can understand their dilemma when they are obsessed with liquor and when they lose all sense of decent living. But I can never forgive them for ruining the childhood of a boy who could have been a tremendous asset. I do not even know where that lad is now. I hope he has overcome the terrible handicap with which he was burdened.
During my first 20 years in public life, liquor seemed to be at the root of 80 per cent of such cases. During the last 20 years, while liquor is still a predominant factor, the use of drugs has come into the picture. These drugs are being used by both the parents and the children. I have no use whatever for any adult who tries to make his fortune by selling drugs to teenagers, in some cases to children who have not yet reached their teens.
While I was the minister of youth for Alberta, I received a call from a doctor at the University Hospital. He told me the story of how drug peddlers were trying to sell drugs to students at Victoria High School. Because the students had taken some courses on drugs and had learned what drugs could do to their minds, their reproductive organs and their lives, the drug peddlers found a wall of strong young teenagers who told them to clear off. The drug peddlers cleared off and went to an elementary school and talked youngsters around the ages of nine years, ten and 11 into taking that particular drug, which was a mixture of grass and a few other ingredients.
As a result of taking these drugs, three youths found themselves at the University Hospital. Two of them will never be the same again because the drugs completely ruined their minds. In my view the chap who sold the drugs is a murderer in the worst degree. Such people should be punished and removed from circulation when they try to ruin the lives of young people.
Making abduction an offence will be helpful. Approximately four years ago I spoke to some 40 or 50 teenagers at a correctional institution in Edmonton, at the invitation of the principal. These children were of Indian extraction, Metis and coloured extraction and most of them came from broken homes. The majority were slow learners and could not read. Many of their teachers and fellow students in public school, felt that they were dumb and made fun of them because they did not learn fast. As a result, these children stopped asking questions and trying to learn how to read. As they went from grade to grade, they found that they could not keep up because they could not read.
The correctional school was beginning with the fundamentals and teaching these boys and girls, some of whom as old as 17, how to read a primer and books of grades two, three and four levels. In order that the children would not be embar-
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rassed they put a detective cover on the outside of the book, which was a grade one primer.
I asked one boy of Indian extraction why he had not learned how to read. He replied that his mother had taken him and run away from his father, that while he was at school everybody called him an Indian and thought he was dumb and that he could not learn how to read. He cited an incident in which a teacher was talking about the abacus and he could not understand any of what was being said. The word was unfamiliar to him and the whole thing sounded like a new language. Apparently the teacher was using the phonetic system. That system, if taught properly, is a good one, but it does not compare, in my view, with teaching children how to read by the sight method or by a combination of both methods. The child went on to say that because he could not read he ran away from school and his mother and got mixed up with a bad crowd.
If we look in our prisons today, we will probably find that 50 per cent of the so-called criminals therein are there because they were ostracized, were slow learners or had some other defect which kept them from moving ahead in school. They became self-conscious and embarrassed and finally left the school system altogether.
It is sad when one parent takes the child from the other parent. The child cannot help but be affected by the court case and the fight as to who will receive custody. An hon. member to my left said that he came from a happy home. I came from a happy home as well. There were ten of us and we were poor. It was difficult feeding ten mouths during the depression years, but there was love and understanding in my family, and I am thankful for that. We never had to face the agony of taking sides between our father and our mother.
Later, as a teacher, when I learned there was a custody fight over one of my students, a big lump would come to my throat because this student would need help. The best help that could be provided comes from the parents, if they would just stop and think about the fact they brought this child into the world. Surely parents should wait until the child is of mature age before they begin venting their spleen on one another.
I had dealings recently with a case in which a mother had abducted her children after the court had given custody to the father. The court heard testimony, although the mother claimed that it was false. I do not know whether it was false, but the court believed the testimony. The mother kept tabs on the children as to where they were being kept and so on. She found out that they were being mistreated, abused and were not being fed properly. Her sister told me one evening that her torment was so deep that she had decided she would steal those youngsters and take them away so that she could look after them properly.
Later the sister of the mother phoned me and I told her to have the mother bring the children back, that she could only get into deeper trouble for defying the law even though she had run away with them to B.C. She did not bring the children back. She was eventually caught, and as a result she is now facing trial. Her chances of getting the children through court have been dramatically reduced. Perhaps the court will find
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under section 250.2 that there is a maternal reason for her stealing these youngsters. I hope so for the sake of the children.
But if the parents of those children would forget their differences and realize that they both have a responsibility to them because they brought them into the world, then everybody would be in a better position.
I congratulate the hon. member who introduced the bill. I hope it will cause those who are considering breaking up their home and those who are stealing youngsters, for whatever the purpose, to stop and think. Many youngsters are being stolen in our larger cities as well as our smaller cities. When a person steals a boy or girl in order to make money from the flesh of that youngster, the punishment for the offence cannot be too great. Imprisonment for ten years, five years or two years is not enough.
I hope the bill will help to prevent such occurrences and that we in society will do our utmost to prevent such things from happening. We must realize that at the base of many such occurrences is the excessive use of alcohol and drugs.


Mr. Maurice Bossy (Kent):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak for a moment on this most important matter, and, more specifically, on the area of international abduction. One such incident was brought to my personal attention by the Abducted Children's Rights of Canada representative in Chatham, in my riding. It has impressed upon me the futile complexity involved in securing the return of a child when removed not only from the home and the custodial parent but from within the confines of Canada.
In a situation where a child is abducted from his home and taken to another area of Canada the consequences are irrefutably traumatic. Consider, however, the implications of a totally different lifestyle forced upon the child and the hopelessness for the custodial parent in trying to ascertain its whereabouts, possibly in the context of a foreign culture and language.
Since the problem is one which has international dimensions, it is important to address the question of what measures can be taken not only within Canada but in the international area which will have the result of discouraging child abduction and effecting prompt return of a child who has been removed from his accustomed environment.
Ministers of justice have stated on a number of occasions that the abduction of children across jurisdictions must cease. As a result of these concerns the issue was included in discussions with the provincial attorneys general as early as October, 1975.
The then minister of justice asked provincial attorneys general for their suggestions as to how the situation might be improved by changes in federal law such as the Criminal Code. Because the matter of child welfare falls primarily within provincial jurisdiction, he also actively encouraged the provincial attorneys general to enact provincial legislation which would provide for mandatory recognition and enforcement of

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extra-provincial custody orders by all Canadian provinces. To date, eight provinces have adopted the uniform extra-provincial custody orders enforcement act. The aim of this act is to prevent abduction across jurisdictional boundaries.
In August, 1977, the then minister of justice presented a paper on international abduction of children by parents at the commonwealth law ministers meeting, aimed at emphasizing the importance of the growing social and legal problem and developing co-operation amongst commonwealth countries in the enforcement of foreign custody orders and the return of abducted children.
The commonwealth law ministers agreed that concrete early action was required and that examination should be divided to greater co-operation in the enforcement of custody orders. The law ministers were also conscious of the potential for the commonwealth to use its collective influence in other bodies such as The Hague conference on private international law so as to take a lead in developing this law to the benefit of the world community.
As a result of Canadian representations, the matter of international abduction of children by a parent was placed on the agenda for consideration by The Hague conference on private international law which was held in October 1980. A special commission on kidnapping established by the conference, and in which the Department of Justice participated, met in March and November of 1979. A provisional draft convention on the civil aspects of international child abduction was prepared by the special commission and was discussed and adopted at the October meeting.
I am pleased to note that on October 25, 1980, Canada, France, Greece and Switzerland became signatories to the convention. The convention is designed to solve the problem of international abductions by the imposition of jurisdictional rules which require civil courts to decline to hear the merits of custody applications and to restore the children to the proper court. It covers the situation where no court order is in existence and the situation where the child is retained in breach of permitted access. We are hopeful that the provinces will move quickly to put legislation in place implementing the provisions of the convention so that Canada may become a party. Enforcement rules would then be effective for the return of children abducted across international borders.
The proposed amendment to the Criminal Code by specifically criminalizing parental child abduction will clearly announce to the international community Canada's appreciation of the significance of the problem and our resolve in meeting it.
As we become aware of an increase in these unfortunate happenings-as I have in my riding-and as the government works toward a resoslution of these problems as evidenced by what has been accomplished, the message is clear that we must strive to put an end to child abduction both interprovincially and internationally. We must also work toward the return of these children to their accustomed environment and established custodian so that they may look forward to a safe and secure future.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. W. Kenneth Robinson (Etobicoke-Lakeshore):: Mr. Speaker, indeed I am pleased at the opportunity to once again speak on this very important matter. At the outset I should like to congratulate the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock-North Delta (Mr. Friesen) for bringing this matter before the House once again. I recall that he did so through Bill C-221 in 1977, and so I remember speaking on the bill at that time. I know he feels somewhat frustrated in the bill not going before the standing committee for further consideration, but perhaps he will be happy in the thought that it will probably be considered carefully in the Criminal Code amendment which I hope will come before the House shortly.
I welcome the opportunity to address this important question. The abduction of children by a parent, often in defiance of the court order, is a growing social and legal problem in Canada. The abduction of a child by a parent can occur in several situations-removal of a child upon marriage breakdown or after, contrary to a court order, and so on. My colleagues have adequately addressed this question. I merely want to put a few more points on the record. The current law, section 250 of the Criminal Code states the following:
Everyone who, with intent to deprive a parent or guardian or any other person who has lawful care of a child under the age of 14 years of the possession of that child, or with intent to steal anything on or about the person of such a child unlawfully, (a) takes or entices away or detains the child or (b) receives or harbours the child, is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for ten years.
The section has caused major problems, for example, in the "good faith" defence. This defence has been used historically as a legal excuse for parents who abduct their children in the honest belief that they are entitled to custody whether or not they are legally so entitled.
I should like to address the specific question of how the government would deal with this problem. Government initiatives would propose to abolish the good faith defence. There would be a defence based upon the other parent's consent to the removal of the child or on the court's conclusion that the removal was essential for the child's welfare.
The court would not be entitled to find the removal was essential for the child's welfare simply because the abducting parent is subsequently successful in obtaining a custody order over the child in his favour.
Also, the government proposes to create two new separate indictable offences-one in section 250.1(a) for abducting a child in violation of the terms of the court order, and another in section 250.1(b) for abducting a child with the intent to deprive the other parent of the possession of the child where no court order exists. These would be punishable by up to five years and two years of imprisonment respectively. Section 250.1(b) is designed to meet the situation where the removal of the child takes place after marriage breakdown, contrary to a formal written agreement by removing the child from the established custodial parent and the removal of the child after marriage breakdown contrary to a formal written agreement
December 16, 1980

by keeping the child beyond the stated period in which visitation is permitted.
Section 250.1(a) is designated to meet the situation where the removal of the child occurs after marriage breakdown contrary to a formal order by removing the child from the established custodial parent or by keeping the child beyond the stated period in which visitation is permited. Thus, a detention of the child beyond the time permitted in the access provisions of a court custody order would be a specific offence. Likewise, detention of a child beyond the time permitted would be an offence without a court order where there is intent to deprive the other parent of possession of the child. Refusal to give the child up for access would also be an offence under section 250.1(a) or section 250.1(b) depending on whether the access is exercised pursuant to the terms of the court order or pursuant to a de facto arrangement.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Question!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Order, please. It being six o'clock and the hour allotted for private members' business having expired, I do now leave the chair until 8 p.m.
At 6.03 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Lalonde that Bill C-48, to regulate oil and gas interests in Canada lands and to amend the Oil and Gas Production and Conservation Act, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on National Resources and Public Works.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: When the debate was interrupted at five o'clock the hon. member for Kitchener (Mr. Lang) had the floor.


Peter Joseph Lang: Mr. Speaker, when debate on this motion ended at five o'clock, I had given the majority of my speech and my thoughts on this topic. I had covered the purpose of the new legislation, Bill C-48, and had discussed some of its main elements. I would just like to round it out a little bit. I see there are seven members of the loyal opposition present, including-
Canada Oil and Gas Act


Steve Eugene Paproski: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I do not think it is wise for a member to start commenting on how many members there are in the House of Commons-


Stanley Howard Knowles: Especially when there are only ten Liberals.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Not only that. There are committees meeting and other places where members meet in the evening. That is something this young member should be aware of.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: With due respect, this appears to be a routine that the House might better avoid on future occasions.


