1981-11-03

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Madam Speaker, Canadian beef producers are in a real financial bind, mostly due to high interest rates. All the federal government has done to date is spend $40,000 on a Senate report, plus a few more thousand dollars on another report which the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) has ordered. Both are directed toward forcing the cattle producers into marketing boards. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Medicine Hat (Mr. Hargrave):
That the federal government make use of the present stabilization program and assist the cattle producers to at least 90 per cent of the previous five-year average which the program guarantees, but more preferably to 100 per cent.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


CALL FOR REMOVAL OF FEDERAL SALES TAX FROM FARM FUEL-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Len Gustafson (Assiniboia):: Madam Speaker, in view of the pressures on farmers relating to escalating production costs, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Towers):
That this House call on the government to remove all federal sales tax from farm fuel used in the production of food.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


THE MINISTRY
Mr. Gordon Towers (Red Deer):: Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Central Nova (Mr. MacKay), that this House of Commons endeavour to make known:
Cabinet members tell us they really care As they flit about our nation travelling by air.
Formation flying becomes part of the test As each high-flying minister wings his way west.
For-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please.


Thomas Gordon Towers: -13 Cabinet members all Alberta-bound And there aren't enough JetStars to go 'round To accommodate all the "Captains of the Clouds."


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I must admit I enjoy the hon. member's verses but 43s are for serious motions.


Some hon. Members:: It is serious.


INDIAN AFFAIRS
Mr. Ray Skelly (Comox-Powell River):: Madam Speaker, I hope this motion may obtain the full consent of the House, as I think we all agree with its purpose. Whereas the Sechelt Indian Band is one of the most progressive bands in British Columbia, if not of all Canada, and whereas the narrow and restrictive controls imposed by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development have curtailed rational social and economic development of the Sechelt Indian Band, and whereas the government encouraged the band, who invested years of planning to develop guidelines for a separate act to cover the development of the Sechelt band, only to be turned down by the bureaucrats, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton):
That the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development commit himself to assisting Indian people to free themselves from dependence on government and to support their efforts to achieve economic independence and social fulfilment.

November 3, 1981


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Mrs. Ursula Appolloni (York South-Weston):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Tomorrow morning the space shuttle Columbia will begin its second voyage out of the earth's atmosphere. It will be carrying in its cargo hold a special arm developed in Canada by Spar Aerospace and the National Research Council.
In view of the fact that the Minister of State for Science and Technology (Mr. Roberts) will be in the United States on Thursday to mark Canada's contribution to the American space program, I move, seconded by the member for Willow-dale (Mr. Peterson):
That the minister convey to representatives of the United States government as well as to officials of NASA the best wishes of this House for a safe and productive journey.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


EMPLOYMENT
Mr. Albert Cooper (Peace River):: Madam Speaker, whereas this week has been declared Canada Career Week, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Pembina (Mr. Elzinga):
That the minister responsible for employment improve forecasting of future job needs so that career counsellors in our high schools can help our students prepare for careers that will not be obsolete when they Finish their training and education.


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


POST OFFICE
Mr. John McDermid (Brampton-Georgetown):: Madam Speaker, the announced postage rate increase will create a severe burden for all Canadians. Charitable organizations such as the Canadian Lung Association, whose sole source of funds is derived through the Christmas seal campaign utilizing the mail for its drive, will be seriously jeopardized. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Nepean-Carleton (Mr. Baker):
That this House reject the postage rate increase until such time as an improvement in service becomes apparent and supports a measure relieving recognized charitable organizations using the mail to raise revenue, from this horrendous increase.


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Mr. Neil Young (Beaches):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. Since Pollution Probe has recommended that the Harris Water Treatment Plant in Toronto must be upgraded to where it is capable of removing the estimated 30 chemical substances that have been identified in the waters of Lake Ontario, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood (Mr. Rae):
That this House direct Environment Canada to provide financial and technical assistance to Metropolitan Toronto to ensure that the Harris Water Treatment Plant is upgraded so that the plant can remove all chemical substances from Lake Ontario water which is used for human consumption, and that persons responsible for this contamination be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES
Mr. Joe Reid (St. Catharines):: Madam Speaker, 2,000 home owners in the region of Niagara answered the call of the government to conserve energy by insulating their homes, but



November 3, 1981

unfortunately they did it with CMHC-approved urea formaldehyde foam insulation. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Haldimand-Norfolk (Mr. Bradley):
That since those home owners are now suffering emotional and economic hardship and suffering health impairment as well, the government should proceed to evaluate damage caused by that foam insulation in accordance with a commitment made by the hon. member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, and undertake to compensate the victims accordingly.


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


WESTERN POWER GRID PROJECT-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Robert Bockstael (St. Boniface):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. The federal government has contributed considerably to the development of Manitoba's hydroelectric power industry by providing large long-term loans to the province at very low interest rates, and on excellent terms of repayment. Recently it was announced that the provincial premiers were unable to reach an agreement on their much discussed western power grid. In light of the accomplishments of the federal government in developing Canada's energy resources it is now time the three western premiers showed some responsibility and initiative in deriving revenue from these hydroelectric power resources. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Don Valley East (Mr. Smith):
That the House direct hon. members opposite in both the Conservative and New Democratic parties to urge their provincial counterparts to reach an agreement as soon as possible on this important energy project so that western Canadians are no longer misled or subjected to any further delays.


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton-Strathcona):: Madam Speaker, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights has expressed profound concern for the safety of members of the Baha'i community in Iran. I believe all members of this House have received written indications of systematic persecution, including torture, beatings, murders, kidnappings, and other
forms of harassment. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Edmonton South (Mr. Roche):
That this House expresses its profound concern about the perilous situation facing that religious community, urges the Secretary General to continue his efforts to persuade the Government of Iran to prevent further attacks on the Baha'i community and to grant them religious freedom; and draws the attention of the Canadian people to the perilous situation faced by the Baha'i community of Iran.


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


FORESTRY
Mr. F. Oberle (Prince George-Peace River):: Madam Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43 I move, seconded by the hon. member for Cariboo-Chilcotin (Mr. Greenaway):
That representatives of the federal government presently attending a two-day workshop on the economic, social and ecological problems related to the mountain pine beetle epidemic in western Canada and the western United States be given instructions to commit, on behalf of the federal government, all the resources necessary to combat this natural phenomenon threatening our trees, which are our most important natural resource.


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


FINANCE
Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):: Madam Speaker, in 1976 the Government of Canada promised a periodic review of Government of Canada annuity interest rates. The government is prepared to pay Canada Savings Bond purchasers 19.5 per cent on their bonds, is prepared to pay nearly 18 per cent on Treasury bills, and is prepared to pay long-term bond holders 16 per cent or more. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Brampton-Georgetown (Mr. McDermid):
That the Government of Canada forthwith increase the interest paid on Government of Canada annuities to holders of those annuitities to at least 16 per cent, that the Government of Canada cease taking unfair advantage of persons who, in good faith, purchased annuities from the government, and that the government fulfil the promises it made.


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?

November 3, 1981
Oral Questions


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


HUMAN RIGHTS
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity under the provisions of Standing Order 43.
Whereas the Supreme Court of Canada's decision with respect to Quebec Bill 24, the Youth Protection Act, takes away the basic rights of young Quebecers, and whereas this decision undermines the fundamental principles of this progressive piece of Quebec legislation, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Saskatoon-East (Mr. Ogle):
That the Solicitor General of Canada immediately announce his intention of amending the provisions of the federal bill respecting young offenders so as to restore and observe the principles of Bill 24, not only for the sake of young Quebecers but for all young Canadians.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. This motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. John C. Crosbie (St. John's West):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State for External
Affairs.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Carnell Crosbie: I hope the minister will be as cheerful. On October 28 Marc Leland, the U.S. Assistant Treasury Secretary, said before a Senate subcommittee that the United States administration intends to pressure Ottawa before GATT, the OECD, the IMF, the World Bank and, if necessary, to invoke special presidential powers under the U.S. Trade Act in response to Canadian measures that adversely affect U.S. interests and undermine the international trade and investment climate. The minister will also know that the United States
need to do nothing in response to various requests Canada has made to them about acid rain, the east coast boundary and fisheries dispute, the northern pipeline and the like.
Will the minister now make it clear, particularly for his junior colleague from Windsor, whether the government is going forward with the changes proposed by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce which would expand the powers of FIRA? Has the government decided to initiate any changes in the new economic policy that might improve the atmosphere with the United States and encourage them to meet our requests in these other areas?


Hon. Mark MacGuigan (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Madam Speaker, since the hon. member has today asked his First question in the area of his new responsibilities, perhaps inspired by press reports, I think I should congratulate him on the new duties he has assumed. He may need my congratulations.


Mr. Clark:: No wonder Pierre Trudeau travels.


Mark R. MacGuigan: 
QUERY RESPECTING GOVERNMENT POLICY
John Carnell Crosbie: Madam Speaker, my supplementary is directed to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. The Minister of Finance made a speech in Calgary several days ago. He said his budget will not aim to Canadianize the industrial and trading sectors the way the oil industry is being Canadianized by the NEP. He stated that "the private sector has the principal role for economic development". Will the minister confirm to this House that the new industrial and trading policy he has been working on will not discriminate against the foreign or even the domestic Canadian investor as the NEP did? Will he confirm there will be no further federal intervention in the economy by the expansion of Crown corporation activities, PetroCan, or whatever? In other words, will he confirm that he has come to his senses, and drop the piffle he was speaking a few months ago?


Hon. Herb Gray (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Madam Speaker, the National Energy Program document that was tabled at the time of the last budget said that the government did not envisage expanding the minimum
November 3, 1981

ownership approach of the National Energy Program to other sectors. Instead of trying to develop questions in this area, questions which I think we would describe as piffle, the hon. member should have simply checked back and read what was already in the National Energy Program document.


QUERY RESPECTING PROMOTION OF FREE ENTERPRISE
John Carnell Crosbie: Madam Speaker, the government has got our relationship with the United States into "dire straits" already, as it has hundreds of thousands of Canadians. Last week the Prime Minister spoke in Toronto at a $175 a plate dinner where he said that Liberals "value private enterprise as a truly magnificent creator of wealth and opportunity." The Prime Minister is a "closet" free enterpriser. Or he is suffering from economic transvestism? Is the minister also an economic transvestite? Is he going to drop the policies he has been promoting and now promote free enterprise, private enterprise as a creator of wealth and opportunity? Will he assure the House that there will be no more takeovers by Crown corporations and that he is dropping his anti-the-private-sector policies that he had ready until several months ago?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, the policies that we are developing and promoting as a government are those which received the support of the Canadian people in the last election that gave us a majority mandate.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: We said from the outset, Madam Speaker, that we believe the Canadian people want the government to play an active role in support of the capacity for innovation and entrepreneurship in the private sector; that is what we have been doing and that is what we intend to continue to do.


PIPELINES
Mr. Harvie Andre (Calgary Centre):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and it deals with U.S.-Canada relations. One of the possible casualties of the poor U.S.-Canada relations caused by the National Energy Program is the Alaska highway gas pipeline. As the minister knows, U.S. legislation necessary for this project to go ahead is receiving rough treatment from U.S. congressmen and senators who are incensed or mad with Canada for some of the more ham-handed aspects of the NEP.
Can the minister tell the House what action he is undertaking, or he is planning to undertake, to ensure that this legisla-
Oral Questions
tion passes so that this project, worth some $30 billion and several thousand jobs to the Canadian economy will, in fact, go ahead?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Madam Speaker, first of all I would like to congratulate the hon. member on his appointment as energy critic. He is the third energy critic for the Conservative opposition in the span of a year. I wish him a long life in his position.
With regard to the question, I shall remind my hon. friend that the Alaska highway gas pipeline is a project that is, indeed, in the interest of the United States. We have passed the necessary legislation and have taken the necessary steps to ensure the realization of this project, following strong representations from the United States, which feel that this project is in their interest. Contrary to my friend I do not believe that the United States Congress or the United States as a whole would decide to shoot itself in the foot, to use the expression of our ambassador, by not proceeding with the bills the President has asked Congress to consider and pass.


QUERY RESPECTING CONTINGENCY PLANS
Harvie Andre: I want to remind the minister of comments he made when he was energy critic for the opposition in December of 1979, when he said that ironclad guarantees for all aspects of the Alaska highway gas pipeline were absolutely essential before the pre-build would be put in place. After asking for these iron-clad guarantees in July of 1980 the minister settled for some tin-clad guarantees from then President Carter. The minister now appears to be operating on the basis of a hope and with his fingers crossed.
In view of the daily statements in the U.S. press about reactions by congressmen and senators, as well as members of the administration, that they are not pressing this legislation and without such pressure the legislation will not pass, can the minister tell us why he can take such a complacent view and what contingency plans he has in place to look after the situation when this pipeline is, in fact, killed, as is very likely at the present time?


Marc Lalonde: Madam Speaker, for the last year and a half my hon. friends opposite have been coming out with all kinds of sombre predictions of doom and gloom. Their predictions are proven wrong every time. I shall remind my hon. friend that the United States Congress passed the resolution in 1980 stating that the Alaska highway gas pipeline was an essential part of securing the nation's energy future and that the system enjoyed the highest level of congressional support for its expeditious construction and completion by the end of 1985.
We have a letter of the then President of the United States, dated July 17, 1980, also confirming that view which had been passed unanimously by Congress. I believe the American

November 3, 1981
Oral Questions
Congress, the American President and the American administration stand by their statements. I think the bill introduced in Congress is clear evidence of the interest of the United States in seeing that project go.


LABOUR CONDITIONS
Mr. Ian Deans (Hamilton Mountain):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. Employment and immigration figures for September show that 20,397 additional people were laid off across Canada and that in Ontario 16,284 people were laid off in the month of September. This means that 1,000 people every working day in Canada are now made unemployed. It means that over 800 people in the province of Ontario every working day are being laid off. How can the minister say that this is not the time for panic, that we have to wait another month? What kinds of programs does he now have which will give those people an opportunity to find gainful employment, either in the short or in the long term, to meet their commitments to their families?


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Madam Speaker, the reason we counsel that it is not time for panic is that any attempt to create that kind of hysteria does not lead to effective long-term solutions to the problem. We on this side of the House prefer to deal with matters in a careful and effective way rather than the rhetorical and hysterical way the hon. member apparently endorses. What we are really trying to do, as we did this summer, is establish direct job-creation programs so that 1981 and 1982 will provide additional work for well over 80,000 Canadians in a variety of ways to ease those areas where high unemployment is expected. The approach taken by the government is a careful and effective one, rather than the rhetorical and panic-ridden approach which his party oftentimes adopts.


MASSEY-FERGUSON LAY-OFFS
Ian Deans: Madam Speaker, by way of supplementary question let me ask the minister, in the careful and considerate approach which he is taking, whether he can offer some guidance for the 600 people who are about to be laid off next Friday at Massey-Ferguson in Brantford. Where should they go to find employment? How will they be able to find employment in an area where, within a 20 or 25-mile radius there is massive unemployment in almost every community? What kind of reasonable thinking will come from the minister to give those people some help?


Lloyd Axworthy: Madam Speaker, the federal Department of Employment and Immigration, along with other departments, has a number of programs in place designed to deal directly with the problem of lay-offs. We establish, in co-operation with the
unions and local business corporations which may be affecting those lay-offs, manpower consultative services that deal with each individual employee. If they want to provide for retraining or for new job applications, they are given the available information, the available counselling, and the available job opportunities in the same area. I suggest the hon. member speak to his leader. In the area of Oshawa where lay-offs occurred, we were able to place close to 80 or 90 per cent of those persons laid off. We cannot control individual decisions by individual businesses affected by the cycles of the business economy.


Harvie Andre: It is not cycles, it is government policy.


Lloyd Axworthy: But we have a number of programs in place to ensure that the workers are helped in the circumstances.


PROGRAMS TO ASSIST UNEMPLOYED
Ian Deans: Madam Speaker, let me be quite specific with the minister. Indefinite lay-offs are currently taking place in Welland, London, Tillsonburg, Scarborough, Brantford, Downsview, Hamilton, Stoney Creek, Midland, Kitchener, and again in Brantford with Massey-Ferguson. Where are the specific programs for those 2,000 people who will be laid off as of next Friday in those communities? Where are the specific programs which will enable them to find either short-term or long-term employment in order to meet their commitments this winter, given that the minister has known since the summer, by his own admission, that massive unemployment figures would be showing up by the end of this fall?


Lloyd Axworthy: Madam Speaker, I would remind the hon. member that it was the action taken by this government in supplying a guarantee to Massey-Ferguson that maintained the employment for the entire work force at Massey-Ferguson and has kept them in the work force. The decision taken on November 6 was for a temporary lay-off and was in response to business conditions that the company must face. Without government action there would not be any work for people at Massey-Ferguson at all.


POST OFFICE
Mr. Bud Bradley (Haldimand-Norfolk):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs who is responsible for the Canada Post Corporation. I was pleased that last week the Prime Minister chose this place to renew his allegiance to the Queen and to reassure us that the Queen's portrait will in fact appear on the 1982 stamps. My concern is not with the 1982 stamps, however, but with the 1983 program. Since the minister is still
November 3, 1981

directly responsible for the stamp program-that does not go to the Canada Post Corporation-will he confirm or deny that instructions have been given to the planning department that the Queen's portrait is definitely to be left off all 1983 stamps?


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Madam Speaker, I think this is speculation in the mind of the hon. member because no such instruction has ever been given. The program is decided in the very last month of the year for the following year. So obviously no plan whatsoever has been made for 1983. I am very surprised that the hon. member is speaking of the Queen's portrait not appearing on stamps in 1983. I think somebody, somewhere, is really trying to create a problem that does not exist. A lot of members of the opposition have accused the Prime Minister of being anti-monarchist. I think he showed his loyalty to the Queen clearly last week. I hope the hon. member will do the same.


T.A. Bud Bradley: Madam Speaker, that speculation comes directly from the minister's design department for the stamp program. Since the minister did not in fact confirm or deny it, I would assume that that is a confirmation that the instruction did go out.


REQUEST THAT SENIOR CITIZENS ENJOY REDUCED POSTAL RATES
T.A. Bud Bradley: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is also for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. The minister will know from his mail that senior citizens and handicapped persons in Canada rely almost totally on the mail to communicate with their friends and loved ones. He will also know that an increase in postal rates of the magnitude proposed by the government will be tremendously detrimental to people on fixed incomes. Will the minister consider some form of assistance for senior citizens and handicapped persons, possibly along the lines of a special stamp, at say, 50 per cent of the first-class rate?


André Ouellet: Madam Speaker, I think the hon. member misunderstood my earlier reply. I denied outright that my department's postage design division had been given orders not to publish stamps with the portrait of the Queen in 1983. I denied this allegation and if the opposition member wants to be reassured and if he is interested, I can assure him that I have given no order for either 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986 or 1987.
Concerning the possibility of assistance to the handicapped, I am sure that all members on both sides of this House sympathize with the problems these people may have. However, I do not feel that the new Canada Post Corporation should get involved in this kind of assistance program. Within the Canadian government and also at other levels of government, there are programs aimed at providing assistance to those who require it, and I do not think the Canada Post Corporation should be used for this purpose.
Oral Questions


FINANCE
Mr. Walter McLean (Waterloo):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State. The minister will recall that earlier this year the former Secretary of State indicated that the National Voluntary Organizations' "give and take" tax proposals would be presented to cabinet. Would the minister tell the House whether he has persuaded the government to adopt these proposals?