Peter Joseph Lang: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was about to say that I noticed the former minister of finance, the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) was here. I am glad he is here to participate in this debate. The energy critic for the Conservative party is here and I am glad to see his attendance during this very important debate.
In many ways this debate has followed a predictable course. On the one side, members of the NDP have been saying to the government it is not doing enough; we need more government intervention so we should nationalize industry. The position the New Democratic Party has taken on this question, as on many others, would leave our economy and our deficit in such bad shape there would be no way we could support the social programs the New Democratic Party is so fond of trying to take credit for.


Stanley Howard Knowles: You read that part before five o'clock.


Peter Joseph Lang: Members of the New Democratic Party are very fond of trying to take credit for these social programs.


Stanley Howard Knowles: You read that before five o'clock. We have already heard it.


Peter Joseph Lang: In response to the hon. member let me say that I think it is worth while repeating. Members of the New Democratic Party have been trying to take credit for many of the programs previous Liberal governments have put forward. As you know, Mr. Speaker, the vast majority of our social programs have been put forward by Liberal governments. I think it is important, with all due respect to the hon. House leader of the New Democratic Party, that we discuss this and bring this fact to bear.
We have seen some facts brought forward by members of the Conservative party which suggest members of that party take the side of the little guy. The posturing of the Conservative party with regard to their rhetoric of concern for the little guy I find difficult to understand, particularly in view of the fact that one year ago last Thursday the same group of members put forward a budget which contained no social measures and no social concern at all. If they are so concerned about the little guy then why did that Conservative government introduce a budget that would have cost the consumer $40 billion more than will the Liberal budget and its energy policy?

December 16, 1980
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Stanley Howard Knowles: Haven't you got any new pages to that speech?


Peter Joseph Lang: Hon. members opposite talk about their energy tax credit. The Liberal energy program will save the consumers 12 times more than the Conservative energy tax credit. In light of that budget of one year ago, for which most of the Conservative members here voted, I really find it hard to understand how these individuals, particularly the hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Crombie), can now talk in such a self-righteous manner about protecting the little guy. When one looks at the facts-


Gordon Edward Taylor: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. What has this to do with the bill we have under discussion? In addition, the hon. member has already said all that this afternoon.


Peter Joseph Lang: That is obviously not a point of order, Mr. Speaker, but a point of debate or an attempt to interrupt. I would be glad to enlighten the hon. member as to my reason for mentioning this. The hon. member for Rosedale has been continually trying to posture and present the concern of your party for the little man when in actual fact in your budget there were no measures at all, none whatsoever-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I would invite the hon. member to address his remarks to the Chair.


Peter Joseph Lang: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to enlighten the hon. member about his concern as to why I was putting forward this discussion about social welfare. In light of the fact that when that hon. member's party presented a budget containing no measures whatsoever for the little guy. The hon. member for Rosedale-


An hon. Member:: You have said that three times.


Peter Joseph Lang: It is wor'h saying ten times, Mr. Speaker. That party is trying to present itself as a party with concern for the little man yet that is the party that presented a budget which socked it to the consumers and had no concern at all for the little guy.


Mr. Hnatyshyn:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I recognize the hon. member for Saskatoon West (Mr. Hnatyshyn) on a point of order.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: May I have order, please?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I think the record should be made clear that while the hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Crombie) may be small he is a lot larger than that speaker.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: With all due respect, that is not a point of order.


Peter Joseph Lang: Mr. Speaker, I am glad you have seen that this is not a point of order. It seems that when the truth is spoken hon. members opposite get a little excited and try to interrupt debate with their frivolous points of order.


An hon. Member:: You are the guy that is yelling.


Peter Joseph Lang: I would like to make a point. Let us examine the track record. Let us see who put through social programs in this country.


Gordon Edward Taylor: We are not talking about social programs. Get on the right bill.


Peter Joseph Lang: This bill is concerned with the energy policy being put forward in Canada today. That has a lot to do with the social programs in place today, because this energy policy has much to do with our economy and much to do with the financial stability of the national government and its capability of financing social programs.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: There have been a number of so-called points of order which have not really been points of order. I recognize the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock-North Delta (Mr. Friesen).


Benno Friesen: Have I ever raised a point of order that was not a real point of order, Mr. Speaker? I wonder whether the hon. member would permit a question?


Peter Joseph Lang: Mr. Speaker, if hon. members opposite would stop their frivolous points of order I would attempt to speak on this policy so they might be enlightened. I will try to clear up their confusion. If the hon. member still has a question at the end of my discussion I will be happy to answer it.
We should look at the facts. The hon. member for Rosedale and a number of other members in the opposition have been trying to make the point that this government does not have a social conscience, as seen by its energy policy and its budget. For a new member of Parliament, a backbencher such as myself, it is very difficult to sit back and listen to this kind of posturing and rhetoric particularly when one knows the track record. Let us look at the track record. What social programs were contained in the budget presented one year ago last Thursday by the hon. member for St. John's West? I suggest that in fact there were none.
What social programs have the loyal opposition put forward? What social programs of significance has that party put forward? I suggest it has put forward none at all. What is the track record of this party in government? We have old age security, we have the guaranteed income supplement.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The Chair is reluctant to call on the rule of relevance, but the bill before us is Bill C-48 and I would like the hon. member to address his remarks to that bill.


Peter Joseph Lang: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am aware that you did not have the opportunity of hearing the first 15 minutes of my speech during which time I tried to outline the purposes of the legislation and the main elements contained in it. I have
December 16, 1980

been trying to deal with criticisms put forward by the loyal opposition on the National Energy Program and on Bill C-48 during the question period and during the debate in the House. This is why I have been trying to express these social concerns that are relevant to the energy and economic policies of this government. I do think this is relevant although I am aware you were not here for the first part of my speech and would not have heard those remarks.
As 1 was saying, past Liberal governments have introduced old age security, the guaranteed income supplement, the Canada Pension Plan, family allowances and many other social programs.


An hon. Member:: What about oil and gas?


Gordon Edward Taylor: What bill are you talking about?


Mr. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Give us the number of it.


Peter Joseph Lang: Is the hon. member suggesting this is not a serious bill?


An hon. Member:: What you are talking about is not serious.


Peter Joseph Lang: If hon. members opposite had been here in the afternoon, they would have heard about it.


Steve Eugene Paproski: We were here.


Peter Joseph Lang: I will go on to the next topic. The oil and gas industry in Canada is in good financial shape. Between 1977 and 1979 the petroleum monitoring agency reported that the industry's cash flow increased by 67 per cent in two years. A further increase of one-third is projected for 1980. In 1981 it is estimated that including the incentive payments the industry's cash flow will rise over and above that of 1980 by 7 per cent. Even if one excludes those incentive payments, the industry's 1981 cash flow is expected to be 28 per cent higher than in 1979. The government's pricing and revenue-sharing arrangements are tied very closely to our thrust toward energy selfsufficiency and to the process of Canadianization.
In terms of security of supply we in Canada are in a fortunate position compared with those who rely heavily on imported oil. We produce more energy than we consume in terms of hydroelectric power, thermal energy and natural gas.
Our problem is one of substituting for the oil we currently use other energy sources that we have in relative abundance. One of the chief substitutes will be natural gas since we have a surplus supply, and to allow the vast majority of Canadians the opportunity to switch over from oil the government will be extending pipeline service to Vancouver Island, Quebec and the maritimes. Half a billion dollars has been earmarked for this purpose. To encourage the process, as we all know, the price of oil will be allowed to rise so that other fuels will be attractive on the basis of price alone. The objective is to reduce the use of oil in the residential, commercial and industrial sectors in every province to no more than 10 per cent of the energy total. To follow through on its drive to get us off oil, the
Canada Oil and Gas Act
National Energy Program's Canadian oil substitution program is proof of the government's commitment to energy self-sufficiency and security of supply. Increases in oil and gas prices are also important to generate the funds necessary to develop our more expensive heavy oil, oil sands, tertiary oil and tar sands.
Canadianization remains a vital element in the government's strategy. Oil and gas revenues from now until 1984 are expected to be in the range of $90 billion. To expect the federal government to take a back seat in sharing the revenues is clearly unrealistic based on our national responsibilities. Further, the vast majority of Canadians favour the government's commitment to at least 50 per cent Canadian ownership of oil and gas by 1990. This involves increased Canadian control of a significant number of oil and gas firms and a greater portion of the oil and gas sector being owned by the Government of Canada and the people of Canada. Fair prices, secure supply and increased Canadian participation in the oil and gas industry will cause benefits to rebound through our entire economic system. If we look at virtually any sector of the economy, we will find that the benefits are evident. A sensible price for oil and gas combined with the substitution program minimizes the effect that massive price increases would have on our economy. A one dollar per barrel oil increase adds an estimated half a percentage point to the inflationary rate. If we were to let prices rise indiscriminately toward the international price level, consumers would have to spend more on energy and would have less income to spend on goods and services. Thus, there would be less demand in our economy and, hence, lower economic growth and increased unemployment. This is what would have happened if this party had allowed the budget of one year ago last Thursday to go through.


An hon. Member:: We did not do it. We stood firm.


Peter Joseph Lang: The Liberal party did stand firm. We did not allow higher unemployment and higher inflation. We did not allow oil prices to go toward world prices, which would have been the result of the budget of December, 1979.
The National Energy Program creates a climate for less inflation, less unemployment and greater economic growth than the Tory budget and so-called energy policy would have allowed. It was a two-bit budget. A bit of it was devoted to an 18-cent increase, which would have socked it to the consumer. Another bit of it was devoted to an insignificant amount paid back in the form of an energy tax credit.


Thomas Edward Siddon: This is Bill C-48.


Peter Joseph Lang: Our National Energy Program is aimed at economic strength for all sectors in the economy. It is aimed at strength for the lumbermen of British Columbia, the ranchers and oilmen of Alberta-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Peter Joseph Lang: -the prairie farmers of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the resource and manufacturing industries of Ontario and Quebec and the farmers and fishermen and other industries of Atlantic Canada.

December 16, 1980
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An hon. Member:: Ours was a Canadian budget.


Peter Joseph Lang: In conclusion, the National Energy Program is vital to our economic future. In an age of uncertainty it is a national game plan which provides for energy security and economic security through an off oil conservation process, development of our natural resources and alternate renewable energy resources through incentive programs.


Gordon Edward Taylor: Louder. That is a pretty weak point. Pound your desk.


Peter Joseph Lang: It shares the wealth for the total benefit of all Canadians. It allows the private sector and the provinces a fair share of the wealth and permits the west to develbp its resources and to industrialize. It is a major program which will affect all Canadians. It is similar in many ways to other great Canadian endeavours of the past. I refer to the trans-continental railway, the St. Lawrence Seaway and the interprovincial pipeline.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: What about double tracking?


Peter Joseph Lang: In addition, it highlights the same aspects of sharing and co-operation which we have come to know and expect in Canada such as the two-price system for wheat and, up until 1973, the two-price system for copper in Ontario. Every Canadian has a role to play in the National Energy Program and a benefit to be gained from it. Such a role might be switching off oil, improving one's home insulation, investing in a Canadian company or actively practising conservation.
Hon. members opposite have been raising many objections and criticisms, but when we look at the facts we find that there is not much substance to what they have said. I would very much like the hon. member for Etobicoke-Centre (Mr. Wilson) to clear up with his leader whether his leader agrees with him that the energy policy of this country is the responsibility of the national government or of the provinces. I would like him to clear this up because I have heard him say that it is the responsibility of the national government, but I do not hear the same thing from the Leader of the Opposition (Mr, Clark).


Thomas Edward Siddon: That does not mean steal the resources from the provinces.


An hon. Member:: You should worry about your leader!