Hon. Gerald Regan (Secretary of State):: Madam Speaker, the question is accurate in relation to the position that was taken by the former Secretary of State. I have assumed his responsibilities and will see to it that cabinet has occasion to examine a particular proposition carefully. At this time my officials are preparing a document to be placed before cabinet for consideration in relation to the "give and take" proposals. I can assure the hon. member that the matter will be processed without unreasonable delay.


REQUEST FOR CUSHIONING OF VOLUNTARY SECTOR FROM INCREASE IN POSTAL RATES
Walter Franklin McLean: Madam Speaker, as I listened to the Secretary of State I did not hear him indicate to the House that, when presenting these proposals, he would encourage their adoption. The voluntary sector, which was encouraged at Consultation 81 earlier in the year to believe that the government was going to act, now finds itself faced with the government acting in only one way, that is, with increased postal rates to effect them adversely.
May I ask the minister whether he will send a signal to the over three million Canadians who support the voluntary agencies with time and money, and will the minister intervene on their behalf to see that the voluntary sector is cushioned from the negative effects of this massive increase in postal rates?


Gerald Augustine Regan: Madam Speaker, since assuming the portfolio of Secretary of State I have met with representatives of the National Voluntary Organizations. I want to reaffirm the recognition by this government of the vital importance of the contributions made to our society by voluntary organizations in Canada. They make a tremendous contribution. In many ways they are the backbone of our country, and certainly the government is going to continue to be supportive of the propositions they bring forth.


SHIPBUILDING
Raymond John Skelly: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Is the minister aware that over the next ten years

Oral Questions
roughly $33 billion will be spent on marine platforms, with about $1.3 billion being spent next year and $1.8 billion the following year? In this House the minister has consistently promised to put forward a coherent shipbuilding policy for Canadians. On July 8, 1980, he promised that we would have the policy by early fall; he promised it again on July 15; his parliamentary secretary has promised it, and the Prime Minister has promised it. Now it is the late fall of 1981. Where is the shipbuilding policy so that Canadians can capture the benefits from the shipbuilding that will go on in this country?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, I said that before the government would announce a new policy for the shipbuilding and ship repair industry we would carry out a wide-ranging consultation with the industry, its workers, and potential users of ships. This consultative process is just being completed. I hope to receive the report from the chairman of our interdepartmental working group very soon and I will use that as a basis for discussion in cabinet with a view to bringing forward the policy that my hon. friend has requested.


Raymond John Skelly: Madam Speaker we have heard two ministers stand up today with the old pie in the sky theory. There is going to be pie in the sky when they die!


ORDERS PLACED IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES
Raymond John Skelly: In the last nine months of this year, $700 million worth of Canadian ships has been contracted for building in foreign countries such as Japan, the United States, and Europe. When is the minister going to get his butt in gear and ensure that-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Raymond John Skelly: -these jobs will be created in Canada? We cannot afford this kind of problem any more. Therefore, when will he stop creating jobs in Japan, in Europe and the United States, and start creating employment for Canadians?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, my hon. friend may not know this, but yesterday, in Saint John, New Brunswick, I announced federal government support of some $12 million to enable the expansion of the Saint John Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company so that that company could go, at one and the same time, into the shipbuilding, ship repair and offshore equipment field, something which will bring some 400 new jobs to the workers of that area. A few weeks earlier, I was in Vancouver where I took part in the ceremony at the Burrard yard with respect to the opening of a new floating drydock which will bring hundreds of new jobs in the ship repair field to workers in that area.
Also, the federal government assistance to the Panamax project in Halifax which will also bring hundreds of new jobs
to that area. Finally, I might add that on August 27 I announced the federal government's new program to assure Canadian workers a full and fair opportunity with respect to taking part in the megaprojects, including offshore equipment. This program is in operation, so we are not waiting for the shipbuilding policy. We are operating now to carry on the type of development my hon. friend has been talking about.


Mr. Baker (Nepean-Carleton):: You just torpedoed yourself.


NATIONAL CAPITAL COMMISSION
Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Madam
Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Public Works who is responsible for the National Capital Commission. Last week, Ottawa newspapers headlined that the NCC was prepared to give up NCC land located in the Greenbelt, the untouchable zone surrounding the national capital, for the purpose of promoting the building of a microelectronics centre in the Ottawa-Carleton region. Could the minister tell us whether this transaction is to be interpreted as a change in the NCC's policy with respect to the Greenbelt in Ottawa-Carleton, and if so, when and by whom the details of this transaction will be officially announced?


Hon. Paul J. Cosgrove (Minister of Public Works):: Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his interest in this subject, and congratulate him on his continuing interest in matters affecting the National Capital Commission and the area, generally speaking. I confirm that I have discussed the subject which he has raised with the chairman of the National Capital Commission. He has indicated to me that the commission has not changed its policy vis-a-vis the Greenbelt, that there is opportunity to work with the province, I understand, through its BILD program, and other municipalities and the private sector. Such a program, under proper conditions, would fall within the existing policy and plans of the commission with respect to the Greenbelt.


EDUCATION
Mr. Blaine A. Thacker (Lethbridge-Foothills):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State, who knows that there are some 738,000 young Canadians in our colleges and universities and that they represent the real, true future for the country. He also knows that the cost of postsecondary education is some $5 billion, of which the taxpayers allocate $2 billion through this Parliament, and some $3
November 3, 1981

billion through their legislatures. He also knows that the seven provincial governments east of Saskatchewan have substantial deficits. He also knows that it is Liberal policy to reduce its share for post-secondary education, and that that will immediately cause tuition increases, a cut in programs, or, indeed, increased provincial deficits. Why does the Secretary of State, as a former premier of a have-not province, agree with such a policy?


Gerald Augustine Regan: Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills for learning his lines so well. I only regret that the quality of the delivery was much better than the accuracy of the content, and that the hon. member-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Gerald Augustine Regan: -had so many errors that, if I were marking his paper, there would be no way I would be able to give him a pass at all.
First of all, in relation to the proportion of the cost of post-secondary education that is paid by the Government of Canada as compared to the provinces, the hon. member is totally inaccurate, as he is in a number of the other items he mentioned. I want to assure him, in case he was not here when I explained before, that the Government of Canada places a very high priority on the continued support of post-secondary education. I point out to him that in this regard the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and that for the past number of years the federal government has been increasing the proportion of the cost of post-secondary education that we pay; whereas the provinces, as a whole, and most of them individually, have been decreasing their share. I suggest to the hon. member that he go back home to Alberta and urge the province to use its great Heritage Fund to provide a better level of support to post-secondary education.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


REQUEST THAT MINISTER RESIGN IF FUNDING REDUCED
Blaine Allen Thacker: Madam Speaker, every one of these statistics came from the Task Force on Fiscal Arrangements. The minister knows that the three-year delay in the GNP results in the federal government paying less. Concerning all of the figures, I challenge him to show me that they are in error. In a letter to students, dated October 29, 1981, the minister said:
Some may say that the federal Government plans to drastically reduce its support for post-secondary education. This is simply not true.
My supplementary question is this: Is the Secretary of State prepared to resign his seat if there is a cut in the federal share of post-secondary education?


Some hon. Members:: Yes or no?


Gerald Augustine Regan: I want to assure the hon. member through Your Honour that I have no intention of resigning my seat, because I think that by being here I
Oral Questions
am able to express a view of the way Canada should operate which is useful in relation to providing assistance to our students in higher education and in relation to the development of a better, not worse, system of post-secondary education. I suggest to the hon. member that if he is going to be taken in by phony statistics, if he is going to listen to the Tory propaganda-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Gerald Augustine Regan: -that was spread across this country, he is not serving the interests of the students. He should recognize that, if he has some way of making criticism based on actions that government has not taken, then that is not serving a particularly good interest. He would be better off, when he has something to talk about when government has taken some action, to ask then for an explanation rather than question us on some mythical Conservative propaganda.


STATEMENT MADE BY GOVERNMENT LEADER IN SENATE
Hon. Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Secretary of State, who tends to dismiss as totally inaccurate reports that the government intends to reduce its commitment to our community colleges and our universities. I would like to refer him to some accurate Figures. At least I would think that they are accurate, because Senator Perrault, speaking on behalf of the government in the other place, stated on October 27 that the government remains committed to a continuous $1.5 billion reduction-


Mr. Nielsen:: Quote, unquote.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: -in post-secondary education and health care.
I would like to ask the Secretary of State whether he agrees with that statement made by the government leader in the Senate, or whether this is the case of the cabinet speaking out of one side of its mouth on one occasion and speaking out of the other side when it so suits it.


Gerald Augustine Regan: Madam Speaker, if the hon. lady will-


Some hon. Members:: "Member"!


Gerald Augustine Regan: -the hon. lady member will have a little patience-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Gerald Augustine Regan: -then she will have the opportunity, on the 12th, to see a budget presented. After that budget is presented by the Minister of Finance, then we will be able to deal in the situation of hard facts which are before the House, instead of speculation that may be made by various people in the Conservative ranks. I also want to take advantage of the opportunity to say to the hon. lady member that, since she is an Ontario member, she might well look at the decrease which

November 3, 1981
Oral Questions
has occurred in the past number of years in the amount of support for post-secondary education by the province of Ontario and try to get it to do its bit.


MINISTER'S ACTIONS
Flora Isabel MacDonald: Madam Speaker, I would refer the Secretary of State to page 2902 of the Senate Hansard of October 27 of this year where Senator Perrault is reported to have stated, when referring to the $1.5 billion continuous reduction:
Honourable senators, this is the response provided by the Minister of Finance.
I would like to ask whether or not the Secretary of State has spoken to the Minister of Finance who has, at various times, made it very clear that there will be a $1.5 billion lowering of commitments to the provinces, to the community colleges and universities and to health care in the amount of money transferred by the federal government? Has he talked to the Minister of Finance about that, and has he and will he look at the Senate record, and will he then, on the basis of his previous statement, agree to put in his resignation from the point of view that he has said there would be no reduction coming up?


Gerald Augustine Regan: No, Madam Speaker. The hon. member, of course, is one of the most practitioned practitioners of twisting around facts and figures. I do not know how many hours, when she should be making representations to the Ontario government to do its bit towards education, she spends in searching through Hansard to try to find a misprint somewhere so that she can misquote somebody.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Gerald Augustine Regan: But I do tell her this, that what I said elsewhere, what I said here and will say again, is that I am highly confident that there will not be any $1.5 billion reduction in the support of post-secondary education.


Some hon. Members:: How much?


Gerald Augustine Regan: I will also tell her this-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I cannot hear the answer, so I expect a lot of members cannot hear it.


Gerald Augustine Regan: I do want to say, Madam Speaker, that I am distressed to see such an element of glee on her part in the possibility of a reduction in educational support when she represents a city like Kingston.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


STATEMENT MADE BY GOVERNMENT LEADER IN SENATE
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Acting Prime Minister.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Charles Joseph Clark: I will wait until the howling stops on the other side, Madam Speaker.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Madam Speaker:: Order, please.


Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, was the government House Leader in the Senate speaking the policy of the government when he made the statement just quoted by my colleague, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands?


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Transport):: Madam Speaker, obviously in view of what has been said I will have to look into that. The Prime Minister would certainly want to give the answer himself.


STATEMENTS MADE BY MINISTER OF FINANCE
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, could the Acting Prime Minister tell us whether the Minister of Finance was speaking the policy of the government when he said on several occasions that there would be a reduction of $1.5 billion?


André Ouellet: Ask him the question directly.


Charles Joseph Clark: The minister, Madam Speaker, who spends most of his time advising judges, or advising small-business men to get along without the Post Office, is offering some free advice to me.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Charles Joseph Clark: He is best known as the minister who digs holes in Quebec and he is digging them for himself.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Charles Joseph Clark: If I could have a little quiet in the House with some of the shouting stopped on the other side-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An hon. Member:: You are not the Speaker; sit down.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please.


Charles Joseph Clark: Was the Minister of Finance speaking the policy of the government when he said, as he has on several occasions, that there will be a reduction in the neighbourhood of $1.5 billion in payments under the established programs Financing to the provinces and, if not, what will the reduction be?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, I think the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs made a lot of sense a moment ago when he observed that the Minister of Finance has been here every day since the opening of the House of Commons.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
November 3, 1981


Jean-Luc Pepin: Well, almost; give me one or two. He has certainly been here more often than anybody on the other side. He will be here tomorrow, most probably. The question can wait until then. I presume it will be resolved without a shadow of a doubt by the next budget, so nobody is being hampered, antagonized, provoked or damaged in the process.


INQUIRY WHETHER GOVERNMENT INTENDS TO REDUCE PAYMENTS TO PROVINCES
Charles Joseph Clark: I thought that perhaps the Acting Prime Minister had played a role here, but it is obvious he did not. May I direct the question to the Minister of State for Finance? Can he tell us whether it is the intention of the Canadian government to reduce transfer payments to the provinces for social services and for postsecondary education by $1.5 billion, and if it is not $1.5 billion as the Minister of Finance has said, can the minister provide the House with the total figure for reductions planned by the government?


Mr.   La Salle@: It's easy, Mr. Pepin!


Hon. Pierre Bussieres (Minister of State (Finance)):: Madam Speaker, I would like to remind the Leader of the Opposition that copies of the October, 1980, budget are still available. In that budget it was clearly stated that with a view to reducing the government deficit and expenditures, certain reductions were planned over two years in an area that would cover more than 20 per cent of government expenditures. If the Leader of the Opposition wants to take the trouble, he can read the paragraphs relating to that provision.


FITNESS AND AMATEUR SPORT
Mr. Mark Rose (Mission-Port Moody):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State responsible for fitness and amateur sport. It seems to be his day, but perhaps after the Question Period he will decide it was not his day. In any event, my question concerns the statement by Abby Hoffman, the new director of Sport Canada, who has been quoted as saying:
-too much time and effort is being spent on bureaucracy without ensuring those bureaucratic elements will have a positive effect on sport.
Miss Hoffman has also suggested that Canada will never break into the top eight internationally unless we increase our direct support for athletic funding. Presently direct sport funding, as the minister will know, amounts to about $3 million out of the $30-million budget, with the rest going to the bureaucracy and other forms of grants. Does the minister agree that we have achieved or have gone about as far as we can go athletically at international levels unless we increase
Oral Questions
this direct support to our athletes, and if he does, what does he plan to do about it?


Gerald Augustine Regan: Madam Speaker, the hon. member, who has been a very great supporter of amateur sport in this country, quotes from a very, very distinguished acquisition to the Government of Canada. I think Abby Hoffman will be a great director for Sport Canada, and her presence there in such a senior position will, indeed, be very helpful to the cause of amateur sport in this country.
In relation to the quantum of money available for the support of amateur sport, I think we are making very great progress; indeed, we did in the Summer Games in Montreal in 1976 when, because of the game plan and the efforts of provincial and federal governments in the three years before, we moved from twenty-fifth position to tenth position in the final standings. I believe having the Winter Olympics in Calgary in 1988 provides us with the reason to make that sort of effort in relation to Winter Games in the coming years.
Certainly having additional money for broader training of elite athletes, and for providing more international competition, is a very worth-while objective. If these dismantlers of Canada across there on the left had not given away Loto Canada to the provinces we would have that kind of money right now. I look forward to hon. members supporting the establishment of a sports pool of Canada in the forthcoming legislation.


FUNDING FOR 1982 GAMES IN AUSTRALIA
Mark Willson Rose: The minister, as one of Canada's most prominent athletic supporters-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mark Willson Rose: -knows full well and understands clearly that even if his sports pool does go ahead, there will be no pay-off whatsoever until 1983. The minister also knows that in 1982 the Commonwealth Games are in Australia, the games which Canada won in Edmonton in 1978, lifting the pride and spirit of all Canadians.
Does the minister have any plans and any special funding in mind and, if so, will he tell the House?


Gerald Augustine Regan: I want to tell the hon. member that the money that is being presently voted for fitness and amateur sport is being spent in such an efficient manner that we believe the needs and demands leading up to events such as he has mentioned, the World Student Games that will be held in Edmonton, are provided for. What we do need is a great deal of money to help support the Winter Olympics in Calgary in 1988 and in the years leading up to that date. That is why it is important we move now in the direction of something like the sports pool. In the meantime, I am confident the Treasury Board, in its infinite wisdom, will continue to recognize the importance of the work of fitness and amateur sport.

November 3, 1981
The Late Hon. Therese Casgrain PETITIONS


TABLING OF REPORTS OF CLERK OF PETITIONS
Madam Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that the Clerk of the House has laid upon the Table reports of the Clerk of Petitions stating that he has examined the petitions presented by hon. members on Monday, November 2, 1981, and finds that they meet the requirements of Standing Orders as to form.


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: On a point of order, madam Speaker.


Madam Speaker:: The hon. Minister of National Health and Welfare on a point of order.


Monique Bégin: Madam Speaker, I have just learned-and the procedure I am using may not be the right one-of the death this morning of the Hon. Therese Casgrain. Without intruding on the official tributes that the party leaders will want to pay her, as a spontaneous reaction I would simply like to tell all my colleagues that this great Canadian and Quebec woman passed away in the only fitting way for her, that is quickly without pain, at an age where she had given enormously to her country. As she had called my office yesterday, I know that she was in good health. All we can say is that we offer our most affectionate sympathies to her children and grandchildren of whom she was so proud.


Madam Speaker:: I am myself surprised to hear this news which, I am sure, affects everyone sitting in this Parliament. Canada has lost in Mrs. Casgrain a conscience and a great militant because she was a woman of action. Canadian women have certainly lost a model for their social and political action and many of us have also lost a very dear friend. On behalf of the House of Commons, I would like to offer her family and her children our deepest sympathy, and I am sure that others will want later on to express their feelings of sympathy and admiration, but I am speaking now on behalf of the Members of Parliament.


Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Madam Speaker, on behalf of my colleagues I would like to join in the expression of grief and condolences to the family which you have just expressed along with the minister. It comes as a great shock to all of us to hear of the death of such a distinguished Canadian.
Today Canada has lost a person who has made a very great contribution not only to the people of her own province for whom she worked all her life, not only to the cause of equality of women to which she devoted a good part of her life, but to
the cause of the general improvement of the human condition for all Canadians.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Madam Speaker, it is with great shock and regret that we learn the sad news of the death of Madame Therese Casgrain. She was a friend to many of us. I think particularly of the way she offered encouragement not only to those within her own province or to those with whom she associated on a regular basis, but to the many of us with whom she came in contact from time to time. I think of the encouragement she offered us to fight not just for women, as she did on an unending basis, but in the way she helped achieve the franchise for women in the province of Quebec. She instilled in all those who knew her the desire to go ahead and fight for the things we knew were right and proper in whatever forum we found at our disposal, whether it was in the House of Commons, the Senate, provincial legislatures or among the general public.
She inspired people to follow her example and it is a great loss to her family, friends and country.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


PRIVILEGE
Raymond John Skelly: Madam Speaker, my question of privilege might be delayed because the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development has left the chamber. I do not think the motion that was defeated under Standing Order 43 should be allowed to be sabotaged by the government saying no. I hope to raise this with him at a later date.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I would just indicate to the hon. member that if he is thinking of raising that question again when the hon. minister is present, I will not allow him to reflect on a decision which the House has already made. The House has made a decision concerning that motion under Standing Order 43. It has said that it did not give unanimous consent to put the motion to the House. Therefore, the hon. member may not comment further.


POINTS OF ORDER
Mr. Doug Lewis (Simcoe North):: Madam Speaker, referring also to the proceedings under Standing Order 43, today there were two motions made by parliamentary secretaries under that Standing Order, the hon. member for St. Boniface (Mr. Bockstael), the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister
November 3, 1981

of Transport, and the hon. member for York South-Weston (Mrs. Appolloni), who is Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence.
Traditionally, we have used Standing Order 43 to bring to the attention of the House matters of urgent and pressing necessity. The rule on this side, Madam Speaker, is to give Standing Order 43 motions to as many non-front bench, non-ex-cabinet ministers as possible. We occasionally break that rule, such as last week when the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski) presented the very important report on VIA Rail. It gives our members an opportunity to bring matters forward which they might not do during question period.
We have worked very hard to shorten the length of preambles under Standing Order 43. Today we had nine. Occasionally we get the odd humorous motion to give a little balance.
I would draw your attention, Madam Speaker, to page 134 of Beauchesne under the heading "Questions by Parliamentary Secretaries", where it states:
Those such as parliamentary secretaries who are clothed with the responsibility of answering for the government ought not to use the time of the question period for the privilege of asking questions of the government.
I would suggest that motions under Standing Order 43 is also a time in which it is a matter of privilege. We feel very strongly that that privilege should be reserved for backbenchers. That may not be the feeling among hon. members opposite.
We realize that there are occasions when there is a death of a head of state and when a frontbencher, a cabinet minister or, indeed, the Prime Minister may wish to bring forward a motion under Standing Order 43. This has been brought to Your Honour's attention in the House before. We do not object to motions under Standing Order 43 of a local nature which a member on the government side can legitimately bring forward. We do object to lengthy, self-serving motions under Standing Order 43 moved by parliamentary secretaries which are meant only to advertise the government.
If there is a legitimate reason for proposing a motion, there is no objection from this side; but I point out with respect that, as recorded in Hansard for December 1, 1980, Your Honour undertook to look into this practice. On a day when two parliamentary secretaries have proposed two motions under Standing Order 43 of a self-serving nature, I ask Your Honour to look at that practice and give us a ruling.


Madam Speaker:: I think I can give the hon. member a ruling on this matter. It is up to the parties to determine whether they prefer to allow backbenchers or frontbenchers to propose motions under Standing Order 43. I recognize hon. members when they rise. I do not make much distinction whether they are backbenchers or frontbenchers. If they rise, they are entitled to be recognized, if there is time, and that is the practice I follow.
Point of Order-Miss MacDonald
I think the hon. member was confusing the asking of questions with motions under Standing Order 43. I believe my predecessor ruled that parliamentary secretaries may not ask questions during question period, but Standing Order 15(2) says very clearly that members other than ministers of the Crown may propose motions pursuant to Standing Order 43. Members other than cabinet ministers include parliamentary secretaries. It has been the custom in this House to allow parliamentary secretaries to bring matters forward under the provisions of Standing Order 43.1 agree with the hon. member that the shorter these motions the easier it is for the Speaker to fit in everyone who wants to put motions under the provisions of Standing Order 43. This, by the way, also applies to questions in the course of the question period.
I am sorry, but I will take this opportunity to say that I feel that the matter is really getting quite out of control. Questions are certainly too long, and I might say that of certain answers. But when questions are long, hon. members cannot expect the Speaker to interrupt the answers too quickly because there is a certain logic to the proposition that sometimes answers need to be a bit longer than the questions, although not all the time. If the hon. member wants to restrict the putting of motions under the provisions of Standing Order 43 only to Members of Parliament who are not parliamentary secretaries, I am afraid he will have to have the Standing Orders changed because, as I read them, parliamentary secretaries are allowed, and have traditionally been allowed, to put motions under the provisions of Standing Order 43.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Madam Speaker, with respect and without in any way questioning your ruling, you did get into the subject of the question period, and I point out that since this House resumed on October 14, 61 per cent of the questions asked by government backbenchers have been self-serving and not "back home" type questions. If that point is to be made, I think it should be made to members of this House on the government side because that is where the questions are coming from. Last Friday there were three of them.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I commented on the length of questions and not on the suggestion that they are self-serving. The Speaker has no opinion on the substance of questions.
Incidentally, I want to correct myself. When the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Towers) presented his motion today under Standing Order 43, I referred to motions being serious. I should have said that there is a certain form which we are accustomed to following under the provisions of Standing Order 43. When I said "serious", I was in a way passing judgment on the nature of the motion, and I should not have done that. However, I think the hon. member understood that I was referring to form.
MISS MacDONALD-cutbacks in post-secondary EDUCATION FINANCING


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order as a result of the words today of the Secretary of State (Mr. Regan), who has since

November 3, 1981
Point of Order-Mr. Waddell
left the House. However, at one point he said that I had reacted with glee to the news of cutbacks in post-secondary education. He should better have said that I reacted with grief. As I do, the Secretary of State comes from a city with large numbers of students, universities and community colleges-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member is debating. She is continuing the debate, and that is not a point of order.


MR. PAPROSKI-LOTTERIES-REQUEST FOR STATEMENT FROM MINISTER
Hon. Steven E. Paproski (Edmonton North):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order in reference to the remarks the Secretary of State (Mr. Regan) was supposed to make today telling us what he is going to do with the $32 million he is getting from the provinces with respect to lotteries.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please.


MR. WADDELL-SUGGESTED IMPOSITION OF PENALTIES FOR LENGTHY QUESTIONS
Mr. Ian Waddell (Vancouver-Kingsway):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order with respect to the remarks you made in relation to the length of questions. I wonder why we cannot apply the rules of hockey and give penalties when people ask long questions; in other words, they should not be allowed to ask supplementary questions. I suggest Your Honour might do that. Our party used to be allowed four questions. It is a long way down here and, if hon. members to my right continue to abuse their privileges by asking long questions, we will not be able to ask four questions. I respectfully suggest that Your Honour apply the rules of hockey and impose penalties. I will sit down. That will be the first penalty.


Erik Nielsen: Send him to the showers!


Madam Speaker:: It has happened that members of the New Democratic Party have been allowed to ask four questions in the course of the question period, but that has only been when all questions have been extremely short. I try-and I have statistics to substantiate this-to allow exact proportions of questions to the opposition parties as related to their numbers in the House. We could add another factor and speak of presence in the House, but I think that would be terribly unfair because when members are not in the House, that does not mean they are not working toward the accomplishment of their responsibilities. They might be in committees or somewhere else. So I do not think any kind of penalty-if I am allowed to use that word-should be applied in such circumstances. However, I do try, and the proportion is absolute.
If all questions were shorter, I am sure I could sometimes allow four questions to the New Democratic Party. What is happening in fact is that the Conservative Party is allowed three times more questions than the New Democratic Party. However, sometimes when questions are too long I have to proceed on the basis of time rather than numbers because I
cannot penalize the New Democratic Party if its members' questions are short and when questions from the Conservative Party are too long. I have statistics on that. They are absolutely clear.
When hon. members rise and I do not recognize them, I keep a carry-over list. Once in a while I let the list go, but from week to week I keep a carry-over list and I try to recognize those who rise several times unsuccessfully. That is the situation respecting questions in the House, but I urge hon. members to make their questions shorter.


Steve Eugene Paproski: And answers.


Madam Speaker:: Members of Parliament who were in the House ten years ago say to me that they do not recognize the House because we do not have questions any more, we have statements. I think we would be better off if we followed the Standing Orders, which say that questions should be brief and should be made to elicit information.


Erik Nielsen: Madam Speaker, I have just one sentence by way of a suggestion to the Chair. The Chair might also-and I am sure it will-urge ministers to keep their answers short and not in the form of statements.


Mr. Pinard:: If I may add very briefly to what my learned colleague has just said, replies could sometimes be shorter, but there is so much shouting on the side of the opposition that we are not able to say what we have to say and before replying we must wait for the opposition to stop shouting.


Madam Speaker:: I must say that there is heckling on both sides of the House. Sometimes the disturbance comes from one side and sometimes from the other.

The hon. member for Yukon.


Erik Nielsen: Madam Speaker, you have just said what I was going to say.


MR. TOWERS-PROCEDURE RESPECTING S.O. 43 MOTIONS
Thomas Gordon Towers: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of clarification respecting Your Honour's comment in which you suggested that perhaps I was out of order. It has never been my intention to be out of order, but I want to know in what respect I was out of order and if there is something in the Standing Orders which prohibits a member from finishing two lines which rhyme in order to make a point.
I could have suggested that cabinet ministers are abusing privileges with three of them flying in separate jets to Winnipeg. No doubt they feel it is a government perk, but it certainly gives the taxpayer an awful knee-jerk. This is the point. If I am in error, I want to know where I am in error so
November 3, 1981

that I will not do it again. Nevertheless, as a member I think I have the right to make a point.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Madam Speaker:: I thought of that. Nowhere in the Standing Orders is it written that a member may not express himself in verse. However, I was basing my comment on the fact that there is a certain form which has traditionally been used for motions under Standing Order 43. When the hon. member has to bend what he wants to express through his motion in order to satisfy the need to verse, sometimes the House breaks into laughter and obviously we get the message that the hon. member is really trying to speak in verse rather than propose a motion under Standing Order 43.
It is, however, a good point and I" will look at it. I do not think that anywhere in the Standing Orders does it state that members may not express themselves in verse. A motion under Standing Order 43 must be put in earnest. The hon. member must move something that is meaningful in order to fulfil the requirements of a motion under Standing Order 43.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Doug Frith (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 41(2), I would like to indicate that an error was contained in the original document tabled in the House on Friday, October 30 of this year. Recommendation 35 subparagraphs (1), (3), (4) and (6) should read recommendation 35, subparagraphs (2), (4), (5) and (7), which I am pleased to table herewith in both official languages.


PETITIONS
[Stage Direction]
MISS MacDONALD-CUTBACKS IN post-secondary EDUCATION FINANCING
Flora Isabel MacDonald: Madam Speaker, I wish to present a petition signed by 1,852 students from Queen's University and St. Lawrence College in the constituency of Kingston and the Islands. These students are gravely worried about the threat posed to their future and to the development of our human resources by the proposed financial reduction to their institutions of higher learning by the federal government. They took collective action last Thursday to protest any cutback of this federal contribution.
Introduction of Bills


Mr. Robert Wenman (Fraser Valley West):: Madam Speaker, I have the duty to present a petition on behalf of my constituents. The purpose of this petition, signed by another 466 citizens in the greater Vancouver area, is to indicate to the government that the mortgage interest crisis that is forcing them out of their homes and into dire straits is continuing unabated.
The nature of the petition is to demand that in the forthcoming budget the government lower interest rates, allow mortgage interest to become income tax deductible and to allow and encourage the vast reserves of capital available through RRSPs, pensions and other large blocks of government money to be made available to the mortgage market.
The petitioners hope, Madam Speaker, that in your examination of their petition you will find the petition in order, sense the urgency and desperation of their plea and that you might use the discretionary powers vested in your office to allow discussion and referral to committee at the earliest possible moment.



SENATE OF CANADA REFORM ACT


Mr. Bill Yurko (Edmonton East) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-640, to provide for structural reform of the Senate of Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


William J. Yurko: Madam Speaker, I thought my seatmate was going to second the motion rather than the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich (Mr. Munro). Nevertheless, you have indicated that somebody did second the bill.
This bill is intended to highlight the fact that the first order of business of the Parliament of Canada after the patriation of the Constitution is Senate reform. It is intended to provide representation in Parliament of the national interests, regional interests and provincial interests by structuring the Senate of 150 senatorial chairs to relate to the national interest, by providing 30 senatorial chairs for each region of Canada and permitting five of the senatorial chairs to be filled by provincial appointments for each province. Furthermore, the bill is structured to provide the Senate body and each individual member with stability, continuity, accountability, legitimacy and independence, maintaining the power of the Senate as it exists today.
I hope that at some future time I will have the opportunity to discuss in much more detail the structure of this bill as it relates to the national interests, the regional interests, the provincial interests and to a much more meaningful role of the Senate of Canada in this nation in the years to come.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.
Order Paper Questions POINT OF ORDER
[Stage Direction]
November 3, 1981

Hon. Perrin Beatty (Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I apologize for interrupting at this point. However, I was wondering whether the Chair might give some guidance as to when it might be possible to rule on the point of order I raised last week with regard to questions put to committee chairmen being answered by members of the cabinet.


Madam Speaker:: I will rule tomorrow on that point of order.



YOUTH BETTERMENT PROJECTS

Mr. Herbert: For each of the past five years, by province (a) what amount was granted by the Department of the Secretary of State to rural youth for community betterment projects (b) what was the total amount spent to provide information exchange between social regions?


Gerald Augustine Regan: (a)	The department has no specific program for rural youth.
(b)	Please see revised reply to question No. 2,426 answered this day.



OPEN HOUSE PROGRAM GRANTS

[Stage Direction]
Question No. 2,426 (Revised)-Mr. Herbert:
1.	In each of the past five years, by province, what amount was granted under the Open House Program?
2.	Did the Department of the Secretary of State grant moneys under the Program to L'Ecole Secondaire de Vaudreuil and, if so (a) on what date (b) in what amount (c) for what purpose?

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. David Smith (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Madam Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 2,321, 2,426 (Revised), 2,434, 2,677, 2,768, 2,787 and 3,236.
Regan (Secretary of State): 1. See list of
Hon. Gerald
grants below.
2.	Date	Amount
April 26, 1978 (trip
took place in April)	$8,468
April 13, 1981 (trip will take place in
June)	Approx. $15,000
Purpose
Travel grant for an exchange visit with the Port Moody Senior Secondary School, in Port Moody, B.C.
Travel grant for an exchange visit with the Armstrong Junior Secondary School in Armstrong, B.C.
Open House Canada Grants by Province
Year	Year	Year	YearProvince	1977-78 Amount 1978-79	Amount 1979-80	Amount 1980-81	AmountNfld.	26,668.00	430,256.00	301,549.00	313,107.90P.E.I.	8,874.00	113,221.00	120,611.60	158,846.00N.S.	20,468.00	541,423.86	369,293.00	274,000.90N.B.	1,773.00	236,730.20	182,186.00	239,291.20Que.	176,667.94	1,770,305.96	1,580,067.00	1,414,000.00Ont.	994,616.71	4,443,375.25	838,595.00	697,000.00Man.	25,692.00	247,808.00	198,119.15	184,311.00Sask.	34,187.80	501,773.10	352,399.00	283,470.00Alb.	14,706.00	1,187,095.45	773,554.00	833,000.00B.C.	172,577.32	2,169,371.28	1,709,258.00	1,507,666.00Yukon	74,872.00	19,256.00	76,505.00N.W.T.	4,000.00	237,195.68	152,741.00	85,808.00Non-governmental national organizations Total	1,480,230.77	11,953,427.78	3,369,000.00 9,966,628.75	3.646.271.00 9.713.277.00
Note: O.H.C. granting activities did not begin until 1977/78.


Mr. Blaikie: 1.	Does the Department of National Health and Welfare have information on the amounts of uranium dust and other radioactive or hazardous material that will be discharged from the proposed Uranium Trioxide Refinery at Blind River and, if so, what is the information?
2.	Are the figures the same as the figures for Eldorado Nuclear Limited or were they arrived at independently?


Monique Bégin: 1. Yes. The information on uranium dust levels and other discharges received by the department is the "Application to the Atomic Energy Control Board for Construction Approval, Blind River Refinery". The department is requested to review this information by the AECB to ascertain whether the proposed refinery's assumptions and calculations are plausible and reasonable. All submissions to the AECB for con-
November 3, 1981

struction of nuclear facilities are available to the public and can be obtained from the library of the AECB.
2.	The AECB is the sole legal authority responsible for assessing and licensing of nuclear facilities. At their request, the Department of National Health and Welfare reviewed the figures that were submitted by Eldorado Nuclear Limited. The figures quoted by Eldorado Nuclear were based on accepted predictive models and were not arrived at independently by the Department of National Health and Welfare.


Mr. Beatty: 1.	For 1981, does the Metric Commission have mailing lists and, if so (a) how many (b) in each case, what is the nature of the list and how many names are on
it?
2.	Do some names appear (a) on more than one list (b) more than once on the same list and, if so, how many names?
3.	Are the lists updated and, if so, how often?
4.	Are checks done to determine whether an individual on a list is from the same organization as other individuals on the same list and, if so, how often?
5.	In 1980, what was the cost to the taxpayer for duplications by the Metric Commission?


Mr. Ralph Ferguson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)):: In so far as Metric Commission Canada is concerned: 1. (a) and (b) One master mailing list file comprised of 83,635 names within 650 specific mailing list categories. The purpose of the mailing list is to disseminate information related to metric conversion to the primary intended audience and to increase the general awareness of metric conversion activities.
2.	(a) Some names are included in more than one mailing list category within the mailing list.
(b) All names appear only once within each mailing list category.
3.	The mailing list file is updated once a month.
4.	In some cases there are more than one individual from the same organization on the mailing list. In such cases, each individual has requested a personal copy of a specific publication.
5.	The costs to the taxpayer for duplication are minimal. Before any name is added to the mailing list file, it is checked to ensure that it is not already included in the list.


Mr. Skelly: 1.	In what manner is the impartiality and fairness of the examination procedure for patent agents guaranteed and maintained?
2.	How is the difficulty of the certification examination for patent agents established?
3.	In each of the past six years, how many individuals attempted the patent agent certification examinations and how many were successful in passing?
Order Paper Questions
4.	Does the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, on behalf of the Institute of Patent Agents, intentionally attempt to regulate the number of patent agents that are certified and operating in Canada?