Peter Joseph Lang: We have natural resources in this country, we have technology and we have people. We have a grand future with respect to energy and with respect to our economy. I think a little optimism more directly based on facts would be appropriate in this House.


Benno Friesen: Mr. Speaker, Sean O'Sullivan used to say, "It's a Lang, Lang way to trick the prairies." I think we have
seen that again tonight. The hon. member said he would entertain a question at the end of his speech. Earlier in the evening the hon. member quoted statistics-


Some hon. Members:: Question!


Benno Friesen: I am coming to my question. The hon. member quoted statistics indicating that only 40 per cent of the drilling equipment was operating in 1975, five years ago, whereas some 80 per cent or 85 per cent is operating today. He made the point that that is a growth factor as a result of the government's policies. Is the hon. member aware that in 1974 this government brought down a budget which made rigs pull out in 1975? The government is doing the same thing now, and the hon. member is trying to make that look like a growth factor. Did he deliberately mislead the House, or was he just ignorant?


Peter Joseph Lang: Mr. Speaker, I will treat that question in the best way I can. It is obviously not a question. It is an attempt to misrepresent the facts. I have never stated that it was a policy of the government which resulted in an increased percentage of rigs being employed in Alberta.
I think it was the policy of the government, plus the entrepreneurial spirit of the oil and gas industry in Alberta and in the rest of the west. It was the work of the individual people in the oil and gas industry, members of the labour unions. It was all those elements which resulted in success, as well as the fact that Canada has natural resources. The hon. member does not have a concern. He is trying to misrepresent facts, 1 have presented facts, which were presented-


An hon. Member:: By research assistants.


Peter Joseph Lang: No, Mr. Speaker, I presented facts which I gathered from my trips out west, from Bob Blair the president of Nova, from Bob Pierce, vice-president of Nova, from Bill Hopper of Petro-Canada and from Bill Richards, the president of Dome Petroleum. I obtained these figures from people who are involved in the oil and gas industry. These are facts, not just opinions and bellicose rhetoric. I hope I have enlightened the hon. member, Mr. Speaker.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, I am hoping tonight to appeal to the intelligence of central Canada, but my task looks formidable after listening to the last speaker, the hon. member for Kitchener (Mr. Lang). If the heat is too great, he should get out of the kitchener.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, let me speak for a moment on the budget of December 11. We are not bringing it up, it is the hon. gentleman opposite who did so. It is irrelevant now who was defeated, and it was unfortunate for Canada that it was.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
December 16, 1980


John Carnell Crosbie: The hon. gentleman said that there was no social content in the budget of December 11. This is the budget which had the energy tax credit to help lower-income Canadians meet the inevitable higher costs of energy. The budget of October 28 does nothing for lower and middle-income Canadians. I do not have to give my own authority for the budget of December 11. In the Canadian Tax Journal-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Kitchener (Mr. Lang) rises on a point of order.


Peter Joseph Lang: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) says that I am bringing up the previous budget. This is what has been coming from the opposition since this Parliament was presented with the last budget.


Some hon. Members:: Sit down.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. This is a point of debate, not a point or order.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, we only have to look at the Canadian Tax Journal, volume II, issue 2, put out by the Osgoode Hall Law School and the Canadian Council of Social Development to see their analysis of the budgets of the last ten years in the 1970s. I will send the hon. member a copy, although I do not know if he can read these kinds of articles. He will see the conclusion there that the Crosbie budget of December 11, 1979, was the most progressive in the last ten years, and it was the most progressive because, for one reason, of the energy tax credit. The article says that it changed the flow of income for the first time in ten years from upper and middle-income Canadians to lower-income Canadians. That is what the budget did and that is what hon. gentlemen opposite voted against, and that is what the hon. gentlemen to our left voted against, the political nymphomaniacs who cannot wait to rush into bed with the Liberals every chance they get. That is what they voted against, the most progressive budget of the 1970s.
I will not spend any more time on the hon. member for Kitchener. He said the Liberal party stood firm. The Liberal party has never stood firm in its life. It is the party of vaseline, it is the slipperiest party that Canada has ever seen, it is a party of flexibility. They are so flexible that their principles have flexibility. They are the original India-rubber men and women. They will double track the railway, we heard last January from the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), and all they have done is to doublecross the country!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Carnell Crosbie: Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to appeal tonight to people of reason. There may be a few on the opposite side, but I am not worried about the opposite side. I am speaking to the people of Canada who watch this House on television.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
Canada Oil and Gas Act


John Carnell Crosbie: We are opposing this bill, Mr. Speaker. Why? Because it is part of a process that threatens Canada as a viable, continuing democracy.
There are three things necessary for a viable, functioning democracy. The first is that we have an effective parliamentary system which keeps the government and the executive accountable. We no longer have that. We can see that in this House when we hear the jackasses braying whenever their masters on the government side tell them to bray. We have committees in this House that have no power, that have to haul the government by the sleeve to ask a question. This House no longer has any independent power. So long as there is a majority, the House will have no power, and so long as this majority is slavishly devoted to keeping their noses and their mouths in the trough of patronage, and keeping the government in power, there will never be any-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The Chair has been listening attentively and would again like to call attention to the fact that we are debating Bill C-48. I invite the hon. member to address his remarks to the bill.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, if you will be patient with me, I am just about to elaborate that point. We have before us Bill C-48 and we see in it why the House has no power. Just look at page 1 of Bill C-48 where you will see that:
"allowable expenditures" means expenditures made in relation to an interest that are approved by the minister;
The minister has total power under this bill, not the House. Then let us look at page 8, clause 20, where you will see why this House has no power, why this Parliament is as ineffective as a tame tabby, a toothless, tame tabby, a pussycat without any claws. That is what this House is. Let us look at page 8, clause 20, which reads:
The governor in council may make regulations for determining the level of Canadian ownership for the purposes of this act-
It is not this House. There is no one in the oil and gas industry today who knows what the governor in council will decide tomorrow, or next week on what will be the criterion for Canadian ownership. This House has no say because the government has a blind, tame majority, interested in nothing but keeping themselves in power.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Carnell Crosbie: Let us just go on to look at clause 22, which reads:
Where it appears to the minister that a matter relating to the Canadian ownership rate cannot reasonably by determined by applying the applicable regulations or rules in any case or class of cases, he may make the determination or authorize it to be made in accordance with such criteria as he considers appropriate.
Is this what will govern the oil and gas industry in Canada in the future, with all the power in the hands of the minister? Who is the "he" in the clause? It is the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde). He is the one who will have the control in the future over the rules that decide whether or not you are Canadian-owned. Tomorrow he can say

December 16, 1980
Canada Oil and Gas Act
it is 48 per cent, or 55 per cent, or 30 per cent, or 75 per cent. Can you wonder that the oil and gas companies are leaving this country in droves? The reason is that this Parliament is no longer effective because all the power has been given to the minister and to the government. 1 will not go on much longer reading clauses in this bill but there are 100 instances there. Just look at clause 45 to see if this carries on throughout the act. Clause 45 reads:
The minister, at any time after making a declaration of significant discovery, may order the drilling of a well-
The minister? What does the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources know about the drilling of wells? He knows as much about that as he knows about drilling a tooth. He has the responsibility under this bill for ordering where a well is going to be drilled. On and on it goes through this act. You think that as members of Parliament you decide? You no more decide than Mickey Mouse decides what goes on in the government. Clause 46( 1) reads:
Where the minister is satisfied that a commercial discovery has been made on Canada lands, he may, by order subject to section 56, make a declaration-
It goes on like that throughout this bill. So, Mr. Speaker, one of the three safeguards of democracy has gone. This Parliament is no longer a safeguard for democracy and the bill before us exemplifies that. What is the second safeguard needed for a democracy? It is a division of powers in a federal state between the federal government and the provinces. That will go if the government's constitutional proposals ever get through to the United Kingdom and get passed in the United Kingdom. No longer will we have a federal system in this country. Who do I quote for my authority? I quote Sir Wilfrid Laurier, back in the days when they had Liberals who had some principles and guts. They do not have them any longer. Sir Wilfrid Laurier was one of the few good Liberals. He said this:
The only means of maintaining confederation is to recognize that within a sphere assigned to it by the constitution, each province is as independent of control by the federal Parliament as the latter is from control by the provincial legislatures.
Well, that goes out the window if the constitutional proposals are passed. That goes out the window if these energy proposals ever effectively become law in this country, because they can only effectively become law by crushing the province of Alberta and the western provinces. That will terminate and end this country. So, Mr. Speaker, there is the second safeguard of democracy that the Trudeau administration is determined to block out with its constitutional proposals and its energy proposals.
The third safeguard of democracy is to have a viable, strong, operative private sector. That is what is necessary for a viable democracy. Where you do not have a private sector you have no democracy. You have no democracy in Russia. You have no democracy in China. You have bills of rights, charters of rights, the rights are coming out of your ears in those countries. But do you think anybody has a right to anything in those countries? Not at all. Why not? Because they have no economic base from which they can exercise rights. It exists
not only in those countries but in Chile and in many other countries. What is happening in this proposal and in the others of the energy policy? A savage smash and grab raid on the private sector of this country starting with the oil and gas industry. It is a massive interference by the state, a massive interference by the bureaucracy into the most free enterprise, the most risk-taking of all the industries we have in Canada- the oil and gas industry. An industry where you have to go looking. You look at a hundred thousand square miles and you say: I am going to put a well down here. That is not the decision of some bureaucrat here in Ottawa. They do not know where the hell to put a well. No, that is the decision of the people who are putting up millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of dollars. They have to use their brains and the instincts they have gained from 20, 30, 40 years of scrabbling in the wilderness-the geologists, it is they who decide where to put the well. Now, hereafter, they will be put under the jurisdiction of Mr. Lalonde and the bureaucrats as func-tionaires. They will tell him where he is going to put his well and what he will get if he puts his well there. They will say: If you put your well here we will give you a grant in the frontier or the Beaufort Sea, but if you put your well here we won't give you a grant. Before, with the system of depletion allowances everybody knew where he stood. "All right, you go and drill your well. You will get a certain amount of depletion and you will get certain benefits. You will receive help from the system." You made the decisions. But from now on, when this is passed, that will be no longer. No, some functionaire from the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources will tell you: "You put your well here, brother, where I tell you and then you might get a grant." That is, if he does not decide, when you come back looking for your grant later on, that you are not 50 per cent Canadian-owned, you are only 49.6 per cent or only 49.99 per cent or you are only 74.5 per cent Canadian-owned. That is all to be decided by the civil service and the bureaucracy of this country. Do you wonder that they are bailing out, Mr. Speaker, that they are leaving this country in droves? What else does the government have to offer them? They have got the Hon. Herbie Gray and FIRA to offer to them. We are told the Foreign Investment Review Agency will supervise what goes on here with the foreign-controlled companies in the future. They will bring legislation before the House so Herbie can come in once you get into Canada and you invest your money. All right. You are found to be of significant benefit to Canada. That is not enough. No, now, in a year's time or two years' time, the Hon. Herbie Gray will come to look over your shoulder and say: You jerk, you do not know what to do with your own money. You are not doing the right thing here. This is not of significant benefit. I, Herb Gray, the great free enterpriser, the great expert in everything, am going to tell you how your business is to go in the future. You have got to get out of this country. That is what they are being threatened with. Now do you wonder, Mr. Speaker, why the dollar is weak? The dollar is not weak because of interest rates being higher in the United States and lower here in Canada. It is weak because anybody with any brains in their head can see that their money is not welcome in Canada. We
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are supplicants to the rest of the world as a result of 12 years of that government over there. We have had deficits in the balance of payments and current account for the last seven years. The minister estimates that this year it will be $6.2 billion-$6.2 billion we Canadians must get from outside Canada. We have to ask them to lend us the money. We have to ask them to invest the money in Canada. And this government here is flexing its muscles and saying: We do not want your money. That is what it is pretending to say: We do not want your money. If you put your money in here you will have to pass our tests and you will have to pass Herbie Gray. Is it any wonder the dollar is down? It is the lowest it has ever been in 47 years.
The hon. member for Kitchener had the gall, the audacity, the knee-jerkery to even mention my budget. When we look at what has happened since October 28, Mr. Speaker, what do we see? The Canadian dollar on October 28 was worth 85.22 cents. The Canadian dollar yesterday was worth 82.71 cents. 1 am not sure what it is today. That is a 47-year low. On the week ending March 5 you had to pay 114.25 cents to buy a U.S. dollar. Yesterday you would have had to pay 121.2 cents to buy a U.S. dollar. That is a difference of 7 cents Canadian. The Canadian dollar has lost 7 cents in value since the hon. gentleman opposite got into power last March. Do you know what that is costing us for oil today? Perhaps the public would be interested in knowing that it has cost us $109 million to date, because of the fall in the value of the dollar since the beginning of March, for the purchase of oil, for purchasing
425,000	barrels a day. And today, because of the drop in the dollar alone, it costs us a million a day more than it did last March through the mismanagement, through the mistaken policy, the blind inflexibility and the stupidity of hon. gentlemen opposite. And they do not even realize yet that $109 million to date is what it has cost us.
Look at interest rates, they were 11.6 per cent at the time of the budget. Now, the Bank of Canada has set the rate at 16.4 per cent to 17 per cent and it is going up again Thursday as surely as the hon. Mr. MacEachen gets up tomorrow to rub the sleep out of his eyes and wonder how he will survive another day with the responsibilities he has, which he does not want to accept. Just as surely as that will happen the interest rates will go up again next Thursday. Interest rates are 21 per cent in the U.S.; God knows what they will be here. The Economic Council of Canada, the government's own agency, says that because of the budget they have to put their inflation rate forecast for next year up from 10 per cent to 11.4 per cent. They have to put their unemployment forecast up from 8 per cent to 8.6 per cent. They have to reduce their real growth forecast from over 1 per cent real growth next year down to one half of 1 per cent. The government's own agency says this is the result of their study of the government's budget. Ye Gods, why is the minister not made to resign? Do hon. gentlemen opposite not read anything which is put out by the Economic Council of Canada? For example, "An Assessment of the Federal Budget on the Canadian Economy." Read it. What a document! And the hon. member dares to bring up my
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budget in this House. My God, he should never have done it. Just let him get this document and read it. Page four says that the federal budget impact reduces the growth rate in 1980 from-I am reading right from the government's document:
minus 0.4 per cent to minus 0.6 per cent. Using the budget projections for energy investment further lowers the growth rate to minus 1.1 per cent.
That is what the budget did to their forecast. The differences in 1981 are also clear. The assessment goes on:
Adding the alternative energy investment assumptions of the Department of Finance further reduces the growth rate to .5 per cent.
This is the body that reports to the Prime Minister. He is guilty of criminal negligence for not firing out MacEachen.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Carnell Crosbie: If the Prime Minister reads his own report to him from the Economic Council of Canada he would fire out the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) tomorrow. It is the most fantastic denunciation of the effects of the budget ever given by an independent government agency to a government.
Go on to page seven of the assessment. What does it say with respect to inflation? It says inflation is above 11 per cent because of the new projections. I read:
This compares with the Department of Finance projection of 10.2 per cent.
The general impact of the federal budget appears to be one which increases the rate of unemployment. The Prebudget Base Case suggests an unemployment rate of 8.0 per cent for 1981 -
Remember the minister squirming here the other day in question period, trying to get around this. Their estimate was 8 per cent. I go on to read:
-bur our budget alternatives show the unemployment rate lying between 8.2 per cent and 8.6 per cent.
This is as a result of the budget. And the document goes on and on to deal with the national expenditures, estimates and so on. It is a savage denunciation. Now get this, Mr. Speaker, at page 11. It says:
-one of the hidden impacts of the federal budget is its compositional effect on savings. It will have a tendency to reduce the percentage of savings accruing to provincial governments, the corporate sector, and the personal sector, and at the same time to decrease the proportion of dis-savings or increase the proportion of savings accruing to the federal sector.
It will change the whole nature of Canada. It will take savings from the personal sector, the private sector, the provinces and transfer them to the federal government. It is a massive attempt at a power grab by the Canadian government. If the Minister of Finance had the courage and the conviction of a garrotted gerbil, he would resign tomorrow. He is worse than a castrated lemming today, he is a garrotted gerbil. Every possible avenue of escape for the minister has been eliminated. It is a most a savage experience, it is a-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The Chair is listening to the hon. member and having some difficulty relating his remarks to the bill which is before us.