Mr. Gary F. McCauley (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: 1. Candidates for the Patent Agents examination are given a number when they enter the examination centre. This number is the only identification for all their papers and no other identification is allowed. The supervisors at the examination centres note the numbers and names of the candidates at their location and return this, with the papers, to the Public Service Commission. The officer of the Public Service Commission responsible for conducting the examination makes a key list of all the candidate's names and numbers and sends it, sealed, to the Commissioner of Patents who keeps it sealed. The examination board learns the identities of the candidates only when the envelope containing the key list is opened after the marks and standings have been settled. Every answer in the examination is marked by at least two Board members acting independently of each other and without knowledge of the marks allotted by the other. They make separate returns of their marking to the secretary of the board. The board meets to finalize the marking and grading of all papers while they are still identified by number only.
2. The standard and subject matter of the examination is set by an examining board appointed by the Commissioner of Patents. The board consists of six persons, four patent agents who have been nominated by the Patent and Trademarks Institute of Canada, and two persons from the examining staff of the patent office. The maintenance of uniform testing standards is achieved through a continuity in the make-up of the board, which results from having members serve three-year terms on an overlapping basis. The examination is divided into four papers, A to D, of equal value. Each paper includes one major question as well as some minor questions. The candidates are told in advance that the following areas will be covered in the major questions: the drafting of an application for a client, patent validity, problems associated with the prosecution of a pending application before the patent office and advising a client in an infringement action. The technical subject matter used to test these areas is selected by the board and is such that a competent patent agent should be able to understand and work with it.
3. Breakdown of examination results 1976-1981
Year	Number of	Number of successful
	candidates	candidates
1981	28	101980	21	111979	25	71978	24	111977	21	81976	22	114. No.	
November 3, 1981
Order Paper Questions


Mr. Cossitt: With reference to the answer to question No. 2,524 which states in part that 200 postal employees are being given crash courses in the French language, by province, how many employees are being given crash courses of a similar nature in the English language?


Gary Francis McCauley: A total of 280 postal employees from the province of Quebec took part in courses of a similar nature offered in the English language.



RULES OF HOUSE OF COMMONS

Mr. Cossitt: Under the present rules of the House of Commons, are Members of Parliament not allowed to question directly House of Commons expenses, appointments and promotions and, if so, is the government prepared to give consideration to proposing alterations in the rules to enable Members of Parliament to have full control of their own House and to have the right to question the administration of the House in the House of Commons?


David P. Smith: All inquiries about the administration of the House of Commons may be directed to the Speaker of the House of Commons. Standing Order 65(13) provides that "All matters relating to the administration of the House and the provisions of services and facilities to members shall be deemed to have been referred to the Standing Committee on Management and Members' Services on the first day of each session." The names of the chairman, vice-chairman and other members of this committee are published as an appendix to House of Commons Debates each Wednesday. Successive editions of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms are quite clear about these matters, and even if the Table ignores these rules and allows questions such as this, the government considers the hon. member for Leeds-Grenville to be able to read the relatively straightforward precepts cited which are published in both official languages.


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


Madam Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions stand?


Mr. Cossitt:: Madam Speaker, approximately three weeks ago when the parliamentary secretary made his debut in the House as the newest Dr. No, I raised a reference to question No. 30 which has stood on successive order papers in various Parliaments and sessions of Parliaments for a period of five and a half years. The question concerns, very simply, the members of the Canadian Transport Commission who have passes on Air Canada, their names, the names of their wives who have such passes and the names of employees who have such passes.
I would think it would be very simple for the question to have been answered, but in five and a half years it has not been answered. In this regard, I was advised by officials of Air Canada at least eight months ago that the answer had long
been prepared and long since sent to the minister's office for passing on through the Privy Council to this House. Therefore,
I raise it again. I intend, if the Chair permits, to keep raising it periodically to find out why a question of such a serious nature is not answered when it involves the Canadian Transport Commission which, in effect, is the body that controls Air Canada to a great extent. At the same time, the CTC has in return been accepting passes from Air Canada, gifts from Air Canada in effect, yet we are not allowed to know who these people are and what they may be doing or may not be doing, as the case may be, in return for these gifts from Air Canada.
I believe it is time the people of Canada were told.
There are two other questions. One is question No. 93 asking for the names of all executive assistants and special assistants to members of the cabinet, their salaries, when they started and anyone under contract to a cabinet minister. That question has been on the Order Paper for months. I think it would be relatively simple to compile an answer to that question unless there are more niggers in the woodpile, such as what we heard about recently in the case of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. There is certainly something wrong when that question cannot be answered.
Finally, question No. 136 goes back to the election of May, 1979 and again concerns Air Canada when the Liberal Party rented from the Crown corporation, Air Canada, a DC-9 to travel the Prime Minister around the country. This aircraft was never paid for. The bill was still in dispute months later. I asked when the bill was paid, and what amount was paid. Officials at Air Canada told me this answer was prepared eight, nine or ten months ago and placed on the minister's desk.
Perhaps I can ask the President of the Privy Council, whom I see in the House, to respond to this question, rather than the parliamentary secretary, because he would be in a better position since he has been in office longer and obviously he is more familiar with these points of order since I have raised them so often. I would expect the President of the Privy Council would be able to tell this House why we cannot receive answers to the three questions I have just mentioned. It indicates to me that there is a deliberate attempt on the part of the government to hide some legitimate things we have a right to know about. We find out all sorts of secrets about three ministers flying to Winnipeg on three different aircraft. This is the type of thing that is prohibiting them from telling the House who has all the free passes, who is having all the joy rides on Air Canada and things of that nature.


David P. Smith: Madam Speaker, first of all, it is regrettable that the hon. member made his point by using a remark that I consider to be a racist slur. It may or may not be unparliamentary, but I believe it is beneath the dignity of this House to use such a phrase in the House.
With regard to questions on the Order Paper, the government has a very good batting average. Prior to the resumption of the House on October 14, we had answered over 83 per cent
November 3, 1981

of the questions on the Order Paper. There have been over 500 new questions put on the Order Paper since then, many placed there by the hon. member. I believe the hon. member should be referred to Section 363 of Beauchesne, which says that insistence on an answer is out of order.
The hon. member says that he may continue to raise this point. I submit, Madam Speaker, the hon. member is really out of order in continuing to insist upon answers when we have gone out of our way to come up with the answers to most of his questions.


Thomas Charles Cossitt: I rise on a further point or order, Madam Speaker. I should like to clarify the reference the parliamentary secretary made to what I said. I do not know whether he said it sounded racist or what, but I was using an expression that is simply a common expression. It has gone beyond the point-


Madam Speaker:: The hon. member is now debating.


Thomas Charles Cossitt: If the remark was taken as a racist remark by anyone, I would naturally withdraw it. To me it is similar to saying "where there is smoke, there is fire". It is simply a matter of fact. I certainly was not intending a racial slur of any kind. I should like to make that very clear.
I know there is no insistence in the rules that questions must be answered. I acknowledge that point. On the other hand, there is a moral obligation that requires something to be done in the nature of answers to questions. I do not believe I am wrong in raising points of order. I believe it is my privilege. I could even make it a question of privilege that I have the privilege to raise points of order. It is a well established precedent of this House that a member has that right if the government ignores questions or it tries to hide something. Granted, the government can keep hiding it for another five and a half or ten and a half years if they are that hard up in not letting the Canadian people know the answers.
I believe it is an error to impugn my motives by saying I have no right to raise points of order in this regard. I will certainly continue to raise them when the government deliberately and obviously denies information to the House and to the Canadian people about answers they are rightly entitled to have, unless the Chair rules me out of order.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Friday, October 30, consideration of Bill C-48, to regulate oil and gas interests in Canada lands and to amend the Oil and Gas Production and Conservation Act, as reported (with amendments) from the Standing Com-
Canada Oil and Gas Act
mittee on National Resources and Public Works, and Motion No. 23 (Mr. Wilson).
Mr. Dan McKenzie (Winnipeg-Assiniboine):: Madam Speaker, last Friday afternoon we commenced debate on Motion No. 28 with regard to Bill C-48. I shall refer to some remarks that were made by my colleague, the hon. member for Calgary South (Mr. Thomson). My hon. friend pointed out that the position of the Conservative Party is that we do not believe in any form of confiscation. We do not think the back-in provision is right. This clause concerning confiscation is causing serious problems across the country and the mass exodus of funds from businesses leaving this country. In a few moments I shall go into detail.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order.


A. Daniel McKenzie: My hon. friend from Calgary South, as reported at page 12365 of Hansard, said this:
I should like to return to what I believe to be the broader aspects of Bill C-48 and their impact on Canada. One question we should consider is where we will find the money. Energy self-sufficiency is a nice goal. It sounds nice, it is a nice phrase. But where will we find the money?
At the rate we are going with Bill C-48, the National Energy Program, we will have difficulty finding the money. Someone has to think up these National Energy Programs for Bill C-48. The October, 1981, edition of Saturday Night went into some detail as to who was drawing up these socialistic and nationalistic bills. Saturday Night points out:
Ottawa's energy policies have created a new rogue's gallery for the oilpatch. Marc Lalonde, the energy minister, is cast in the most satanic light, but the bureaucracy has also produced villains, Ed Clark, one of the authors of the NEP document-
-and probably Bill C-48-
-has assumed a notoriety in Calgary never previously accorded a civil servant. A mythical view of him has seeped down even to the roughnecks, among whom he's variously rumoured to have been either an aide to Che Guevara or Fidel Castro's right-hand man.
Selected quotations from his PhD thesis-"Socialist development and public investment in Tanzania, 1964-73"-are passed around as proof of his communist leanings.
No wonder these bills have so much support from the NDP.
What's more, Clark seems impervious to the most hypnotic technical logic of Calgary's promoters. "He's just not interested in permeability and porosity," moans Jim Gray, "I don't talk to him any more."
Ed Clark cannot even consult with members of the energy industry.
The article went on to say:
If Ed Clark has emerged as the newest bete noire, he at least has only to travel occasionally to Alberta. For Ottawa's men on the spot, the heat in the past year has been intense. The brunt of vilification falls on Bill Hopper and Joel Bell. They were always clearly Ottawa men in the eyes of the oilpatch, but the period of Tory rule stamped them as Liberal Ottawa men-cynical manipulators who politicized PetroCan for the defeat of Joe Clark. Those executives who showed insufficient loyalty in that period, who even suggested to the Tory task force that Hopper and Bell might be the problem with PetroCan, paid the price when the Liberals returned to power.
In other words, revenge, Mr. Speaker. With regard to Bill C-48 the Liberals tell the Canadian people about their energy

November 3, 1981
Canada Oil and Gas Act
policies in their householders to their constituents. They point out that the new deal will benefit all of us and that there is a new spirit of compromise and co-operation. There is no such thing. The Liberal policies have driven business after business and billions of dollars of investment funds out of this country. I will go into that in more detail in a moment to show what a dangerous piece of legislation Bill C-48 is.
The Liberals, in misleading their constituents, also pointed out:
Canadian consumers are protected from spiralling and erratic OPEC prices.
This is absolute nonsense. We will have to import more and more OPEC oil. We are not being protected at all. The Liberal policy of paying world prices for oil is not protecting Canadian consumers. The Liberals went on to say there will be-
-jobs and opportunities in every region due to energy projects, and new economic growth.
But they neglected to say in their mailings that the growth will be in the United States, not in Canada. In a recent article referring to the NEP and Bill C-48, it was pointed out that both have been a disaster for everyone in the Calgary oil patch but that for some it has been a blessing in disguise. Larry Darling, president of Concept Resources Ltd., said in the company's latest annual report:
At this time we wish to thank the Liberal Government of Canada for its national energy policy.
The Liberals are getting thanks from someone. He continued:
Without this policy Canadian entrepreneurs might have stayed only in Canada and thus would have missed the international opportunities the Liberals so much wanted them to find elsewhere. Without this new energy policy, Canada could not have been self-sufficient in oil by 1990. We are now assured of success, the same success we have with the Canadian Post Office, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canadian National Railways and Mirabel Airport.
He went on to say:
On a smaller scale, without this policy, Concept would not have found the Givans and Cowans wildcat wells. We would not have opened our office in Denver and Billings.
This was Billings, Montana. He continued:
Finally, had it not been for the Canadian government, we would not have discovered the Hailstone Dome oil field in Montana. Thank you Pierre Elliott Trudeau and your Liberal party followers for your help and assistance in furthering our cause for free enterprise.
Of course, this is in the United States, not in Canada. The Liberals are saying that Bill C-48 and the NEP are good for Canadians. They are not good for Canadians. They are costing jobs and businesses are closing down. Also they are causing one of the greatest booms the United States has ever experienced, going down as far as Oklahoma and Texas, thanks to Liberal policies. Motion 28 in regard to Bill C-48 is just another road block for small Canadian developers. Motion No. 23 in the name of the hon. member for Etobicoke Centre (Mr. Wilson) reads:
That 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, be amended in Clause 28 by striking lines 13 to 17 at page 16 and substituting the following therefor:
"former lease under which significant or commercial discoveries of oil or gas
were made on or before October 28, 1980 or in respect of any interest that
succeeds that former lease".
We want to remove this further penalty on Canadian oil companies. I want to make it perfectly clear that we are not talking about a bunch of multinational oil companies. We are talking about Canadian oil companies and Canadian developers.
Recently the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) stated that he foresaw a hard winter ahead because of September jobless figures. He said that it will be a really tough winter with a lot of unemployment. But there will be no hard winter ahead in the United States due to Bill C-48 and the National Energy Program. We are helping its economy immensely with ridiculous socialistic and nationalistic bills. It is all very well that they want to nationalize oil companies and "get" those big, bad oil companies, but taxpayers will have to pay a penalty. Actually these big, bad oil companies are not all that big. They are just small Canadian firms.
In order to provide a further idea of what the energy program and Bill C-48 are doing, a recent article appeared in The Calgary Sun entitled, "Oil Patch Brain Drain". It indicated that a stampede of Canada's best oil brains to the United States was under way; that is, according to sources in Calgary and Denver, Colorado. It also indicated that they were leaving because Ottawa's oil policy was forcing small, independent oil firms to cut costs by laying off their technical staff. I fail to see how this helps Canada in any way. This was a report of statement by a Calgary oilman, Mr. John Masters. It went on to indicate:
Masters, president of the Calgary-based Canadian Hunter Exploration Ltd., a half-billion dollar oil and gas exploration firm, has criticized the national energy policy before. But his charges are confirmed by The Denver Post which says U.S. immigration is now processing "literally hundreds" of requests for work permits from Canadian oilmen.
The Denver Post quoted Jim Hardin, a Denver U.S. immigration official, as saying:
There's been a big rush in the past year... we've never had anything quite like it.
I find it strange that the Liberals are not telling their constituents this in their householder mailings. This is what they should be telling them. Instead, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) is leading them around by their noses, and Ed Clark, with a communist background, is drafting this diatribe. Also it reported that 25 to 35 Canadian energy companies opened offices in the nine-state Rocky Mountain region over the past 12 months. Mr. Masters called it "a panic flood of the best technical people in the Canadian oil industry." I fail to see how this is helping us in any way.
We have heard the platitudes and overtones of the parliamentary secretary, but there is never any detailed technical or statistical information. We hear only general statements that the NEP and Bill C-48 are good for us. This is how socialist talk. Anyone who reads about socialism will find out that socialists do not want to confuse with facts, figures and statistics. It is just an endless flow of words which read like a prayer.
November 3, 1981


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. As reported on page 12364 of Hansard, we are now dealing with Motion No. 23. I believe the hon. member is speaking to Motion No. 28. Perhaps Mr. Speaker could draw his attention to the fact that we are supposedly debating Motion No. 23 which concerns three-year periods of tax holidays. Perhaps the hon. member could speak to that.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member's point is well taken. Debate at committee report stage is supposed to be specifically directed to the amendments before us.


A. Daniel McKenzie: Motion No. 23 is our motion. We are debating Clause 28 of Bill C-48 with which our motion deals.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: With all due respect to the hon. member, the motion which has been moved and is currently before the House is Motion No. 23.


Mr. Jarvis:: That is correct, but Motion No. 23 amends Clause 28.


A. Daniel McKenzie: I read our motion into the record; it amends Clause 28. I was dealing with the mass exodus of investment money, businesses and technical expertise out of the country because of Liberal policies. Also Mr. Masters indicated:
They're trying to save their skins, their income and their lifestyle by getting down into the U.S.
He also said that the exodus was triggered by the 35 per cent cut in the cash flow of small, independent oil firms created by the national energy policy. The particular clause to which we are referring to today is a further penalty for small Canadian companies. These companies are predicting wholesale lay-offs just around the corner. Masters says he already knows of 15 companies where the lay-off of 65 technical staffers has been recommended. They have been laid off and are leaving the country. They do not just go back and forth across the border, Mr. Speaker; once they get established down there they stay and we have lost them. I fail to see how that helps Canada in any way.
Bill C-48 and the National Energy Program are causing a great exodus of capital. I should like to go into detail and point out just how devastating this document is. It quotes the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources as saying that the Canadian energy industry may become 50 per cent Canadian owned by 1985, five years ahead of schedule, and that it may be 75 per cent Canadian owned by 1990.
However, not all economists are rejoicing over such a prospect, Mr. Speaker. In Toronto, William Mackness of Pitfield MacKay Ross Ltd. says the Canadianization program has set off an unprecedented exodus of Canadian capital and that it is questionable the Canadian economy can stand it. If the National Energy Program and Bill C-48 were of any value, Mr. Speaker, they would be attracting capital, not driving it out of the country. The energy program and this bill should be withdrawn and Mr. Clark in the Department of Energy, Mines
Canada Oil and Gas Act
and Resources, should be replaced with someone who knows something about this business who could draw up legislation which would help make the country energy self-sufficient.
Mr. Mackness went on to say that the method of calculating capital outflow is not perfect and is subject to error but that, nevertheless, there is overwhelming evidence that the outflow of capital from Canada amounted to about $17 billion in the last 12 months, during which time the stock of several major foreign-owned companies was acquired by Canadian companies or the federal government. He said that after deducting capital inflows, the net loss was $6.7 billion, of which about $2.5 billion was moved out by Canadians, the rest by nonnationals. That is a great deal of money, Mr. Speaker, and we cannot afford to have it driven out of the country. He went on to say that the average annual outflow during the 1970s was $600 million, so the new pace is absolutely unprecedented.
We are heading for tragic times as a result of this plan to nationalize the Canadian oil industry, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Mackness said that making matters worse is the fact that Canada does not now have a surplus in its balance of trade against which the capital outflow could have been offset, that instead, there is a deficit of $3.7 billion for the last 12 months. He said that the most alarming aspect is that Canadians are in fact borrowing abroad to raise the money to buy foreign-owned oil stocks. Hence, interest payments abroad rose from the $1.3 billion level they were showing six years ago to $4.6 billion in the last year; also, dividends that Canadians may earn on their newly acquired oil stocks will be offset by overseas interest payments on the money they borrowed to buy them. You can see what a tragic affair this is all around, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Mackness pointed out that all these factors have served to further weaken the Canadian dollar.
This policy of harassing small Canadian oil companies and developers, which would be the result of Clause 28, will do absolutely nothing to make us energy self-sufficient and will do nothing at all for the country.
An article appeared in the Ottawa Citizen on October 28 this year to the effect that the government is fleecing the public with the oil pact. That is an excellent way to describe what is happening. It is just unbelievable how the Liberal government can be taken in by some of the bureaucrats it hires. If I were a member of the government I would not be led around by these people. The power that they have over the government is unbelievable; it accepts this stuff that is drafted for it. The Citizen article says that some discouraging words were heard the previous Tuesday as the oil industry began to study details of the energy agreement signed the previous Monday by the federal and Saskatchewan governments. It quoted Bill Dutton of Clan Resources Ltd. as saying that the two levels of government had got together and had fleeced the public. He wondered if the public realized that we have only been producing and shipping at about 47 per cent to 50 per cent since last March and he asked when the situation would be straightened out.
The article also quoted Led Stein, the owner of Sage Oilfield Services Ltd., as saying that he was frustrated that the

November 3, 1981
Canada Oil and Gas Act
two governments claimed to have reached an agreement. He contended that it is not an agreement but a concoction. Mr. Stein is also the mayor of Swift Current.
Bill Whelan, head of the provincial branch of the Canadian Petroleum Association, was quoted as saying that he hoped the agreement will mean a return to the vigorous activity of the past. He said that meetings had been set up at which the association would analyse the accord to see what it would really mean to the industry, referring to the $15.4 billion agreement initialled by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and Premier Blakeney. Saskatchewan, the second largest oil-producing province, is expected to gain $5.8 billion from the accord which expires at the end of 1986, while about $6.1 billion in revenues is predicted to be generated for the industry.
I see you are on the edge of your chair, Mr. Speaker, so I will close by pleading with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. MacLaren) to speak to the minister and ask him to withdraw Bill C-48 and the National Energy Program, and bring in a sensible energy plan that will make Canada self-sufficient.


Mr. MacLaren:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. During the previous speaker's intervention, which seemed to consist of reading from various newspapers and magazines, he chose to quote from an article which disparaged senior public servants in the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. The article, which he evidently quoted with approval and subsequently referred to, named the public servants. They are not in this House, Mr. Speaker, and do not have an opportunity to defend themselves. It is not in accordance with the best traditions of this House to name public servants and attack them individually from behind the immunity conferred by membership in this place.
If the hon. member opposite knew the system of government which we enjoy in this country, he would realize that there is one person, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde), who speaks for the government in this area. Today in his absence I act as his surrogate, but the responsibility for the policy resides entirely with the Government of Canada. It does not reside with the group of public servants who are named in this House as if they are perpetrating some monstrous fraud on the Canadian people, or whatever the allegations were.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The parliamentary secretary was recognized in the normal course of debate and he has the right to participate as a member of the House. I do not feel the point he is making is, strictly speaking and within the rules of the House, a point of order. If the hon. parliamentary secretary wishes to continue his speech, the normal time would be allotted to him.


A. Daniel McKenzie: On the same point of order, Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I recognized the parliamentary secretary as participating in debate in the normal course. I have not recognized a point of order.


A. Daniel McKenzie: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: No, the hon. member has spoken. The parliamentary secretary has the floor and this is his speech.


A. Daniel McKenzie: I am rising on a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine (Mr. McKenzie) on a point of order.


A. Daniel McKenzie: I am rising on my own point of order to correct the record. The parliamentary secretary said that we should not mention senior civil servants in this House. It is not a precedent that I have set today. Senior civil servants have been mentioned dozens of times in this House. We are talking about a matter-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The Chair has ruled that a point of order is not involved. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources has the floor.


Roy MacLaren: Mr. Speaker, I did rise on a point of order after the-


Mr. Rae:: Mr. Speaker, a point of order.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood (Mr. Rae) on a point of order.


Bob Rae: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the hon. member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine would accept a question?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The time of the hon. member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine has expired. The Chair has recognized the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources.


Roy MacLaren: Mr. Speaker, I rose on a point of order. I shall take the occasion to speak later in the debate.


Mr. Ron Stewart (Simcoe South):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak this afternoon on Bill C-48, the Canada Oil and Gas Act and in particular Motion No. 23 which, as has been pointed out by my colleague, the hon. member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine (Mr. McKenzie), amounts to sheer and utter confiscation. Unfortunately, I do not champion the legislation in its present form, but it is one of immense importance to all Canadians.
I do not sit on the energy committee but I am keenly interested in our national energy policies, as is everyone in this House. It is interesting to note that over 100 witnesses appeared before the energy committee when it considered this legislation, and yet from what I can gather none agreed with the over-all details of the bill. There were no amendments at the committee stage-shades of unilateralism once more, Mr. Speaker. This is the same type of unilateralism we had at the start of the constitutional debate, and what Premier Lougheed said as early as this morning is going on across the street. It is the same type of unilateralism as with VIA Rail.
November 3, 1981

I fear this government is attempting to wrap itself in the cloak of motherhood in regard to Bill C-48-Canadianiza-tion-and hoodwink the Canadian people into believing its actions are in the national interest, that a back-in clause such as Clause 23 is a normality. It is not; it is Jesse James without a gun, Mr. Speaker.
We do not build a healthy petroleum industry by punishing those who risk venture capital and are entitled to a fair return on their investment. A government should be a leader, not a "backer-inner". Many of the free enterprise small Canadian oil companies are going to feel the whiplash of this legislation, particularly Clause 23.
Our problem in this country, in my view, is not with foreign ownership or foreign control; our problem is not just with the flight of capital in the form of dividends, interest and earnings; our problem is not that the west is getting rich at the expense of the east. Our problem remains the same as it was in 1973. We are running out of conventional oil. We are running out of crude oil extracted by conventional methods, mainly in Alberta which accounts for about 85 per cent of Canadian production.
As we run out of oil what steps are we taking to develop alternate sources? What steps do we take to advance technology and venture capital so desperately needed to develop our tar sands? As we run out of oil what positive measures does the government envision to alleviate the crunch which will surely come because we are still dependent on OPEC or foreign oil?
The government looks to Canada lands, it looks to Bill C-48 and Canadianization, and it looks to the Beaufort Sea. All these things are very worth while, but in my view we are putting too much emphasis in that direction. Can we bring them all on stream in time?
Bill C-48 proposes to regulate the oil and gas interests in Canada lands and to amend the Oil and Gas Production and Conservation Act. It also directs itself to Canadianization, and Motion 23 relates to that backing-in formula I just mentioned.
Canadianization is a very desirable thing. I gainsay there is not one of the 282 of us who sit in this House who is not for Canadianization. But what has been happening with this government is not Canadianization, as I view it. It is not supportive of the free enterprise system as we know it. This government has been consistently sliding down that slippery road to socialization and this bill embodies that slide; as a matter of fact, it smacks totally of the first chorus of the full melody of nationalization.
Since I have been in this House I have had the opportunity to understand what has been happening to this great country of ours-a slow and steady creep to the left; more and more unilateral government control. This has come about by increased use of closure to muzzle free speech, the use of the Official Languages Act for crass political purposes, the increased use of orders in council to control public inquiry, such as in respect of VIA Rail, and unilateral ministerial decision such as the proposed dumping of radioactive soil on a military base.
Canada Oil and Gas Act


An hon. Member:: Who wrote your speech?


Ronald Alexander Stewart: I did, and I wrote it better than you could.
Canadianization to me does not mean the ownership of the oil industry by the state. I would just like to quote from The Globe and Mail of Monday, March 16, 1981. It states:
The business has steadily become statist, no matter how distasteful that may be to the private enterprisers-
Those are good Canadian private enterprisers.
-who work the oil patch. Public rather than private objectives have become fundamental to the corporate actors.
The article goes on to state:
Last October's National Energy Program shows how far the federal government is willing to go in its policies. No significant area of industry activity is left untouched ... federal involvement in the industry is rapidly becoming institutionalized and more bureaucratic as the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources expands its empire to implement objectives set by the NEP.
I might add, they are socialist objectives. Finally this article states:
Questions can be raised about how the industry will be changed in the longer run. The most serious question concerns the fate of the entrepreneur with a small company, limited capital and unlimited optimism. Big government likes to work with big business; federal bureaucrats are more likely to be happy dealing with the giants that know their way through the system than with small fry who do not have a road map through the corridors of power.
Ownership by the people of Canada is the important thing here, and there is a great difference between that and state control. That is why we on this side champion the cause of the issuing of shares of Petro-Canada to every Canadian so Petro-Canada is owned by individuals, not by the state.
If there are any companies in Canada that are abusing the industry, then control them by taxation or incentive, not by nationalization. If the government wants to Canadianize the petroleum industry, it can easily accomplish this goal through use of the carrot and not the stick. It can easily accomplish it through the tax system by making it more attractive for Canadians to purchase stock in drilling and exploration ventures, by a layer approach to taxes on capital gains, earnings and profits.
Bill C-48 is supposed to give us oil self-sufficiency, but will it? Of course not. Hundreds of drilling rigs, according to statistics, have left Canada. Millions of dollars worth of foreign investment has been cancelled, and a lot of Canadian dollars are going abroad. The tar sands projects have been postponed. Does this smack of energy self-sufficiency? To me it smacks of idiocy.
Instead, the government's answer was to purchase Petrofina. It purchased a string of service stations and paid double what the firm was worth, $120 a share instead of an acknowledged $60. These figures are not just according to me; they are according to the president of Petrofina who was flabbergasted that the government of the day paid twice the company's worth.
Will this deal give us more barrels of oil, more discovery? Not on your life, Mr. Speaker. We gave Petrofina $1.5 billion, and that is capital fleeing this country at a time when we can

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least afford it. As one of my colleagues said, the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) is now the patron saint of Belgium as a result of the Petrofina deal. All of this was done so that the present government could have a propaganda program going for it with service stations sitting on every street corner in Canada with "Petro-Canada" painted on them in Liberal colours to bamboozle the Canadian public.
What is next, steel, the banks or the supermarkets? Perhaps we will have "SteelCan" or "GroceryCan" or "BankCan". This is the slippery road to socialization, the rotten road to nationalization.
We in North America represent one of the last bastions, if not the last bastion, of the free enterprise system. There are few countries left in the industrialized world that have not taken that turn to the left. France has now gone the way of those who would let someone else do it for you, and that is the socialist system.
Let us turn to Clause 28 of this bill which regulates oil and gas interests in Canada lands. It states:
No Crown share is reserved out of a former lease under which oil or gas was first produced other than for test purposes, on or before December 31, 1980, or in respect of any interest that succeeds any such former lease.
My colleague, the hon. member for Etobicoke Centre (Mr. Wilson) has proposed under Motion No. 23 that we strike out lines 13 to 17 in Clause 28 and insert the words:
"former lease under which significant or commercial discoveries of oil or gas
were made on or before October 28, 1980 or in respect of any interest that
succeeds that former lease".
This would prevent the Crown from backing in in any case where a discovery was made before the announcement of the National Energy Program. The way it reads now, the Crown does have that back-in privilege. We would like to see the clause struck out. Why should the government back in? Anyone who really believes in our free enterprise system does not want to see that system perverted, especially at the cost of Canadian oil companies. No one wants to see the government make rules to suit itself. Many of my colleagues have said it is a form of theft, and I agree. It is confiscation. When you take something from someone who, by dint of their own exertions, put it forth, it is theft, whether it be by government or anyone else.
What this legislation boils down to is that we on this side of the House believe that the free enterprise Canadian can better develop resources than the government bureaucracy. We believe that the private sector would never condone a back-in clause such as Clause 28, which is a cowardly theft system thwarting pre-dated free enterprise.
Does government ownership in some magical way make us more Canadian or better Canadians? I say it does directly the opposite. It robs us of initiative and delineates us as socialists. That is what Bill C-48 does to us.
I would now like to quote the following:
The state will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state. Of course, in
the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of production-
In most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable-
1.	Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
Is not Bill C-48 the beginning of this?
2.	Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
Is Bill C-48 the beginning of this? There is no mention of property rights in the charter of rights in the proposed Constitution.
3.	A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
We have that now and I am wondering how much more we will have a week from Thursday night.
4.	Abolition of all right of inheritance.
We have seen that in the United Kingdom and our taxation policy is headed in that direction.
5.	Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
Every Thursday we have the start of that.
6.	Centralization of communications and transport in the hands of the state.
You just have to think of the CBC, the CDC with its control of Global television, of the rail cuts and the Kent report. That will be the next task of the Pravda of Canada!
7.	Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of soil in accordance with a common plan.
If you look at the clauses in this bill, Mr. Speaker, you will see that this is in the bill also, where it says:
Currently the minister has complete discretion to determine the appropriate level of Canadian labour and material content. An amendment will introduce a detailed schedule which will require the greatest level possible of Canadian and native labour content and a specific Canadian procurement program of goods and services for each development. This approach is preferable to establishing a rigid quota of Canadian content.
To continue with my reading:
8.	Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9.	Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by more equable distribution of population.
These are the sort of things we are arguing about now concerning the charter of rights in the proposed Constitution.
That preamble and those nine points, Mr. Speaker, did not come from the other side of the House, as you might have thought was the case. They sound exactly like what we are talking about in Bill C-48, but I will tell you where they did come from. It is the communist manifesto of Marx and Engels.
I was mailed a book written by Mr. John A. Masters, President of the Canadian Hunter Exploration Limited. I have not had the pleasure of meeting him but I hope to in the near future. Mr. Masters wrote a book called "The Hunters" and it is a personification of free enterprise in Canada, in my view. This is what he said:

November 3, 1981

When all the rhetoric is cleared away, and the great policies forgotten, whether or not we find enough energy in this country to maintain our democratic freedoms will depend on the people we have looking for it. Their brains, expertise, and dedication will be equal to the job-or we will fail.
I wanted to show the quality of people who are actually involved in this job, and to make the point that no country has the combination of resources and trained manpower that Canada has. Neither has any country a more encouraging economic environment to bring forth the effort and creativity of its people.
Canada's oil industry, made up largely of Canadians whether they work for small companies or multinationals, and its great energy resources are a priceless national asset. Together, they give Canada a particular strength denied to virtually every other nation of the western world.
It is the imperative duty of our governmental system to use these great resources and these priceless people to preserve the freedoms of this country. Where we are obviously in danger is in the lack of will among our political leaders to do the simple, sensible and sometimes unpopular things that are necessary for energy self-sufficiency. These are:
1.	Recognize that energy self-sufficiency for Canada alone is pointless. Canada's economy is so intimately tied to the U.S. that depression there means disaster here. We must share our energy supplies to survive.
2.	Understand that the U.S. and Canada are together threatened as never before. The decade of the 1980s will likely see Russia attempt to strangle the U.S. by manipulating events so that it is denied crucial oil supplies from the Middle East. This will surely happen unless alternate supplies are available. We are, in a very real sense, at war.
3.	Examine each new energy regulation or law to see if it actually encourages the production of oil and gas. This is accomplished primarily by drilling wells but also by building plants, pipelines, and other facilities. Much regulation actually impedes development.
4.	Allow oil and gas prices to rise to world levels to make supply and demand conform to reality. Demand will decline as oil costs more. Supplies will increase as lower grade sources become economic. Low energy cost is the single, most important cause of shortages.
5.	Approve exports of surplus gas to provide the revenues necessary for the companies to maintain a continuous 25 year gas reserve supply for Canada.
6.	Permit sufficient revenues to flow back to the companies, rather than to governments, so they can find new fields. Governments do not find energy supplies.
7.	Preserve the sacred competition of ideas, probably the single most important element in finding oil and gas, by encouraging a diversity of companies.
Bury forever the concept of a single national company controlling the entire oil business. This would be certain disaster. I say this not as a political ideologist, but as one with some experience in the mysterious art of finding energy.
I think that speaks for itself, Mr. Speaker, as well as for us on this side of the House. We are free enterprisers, not statists. We do not like the philosophy of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and all of his writing along those lines. As I said before, God help us if we slip down that slippery slope to socialism.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join in this debate to speak in favour of Motion No. 23, which is an amendment to Clause 28 of the Canada Oil and Gas Act. As we know, Clause 28 of the Canada Oil and Gas Act gives the Crown in right of Canada the right to back in by way of a 25 per cent carried interest on oil on Canada lands that has not yet been produced.
I think we need to understand just what that means. Prior to the formation of Petro-Canada, our state-owned oil company, some 700 companies in this country of which the majority are owned by Canadians were out in the field taking leases from provincial governments and the federal government for regions
Canada Oil and Gas Act
off the west coast, east coast and in the north, but mostly in the western plain. They would take up a lease and pay a lease fee to the provincial or federal government which would give them exclusive rights to these lands. They would then go in and do some seismic, then do some drilling to see if there was well oil or gas there. On many occasions they found oil or gas, but because we did not need it at that moment, the well was capped and is sitting there. All the work had been done and all of the risk had been taken but production had not started. That is the way it is at the moment.
What Clause 28 does is to give to PetroCan, as our state oil company, the right to take 25 per cent of that oil or gas without ever having contributed to the search for it, doing the seismic and high technology analysis and then drilling the well.
What our motion in the name of the hon. member for Etobicoke Centre (Mr. Wilson) says is that we should let bygones be bygones. If a company has found oil, then that company should get that oil and, of course, pay royalties to the federal government-in short, the people of Canada-if the oil happens to be on Canada lands. If it happens to be in the western basin in the province of Alberta, it would pay a royalty to the provincial government. The company would have gross income, expenses and taxable income, and it would pay income tax to the federal government and to the provincial government. As a matter of principle and on a practical basis, we do not believe we as a government or as a people should be taking material which has already been produced.
One of the rationale often used by the cabinet for this back-in provision is that the government had permitted tax depreciation and depletion to the oil industry and that, in a sense, therefore, paid for part of this, and 25 per cent is reasonable. We have all deducted our personal income tax deductions and we have all received tax credits if we have owned MURBs or apartment buildings. Other companies have. Farmers get to depreciate their machinery.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Ninety-three cents on every dollar?


Blaine Allen Thacker: The hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell) thinks it is a matter of amount. I would like to discuss the principle of it. If a government can come in because it has permitted somebody to have a deduction, then surely it would want to come in and take over all farms since farmers for years have not paid income tax because of their depreciation on machinery. It is that principle to which we should address our minds. I do not believe as a matter of principle that because a government has given a deduction, it should come along later and take something over, using the deduction as an excuse. If a government wants to take something over, then why does it not pay for it? Why do we not set up a third party arbitration process, analyse the fair value and pay for it? Even Third World countries-the very worst of them, if that is a proper phrase-do not come in and expropriate. Petro-Canada, our own state oil company, operates in the Norwegian sea. I do not think we would be happy if Norway

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were to expropriate Petro-Canada's efforts there. We operate in the Far East. We are going to be in Tanzania. Those countries do not come in and take our projects away, so 1 really do not believe in my own mind as a matter of principle that it is fair for us to do it.
Nor am I convinced as a matter of theory that Petro-Canada can operate as an oil company and be as successful as the other individually owned companies in which the management has to report to the shareholders each year and the shareholders can stand up and make that management accountable to them. I think that is a very great incentive for the management to produce results, and I honestly believe that we will not find that in a Crown corporation. We have hundreds of Crown corporations in this country, and we do not find in them the same level of creativity, ambition and energy to get out into the fringe areas that we see in individually owned companies.
That is not to say that individuals are not good people, because in the Post Office the people are all good people individually. The same is the case with the National Harbours Board and so forth. However, the system wherein a Crown corporation has to be accountable to politicians, a cabinet, means that the test does not become efficiency in the industry. The test becomes political as to whether or not it has an adverse effect on elected politicians. It does not matter whether the cabinet is Liberal, PC or NDP; the test is whether there is efficiency. The market economy which developed in the late 1700s and 1800s developed for a very good reason, and the reason is: how do you cull people off the bottom? That goes on even in socialist countries.
The great advantage of the market economy is that if someone comes up with a new idea and can turn out a product better and more creatively than other companies, people take it on; or if it is bought out, that technology which has been developed is taken on. The inefficient drop off the bottom, and that is a continuous rollover process which works very well. The minute there is state intervention, the test for dropping off no longer becomes economic efficiency; it becomes political accountability of a minister and, if I were a minister, I would not want the company to fail either.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Tell that to Bill Davis and Sir John A. Macdonald.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Absolutely.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: You would have kicked Sir John out of your party.