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John Carnell Crosbie: What is the effect, Mr. Speaker, of this bill on the market economy in the private sector? 1 have been outlining how, under this bill and the other bills which will come with it, the government is attempting to amass and concentrate power from the provinces, the private sector to Ottawa and from the Canadian people. That is what this bill does. I have outlined three reasons why I and my party are against this bill and why we will fight it and every piece of legislation that accompanies it to the last dot and comma as it goes through this House.
Although nothing could be more convincing than those three reasons, there is still a fourth reason. On page one, clause two of the bill, it reads:
"Canada lands" means lands that belong to Her Majesty in right of Canada-
And what does that include? It goes on to say:
(b) those submarine areas adjacent to the coast of Canada and extending throughout the natural prolongation-
In other words, this bill assumes that all the offshore area off the east coast of Canada is Canada lands owned by the Government of Canada. I say that it is not owned by the Government of Canada.


Mr. Peterson:: Why don't you take us to court.


John Carnell Crosbie: If hon. members opposite think that there will be an Hibernia oil development, one whiff of gas from off Labrador or Newfoundland or one "tinch" of oil above a jar from that area while the Government of Canada pretends that it is Canada lands, they can think again because the people of Newfoundland and Labrador will not give up their only chance to be self-sufficient economically. Never.
The government of Newfoundland and Labrador will not bend or be flexible on this matter. It will be completely inflexible. We did not come into confederation in 1949 with a declaration in the terms of union that the resources were to stay with the province which would then hand them over to the federal government, no matter what the courts say. We do not care what the courts say. The Supreme Court of Canada can declare that under some technical, legal ground the ownership of that resource lies with the federal government, even though the ownership of resources under land lies with the provinces but offshore it lies, for some technical, legal, picayune reason, with the federal government. That will not solve the question at all. It is not a question of law, it is a question of justice, of what is right and fitting and the fact that Canada is a confederation.
If the provinces do not have resources, they have nothing. That is why we must oppose this bill-because it is an attempt to take away the resources owned by Alberta, the resources owned by Saskatchewan and the resources owned by British Columbia. I have a report from Ralph Hedlin Associates. It is a first class piece of work and I would like to quote from it.
He says that "The commercial centre has never wished to prejudice the west; it has just wished, in a too human way, to maximize the interests of the centre, but the west has suffered as a consequence". This bill is an attempt to take the resources
back from Alberta and the west which they were given in 1930 after a tremendous struggle. What I do not understand is how hon. ladies and gentlemen opposite can be so blind. They were not blind when it came to Quebec. They seemed to get it through their skulls with respect to Quebec that the French Canadian minority there-


An hon. Member:: A majority.


John Carnell Crosbie: -a minority in Canada but a majority in Quebec. They felt that they would always be subject to the tyranny of an English-speaking majority in Canada and that their interests would not be recognized. This is what has been going on in Quebec for the past 40 years. Presumably the matter has been settled, largely in the past few years when this government finally understood that there was a problem. Now, 1 do not believe the French Canadian minority in Canada feels that it will be subject to the tyranny of the English-speaking majority.
The government fails to recognize that there is a minority in western Canada and a minority in eastern Canada which fear that they will always be subject to the tyranny to the central Canadian majority. The fear is no different from the fear of the French in Quebec. Just when the people in the west believe their day has come, they see central Canada, mobilized through the worst kind of political self-seeking by the experts in political self-seeking, the Liberal party of Canada elect, that Liberal party on a raw, crude basic appeal to central Canada to put them back in power so that they can keep the west from taking its rightful place in confederation and receiving rightful value for its resources.
Until the ladies and gentlemen opposite understand that the country is a "no show" and a "no go" with that kind of blind policy, we will be in desperate trouble. We will fight the government tooth and nail here in the House of Commons and on every stage in the country from St. John's to Vancouver. What did the Prime Minister say during the election campaign? He did not have to say much. He was lucky because he caught the swing of public opinion at a particular time. In another two or three months, the result would have been entirely different, but he was lucky in his timing.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Don't condemn the electorate for your own failures.


John Carnell Crosbie: The hon. member will not even have a look-in with the electorate next time because it is already sick of this government which fought and schemed to get into power, but has since done nothing to justify its winning the election. The Prime Minister said in Sudbury, Ontario on February 2, 1980, that "We, the Liberals, will not try to pit one province off against another. We will have responsible negotiations with the provinces and we will work out a price". That is the impression the Prime Minister tried to leave with the electorate. But ever since then, he has tried to pit one province against another. That has been his entire policy.
Our policy with respect to offshore mineral rights was contained in a letter of September 14, 1979, from the then
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Prime Minister Clark to Premier Peckford of Newfoundland. That letter outlined four principles, two of which were that the province of Newfoundland should own the mineral resources of the continental margin in so far as Canada could own them, that ownership and legislative jurisdiction would be consistent with and subject to the division of legislative competence as between Parliament and the provincial legislatures under the Constitution of Canada. The other two principles are that the Government of Canada would continue to have legislative jurisdiction in certain areas such as the environment, shipping and so on and that those principles would be confirmed by the signing of an agreement between the two governments and by appropriate legislative action and constitutional change.
A similar letter was sent to every coastal province in Canada. That is the "Magna Charter" of Newfoundland. That is the "Clark Magna Charter" for Newfoundland, and Newfoundland will accept no less. Confederation without this agreement will be a very dubious proposition and the government might as well get that right through their heads. It is a very tenuous proposition until the government recognizes that this is how it must be. Considering that Newfoundland is the poorest province in Canada with only 53.6 per cent of the earned income of the average Canadian and with unemployment insurance representing one-twelfth of all the personal income in Newfoundland as compared to one-fortieth in the rest of Canada, there is no way Newfoundland and Labrador will give up this opportunity. That is the way it is going to be, or it ain't going to be. That is the fourth reason why we are opposing this bill.
What principles should govern energy policy? Any energy policy in this country must be governed by two overriding principles. One is that if a proposal does not lead to self-sufficiency in oil sooner, then it should not be implemented at all. The second principle should be that if it does not contribute to national unity it should be a no show. Those are the two overriding principles, but they are not the principles which are contained in this bill or in the energy policy because Canada will never reach self-sufficiency in oil under the policies which have been put before us by the government.
And why not? We see it around us every day-the Alsands tar sands plant being cancelled by next June if the government does not change its policy because they cannot make a go of it with the present pricing regime. This is an $8 billion project. It could be completed by 1987 if the project starts in June. It could produce 147,000 barrels of oil a day if the project went ahead in 1987. But these projects, the oil sands and the tar sands plants, will not go anywhere unless the policy is changed. Take the $9 billion Cold Lake heavy oil recovery project. Imperial has stopped that. It would provide 140,000 barrels a day if it were completed. The present government has had to pony up $20 million of $40 million just to keep the engineers and support staff together while another few months go by to see whether the project will go ahead or not. The Judy Creek oil field $400 million advance recovery project would give
15,000	to 20,000 barrels a day of advanced or tertiary production. That project is now stopped. On and on the story goes.
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Oil drilling rigs and machinery are leaving the country in droves, Mr. Speaker. If we look at an analysis of capital investment for next year, we see, according to the Conference Board of Canada, a distinct drop in planned investment since the budget. Over all, 45 per cent of the respondents said government policy had an adverse impact on their capital spending. Higher interest rates affected another 35.5 per cent. Over 45 per cent of the respondents are having their investment decisions adversely affected by the government's energy policy. On and on it goes because the private sector can see there is no room for them in this game unless it is willing to put itself under the thumb of increasing state bureaucracy and control. The private sector companies are not the type of companies who will buckle down to that. They will buckle out before they buckle down.
On November 28, I sent a letter to the provincial treasurer of Alberta. He replied to my letter on November 30. We had an agreement in principle about what was to happen on energy pricing in Canada. We were not agreed on the form of the energy tax we were to impose to take all of the revenue from the oil and gas industry in excess of the revenue they would get from increases of $2 a barrel a year. We were not agreed on what kind of tax there would be. There were some minor disagreements such as that. Our policy was outlined in the budget and it was agreed to by them. If they did not agree with the rest of it, we could have imposed a unilateral solution, but it would not have endangered Canada because we had a large measure of agreement by then on the essentials, that is, on the most important things. We did not cause a crisis on confederation because we knew the susceptibilities of the west. We knew the west had to have a decent deal. We had to bend over backwards, just as the government opposite has had to bend over backwards in the past to satisfy other areas in the country. But this government across the way did not want an agreement with Alberta. This government wants to crush Alberta. It wants to use its powers to take over the tar sands. The government wants to use its disallowance power. The government wants to use the powers it undoubtedly has to crush Alberta. Well, to crush Alberta is a pyrrhic victory. There will be no tar sands plants. There will be no heavy oil plants. There will be no Judy Creek. There will be no offshore oil and gas when the government starts trying to crush Alberta and trying to crush Newfoundland, because those provinces will not be crushed. We will crush back. There will be no development. There can be no development in the tar sands. There can be no development at Cold Lake if the province of Alberta will not put up the infrastructure. The federal government can exercise its rights and get title, but how will the government be able to develop all of this if it cannot find a town and if there are no sewers, no pipes, no roads and no people because Alberta will not provide the infrastructure? I say, drop this nonsense. I say just drop the central Canadian smugness that you are so guilty of here. You should start to realize there are other parts of Canada and you will get a lot further with a conciliatory, reasoned approach than you will

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with the present overbearing approach that you are trying to take at the moment.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Get rid of Marc Lalonde!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Would the hon. member please address his remarks to the Chair.


John Carnell Crosbie: Yes, Mr. Speaker. This whole policy directs itself toward state ownership. It does not even provide opportunities to private Canadians to own more, it is for the state to own more. I want to read into the record two quotations for the benefit of my friends on the left, that noisy class, the political nymphomaniacs who are so anxious to jump into bed with the government majority. Here is what one of their former leaders, Mr. Tommy Douglas said in 1960, 20 years before he became a director of Husky Oil. This is what he said then:
It's possible to plan an economy without owning it.
1 wish the neophytes on my left would understand that. You can plan the economy, you do not need to own it. Why do we want to own all the oil and gas companies in Canada and use tens of billions of dollars to buy assets which are already here in Canada. The assets are already here. We do not need to buy them. We control them anyway. Imperial Oil had to say they have to bow to the government. No one is mightier than Imperial Oil, yet it has to bow to the government. We do not need to own its assets. What we want to do is spend tens of billions of dollars creating new assets in Canada in the frontier areas, in the Beaufort Sea and off Newfoundland. We need to develop the heavy oils and the tar sands. The amount needed is $1.4 trillion over the next 20 years, according to the Royal Bank, of which we have to get $300 billion from outside of Canada. This is about $16 billion a year. Do you think, Mr. Speaker, that this kind of policy is the way to get $16 billion a year from outside of Canada? I say, some hope! You can forget altogether what you are trying to get from within Canada.
To come back to Tommy Douglas, Tommy Douglas was good back in 1960. He was sensible. He was a rational socialist; a contradiction in terms. But in 1971 he was just as sensible. In a discussion on the transfer of power to the federal bureaucracy from the provinces, he said the following in 1971:
Canadians do not want to escape from the clutches of big business only to fall into the clutches of big government.
Could anything be more sensible? Both of those principles, gentlemen and ladies on my left, are being violated by this document which is before the House tonight, and the others that will come in. The leader of that party is out. He is spouting the most errant nonsense. Thank God he is not doing it in the House. We have enough to fear here without fearing his foolishness in the House about buying up the three largest oil and gas companies and not paying them what the value is, just pay them what we say they are worth, and so on. That is the end of Canada as a repository for any investment from outside of this country. I recommend Tommy Douglas to you. I say, forget Mr. Broadbent. He is passe. Go back to reading
Tommy Douglas and perhaps get some sense. We hope that you might have some sense.
I will not give just myself as an authority for some of these statements. I have dozens of other authorities I can offer. On December 13, 1981, in The Globe and Mail we can see the effect of this policy by reading the following under the heading "Alberta fears revenue losses".
The Alberta government could lose more than $400 million in provincial revenue from the sale of oil and gas licences next year-
The "Sale of exploration rights drops by almost half in Saskatchewan". That is the socialist paradise. It has had the boots put to it by this policy. Mr. Broadbent crawls on his hands and knees to try to get a little concession from the Prime Minister when he should be fighting for the rights of Saskatchewan. We read in The Globe and Mail of December 13 the following:
New federal taxes are unbearable for operating companies in Saskatchewan, where oil well production rates are lower than in other provinces, he said.
Who said that? It was the mineral resources minister John Messer. Who is he, hon. members might ask. He is an NDP minister in Saskatchewan. That is what he said, and the gentlemen here are supporting that kind of action in Saskatchewan. On this same page of The Globe and Mail for December 13 under the heading "B.C. oil, gas leases cut", we read:
Profit from the B.C. government's next sale of oil and gas rights will be drastically reduced because of the federal government's threat to impose resource development taxes-
That is just one example of the tremendous damage.
In another magazine, the Executive, Peter Cook, an economist, has written an article. I am being kind to the Minister of Finance and his budget compared to this impartial article in Executive magazine for December, 1980. What does Mr. Cook say? In part, his article reads:
What the government has clearly done is to create greater uncertainty about where the economy is headed in the next 18 months, and not just for the oil and gas industry. MacEachen has also, through his energy measures and tax changes, managed to push back the recovery from recession and promote inflation in the period ahead.
That is no John Crosbie. Some people might say I am partisan. I am not, but someone might say it. This is the impartial writer of this article. We read on:
The toughness and universality of the MacEachen measures will act as a further restraint on the consumer sector.
Hon. members might ask why. It is because no tax credits were provided to cushion the impact of rising energy prices for low-income families such as I proposed. Where is the member for Kitchener when he can learn something? He has scuttled off to the scullery somewhere, but he will not learn much there. The article continues:
The effect of the MacEachen budget has been to knock 0.5 per cent off growth in the economy for the whole year, bringing it down to the finance minister's own forecast figure of just 1 per cent.
The shock effect of food and energy prices will push the Consumer Price Index ahead by 11 per cent in 1981 (without the MacEachen energy and tax changes, the rate would have been 10 per cent).
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You should drum him out. Get him at that Christmas party tomorrow night and drum him out before he does any more damage.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Carnell Crosbie: The government's concern with ownership and taxation in the energy industry (rather than with the real issue of energy supply) is causing major projects to be stalled . . . Outlays by oil and gas companies were projected to about one-third of total business investment in 1981.
That's knocked on the head.
One estimate by Data Resources of Canada is that business investment will show no growth at all in 1981; before the budget, the firm was forecasting a 1.4 per cent advance.
In the history of Canada there has never been such an abortion of a budget, never a budget that has done so much damage to the economy. You don't have to take my word. I am just passing on the opinions of other respected economists.
Obviously, an increase in energy prices had to come at some point (though the disappointment is that, under the Liberals, it carries with it no promise that energy supplies will be increased).
Am I getting near the end of my time? In that case, I cannot go on with the other quotations. The scenario is a grim one. I recommend that all hon. members read it in the December 1980 issue of Executive. I say to members opposite, go to the Christmas party tomorrow night. Put MacEachen out, fire Lalonde and perhaps in this country we will then have a chance to get a rational and sensible solution to these problems.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Carnell Crosbie: In conclusion, in introducing this bill, the minister said he was acting on principles of security, opportunity and fairness. There is no security in this bill for Canada, none at all. With this bill, there is no opportunity for anybody. There is no fairness. Gentlemen, for heaven's sake, go to your caucus and change this policy before it is too late.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have this opportunity to say a few words on Bill C-48, the Canadian Oil and Gas Production and Conservation Act.
It was nice to see the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) in full flight tonight, with his very conciliatory and non-partisan approach and the bombastic rhetoric in which he excels. I certainly hope whoever is negotiating on behalf of the federal government, whether it be the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) or the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), with the Premier of Alberta or the energy minister of that province will be much more conciliatory than that in their presentation of the federal side. Otherwise, I am not sure we would ever reach an energy agreement.
If those discussions go forward in the next few months, I hope there will be agreement. I agree with most members of this House that an oil and gas pricing agreement is essential. Those of us who work on the Standing Committee on National
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Resources and Public Works are very aware of the urgency of getting on with the heavy oil and tar sands plants. We know that between $8 billion and $10 billion is involved in each of those projects along with seven or eight years lead time. From our discussions and presentations by Alsands and Esso Resources group last fall, we have learned this.
Many members on both sides of the House want to see those discussions get under way as soon as possible. They are not only in the interests of Alberta, but of all parts of this country.
I am confident, with the conciliation and compromise, that we have seen over the past years in this country, it will be possible to reach an agreement.
In the 12 years I have been a member of this place, I have found that the higher up the level of government in terms of municipal, provincial or federal, the blame always ascends. Whether it is a small municipality not able to get a grant for a sewage treatment plant, or whether it is a problem with the provinces, the tendency is always to blame the higher level of government.
The federal government often gets lambasted for problems that may not be of its own making. It has to swallow its pride and get on with the job because it has a national responsibility. It cannot make the policy for only one part of the country. I believe the Prime Minister and the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources wanted to reach an agreement last May, June and July when they met with representatives and the Premier of Alberta. There were a number of long negotiations and discussions. It may be argued that they were both coming at it from a different approach. Alberta certainly sees its resources as its own and believes it should have complete control right to the gas tank. The federal government is trying to balance the needs of the producing provinces, especially Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, against the needs of the consumers.
Every dollar added to the price of a barrel of oil represents a one half of one per cent increase in the consumer price index. We are facing the worst inflation since 1975, when wage and price controls were put on, with the 10 per cent rate this past summer.
Speaking on this bill a few days ago, the hon. member for Etobicoke Centre (Mr. Wilson) said we should be rapidly moving to 85 per cent of the world price. I do not know what he means by rapidly. When talking about a move to the world price, we are talking about at least a $20 increase which would represent an additional 10 per cent inflation over and above the 10 per cent we now have.
The federal government is mindful of that need to try to control inflation and think about the consumer as well as the producing areas. At the same time, we have high unemployment in this country. We are told by economists that every dollar added to the price of a barrel of oil represents a loss of
20,000	jobs. The oil producing areas will argue that if the price does not go up and the projects do not get rolling, we will lose jobs there. When we consider a dramatic $20 per barrel increase we are looking at between 300,000 and 400,000 jobs being lost because an oil price increase causes a drag on the