Blaine Allen Thacker: I presume the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway would want everything to be operated by government enterprise.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I have never said that.


Blaine Allen Thacker: So he does want some mix, then.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I am a Sir John A. Macdonald type.


Blaine Allen Thacker: The hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway says he is a Sir John A. Macdonald type. That is very interesting; he should certainly be sitting over here.


Mr. Fennell:: He is more like the Marxist type to me.


Bob Rae: After the couple of speeches we have heard this afternoon, you must be joking.


Blaine Allen Thacker: The only thing I am implying is that the New Democratic Party wants to take over the other companies. Members of the NDP do not really want to have a mixed economy. They want to take over Esso and Shell. They do not want to have a real competitor for the Crown agency. I can see why. It is because the Crown agency always comes up second best. The example of CNR and CPR is classic. This Parliament has had to write off hundreds of millions of dollars every few years in order to keep CNR in the black. We do not write things off for the CPR.


Bob Rae: Like hell. You wrote off the last hundred years to the CPR.


Blaine Allen Thacker: The CPR has not received any benefits from this Parliament other than the usual income tax deductions, which are exactly the same ones-


Bob Rae: They bought the whole country for five cents in 1880.


Blaine Allen Thacker: The government does not tell Petro-Canada it must operate as an oil company and make or break on its own. That is not what happens. We threw $1.5 billion into Petro-Canada, and it was not making it as an oil company so we gave it preference in choosing leases in western Canada over other Canadian and non-Canadian companies. That was not quite enough, so we then gave Petro-Canada the right to back in provided it purchased its 25 per cent interest. Even with that the corporation was not doing well, so we now have the flowering of the policy, which is an absolute confiscatory 25 per cent back-in, or theft. We are going to make that company work if it takes every acre of land and if we have to destroy every other company.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: You guys are bum boys for Exxon, Mobil and the United States.


Blaine Allen Thacker: The government must not be seen to fail. If the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway was in the government, that would be true-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills has the floor.


Gordon Edward Taylor: You are getting to them, Blaine.


Ronald Alexander Stewart: Keep it up, Blaine.


Mr. Cullen:: You just made Hansard.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Let us look at what might have happened in the oil industry over the last five years. I ask hon. members to
November 3, 1981

consider this. We know that all the retail service stations owned by ownership companies, individual shares, have gone through an enormous change, from being full service service stations to self-serve service stations. That process has been painful for many individuals who were service station lessees, but the change was made. If those retail service stations were all owned by a Crown corporation, how could that change take place? If they happened to be unionized, it would be impossible under the terms of agreements. If they were not unionized and had associations, they would be able to put incredible political pressure on the government of the day. Whichever government it might be, it would be impossible for that change to occur, and we would therefore still have in place tens of thousands of full service service stations operating inefficiently. Because they would go back to the government, the government would just increase the rates by way of a regulatory mechanism, and the individual at the end of the chain would still have to pay.
There is a practical objection that relates to Petro-Canada, however well-meaning the individuals may be. Based on my experience of viewing Crown corporations, the Post Office and departments, however good the individuals are, I just do not believe they have the creativity. The oil industry is one area that needs creative people.
In this land we have hundreds of thousands of square miles of land which has to be swept over by very sophisticated seismic equipment. We need to apply high technology to analysing the data. Money has to be put in to drill a well which very often comes up dry.
I do not believe that Petro-Canada can meet that technology. It is with great regret that I must say that Petro-Canada did about $1.1 million of research and development last year. That is a drop in the bucket. It means absolutely nothing in the oil industry. If it were not for the multinational corporations, many of which have shareholders in Canada and operate around the world, we would not be even close to self-sufficiency.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Your pals.


Blaine Allen Thacker: I have nothing against the multinational corporations. They are a natural evolution, just as is the United Nations, and must evolve into bigger spheres that are necessary for us to operate on this globe as an interconnected network. I see international taxation in a form we can all agree with, one which does not affect sovereignty, coming in the long run. We need the multinational corporations. They permit a collection of skilled, creative people who can cope with these huge projects that are now running into multibillions of dollars rather than just a few hundred million.
Petro-Canada bought three existing companies, all of which were searching for and finding oil and all of which were paying income tax. We need to ask whether PetroCan has paid any income tax. It has not. It has deferred all its income taxes. The consumers, the taxpayers of Canada, have had to put up with
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deficits, all of which were financed at 19.35 per cent in order for this company to take others over at a cost of $1.5 billion.
Let us look for a minute at how important ownership is. Leases are not granted unless a provincial or federal government puts up the land. There is no drilling unless drilling licences are given. The rate of production is determined by the provincial conservation boards. The federal government sets the price and decides whether there is any export. It is the most highly regulated industry that we have.
Under those circumstances ownership becomes more like a banker's operation with a rate of return. We are now in the process of purchasing back foreign-owned companies. In the past, the outflow of money from Canada had been by way of dividends, averaging 2 to 3 per cent per year. Now that we have bought them out, we hold debt dollars and the interest on those debt dollars is 19.35 per cent. That is an incredible disservice to the Canadian public.
What are the multinational corporations doing with the money we give to buy them back? They are putting it into solar research, hydrogen research and the new wave technology. When we get to the end of the oil industry, which will come within the next 15 to 20 years-and it will be gone in a conventional sense-we will have to turn to the multinationals and buy new wave technology from them. We will be in exactly the same boat we are in now.
Far better than buying out the oil industry which is now at its tail end, why not create corporations and give tax incentives to Canadians to get into the new wave technology so that when it strikes we will be ready? People will come to us for the new wave technology rather than our having to buy it in the future.
When we get down to the bottom line, we need to ask some hard questions about Petro-Canada. Has it added any new oil? It has not. Any wells that have produced new oil have always been in partnership with the multinational corporations. Has it added new technology? It only spent about $1 million in research last year, and I do not see any increase in that figure.
Has it paid a return to Canadians on the $1.5 billion put into it? It has not given us one cent of return. It is one of these great emotional, nationalistic ideas that are hard to control. Perhaps it would be beneficial if it were for new wave technology. However, to get carried away with nationalism and buying back an industry that we totally control, one which was only costing us 2 to 3 per cent by way of dividends compared to 19.35 per cent to buy them back, is not doing a service to Canadian citizens. On many occasions I have sat down with people at kitchen tables to explain the background. They think it is absolutely absurd. They would rather see Parliament and the Government of Canada putting its money into the new wave.
I appreciate having had the opportunity to say a few words on this motion.


William J. Yurko: Mr. Speaker, I want to see a new energy regime finalized at the earliest opportunity. New legislation in this area has been a long time coming. I hope that in the very near future we will have legislation that

tional corporations or as applied to the very large Canadian corporations that disturbs me, but the application of the 25 per cent either back-in share or forward share in the small Canadian companies or small entrepreneurial companies that will develop and that have developed in this nation.
It was for that reason that I suggested to the minister in committee that he look at the 25 per cent figure. If the minister will ever need more flexibility in this whole bill, it will be on that particular point. The minister or the government needs flexibility on that point. Then if it wanted to back in with a particular company with respect to only 10 per cent, it could. In fact, one might even question whether a 25 per cent forward partnership with some of the multinationals is sufficient. I believe I was told in committee that in Norway the crown reserved an 80 per cent ownership share of all exploration leases.
I believe this legislation is wrong. The minister must accept some leeway in terms of government judgment in the area of the 25 per cent provision. It should have a range or it should have some consideration in the regulations whereby it can vary that 25 per cent so that it would not hamstring all our Canadian private entrepreneurs by virtually forcing a civil servant to sit on the board of directors representing 25 per cent of the company and dictating terms to that company.
That is the critical part of the clause in terms of the Crown's share. It is that the government and the minister have created a fixed and ironclad clause. It says 25 per cent or nothing at all, that it shall always be 25 per cent. Why? Of course the government can vary that percentage. I hope that in certain parts of Canada the development of oil and gas by little companies, for example, in the Northwest Territories and in the Yukon, will not be so expensive that only the multinationals can get into the process. I hope the government will provide the incentives for new Canadian companies to get involved in the oil and gas industry in the Northwest Territories and Yukon, and just the other side of the border in British Columbia and north of the province of Alberta.
This is what I rose to speak about today. I am not suggesting that the minister's flexibility should be limited, but if ever there was an area where the government should have some flexibility it is in this particular clause.
Why should it back in on 25 per cent in all cases? If there is 100 per cent Canadian ownership, should it even want to back in at all? It could get its money from royalties, as was done in Alberta. This is why I indicated earlier that the Progressive Conservative government in Alberta scrapped every lease by legislation, changed every lease, and upped the royalties from 16 and two thirds per cent to as high as 50 per cent. There is no question that the federal government could get all the money it wishes through royalty and taxation structures. It does not need money from Canadian companies through the ownership route. The only reason it would get into the ownership route with Canadian companies would be to control the operations and, indeed, the very corporate structure which was
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set up under Canadian laws to develop oil and gas on Canada lands. This is why I believe the minister should seriously consider a change in the clause respecting the Crown ownership share as well as the Crown back-in share. By the time the minister finalizes this bill, I hope he will have given serious consideration to the idea of some variation in the ownership clause, so that it is not fixed and set in concrete that it shall be 25 per cent, no more and no less. Indeed the minister should have some flexibility. In some cases he should take a zero ownership share, in some cases a 5 per cent ownership share, in some cases a 25 per cent share, and even higher with some of the multinational corporations which have been in our nation for some time and have major stakes in the oil and gas industry.
In conclusion, I should like to say something about multinational corporations. It is so nice and easy to come in after the fact and say, "Somebody owns too much of my industry in my country and, therefore, I want to Canadianize it." I remember working in the Leduc oilfields in 1947 and in 1948 when Atlantic No. 3 spouted and finally caught fire. Who were in the oilfields then? Canadian companies, the Canadian government and the Alberta government-my foot! It was foreign multinationals which brought in capital, technology and manpower to develop the industry. For many years they took out not a penny. They continued to develop the resource until we became self-sufficient in oil and gas in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
What happened then? Governments started to get involved because they wanted more money and a piece of the action. They wanted to get involved in ownership, in influence and control of the corporate structure of the oil and gas industry. What happened in the decade of the 1970s is that self-sufficiency in oil went down the drain. We started to act as a deterrent. We constantly held back development in the oil and gas industry.
When I started my remarks I said that I wanted to see a regime in place now so that the industry could make the nation self-sufficient in oil and gas. We have enormous reserves of hydrocarbons in the nation. There is not a nation in the world which does not look upon Canada with envy in relationship to our energy resources. There are a billion barrels of oil in our oil sands and heavy oil reserves in the west. Earlier I said that something like 70 or 80 billion equivalent barrels of oil are in our offshore; this is now proven by geologists. We have enormous capability yet we are not self-sufficient in oil. We import 350,000 to 400,000 barrels of oil per day, and this will rise. This is a tragedy. This is impossible to accept by any measuring stick in terms of the development of technology during the last century. The record in Canada is shameful. I have no difficulty with the creation of a public-private system. If they want to do it, then let us create a public-private system. But for goodness sake, let us put in place and stabilize rules in such a way that we can become self-sufficient in the shortest possible time.
The House must pass an energy bill fairly soon, but I hope the minister will seriously consider a few more changes to the

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bill to make it acceptable. Particularly I hope he will give serious consideration to not locking the government or Parliament into a 25 per cent take in both forward and retroactive legislation. I hope the government gives itself some leeway in terms of the ownership share claimed when in fact a find is made. If the government wants money, it can always change the royalty structure, which is not very excessive in the bill. It can always change its taxation system. There is no need to become a 25 per cent government owner of a Canadian company, particularly a small Canadian company.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Before recognizing the hon. member for Western Arctic (Mr. Nickerson), I should like to deal with the late show for this evening.



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 Prince Edward-Hastings (Mr. Ellis)-Air Safety-Request for tabling of reports on emergency locator transmitters; the hon. member for Carle-ton-Charlotte (Mr. McCain)-VIA Rail-Cuts in service in New Brunswick; the hon. member for Hillsborough (Mr. McMillan)-Regional Development-Elimination of Prince Edward Island public service positions, (b) Administration of federally funded programs.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of Bill C-48, to regulate oil and gas interest in Canada lands and to amend the Oil and Gas Production and Conservation Act, as reported (with amendments) from the Standing Committee on National Resources and Public Works, and Motion No. 23 (Mr. Wilson).
Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Dave Nickerson: I do not really know what the applause is for, because I will make a rather brief speech.


Some hon. Members:: That is why!


Dave Nickerson: I will not wave my arms around as I have done on occasion in the past. I will speak briefly to the fundamentals of Motion No. 23 which is before us. Then I would like to say a little about what I consider to be a rather frightening matter-the way Petro-Canada could influence and affect government in those areas of northern Canada within which it will be exploiting resources.
I should like to keep to the exact motion before us. I listened with a great deal of interest to the hon. member for Vancouv-er-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell) when he spoke on this matter the other day. He certainly did not draw himself back from going on at considerable length and waving his arms. But he pretended that he could not see the difference between this motion and the clause in the bill proposed by the Liberal government. The hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway is one of the few members of the New Democratic Party who is, at least, semi-literate. He can read for himself and find out exactly where the difference lies. In the case of the proposal put forward by the government, it would exempt from the 25 per cent Crown share only those prior leases upon which production has been established, whereas our motion would expand that provision to include those prior leases upon which significant discoveries had been made.
We must remember that in both circumstances we are dealing with a limited number of properties. If we were only to include those properties on which production had commenced, the only one that immediately springs to mind, with the exception of Kotaneelee, which I will get back to later, are the Norman Wells oil field and the Pointed Mountain gas field.
As we all know, the government already has a 30 per cent share in the Norman Wells oil field so it is not necessary to take an additional 25 per cent. That particular clause is redundant as it affects the Norman Wells field.
If we were to list the number of significant discoveries, we would find that the list is fairly limited. Those cases where it might be difficult to determine whether a significant discovery had been made could be dealt with in the normal course of dialogue between the companies and the people in the employ of the Government of Canada. It is not a matter of dealing with several hundred separate properties but, rather, only one or two.
The real reason we proposed this amendment is that, the way the bill stands now, people will be cheated. They have invested time, effort and money in the search for oil and gas in northern Canada and offshore Canada under a certain set of rules and regulations. They thought they could abide by the word of the government. We could get into an argument about whether the terms under which leases were granted were overgenerous, but I think that is largely beside the point now. Those were the rules as determined by the Government of
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Canada several years ago when it was necessary to give a good deal of encouragement to people to go into remote areas. If they found a barrel of oil, all they got for it was $1.75! People responded to the challenge put to them by the government and went in at considerable risk to themselves. In a few instances they were successful and I do not think they should be penalized for that.
I was pleased to hear what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. MacLar-en) said with respect to the Kotaneelee gas field. I understand from him that amendments already put forward by the government have included the Kotaneelee gas field in the list of properties which would be exempt from the 25 per cent back-in. I am glad that happened because if the things I have said apply to any company, they certainly apply to Columbia Gas which developed that field. It is unfortunate that it is not producing today but, like many other fields in western Canada, it has been shut in. The market does not exist for gas from those particular wells.
When debating Motion No. 21 we said that we accept the idea of a Crown share but only in those cases where it is necessary. If there is a large percentage of Canadian ownership in a particular property already, then it is not necessary for the Crown to grab more.
It would appear that we will not be successful in persuading the government to see the error of its ways and the wisdom of ours, but I think for the sake of fairness, good faith and the future that when people take the government at its word they ought to be assured that the rules will not be changed retroactively. Taking all those things into consideration, I do not see any reason why this amendment should not be acceptable to Parliament.
Now I come to the question of the way in which Petro-Canada, the federal Crown oil company, will operate in the north. I want to examine the part it will play in the government structure.
First of all, if we accept the idea of a Crown share, then there are different ways it can be vested in certain organizations. If the Crown share were to be sold by public tender to Canadian oil companies, that would be one way of dealing with it; if it were to be disposed of in some way to local corporations formed within the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, perhaps under preferential terms, that would also be acceptable to most people. For instance, if it were to be vested in corporations established as a result of land claims settlements, that might be acceptable. If all that interest in all those properties were to be vested in Petro-Canada-and this is obviously the intention of the government-that would bode nothing but ill.
Petro-Canada, which is the chosen instrument of government policy, is, to my way of thinking, entirely suspect. It is important in the eyes of the Liberal government; because the government created it, it has a motherly attachment to it and in order to justify its policies it has, one way or other, to make sure that Petro-Canada, if it does not succeed, at least does not fall by the wayside.
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I always question how the government can be both a regulator and an operator at the same time. Surely the government has a legitimate function in laying down the rules and regulations under which oil and gas companies shall operate in federal Crown lands, but when the government, through an instrument such as Petro-Canada, also becomes the operator, then it is very difficult for a distinction to be kept between the regulatory role of government and the exploitative role of government through its holdings in Petro-Canada or like Crown corporations.
So far, Mr. Speaker, all I have said has also been said by many other speakers. Now I come to the rather frightening part and that is the case when, because of the importance of one commercial operation which receives the backing of the Crown and is seen to be very important to the executive as a result of policies it has laid down, the company operates in a particular region and has the possibility of becoming, in effect, the government of that region.
To cite an example, we need only look at the old Hudson's Bay Company which received its royal charter, according to its advertisements, on May 2, 1670. For many years it was not only a commercial operation in Rupertsland in Canada, but also undertook the public government of what is now part of Canada.
I think it is very difficult to have a fair system where one organization is both concerned with commercial exploitation and with providing public government. We can take other examples where similar things have occurred, such as the Dutch East Indian Company in Indonesia which for a long time was virtually the government of the Dutch East Indies. Then there was the British East India Company which for many years governed the British dominions in India. It is generally accepted that government by a commercial organization was not good and was not beneficial to the people so governed. In fact, it is always cited as the worst possible type of colonial exploitation.
In Rupertsland, as time progressed, we no longer had the Hudson's Bay Company as governors. We have gone through a variety of systems to get to the one we have there now. We have what you might describe as an embryonic provincial government there, a government which, if it is allowed to proceed along the road it is going, will become the same as any other provincial government in Canada. It will be a government responsible to the people it governs.
With Petro-Canada there, and with all eyes being upon it, in effect public policy could be made to suit Petro-Canada and not necessarily the people who live there. If the chief executive officer of Petro-Canada comes down and talks to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) and says, "We need a little change in regulations here", that change will be made, and whatever the few Canadian citizens in the area have to say through their instruments of government, or through the Members of Parliament they send to Ottawa, might very well be set aside and that which Petro-Canada
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wants will be put into effect. As bad as the present Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Munro) might be, I would have a greater degree of confidence in him than I would in government by the chief executive officer of Petro-Canada.
These are some of the reasons northerners are very suspicious of Petro-Canada and treat it as something rather different from other oil companies. We do not have the same problems with Esso, Gulf, BP and all these other companies because they are subject to rule and regulation as laid down by government. People generally believe that when an issue is at stake they will carefully examine the different points of view and those things which are required both by the oil and gas companies, on the one hand, and the general population of the territories on the other. When it comes to Petro-Canada we strongly suspect we will not have a fair hearing.
We can cite as an example of this suspicion of Petro-Canada, the way in which it does operate and might operate in the future, what happened at Fort Good Hope just last summer where Petro-Canada virtually got run out of town.
As an example of how governments might bend the rules to suit one of its Crown agencies, I like to look at the Peace River dam in British Columbia. This is a provincial matter, not a federal one. I understand there were pretty tough rules and regulations laid down by the government of British Columbia concerning the way in which the timber had to be removed and utilized in areas which were to be flooded. The construction of the Peace River dam was behind schedule. It was to flood quite an area and this area had not been logged out. My understanding of what happened there is that B.C. Hydro was told to proceed with flooding that area without the completion of the logging operations. As a result you can go there today and see this half-drowned, decaying timber which should have been cleared. Presumably the people in charge of forest regulations were told not to do anything or say anything about this, just to let things go ahead because that was the provincial priority. I can see the same thing happening in the territories with Petro-Canada, where things will be done because of national priority, with the rules and regulations allowed to slide, not enforced, and the people who live there could suffer considerably.
I have some difficulty and fears also in trying to determine where the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources is going to fit into the picture. Progressively over the last few years the Parliament of Canada, the House of Commons and the Senate, have been giving more and more power to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. I do not wish to refer to the incumbent in that office at the present time. If you look at what happened in this respect with a particular Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce some 30 years ago, in the 1950s, the late C. D. Howe, you will see that although Mr. Howe was undoubtedly in many respects a great Canadian, with more and more power going to his department and to him as an individual, this was seen by Canadians as a whole as not to be desirable.
I think the same thing is happening with the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. He may be a great Canadian, but I do not think it is incumbent upon us to hand over any more power to any one individual, however competent he may or may not be.
I am at the stage of conclusion now, Mr. Speaker.


An hon. Member:: You had longer than you thought.


Dave Nickerson: Yes, I have a little bit longer than I originally anticipated, but it is a good speech, you have to admit.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Dave Nickerson: If we look at what I have cited as the worst example of colonial exploitation, the British East India Company operating in the eighteenth century, and at people like Warren Hastings who just went a bit too far even for that particular period and ended up being impeached by another Parliament, you will understand why I am concerned that our Canadian Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources might in future become the Warren Hastings of the north. I suggest that is something we have very carefully to consider. We have to make sure in our legislation that the present incumbent in that position, or any future Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, does not become the Warren Hastings of the north.
Thank you kindly for all your attention.


Hon. Marcel Lambert (Edmonton West):: Mr. Speaker, this debate has been fairly extensive, but how could you expect anything else? This bill produced about 150 government amendments at the committee stage. I have been looking through the reprinted form; and I think the even much bigger Bank Act bill, with which I had a very intimate connection over the past year, saw fewer amendments. This would indicate that perhaps the committee members were tough and the government had to bring in amendments. On the other hand, it may mean that it was such a sloppily prepared bill that the government quickly had to try to repair whatever holes it found. I think, like my colleague, the hon. member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre), that this is such a thoroughly bad bill- and we have seen many-that, quite frankly the drafters of it should go right back to the drawing board and start out from square one.
In addition to that, we are faced with some 50-odd private amendments. That too bespeaks a very contentious bill. Clause 28 is a very innocuous looking little clause, but it means ultimately, what I would put as a simile, that the Government of Canada is taking the Canada lands, that is the Northwest Territories and the Yukon and whatever offshore interests it can claim ultimately, and is wiring it up and piping it up as a dairy barn. There it proposes to take the petroleum resources of that vast area, by far the largest part of Canada, and through the pipes effectively take the production of three teats of the cow.
November 3, 1981

That is what this government has discovered, as did its predecessors; they think up programs and then look for money to support them. They have found themselves with a financial cupboard which is bare. The government is $16 billion in the red. Inflation is into double digits and is continuing to rise. This is not because of high interest rates; interest rates are but a reflection of inflation.
What was the inspiration for the National Energy Program, for the raid on Alberta's resources and, for that matter, on all three western provinces? It is just a straight out-and-out power grab by a money-short, spendthrift, bankrupt government here in Ottawa, simply because it has discovered that petroleum is another money producer for it.
What will be the result of the particular clause we are discussing which embodies the whole spirit of the bill? Here is one resource belonging to the people of Canada in the provinces and the territories. In passing, may I say God help the territories should they ever become provinces, because there will be nothing left for them. Alberta and Saskatchewan obtained absolute ownership of their natural resources in the 1930s, something which had been withheld from them since 1905.
We know that politically provincehood is coming for a good part of the territories, for the Yukon and certainly for the western Arctic. What will be the fate of their people? They, like all the other provinces, will have entitlement to their resources but they will be handed a sucked-out lemon.
I have heard hon. members on the other side of the House say that even if the Yukon and part of the territories were to become provinces, the Liberals would never give those new provinces their resources. The government wants to hang on to them to provide revenue for its spendthrift ways. It is not the north that will take all the money. Under Bill C-48 the north and offshore are destined to become the milch cow of the federal government. There certainly will be no benefit for the people. It is all intended to feed the insatiable appetite of an incompetent, money-spending, crazy government.
We talk about $60 million of estimates. And that is after netting; in fact, spending is much greater. So are the revenues much greater than what appear on the books. To that extent the people of this country and members of this Parliament on both sides of the House are hoodwinked. We will be hoodwinked until we can get better estimates and more information presented to this House.
In addition to the interest which the government may have as owner and from what it has managed to reserve unto itself by any Crown reserves or lease, Clause 27 gives the Crown another 25 per cent. That is outright confiscation and we have seen it before. We have seen it in the renegotiation by legislation of leases in Alberta where the Crown interest in oil and gas was bumped up by legislation. That has the same effect. They were into producing leases, and it was a means of giving the province of Alberta a greater share of the revenue. The Government of Canada was moving in with both hands and
Canada Oil and Gas Act
feet-and a few tank cars thrown in for good measure-to get as much as it could. But who was paying for all this? The people of Canada were paying for it. That is, of course, with the exception of the oil which was shipped to the United States on which the Government of Canada imposed an export tax.


An hon. Member:: Shame!


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: In the case of Alberta, Mr. Speaker, we saw the government moving in on a resource and confiscating the greater part of it. It is true that one was an owner and the other was not-it was just a contingent of an overriding tax.
As my colleague for Western Arctic (Mr. Nickerson) pointed out, this clause indicates there is a deep and clear distinction between what is a producer and what is a discovery. There are no producers other than the Imperial Oil wells in the western Arctic and a small gas field in the western Arctic. There is nothing else. The Beaufort Sea, Hibernia and Sable Island-all these are discovery lands, and they have been discovered as the result of activities of private individuals who have invested hundreds of millions of dollars. One only has to go to Tuktoyaktuk and out into the Beaufort Sea to see what the oil companies have invested there. I have not had the opportunity to see what there is off the coast of Newfoundland, but in that case the Government of Canada says: "That is fine; you have discovered oil and you have discovered gas. We will take 25 per cent right off the top." That is with respect to lands on which there have been discoveries, not production, because that element in production is so small it can be ignored. The only thing I hope for is that somehow or other the Imperial Oil lands on the Mackenzie really show a great deal of production. That would be ironic because by the terms of Clause 27 all those lands would be excluded from this grab. But surely to goodness those people who have participated in the development of the Beaufort Sea, the Arctic high islands off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador and, to the extent that the federal government may be able to prove some interest in offshore lands of Nova Scotia or British Columbia, a further 25 per cent will be confiscated because those lands are not yet in production. So, I fully support the amendment put forward by my colleague, the hon. member for Etobicoke Centre (Mr. Wilson).
This bill establishes one thing, and the government must recognize the importance of what it is trying to do through this bill. The Government of Canada is taking unto itself that which belongs to the people of Canada, and that includes the people of those provinces who are not producers, and it takes far more from the potential of the western section of the Northwest Territories, namely, the western Arctic. Perhaps I should not write off the eastern Arctic. With advancing technologies and more searching it could be that oil and gas in marketable quantities will be discovered in the eastern Arctic. However, let us deal with Yukon and the western Arctic at the present time. One must not sell that region short. I went to Yellowknife in 1940. The difference between the Yellowknife of 1940 and the Yellowknife of today is remarkable. Add

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another 40 years of development in the western Arctic, and that region will be much further advanced than were Saskatchewan and Alberta at the time they achieved province-hood. As a matter of fact, I do not suppose the western Arctic has many fewer people than Alberta did in 1904 when the Government of Canada consented to the formation of the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. If I remember correctly, my native city of Edmonton had a population in 1904 of between 2,000 and 3,000-including stray dogs!


Mr. Hnatyshyn:: There was a Liberal party even then.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Yes, and it finagled the election in 1905. Be that as it may, it is not the lack of people that should hold back the western Arctic and the Yukon. I was in the western Arctic last summer, I was in Yellowknife and Tuktoyaktuk, and I could see that the people there want to have control of their affairs. We know what the administration is doing in the Yukon. The Yukon is not far from achieving provincehood. I say not far; it could be ten years, but during the course of history a ten-year period is relatively short. I would love still to be part of this operation here on the day we can say that the Yukon and the western Arctic shall be given provincial status. However, if we let Clause 27 and Clause 28 operate freely, the Government of Canada will try to pump that region dry so that it cannot turn over any inheritance. Those resources have been held in trust. They are undeveloped. They are held in trust by the Government of Canada until there shall be sufficient peoples to develop them for the people who will come to establish a province. The Government of Canada is behaving like a pair of rascal equity lawyers-or chancery lawyers; I have to be careful here-who are out to despoil the estate before it is turned over to the heirs. That has happened many a time it is said. It is the greatest shame that any assets should be left in any estate to turn over to the heirs!
The same philosophy applies in this Canada lands bill: it would be a shame to turn over any of the lands of the Territories and offshore to the provinces if there are any resources left in them.


Mr. Peter Elzinga (Pembina):: Mr. Speaker, in dealing with Motion No. 23 as it pertains to Clause 28, and as I did in the previous discussion on the prior motion, I would like to discuss some of the different philosophical concepts which are being presented in the House.
With the passage of Bill C-48, the proposed Canada Oil and Gas Act, in a few weeks the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) will acquire the largest mandate any federal minister has had since C. D. Howe wielded the powers of the War Measures Act and the Munitions and Supply Act during the last war. You do not create an empire without intending to stay around to rule it. What an empire is going to be built with this legislation! With a few minor exceptions, the energy department becomes the dominant government agency in all the Canada lands. From Ottawa, the department will set the pace of development, control the investment climate, regulate the environmental regime and determine the penalties and compensation for environmental damage.
It is quite a brew of conflicting interests, development versus the environment and native peoples, which is why it has all been handed over to the energy mandarins. It is easier to stifle conflict coming from one department rather than three or four. Already the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources has co-opted environmental researchers from Environment Canada and Fisheries and Oceans.
These people will no doubt continue their research and make recommendations, but it is unlikely they will be taken seriously in their new offices. The whole thrust of the National Energy Program is to get that oil and gas to market as soon as possible.
This is why Bill C-48 stipulates that exploration permits will last only five years rather than the traditional 20 years. If a company does not move with its development, the government will find someone who will.
This is also why the government is allowing 93 cents of every dollar invested by Canadian companies to be written off. The large companies, the only ones which can afford exploration activities, will go along with the strict ownership regime, not only because they are being underwritten by the taxpayer, but also because they know the government's zeal for the National Energy Program will sustain then until they are making profits.
The government's commitment to such rapid development of the Canada lands may not even leave time for superficial environmental impact studies. The last ten years could have been used to conduct the necessary basic research on the Arctic environment. Standards might have been in place and policy options available to deal with resource development. Instead, the time was frittered away, and now the government is going in blind.
Compensation for spills will be determined by the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, but because so little is known about the incremental effects of spills, there is no way of measuring the damage. The government will learn about Arctic oil pollution from experience rather than research, and the wildlife and the Inuit will have to shift for themselves.
The economic motives behind this desperate rush are understandable, but they are not justifiable. The Canada lands belong to the federal government. Therefore, the jurisdiction and revenues do not have to be shared with the provinces. If the returns match the investments and the estimates run into hundreds of billions of dollars, then the federal government's fiscal problems will be solved.
The investments will also have spin-off effects in terms of jobs in the south, new technologies and, through exports, an improved balance of payments. In political terms, a resurgent economy and a healthy treasury would put Ottawa back on top of the federal-provincial heap.
Perhaps all these possibilities explain the silence of the three ministers who ought to be concerned with the downside effects of Bill C-48. The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. LeBlanc) recommended over 100 changes, mostly environmen-
November 3, 1981

tal, to Bill C-48. None has been accepted, and the minister has not even participated in this debate. The Minister of the Environment (Mr. Roberts) has quietly watched the emasculation of his department. Maybe he will show some concern for the Arctic environment after it is damaged. The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Munro) seems more interested in buying off the natives than in representing their interests in cabinet.
There is another major concern with Bill C-48. If Hibernia and the Beaufort Sea prove to be "elephant" fields, then the development of the Canada lands will surely snowball. Not only will that wreak havoc in the Arctic, it will also perpetuate our addiction to fossil fuels. While the rest of the world is conserving and developing more energy-efficient sources, Canada could be left behind. As an example, the excellent task force report on alternative energy is doing nothing but gathering dust, even though a lot of excellent work went into the development of it.
Apart from such foreseeable problems, the most worrisome aspect of Bill C-48 is the further concentration of unchecked, unaccountable bureaucratic power. Far too often we have seen in this chamber what power does as it relates to the Canadian people.
We have a number of other motions pertaining to the authority of the minister as it applies to this legislation to which we hope the House will give serious consideration. I look forward to participating directly when those motions are before the House.


Mr. Bill Wright (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about 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 particular, I will refer to Clause 28 which allows the government to back in on oil companies on Canada lands.
As the provision stands under this bill, the government will be able to confiscate or take over 25 per cent of the interest of the oil companies. Basically it says the government will be able to take over 25 per cent interest on all discoveries prior to December 31, 1981. The amendment presented by the Conservatives suggest that no Crown share is reserved out of a former lease in which significant or commercial discoveries of oil or gas were made on or before October 28, 1980, or in respect of any interest that succeeds from that former lease.
It is obvious that in the north only two areas are protected by the government under this amendment, the Norman Wells area and the Pointed Mountain area. All other discoveries in the north will now be confiscated to the extent of 25 per cent. The government believes that this is justified under the incentive plans it has given to these companies over the years. However, if it is obvious it can do it with the oil and gas industry, it can also do it to other industries. The mining industry is looking at this very carefully. Will companies, whether Canadian or foreign, put money into the mining industry in the future if this type of confiscation can take place?
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By taking a 25 per cent interest in all discoveries, the government is simply saying that it does not want to become involved in the exploration. All it wants is a 25 per cent interest in the discoveries. It only wants the successful wells. How many wells will the oil companies have to drill in order to find a successful one? The present ratio may be one in three or one in five. But the government is not interested in that. It is only interested in successful wells. It is prepared to confiscate 25 per cent under a carried interest, which means basically that the oil companies will carry the government for 25 per cent up until the time they have a discovery and are asking for a development permit. At that time, the government is prepared to go into a working interest and pay them two and a half times their portion of the exploration costs. As I mentioned a minute ago, Mr. Speaker, if the success ratio is one in three or one in five and the average cost of a well on Canada lands is $50 million each, what will be the ultimate end to this? Obviously, these companies cannot afford this meagre type of compensation. In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, and it may come as a surprise to many people, the government does not have to consider its working interest. It may take up the carrying interest or its portion of the development of the 25 per cent and sell it. It does not have to consider its interest. Not only that, Mr. Speaker, the government can do nothing. After all This time, it could decide it does not want to get involved in it if it cannot sell it. Moreover, if it sells it, it goes to public auction and someone could buy it for $ 1. That is some type of a partner for the oil industry, Mr. Speaker.
Let me briefly refer to the Canada lands. I shall first refer to the Arctic. The government says that they want to maintain Canadian content on Canadian lands. Let us look at that Canadian content right now.
In the Arctic, basically, we have the Arctic Island exploration group. It is 58 per cent Canadian owned. The second one, Panarctic Oils Ltd., is basically Canadian. It is controlled by the Canadian government. The third group, Dome Petroleum Limited and partners, is basically Canadian. Certainly they have foreign partners and the partners have brought in needed capital, but there is no capital going back home and no oil going out yet. The government says that they want to maintain or increase the Canadian content.
Let us look at the Labrador coast, Mr. Speaker. Is that foreign controlled? Is the development done by foreigners? No, it is done by Canadians. Unfortunately, in this case it is Petro-Canada. Let us look at the Davis Strait area. The lead partner in that area is also Petro-Canada. The lead partner in Hibernia is Mobil Oil Canada Ltd., a foreign-owned oil company which has been in Canada for many years. Ninety-nine per cent of the people who worked for Mobil Oil Canada Ltd. are not Americans but Canadians. Yet the government is threatening their jobs in this bill. Let us look at Sable Island. Once again Mobil Oil Canada Ltd. is the lead partner, but Petro-Canada has a 30 per cent interest in the company.

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Of the five basic areas, foreign oil companies control only two areas. For the government to suggest they want to increase the Canadian content and to have more Canadian companies in the north is, I suggest, strictly a sham and a falsehood.
The reason the government brought forth this bill was to create self-sufficiency, so to speak. Where have we heard that before? In 1974 the present Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) stood in the House and said, "We will have self-sufficiency by 1980". Where is it? Do we have more oil production? Of course not. We do not have self-sufficiency. Everyone knows that but the Prime Minister who is busy jetting around the world.


An hon. Member:: Come on.