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economy. The federal government is trying to match the needs of the producing areas with the needs of the consumers.
1 hope that a spirit of good will prevails in the negotiations when they get under way. We face a very serious time in this country because we are witnessing a polarization of the political parties such as we have never seen before. The governing party has no representatives west of the city of Winnipeg and the Progressive Conservative Party has only one representative from the province of Quebec. It is a time for responsible representation by the members of this House. It is very easy for opposition members from the west to exploit the situation and say the feds are trying to grab their resources. At the same time, it is easy for a Liberal government member from Ontario, Quebec or any of the eastern provinces to say Alberta is demanding too much. In such a situation, we have the two arguments by members, each supposedly a hero in his back yard. The problem will not be resolved in that way. There needs to be conciliation, serious consultation and discussion on this.
The bill before us tonight, C-48, is a very important part of the national energy program announced recently by the government. Regardless of what opposition members say, it is designed to reach some of the objectives set forth in that policy.
The three main things are to ensure the supply of oil and gas and its efficient utilization, and that is a part that often gets overlooked. Some say we cannot reach the target figure for reduction in consumption of oil during the 1980s, some 300,000 barrels a day as outlined in the program. That may be true, but I think it is worth a try. The kind of initiative announced by the minister last May when he said we have a scheme to upgrade the residual oil which is now either being used wastefully in many parts of eastern Canada or being sent out of the country to the United States is worth while. If upgrading of the residual oil were put in place, along with the other aspects of conservation and improved utilization, I think we would save something like 150,000 barrels a day, and that is the equivalent in production of a tar sands plant which would cost at least $6 billion, although the price of that is escalating up to $8 billion or $10 billion.
The second measure is designed to strike a degree of equity in pricing between the producing and consuming parts of our country. I have already mentioned that aspect. The program is also designed to provide a maximum opportunity for Canadians to participate in the oil and gas industry of our country; this bill looks toward that objective because it sees a major role for Petro-Canada. I want to deal with that in a little more detail later in my speech.
This bill will replace the Territorial Lands Act and the Public Lands Grants Act in respect of oil and gas rights. It will put in place a new oil and gas exploration and development regime for federal lands in the area north of 60 and in the offshore areas. These are areas to which we are looking for the future. Development may not come soon but the potential is
surely there whether we are looking at the Arctic Islands or Hibernia offshore on the east coast, or other areas in the far north. This involves a massive region, some four million square miles in total.
The really important thing from the producers' point of view is that this bill will end the uncertainty which has existed. The old oil and gas regulations were withdrawn many years ago. The industry has rightfully been very concerned and disappointed that definite legislation was not put into place. I think it is really urgent that this bill be passed.
When the bill goes to the Standing Committee on National Resources and Public Works it is important that it be studied in great detail. The argument made by opposition members that the minister has too much power is one which I believe members of the committee will want to re-examine. They will want to make an examination to see whether that fear is real. Whether we are talking about ministerial power as it relates to failure to cause production to take place, or drilling to take place by Petro-Canada. Members will wish to assess whether those powers given to the minister are necessary. Certainly we will be looking at that aspect with an open mind in order to arrive at the best possible legislation not only for Canada but in the over-all context of the industry, and to ensure that production takes place. Nobody likes to be doing business with a government when the rules can be changed at someone's whim. There should be a firm legislative base from which to work.
The bill does a number of other things toward reaching the objectives of a national energy program. It will give the Crown a 25 per cent interest in all Canadian lands where production has not taken place other than for testing purposes before January 1, 1976. The bill requires a minimum of 50 per cent Canadian ownership before actual new production of oil and gas can begin, with such production licences to be valid for a ten-year period from the start of production.
The bill provides a new royalty system consisting of a basic 10 per cent royalty and an additional royalty of 40 per cent of net profits from each oil or gas field after the 25 per cent rate of return has been realized by the producer. The bill allows the Crown to order the drilling of a well following a significant discovery, and it allows the government to require oil and gas to be produced on federal lands by order if needed for use in Canada. The bill requires that information be made public in two years on exploration wells following the completion of the well. The measure contemplates a number of other actions relating to oil and gas exploration and development in the frontier and offshore regions of our country. It will also make amendments to the Oil and Gas Production and Conservation Act which will make tougher safety and environmental management provisions for frontier oil and gas activities, including a provision for absolute liability on the part of operators for any possible pollution damage.
The legislation is designed to promote exploration for frontier oil and gas and to ensure that holders of oil and gas rights get on with the exploration of their holdings to create maximum new oil and gas reserves for Canada.
December 16, 1980

It is designed to promote frontier oil and gas exploration and will be supplemented by the new system of incentives called the Petroleum Incentives Program which will promote Canadian ownership and help smaller companies, especially those which do not have a big write-off base. They will have this incentive program and it will be especially helpful to Canadian companies.
With this bill geological and geophysical information will be made public earlier than in the past, thus promoting exploration by interested parties who would not otherwise have access to this knowledge.
The National Energy Program foresees a gradual rise in the price of oil during the next four to five years, with a more rapid rise during the last half of this decade. Thus it would provide a period for the country to adjust our lifestyles and our economy to the higher energy prices which will be coming our way during the last part of this decade. So, during the first four or five years of this decade we will see a doubling in the prices proposed. During the last half we will see a doubling again, so in effect we get a quadrupling of the price of oil, and that is likely a minimum. It provides during that gradual build-up period for a mechanism to reduce the use of oil. It allows the consumer to adjust by improving insulation in his home. CHIP program funding has been increased from $80 million per year to $260 million. It provides a system of incentives for the home owner and for business to convert away from oil to natural gas, to wood, to electricity and to solar heat. There will even be legislation in this session to ensure that the auto makers meet special standards in order that drivers can experience better gas mileage.
As we work through the first three or four years of this decade, we will adjust to a reduced use of oil in our lifestyles. This reduced use will be the result, we hope, of conservation and conversion from oil to natural gas. Right now in the province of Alberta the consumption of oil in residential, commercial and industrial applications is some 5 per cent. The target of the government is a 10 per cent maximum use of oil in commercial, industrial and residential use during the course of this decade. If we could reach that target, we could save
375,000	barrels of oil a day. Part of the strategy for moving away from the heavy use of oil is to bring the consumption of oil in residential, commercial and industrial uses down to that target of only 10 per cent. The province of Alberta is already at the 5 per cent level. Surely we in the rest of the country can move toward that and save our country literally millions of barrels of oil every year and at the same time avoid the tremendous cost of constructing tar sands and heavy oil plants.
The message is very clear. In the National Energy Program we have a period of three or four years to get off oil, but the price is definitely going up.
The price of oil will quadruple. If crude oil costs $16.75 today, it will cost about $70 a barrel by the end of this decade. Hopefully we will adjust our consumption of it dramatically
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during the first three or four years when the price does not increase so steeply.
Likewise, the moderate increase in the price of oil during the three or four years of the National Energy Program is important to our economy generally because there is a recession in the United States. There is no growth in our economy. If we impose dramatically high energy prices on the Canadian economy at this time, we will see our country go into a recession. We will see higher unemployment, higher inflation and so forth, so I think that aspect of the National Energy Program with respect to a moderate increase in the price of oil during the first three or four years is important because we still have a large number of young people coming into the labour force. This will be especially the case during the next three or four years. Surely the jobs created for hundreds of thousands of young people during the last six years since the OPEC crisis of 1973-74 would not have come about in such a dramatic way in Canada if we had not sheltered the Canadian economy from the fifteenfold increase in the world price of oil which has shellshocked every western economy.
During the late 1960s and the 1970s the Canadian labour force grew by 50 per cent, from some 6.7 million people to about 11 million today. Responding to the rapidly increasing number of people coming out of schools and the increased participation by women in the labour force we experienced the highest rate of job creation in the western industrialized world. The German economy and other economies are mentioned by members in the opposition, but if we look at that period during which Canada experienced a 50 per cent rate of growth in the labour force, we find that countries like West Germany actually experienced decreases in their labour forces. They did not have to keep their economies growing as fast as we did during that period. During the period from 1973 to 1980 I do not believe the Canadian economy actually did go into a recession whereas most other economies did. Part of that was due to the fact that we were able to moderate increases in energy prices.
Even in the price of food and in the price of diesel fuel proposed in the budget of last December 11 compared with the situation under the National Energy Program we see a dramatic difference. For an agricultural producer, whether he is in western Canada, Ontario, Quebec or the maritimes, using some 6,000 gallons of diesel fuel a year, the average difference in cost of diesel fuel over the next four-year period will be some $2,000 per year. This represents either a considerable hardship for the agricultural producer who has to take that out of his profit, or a considerable cost to be passed on to the consumer. That is another reason we suggest a moderate increase in the price of energy during the next three or four years or the first half of this decade.
That same pricing problem would have affected municipalities, which would have had to pay higher excise taxes and higher energy costs under the previous budget. The same would have applied to loggers, northerners and others using diesel fuel.
Doubtless the opposition will be very opposed to one provision in Bill C-48, under which there would be a carried interest

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Canada Oil and Gas Act
to the federal government of 25 per cent with respect to federal lands. I am sure their animosity will grow when opposition members see that that provision might be exercised by Petro-Canada on behalf of the people of this country. Those of us who were here in 1975 remember how hard the Tories opposed the establishment of the national petroleum corporation. They forecast doom and gloom for the industry if we were to establish such a corporation. Dozens and dozens of meetings were held in the Standing Committee on National Resources and Public Works. Hon. members opposite said that a national petroleum corporation was not needed, that it was too costly, that it would be harmful to the existing industry and that it would only deflect public attention away from our supply needs. There were better ways, in their opinion, to reach the goals set out in the Petro-Canada bill.
1 invite hon. members to look at the comments made at the second reading stage of the Petro-Canada bill in the spring of 1975. Let us just consider this "demon" which the Tories seemed to see coming over the horizon in the spring of 1975 and compare it with what has actually happened in the first five short years of the life of this corporation. As is provided in this bill, some 25 per cent of the interest in new wells operated on Canada lands in the north and the east coast offshore will probably be held by Petro-Canada.
PetroCan is the largest Canadian petroleum corporation, and it is the only Canadian corporation in the big ten. All the rest are foreign owned. If the Tories had had their way at the time of the Petro-Canada bill, there would not be a single Canadian company among the big ten petroleum companies in Canada.
Petro-Canada is a fully integrated oil company which produces, refines and markets. Its assets approach some $4 billion today. It is the only Canadian company which has a stake-a 25 per cent interest, by the way-in the Hibernia oil discovery off Newfoundland. The hon. member for St. John's West was talking about that oil discovery. Petro-Canada is owned by the Canadian people, and its assets and benefits belong to the Canadian people. Surely that is worth while and desirable.
Besides, it is good that PetroCan will have access to information about wells so that it can judge accordingly and make the best stake in the east coast offshore which, after all, has a great potential for future energy discoveries. It is good to have a petroleum corporation which has a large piece of the action there. Likewise, the Sable Island discovery of natural gas which we hope to see proven in the coming year, has great potential. PetroCan has taken a very active part in that venture. I think it is safe to say that the interest it has shown and the capital investment which PetroCan has put into that project have moved up the discovery by a few years at least. If that discovery is proven, the impact on Nova Scotia and on all the maritime provinces will be tremendous in the years ahead. From being an energy deficient area in terms of natural gas, it will become a source of natural gas. Likewise, in the Arctic islands, PetroCan and Panarctic have one of the largest investments of any Canadian-owned corporations. The initiative which Petro-Canada is taking in the Arctic islands project costing some $2 billion to ship liquefied natural gas from the eastern Arctic by tanker is a tremendous research and development project. Not only will it provide us with an efficient transportation system from the Arctic islands, moving up incrementally as markets are developed, but they tell me that the spinoff technology for transportation of other valuable minerals in the Arctic will equally be of value. This benefit will accrue to all Canadians through PetroCan, a corporation which the official opposition dramatically and vehemently opposed. I think they opposed it with even more vehemence than the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) showed when he opposed the national energy program tonight.
During the 1975 debate, speaker after speaker was vehement in his opposition to PetroCan. I am just suggesting some of the things which PetroCan has been able to do in a matter of only five years. It has a major stake as a partner in the Syncrude project. It is also doing research in heavy oils and the tar sands. As I said earlier, it will take an active part in upgrading the facility for residual oil in Montreal, gathering it together and processing it at a great saving compared to the cost of a tar sands plant. It will be participating in a heavy oil upgrading plant in Saskatchewan, probably taking a 50 per cent interest in that project which is estimated to cost at least $1 billion, giving us much more access to heavy oils in the Lloydminster area and other parts of the province. This represents a tremendous resource for the country, but we have to unlock the technology to make it happen. PetroCan is there working on behalf of all Canadians.
I think the most important thing about PetroCan is that it is an integrated oil company operating in all spheres of exploration, production and marketing. The revenues and the profits which are generated in the western basin from conventional oil are being spent on exploration and development in the risky areas of the far north and the east coast offshore. That is in marked contrast to the contortions the official opposition went through when they were the government. They were going to sell Petro-Canada although they knew Canadians did not want that. So they backed off. Then they proposed to sell just the parts which made money and keep the parts which did not make money. I knew, and so did the president of the Treasury Board in the previous cabinet, that that proposal would never see the light of day. Finally, they decided to keep some of it, to sell some of it and to give some of it away. And ultimately they did not have to make any decision because the government was defeated.
I think Canadians across the entire country support to concept of Petro-Canada. They want to see projects such as the Arctic islands project go forward. In contrast to what the official opposition said in 1975, Petro-Canada has operated very well with the private sector. As a matter of fact, practically every one of their projects that I can think of operates on a joint ventures basis. What I find interesting, Mr. Speaker, is that one gets the impression that the private sector likes to have PetroCan taking part in its projects. If you look at the
December 16, 1980

Sable Island drilling, if you look at the activity in the far north and the experience of Panarctic, you find that the private sector seems to work very well with PetroCan. I cannot cite the exact number, but I know that a large number of projects is being undertaken by PetroCan together with Nova, a major petroleum corporation in Alberta, possibly involving one of the various pipeline projects in which they are engaged. Opposition members said they would never be able to do that. So I think their vehemence against the national energy program now may be like their vehemence against PetroCan in 1975. As the program is developed and the bills go through the House and through the committee, I believe we will see their attitude change. There may be differences of opinion as to the actual price of a barrel of oil in any one year, but I think the broad outlines of this bill and the program are good because we are moving toward greater Canadianization, not just because it sounds nice but because we know that if the value of the reserves in western Canada now is a hundred billion dollars, by the end of this decade the price of oil will quadruple and the value of those reserves will be $400 billion. We know that if they continue to be mainly American owned, as they are now, to the extent of 71 per cent and 82 per cent being controlled by foreign companies, which are mainly U.S. companies, then we will have to pay dividends and interest to the United States, whereas if they are owned mainly by Canadians, those dividends will accrue to Canada and thus the balance of payments problem will be lessened.
So I think there is a great potential for this program. Bill C-48 will play a very important part in that development because Canadian lands in the north and off the east coast have a great potential. Therefore, I hope the bill will be passed on second reading and sent to the committee where a detailed study can be made of the complicated technical aspects of the bill. 1 hope members of the House will send this bill to committee.


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, in my remarks this evening and hopefully tomorrow I would like to expand on this concept of Canadian ownership which the party opposite tends to use so loosely, as if Canadian ownership, state ownership or citizen ownership are all one and the same thing. Indeed, they are not one and the same thing. I would also like to say to the hon. member who has just resumed his seat that although we all respect that there is a place for Petro-Canada and a role for it in the future of Canada's energy development it is not a panacea. It has become a security blanket for the Liberal party, a promise as to how they will resolve all Canada's problems in the energy field in the future. I think the next few years will prove that recourse to Petro-Canada as a solution for all these problems will have been a wrong one.
It is most appropriate that we now have the opportunity to debate Bill C-48, because it gives us on this side of the House another opportunity to expand on the inherent dangers of the government's budget of October 28 and the implementation of the Petroleum Administration Act a few weeks ago. 1 believe
Canada OH and Gas Act
these are actions which will have tremendous negative effects on energy development in this country and our potential to achieve energy self-sufficiency by the end of this decade. It is important, after some ten years of promises from the opposite side of the House, that the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) has finally chosen to introduce legislation which will provide a new regime for the management of petroleum production on the so-called Canada lands, that is, the lands which we expect will bear large amounts of hydrocarbon energy in the frontier and offshore areas of Canada, the territories, the Arctic islands, the Beaufort Sea and off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. However, the means to be used to this end give cause for serious concern. Indeed, on my part they give cause for alarm.
There must, indeed, be serious guidance from the Government of Canada in order to hasten the development of petroleum resources in these hard to reach and difficult to develop areas of our hinterland. But any policy of a government which does not hasten the development and accelerate the development of these resources will, in the long run, be detrimental to our national interests. This leads to what I consider to be the most important deficiency of Bill C-48. I believe we are now faced with a proposal which in all likelihood will inhibit rather than accelerate Canada's quest for oil self-sufficiency. I think that is the nub of the argument which my colleagues in the Conservative party have been offering. I would like to expand upon that point of view in my comments.


Donald W. Munro: They are not listening over there.


Thomas Edward Siddon: They will have a little while to listen to me yet.
The long delay in providing an appropriate substitute for the Canadian oil and gas lands regulations is reprehensible indeed. But at least we now have a proposal to debate. I hope it will be a lengthy debate. It is my hope that the merits and pitfalls of this legislation will be scrutinized thoroughly in this House, as set out by my colleague, the hon. member for Etobicoke Centre (Mr. Wilson), and others who have followed him. I hope these pitfalls will also be scrutinized thoroughly at the committee stage before this bill is enacted in final form.
Mr. Speaker, I believe the committee should be calling expert witnesses from the petroleum industry and from the provincial governments, people who have decades of experience in managing petroleum resources. This is experience which the bureaucrats and politicians opposite lack-lack in spades. I believe that a number of important amendments would be required to this legislation if we in this party are to support it.
In a nutshell, four essential elements are lacking in this legislation and in the over-all energy program of the government. What we find is a lack of trust, a lack of co-operation, a lack of consultation and a lack of realism. With respect to trust, I believe that a trust has been violated by the way in which this bill proposes to deal with the privately-owned petroleum companies of Canada. It is all well and good for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources to say that the government is merely taking back something which it gratui-

December 16, 1980
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tously gave by way of development incentives and depletion allowances to the industry over the years. But the means by which those interests are being reclaimed by the government are totally dishonest and immoral, as my colleague from Etobicoke Centre pointed out. The government's approach represents the breaking of a firm contract and as such it is an aspect of lack of trustworthiness which must make private industries in this country, not just the petroleum industry, shudder each night with anticipation of where this trend toward nationalization is leading our country.
Second, Mr. Speaker, there is little indication either in the government's energy program, the budget or this bill that the government has taken a co-operative approach with the industry in coming to grips with some of the quantitative questions which underlie the philosophy of this bill. I refer to a couple of quotes from the budget document. In the first paragraph on page nine of the October 28 budget speech the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) said:
In the absence of changes in the fiscal regime, rising prices for oil and gas would generate inappropriate balance between governments.
Further down that page, in the fourth paragraph, the Minister of Finance said:
The federal taxes reflect the capacity of the oil and gas industry to pay and bring its contributions more closely into line with what other industries are required to pay.
I submit the government has presented not one tot of evidence which shows that profits are excessive in relation to the risk which is required to develop petroleum resources in this country. It is most untimely and improper of this government to take a position of distrust toward the petroleum industries of Canada and, indeed, to refuse to co-operate with them in seeking their guidance and consulting with them as to their operating economics before producing a piece of legislation such as this bill.
Third, Mr. Speaker, in the area of consultation, it seems a travesty to me that experts within the industry are held in an atmosphere of mistrust rather than in an atmosphere of confidence as being able to provide insights, knowledge and experience, which government bureaucrats in Ottawa definitely lack.
This leads to another of my concerns, the lack of realism on the part of the government opposite and its bureaucratic socialistic advisers-lack of realism in the department, because they do not sit down and total the figures and consider that in the national interests of developing our much-needed high risk resources in the offshore and frontier areas, we must have competition and reward risk with a proper return on investment.
May I call it ten o'clock, Mr. Speaker? I would like to resume my remarks tomorrow.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Robert Alfred Corbett: Mr. Speaker, on December 10 in response to a question to the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) concerning the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Roberts), who also serves as the Minister of State for Science and Technology, the parliamentary secretary pointed out a few things which are not usual in this House. I am not sure who will respond this evening, as I do not see either the Minister of the Environment or his parliamentary secretary in the chamber, but 1 would like to relate to the House exactly what did take place.
I quoted from a news release dated November 17 put out by the Department of the Environment which stated in part:
Mr. Roberts pointed out that Canada faces a similar energy dilemma to that of the United States. "We, like our neighbours to the south, have to achieve energy self-sufficiency," he said. "We too are looking for alternatives to our dependence on foreign oil which will involve increasing our use of domestic coal. However, we are going to develop these alternatives in an environmentally sound manner. The political will to do this in Canada is strong and we must demonstrate this to the United States".
Subsequent to that, I moved a motion under Standing Order 43 which in effect supported the Minister of the Environment's statement of November 17. 1 asked this House and members of the opposition to support the minister in his statement that we have an environmentally sound program developed for the future of the nation. My motion asked the House to express unanimous support for the principle stated, when referring to Canada's increasing use of domestic coal in an environmentally sound manner, that the political will to do this in Canada is strong and that we must demonstrate this. Those were the words of the Minister of the Environment.
1 was asking for unanimous support for the minister by having this principle adopted. The motion was put according to the provisions of Standing Order 43 and was turned down. However, it was not turned down by any members on this side of the House, but by members of the government and supporters of the Liberal government, the Minister of the Environment's own colleagues. I find it rather astounding, that a minister responsible for two very important portfolios would be repudiated by his own colleague. That is a shame because in this particular instance what the minister was attempting to do was in the best interests of the nation.
It is unfortunate that the minister does not have the support of his colleagues. It is incredible that a minister of the Crown would continue to occupy a seat on the front benches of the Government of Canada without the support of his caucus
December 16, 1980

colleagues. How on earth can we hope to survive as a nation if the government cannot get its act together? What can Canadians expect when ministers of the Crown do not receive the support of their caucus colleagues?
Contradictions of this nature can only call for the resignation of the minister in question, certainly if not from both portfolios, then from the portfolio in which he does not have the support of his caucus colleagues. I put this to the parliamentary secretary and stated that I hoped that the Prime Minister would adopt the suggestion which had been earlier stated by the hon. member for Scarborough East (Mr. Gilchrist), that of splitting this particular ministry. The hon. member and 1 wanted this in order to ensure that jobs are created in this country and in order that the Prime Minister might make certain that both these departments, under new ministers and new direction, are funded properly. The parliamentary secretary's response to that was:
Madam Speaker, we will.
That is the candidness I spoke of when I first raised the issue. The parliamentary secretary has stated that the government intends to create two new ministries as distinct from the current situation, so that one minister would be looking after science and technology and another would be looking after the Department of the Environment.
Canadians, and certainly members on this side of the House, would like to know who these new ministers will be, what the new funding programs are to be and what new programs the government intends to put in place to create these new jobs for Canadians so that Canada will have the opportunity to continue its growth and we can look forward to a brighter and more prosperous future than we have had in the past.


Mr. Doug Frith (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the hon. member opposite is aware that my departmental responsibilities lies in the area of health and welfare and I am sure he is having some difficulty understanding the concern the health and welfare department has in his question this evening.
Part of the question the hon. member has raised deals in an indirect way with health and welfare when he talks about the problems Canada has experienced in terms of pollutants which will be added to our atmosphere from the conversion program announced in the budget document of October 29, 1980. The hon. member says he feels the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Roberts) should resign because he does not have the support of members on this side of the House. We are in full agreement with what the Minister of the Environment has attempted to do over the past 12 months. The Minister of the Environment has been in the forefront of the battle with the United States, vis-a-vis the effects of acid rain on our environment. He has visited Washington, D.C. and we are now in the process of negotiation with the U.S. government. We are hopeful that in future negotiations over the next three months with the new administration in the United States we will be able to come up with a global program for North America
Adjournment Debate
which will deal with the acid rain problem. It is no surprise to me that the actions of the minister, who has been in the forefront of this battle on acid rain, come directly into question with respect to the measures placed in the October 28 announcement in the budget.
I want to reiterate in response to earlier questions which the hon. member has raised that the government is committed to ensuring that any coal conversions which we encourage and foster will require the observance of strict environmental control. In that respect we have a total commitment on behalf of this government. The conversion program, which is so instrumental to reducing eastern Canada's dependency on oil will, first, decrease our dependence on imported oil and, second, result in immeasurable economic benefits for Atlantic Canada. That is why the government in the energy package of October 28 attached prime importance to the extension of the natural gas pipeline from Quebec City through to the maritimes, which will take that region off oil dependency. Second, the budget document itself contains a major program to use the coal which is available in Atlantic Canada to produce electricity. This will create jobs in Atlantic Canada for the industry, as well, in terms of the technology and the construction of the pipeline and the conversion of the existing plants to coal-fired plants, it will create jobs for others who live in that region. This will not be done at the expense of the environment.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the parliamentary secretary but 1 must inform him that his time has expired.


ENERGY-INQUIRY RESPECTING CONTINGENCY PLANS TO ASSIST UNEMPLOYED OIL WELL DRILLERS
Mr. Bill Wright (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, last Friday I asked a question of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) about the large number of jobs related to the drilling industry which will be lost in Alberta.
The drilling industry said approximately 180 rigs were fast coming to a halt in terms of drilling and this would affect the jobs of 10,800 people. His simple reply was that he did not have an oil agreement with Alberta yet and, therefore, he could not do anything.
Last Monday I asked a similar question of the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy). I reminded him that he had been present at a meeting last Friday where the drilling association told him the figures were even worse than I had quoted-that 200 rigs were coming to a halt, most were leaving the country and the job loss would total up to
12,000	in Alberta. What 1 did not say to the minister, though he had been told, was that the figure could be three times as bad in Ontario. All he could tell me was that job registrations in Alberta were down from last year. Of course they were.
Alberta is a prosperous province. These people have not yet registered. This has only happened since the budget. The rigs

December 16, 1980
Adjournment Debate
are gradually coming to a halt. Their contracts are not being renewed. Of course these people have not registered for jobs.
The point is, the minister knew this but did not state it in his answer. He had been given a briefing by the drilling industry where they laid it on the line to him, telling him how desperate it was going to be in Alberta. However, both the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and the Minister of Employment and Immigration are ignoring what is happeing in western Canada as well as in eastern Canada.
Opposition members on this side are united in their condemnation of the government's National Energy Policy. We consider it a deliberate raid on western interests, and the government should reopen negotiations with Alberta and the other producing provinces. There is no question but that this policy is detrimental to the Canadian economy. The proposed oil and gas pricing schedule was unilaterally arrived at and will lead to further confrontation and division with the producing provinces.
Why are all the members on this side opposed to the national energy policy? Why do the members on this side not believe what they are told? There is a document which spells it out very clearly. It is at page 8478 of Hansard for December 6, 1973. I quote from that:
My immediate task is to place before the House proposals which will set the basis for a new national oil policy. The objective of that policy, to be reached before the end of this decade, is Canadian self-sufficiency in oil and oil products.
That statement was made by the present Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau). That is why we do not believe him and that is why the only solution for Canada as a whole is the resignation of that man.
It is not only this party which is against the national oil policy. What are the provinces saying? British Columbia will lose approximately $1.2 billion between now and 1983 and they estimate some problems in selling this higher priced gas to the United States. The B.C. finance minister has called the National Energy Policy proposals a blatant money grab and power grab by Ottawa. The Alberta treasurer called the national energy policy a massive discrimination against the province of Alberta and an attempted takeover of the ownership of the depleting resources owned by the people of Alberta.
Premier Blakeney of Saskatchewan indicated that he was unhappy with the 8 per cent production tax on oil and gas and also the gas export tax. Ontario treasurer Frank Miller stated that taxing the Canadian people to buy the existing oil industry is a misallocation of resources and a complete waste of time. Premier Levesque of Quebec condemned the unilateral nature of the federal government move in respect of oil and gas policy. In the maritimes the Premier of P.E.I. stated that the national energy policy will not benefit the people of P.E.I. Lastly, Premier Peckford of Newfoundland called the National Energy Program stupid.
The chairman of Dome Petroleum, Jack Gallagher, referred to the federal energy policies as shortsighted, ignorant and contrary to the nation's energy needs.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I regret to interrupt the hon. member but his allotted time has expired.


Mr. Dennis Dawson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to point out that the hon. member touched upon several points in his speech on the energy program of the government. In the three minutes allowed me, I could without a doubt defend that energy policy and refute his stand because it is to be expected that the provinces which wanted to derive maximum benefits from the energy resources of the Canadian government should resent the fact that the federal government is assuming its responsibilities in attempting, as it is doing, to share this wealth around.
But 1 shall limit myself, Mr. Speaker, to that aspect dealing with job creation and unemployment both of which are directly and indirectly related to the energy program of the government.

While industry estimates of the total downturn in oil well drilling activity for 1980-81 now run as high as 40 per cent, the impact this will have on employment in western Canada is not yet clear. For example, of the 587 rigs in Canada as of December 9, 1980, 458 were drilling. This compares to the 436 that were drilling in December, 1979, out of a total of 510 rigs in Canada at that time.
At the present time our Canada employment centres in Alberta, where most of the rigs are located, report some employment enquiries from oil rig workers, but no apparent trend is apparent at this stage. This situation is being monitored on a monthly basis and it is expected that any unemployment impact will be more accurately reflected in our records in the coming months. This will be followed closely by the department.
Given the high demand for labour in Alberta, it is anticipated that alternative employment will be available to any oil rig workers who are laid off. There will not, of course, be a perfect match of skills and benefits. We shall be trying to do our best in that regard. However, the regular programs and services of the commission which will be immediately available to these workers are considered fully adequate to meet the demands anticipated.
In so far as the downstream effects on suppliers in central Canada are concerned, and the effects in eastern Canada, I expect they will be fully compensated by the megaproject we are developing with the government in the west. That may well be the prebuilt pipeline in Alberta and I am sure it will certainly compensate for those ill effects.


HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES-SHIPMENT OF VITA VAX PESTICIDE TO NEPAL AND INDIA
Mr. Simon de Jong (Regina East):: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to deal with the answer to a question I received on
December 16, 1980

November 26 concerning the export of some tonnes of a chemical called vitavax to Nepal, a shipment that occurred earlier this year through CIDA.
I was concerned when I raised the matter in the House, considering that a product with a similar name, vitavax, was under investigation in Manitoba because of the death of a Manitoba farmer. While the question was addressed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. MacGuigan) or his parliamentary secretary, the answer I received was given by the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin), and I was somewhat surprised that the Minister of National Health and Welfare answered that question. The minister misinterpreted my remarks, and 1 never did receive an adequate answer to the questions 1 posed. The minister assumed that the death of the Manitoba farmer was related to the product which was being shipped to Nepal which she assumed contained lindane. Lindane is a chemical which is at present under review in the United States. This review was recommended by the scientific panel of the American Environmental Protection Agency which has advised severely restricting use of that chemical. 1 understand that the chemical which was shipped to Nepal did not contain lindane. However, it did contain two other chemicals about which very little is known. Spokespersons from the company itself, Uniroyal, have indicated that very little is known. The two active ingredients of vitavax 200, the product which was shipped to Nepal, contains thiram and carbothiin. Very little is known about either of those two active ingredients.
My concern essentially is that we are shipping from western developed countries to underdeveloped countries technology which has not been adequately tested here. Perhaps we are using underdeveloped countries almost as a testing field.
I understand that this product vitavax 200 is not registered either in Canada or in the United States. When we telephoned CIDA to request further information, CIDA suggested to us over the telephone that vitavax 200 was approved by the American Environmental Protection Agency. A telephone call to that agency confirmed that vitavax 200 is not registered in the United States, and that the agency is not aware of it. vitavax is on the Canadian list of chemicals which were tested by International Biotest Laboratories. There exists no conclusive proof that this product is safe for extended human use. It has been on the IBT list, and the government has not indicated as yet that it has reviewed the available data about that chemical. There is nothing which indicates that this chemical is not harmful to the user and to the consumer.
An American toxicologist was brought here by the company, Uniroyal, to testify in the inquest which continues in Manitoba. This toxicologist suggested that the man did not die from lindane poisoning. In fact, he might not have died from lindane poisoning. He might have died as a result of poisoning by other ingredients in the product called vitavax RS flowable. I understand that Uniroyal has not made available to the inquest the exact chemical composition of that product. The company has
Adjournment Debate
been hiding behind the notion that it is a trade secret, and I find this somewhat objectionable. I was really concerned that the minister should jump so quickly to a conclusion with respect to the testimony of this one toxicologist as opposed to the testimony of the attending physician, and the coroner in Manitoba reached other conclusions.
I was particularly surprised and appalled at the minister's attempt to answer my second question. There have been some problems with respect to the product vitavax in the west. There are repeated cases in which the germination of seeds treated by vitavax is very low.
In fact, I pointed out in my question that the Saskatchewan wheat board has over 500,000 pounds of rapeseed, treated with a product called vitavax, that has a germination rate of only 10 per cent. In other words, of all the seeds that are planted, only 10 per cent sprout. This is a very serious problem, and there are, I understand some court cases in Saskatchewan where farmers are suing the company Uniroyal for passing on to them seeds which germinate only up to 10 per cent. If this is also a problem with the product we are shipping to Nepal, I think it is very serious for a country like Nepal. If only 10 per cent of the seeds they plant will come up, in a country that is so low in food and so desperately needs food as does Nepal, this could be indeed a very serious matter. I received no answer whatsoever to the concern I expressed about the germination rate of the product which we have sent to Nepal. It is as though the minister had totally ignored my question and went on rambling-and I emphasize the word rambling-about her opinions of what is happening in the inquest following the farmer's death in Manitoba.
I am amazed at the reaction of the government. I was asking for some honest technical answers. I think these are legitimate concerns. For the government to suggest that I am needlessly frightening people, that I am being paternalistic to the people of Nepal, are red herrings. The government should take a good, hard look to see what it is doing, particularly when it exports technology from this country which has not been satisfactorily tested and ships it to underdeveloped countries-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I regret to interrupt the hon. member but his time has expired.


Royce Herbert Frith: Mr. Speaker, 1 will try to deal as best I can with the question the hon. member for Regina East (Mr. de Jong) has raised, to which the Department of External Affairs feels it can reply, and then, if I have time in the three minutes allowed me, I should like to address some of the other points he has raised with respect to the health question of vitavax 200.
Vitavax 200 is one of 20 different formulations of the chemical and does not contain the ingredient lindane around which the inquest into the death of the Manitoba farmer has centred. However, that is not to say that vitavax 200 is not a chemical which should be handled properly with the necessary
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December 16, 1980
Adjournment Debate
precautions. The bulk of the chemical in Nepal is used in one of several modern government seed treatment plants to coat wheat seed for the government's national seed program. Approximately two tons of the six to eight ton annual requirement is repackaged into small five gram packets by the manufacturer's agent in Katmandu for distribution under the government's program to individual farmers, vitavax 200 is not registered or licensed for use in Canada although it is produced here for export. This is because of the different seed, climatic and soil conditions in Canada for which other vitavax formulations are more suitable, and formulations similar to vitavax 200 are marketed here. However, my information from the department is that vitavax 200 is licensed and registered for use in the United States and exported throughout the world.
As an agricultural chemical developed and produced in Canada, vitavax has made a significant contribution to the control of cereal crop diseases and increased production.
Field trials of seed treatment chemicals were begun in Nepal in 1966, and following field testing of several variants of vitavax in 1974, Nepal procured its first requirements of
vitavax 200 in 1975 and 1976 on a commercial basis. Pleased with the good results and increased production which has been reported between 10 per cent to 20 per cent, Nepal requested the chemical from Canada in late 1977 and it was approved in early 1978. This chemical is considered vital to Nepal's seed treatment and wheat production.
The hon. member for Regina East spoke earlier about the problem we have had with the treatment of some vitavax formulations with respect to the production of certain seed variants in western Canada. I want to point out that the incident he raised earlier was in connection with a small sampling of rapeseed which had been treated with vitavax RS flowable. And yet vitavax 200 is used in Nepal for wheat.
Mr. Speaker, it seems that my time has expired. I thank you for allowing me time to make the response I have been able to give so far.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m.
At 10.30 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Wednesday, December 17, 1980