Frederick William Wright: An hon. member disputes that. Perhaps he would like to rise and say that the Prime Minister is not doing that.
Canada at present consumes 1.8 million barrels of oil per day. We produce 1.4 million barrels of oil per day. At the present time we import 400,000 barrels of oil per day.
The government says we must have self-sufficiency by 1990. What does the National Energy Board say? The National Energy Board says that we will consume approximately 1.8 million barrels of oil a day by 1990.
Why will this not change? It will not change because of oil substitution and conservation. These are two big "ifs" in not consuming more oil.
Assuming the National Energy Board is correct, it says that we are consuming 1.8 million barrels of oil per day and will be producing approximately 700,000 barrels of oil a day by 1990, unless a major discovery occurs before that time. I will point out in a few minutes why no such discovery is forthcoming, nor can there be. If we are consuming 1.8 million barrels of oil a day and we are producing 700,000 barrels of oil a day, obviously we are importing 1.1 million barrels of oil per day.
In eight years we will increase our production by 1.1 million barrels of oil a day, and in 34 years to date we will have produced in Canada 1.7 million barrels of oil a day. Yet in eight years we will produce, in addition to what we now have, 1.1 million barrels of oil a day.
An economist with the Royal Bank of Canada recently said that Canadians will need $300 billion by 1990 to finance energy. This represents 20 per cent of all financing in Canada. If we need that amount of money, Mr. Speaker, obviously we will have to rely on our friends and neighbours and on many investors from foreign countries who may want to invest in Canada because of conditions that exist in their own countries. However, we are not doing anything to encourage them. In fact, we are discouraging them from coming to Canada. Instead of bringing their money to Canada, they are taking it out.
Over $8 billion net left this country last year. What benefit did we derive from that? The Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) said, "Yes, we're going to buy the oil
companies but we'll get a direct benefit". The direct benefit is $45 million in the dividends we get in one year.
Mr. Speaker, may I call it six o'clock.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: It being six o'clock, pursuant to Standing Order 2(1) I do now leave the chair until eight o'clock this evening.
At 6 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.
Frederick William Wright: Mr. Speaker, when we adjourned for dinner I was discussing the atrocious situation which the government created a year ago. I stated something to the effect that approximately $8 billion had left Canada because of the national energy policy.


Erik Nielsen: It was $10 billion.


Frederick William Wright: Actually the amount is a lot higher than $8 billion. It is closer to $17 billion. However, there has been an inflow of funds created by the high interest rates in Canada. This is the only reason there has not been more of a net outflow. It is unbelievable what Canadians received for the $8 billion or, as one of my colleagues just said, the $10 billion. What have they received? As I mentioned, they received approximately $42 million in the dividends from the shares of the companies they took over. It is a great benefit to Canada, but at the same time we lost $1.6 billion in interest which had to be paid to foreigners to finance the takeovers, and not one barrel of oil was found. This was all in the name of Canadiani-zation but it was really nationalization.
As I stated before, we need 1.1 billion barrels of oil by 1990 to be self-sufficient. This means that we must find approximately 140,000 barrels per day each year until 1990. This works out to approximately 12 wells producing 10,000 barrels per day. A discovery of that amount would be no mean feat in Canada. Over the next eight years we must find, on the average, one discovery per month which yields at least 10,000 barrels per day. I do not know whether anyone can name one discovery in the last year from which we can get 10,000 barrels per day out of the ground or out of the ocean. I am not aware of any discovery into which we can pipe to obtain 10,000 barrels per day.
If we are to be self-sufficient, how will we get all this oil? We could look at conventional oil means on the lands in the provinces. At the present time we know that that production is declining at the rate of 100,000 barrels per day for each year. It has been doing this for a number of years, and it will continue to do so. Also we know that there have been significant finds in the Arctic. By "finds" they mean discoveries which may be commercial. How long will it take to get that oil out? We know that it took up to ten years in the North Sea
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and that we do not have a commercial find in the Arctic at the present time.
Let me turn to the east coast. We have seen discoveries there, but we do not have a commercial oil field; there is no such thing. The government tells us that there is good potential for oil off the east coast. I should like to give an illustration of the problem. If the people in the Press Gallery represented the ocean floor and this august body were beneath the ocean floor and an iceberg went through 300 feet above, there would be nothing left of this area because the iceberg would scour 20 to 50 feet below the ocean floor. We do not have the technology to retrieve oil from there, but the government is saying that it can do it. Hopefully some day we will but it will not be by 1990.
In 1947 Canadians controlled our oil industry; by 1970, 90 per cent of it was foreign owned and by 1979, 70 per cent was foreign owned. In effect, the people who came here to discover the oil, because we asked them to, are now being told to go home. Not only are they being told to go home but in many cases they are having to sell out at fire-sale prices. The government is telling them when to sell and what they can sell for. That is an atrocious approach. It was brought about, basically, because a socialist government is running this country, not a Liberal government as it calls itself. We must put that label on the government once and for all; it is a socialist government which is not interested in free enterprise or private industry. The Prime Minister has said that at one time or other in the future every business will have to come to the government for assistance. That would be a terrible situation. I do not think that we as parliamentarians can allow some of our basic rights to be uprooted.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, this it the first time that I have had the opportunity to participate in the debate on this legislation. I have heard many members on this side of the House describe the serious effects that passage of this bill will have on the future development of the Yukon and the Northwest Territories and upon the lives of those who make their permanent homes there. I have heard concern expressed with respect to the rights of our native people in northern Canada, an area which comprises 40 per cent of the country's territory. There are only three members from above the 60th parallel in this House, two of whom sit in this party, and one, the first Inuit to be elected to this chamber, who sits with the NDP.
In the north we have the conviction-and we always try to get the message across when we speak in debates such as this-that we, north of 60, do not matter very much as Canadians. We only occupy three seats in the House. I often wonder what would happen to legislation such as the bill now before us if all the members from the province of Quebec came from the northern areas of Canada. 1 do not think this bill would stand much of a chance of surviving if that were the
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case. Indeed, to coin a northern phrase, I do not think the bill would stand a snowball's chance above 60 of surviving.
Before I get too far into my remarks, Mr. Speaker, I should like to put on record a copy of a letter which I received from the chamber of commerce in the Yukon which was addressed to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Munro) who is supposed to be the protector of the rights of northern Canadians. The letter is dated October 23, 1981.
Before reading the letter, I might mention that the native organizations of both northern territories, the mining organizations of both northern territories, the business organizations including the chambers of commerce of both northern territories, all appeared before the committee that examined the provisions of this bill and, without a single exception, no northerner had a kind word to say about it.
Because of its concern, on October 23 the chamber of commerce in Yukon wrote one last appeal to its so-called protector, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, which reads as follows:
Dear Mr. Munro:
Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce would like to reiterate its opposition to Bill C-48 in its present form.
The Chamber is concerned that the bill could have very negative effects on the economies of the Yukon and the Northwest Territories and that it may very well hamper the growth of many northern businesses.
Furthermore, Bill C-48 has no provision for local control over development. Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce urges you to amend the legislation to give Yukoners involvement in decisions that affect the territory.
Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce once again requests that the legislation be amended to provide northerners with resource revenues produced in the north.
They can kiss that idea goodbye forever. The letter goes on:
The Chamber of Commerce strongly urges you to amend Bill C-48 before Final approval of the legislation is granted.
Yours very truly,
President
Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce
That kind of submission has been made repeatedly, Mr. Speaker. A copy of the letter also went to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde).
I express these concerns as the member representing the Yukon, an area which covers 207,000 square miles of Canada of which the federal government has deigned to give some 368 square miles for disposition into private hands. So the government has frozen almost 200,000 square miles of land. You cannot buy a lot, you cannot buy an acreage for farming, you cannot buy a square inch of land as a Yukoner. This country was built on the idea of acquiring, owning and developing land by private individuals.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Erik Nielsen: To coin another northern phrase, this bill will forever put that concept in the deep freeze. There are even more dangers of national concern with respect to this legislation, Mr. Speaker. The bill is to be viewed in the context of a segment, and only a segment, of the government's National

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Energy Program. The government has not yet seen fit to disclose the total ramifications of that program. Since much of its import remains shrouded in the bowels of the Langevin Building on Wellington Street, members are at a decided disadvantage when assessing and discussing the total impact of the legislation.
I have been here long enough, Mr. Speaker, to sense danger in what I see in this bill. The hon. member who just spoke mentioned icebergs. We do not know whether we are seeing the tip of the iceberg in this bill or the iceberg itself-or perhaps even an ice age in energy development in Canada. Certainly when we consider the flight of capital and business skills and acumen and equipment from this country as a result of measures of this nature, we know that we might as well be approaching an ice age in energy development.
This is a massive piece of legislation which contemplates nothing less than direct government intervention in oil and gas exploration, not merely in a regulatory sense but as a major player with a large pile of chips to be bought and paid for by the other players.
If that were all the bill did, it would be suspect on that ground alone but that is only one aspect of a program which remains to be disclosed in its entirety. When one considers that and senses the danger in that, it becomes more than merely disturbing.
Taking the bill as it now stands, as has been said on this side on more than one occasion, it represents in our Canadian history an unprecedented intervention in the area of free enterprise by the federal government. It is not going to stop there and that is obvious. If this bill is the thin edge of the wedge, one fears, not simply wonders, what the whole wedge will be like. Knowing this government's proclivities, led by the man it is led by, toward ever-increasing state control, ever-penetrating state intervention, ever-augmented meddling and tinkering, its grandiose schemes, illusory programs, gung-ho tilting at self-manufactured and constituted windmills, one can only view this massive takeover legislation with not simply a measure of uneasiness but with downright fear.
It is so viewed by those in the petroleum industry. There is ample evidence of that despite the repeated, consistent efforts of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources before the summer recess to pooh-pooh those facts disclosed to him by those of us on this side. It is so viewed by the people of the north, and you will have to accept my word for that. We regard this intervention as one being accomplished by a government shod in hobnailed boots which are trampling over all our future aspirations to become a meaningful part of this country. It is so viewed by Canada's native peoples, the northern Indian people and the Inuit. The Inuit Tapirisat made representations before the committee to that effect. They regard it as a sloughing off; nay, an outright betrayal of native rights, and in that they have the support of 100 per cent of those Canadians who live above the 60th parallel.
Figures released a week or ten days ago show the extent of this government's involvement in gas and oil at present. There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever, and there should not be in any other mind, that with this control bill, and that is what it is, to back them, the present involvement, considerable as it is, will pyramid in the usual grandiose way of all of this government's undertakings.
One only has to reflect on that pyramidal syndrome when one considers the deficit when they took office in 1968 and the deficit today. This kind of legislation has much to do with that, and I will get to that if I have time at my disposal.
Through Petro-Canada and the Canada Development Corporation this government now has holdings in Panarctic Oils of 45 per cent, Westcoast Transmission of 25.2 per cent, Syncrude of 17 per cent, Alsands Energy of 16 per cent, the Arctic Pilot Project of 37.5 per cent, Petrofina of 100 per cent, Canstar Oilsands of 50 per cent, and it is involved in the Polar Gas Project. They try to set us at ease over here, but they are not just in bed with but married without the benefit of clergy to those to my left who at least, Sir, are honest about their political philosophies, and that is more than I can say for that honourable tribe over there.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Erik Nielsen: Let us look at the Canada Development Corporation for a moment. It has holdings in CDC Oil and Gas and the Aquitaine Company of Canada Ltd., and this is in addition to that long list I have already disclosed. This activity, already considerable, will multiply-will burgeon-when this bill becomes law because the government automatically becomes owner of 25 per cent of all new fields. My colleagues to the left over here want that to be 50 per cent. This has been described as confiscatory by the Canadian oil industry, and that is putting it mildly. I like to describe those who support this legislation for what they really are-carpetbaggers. In what other area of national enterprise, I ask hon. members opposite, does the federal government take on itself to award itself 25 per cent ownership without compensating those who are licensed to develop and explore it?
It adds up to this: You boys, they say over there, do the work, take the chances, take the risks, spend the money, and we are going to grab the profit. The bill itself recognizes the injustice of this by providing incentives specifically in compensation for the 25 per cent grab. That provision, however, does not remove the heavy hand of government control from the exploration helm, and this obviously is the real purpose of the measure, to revert to the state an element of direct control and intervention in the day to day operations of this industry.
The worrying thing is that the measure of state control inherent here would do credit to a government in the iron curtain countries. And that may not be all; taken in conjunction with the other elements of the so-called National Energy Program, the whole of which remains to be exposed, the result may be disquieting indeed to believers in the free enterprise system itself and to those of us who place a value on individual initiative and entrepreneurship. In fact, as I have already
November 3, 1981

pointed out, and many on this side have, the result will be the exact opposite of the government's declared intention. Rather than stimulating exploration and the development of these resources with which this industry is concerned, the catch-all legislation now being considered before us, this catch-all measure of state control, will dampen and deaden the industry by destroying initiative and by hampering free enterprise.
It does not stop there. This one small segment of the over-all scheme of the government will bring into being-and we have become very accustomed to this happening with everything this government has been doing in the last 12 years-hordes of additional public functionaries whose job will be to apply the vast incunabulum of regulations which will harass and beset those whose task it is to bring this nation into a state of energy self-sufficiency in the future. Believe me, no one in Canada more than we who live in the north is more familiar with that process. This vast apparatus of government intervention in a highly skilled uncertain area of national development will have the effect of slowing down the stride toward self-sufficiency which was actually begun during the very short time we were in office a little over a year ago.
The difference was that elaborating our policy, we worked with those in the field whose knowledge of operation was not based on theoretical economic considerations or government programming criteria but on hard knowledge of resource development.
I ask the rhetorical question, what consultation did they have with the industry before placing this measure before us? I can tell you there was not one scintilla of consultation or any advice sought from those in the industry and from those in the population generally above the 60th parallel. Its idea of consultation is to make the decision, inform those affected and ask, "Well, what do you think of this?" If these people say they do not like it, that it is not quite right, that is too bad. This is the way it is going to be. That is the government's idea of consultation. That is yet another reason why this measure must be viewed with suspicion as the opening wedge leading to total federal government control over the energy industry in this country.
Already this government's interference in the oil industry, as many members on this side have pointed out, has led to a disastrous flight of capital from the country in the first nine months of 1981. Month by month, week by week, almost daily the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources was being bombarded with these statistics. He was brushing them aside. But in the first nine months of 1981, the removal of capital from Canada has reached, not $8 billion but $10 billion as a result of measures such as this. This massive outflow, much of it attributed to fear and uncertainty on the part of the oil industry, has threatened the Canadian dollar and has resulted in the postponement of important energy projects, indeed, from what we are told by members representing those areas, the abandonment of one or more of them such as the Cold Lake heavy oil project. These projects are indispensable to
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Canada's future energy plans. They are being deliberately sabotaged by measures such as this.
A second and equally important effect has been to put off all hope of energy self-sufficiency in the foreseeable future. That is massively evident to anyone who does not even know anything about the oil industry, despite the continued assurances of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and others over there. As a matter of fact, because of the ill-timed and blundering interference of the government, there is indeed no foreseeable future.
I believe I have another 15 minutes, Mr. Speaker, but I see you are gesturing toward your watch. I still have time, do I not?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: I regret to interrupt the hon. member but the time accorded to members for debate is 20 minutes. I am sure the House would want to grant unanimous consent to the hon. member if he wanted to take a minute to wrap up his remarks.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Erik Nielsen: I thank hon. members for their indulgence. I wanted to continue by saying that the ministers, as I have observed them throughout the discussion of their energy policy, talked glibly, even musically-and I love listening to the minister of energy when he speaks of the National Energy Program-about Canadianization. That is a crock of rhubarb, and you know it over there. What it really is-I would like to be free to speak as a Yukoner here but they expect more of me when I am here than to speak as bluntly as I do at home. What it is is nationalization, nationalization of the industry. That is an interesting word, in the bright lexicon of the Liberal Party, the party which calls itself the Liberal Party. I maintain it lost that status, philosophically, in 1968. However, what Canadianization means is state control. That is what this kind of legislation is aimed at. The government identifies Canadian ownership of resources with ownership by the federal government and management by the Liberal Party. That is how their thought process operates. Canadianization means state control through companies deliberately set up to achieve that objective. For example, there is PetroCan which is staffed by, I could say, Liberal Party hacks, but I do not want to arouse any resentment over there. Their major qualification for sitting on the board of directors of Petro-Canada is subservience to the wishes of the Liberal Party. I could name names, but again I do not want to lower the level of this debate.


An hon. Member:: You just did.


Erik Nielsen: This is clearly understood in the United States where the so-called Canadianization policy is seen for exactly what it is, a policy of government control and intervention worthy of a banana republic without the bananas. The evidence of that is to be seen every day now south of the border in the manner in which our actions are being viewed down there. On this basis, an appropriate campaign song, I would suggest, for the Liberal Party in the next election-the sooner the

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better-might be, "Yes, we have no bananas, we only have Pierre."
The economic climate in this country, which has declined visibly and dangerously in response to the centralization policies of this government, has proven discouraging to foreign capital and has aroused the anger of other countries, particularly our best trading neighbour. The government's failure to deal with inflation in a rational and sensible manner has perhaps been the most visible cause of the lack of confidence.
The Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) has one plan, one policy, one program; simply to ride out inflation on the backs of low-income Canadians. This kind of legislation has put that sort of policy, or lack thereof, into effect. It is measures such as this, and there are more to come, just as we have had already, that are the reason we have inflation and misery. It is the reason we have usurious interest rates. It is why young Canadians face a dismal future unless, of course, they are invited to share some of the palatial homes of the members of the Liberal cabinet and some of their aides who seem to have no trouble at all in getting mortgages at no interest and repayment terms that I have never seen in my 30 years of legal practice. That is why capital is leaving this country.
The irony, Mr. Speaker, is that much of it is Canadian capital. This legislation deserves utter and complete condemnation. It never should have seen the light of day. As a northerner on behalf of all northerners, I appeal to the government to have second thoughts about imposing this bill upon us. My concerns must be directed to the over-all national disaster that this kind of legislation, if passed, will visit on our future development generally and on one specific industry particularly-
I would like to thank hon. members for their indulgence, even though I did not get through all my notes. I hope to have the pleasure of participating again before the debate on the bill is completed.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, I would first like to congratulate my colleague from the Yukon and House leader for his contribution to this debate. It is much appreciated and very wise in terms of the advice and observations offered. I hope some hon. members on the other side were paying attention to what was being said.
As the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) and other members of this party have indicated in their speeches, we are unalterably, totally, unequivocally, absolutely and 100 per cent opposed to confiscation by the Crown of privately owned assets. We consider that to be immoral, improper, unjustifiable and the kind of thing that is worthy only of the basest of tyrannies and dictatorships and of the kinds of banana republics described by the hon. member for the Yukon. There is no precedent for this anywhere in the democratic world, albeit there is only a small handful of democratic nations on this earth. Fewer than 20 per cent of the nations belonging to the
United Nations are in fact democratic, but we are supposedly democratic, and there is no example in any democratic country of the kind of confiscation described in Bill C-48 and partially in Clause 28 which we are trying to address in Motion No. 23 currently before the House which seeks to amend Clause 28 of this bill. This bill provides for the immoral stealing of privately owned assets by the Crown. Twenty-five per cent of those lands held by industry or individuals in the so-called Canada lands are to be vested in the Crown, and the Crown may transfer them to Petro-Canada.
If this bill goes through unamended-and I fervently hope that will not be the case-and Petro-Canada is given all the lands called for by this legislation, the 25 per cent of existing Canada lands plus what Petro-Canada already has, the Crown corporation will have exploration lands under its control for exploration for the oil and gas thereunder, hopefully, amounting to some 135 million acres.
Let me put that in perspective. Exxon Corporation, the largest oil company in the world on a global basis around the entire earth, has a total of about 130 million acres. Our Crown corporation, Petro-Canada, will have under its control more acreage than Exxon Corporation, the largest oil company in the world, which is many, many times larger than Petro-Canada. Whether we hate it or like it, we have to admit that Exxon is a pretty successful oil company. If Petro-Canada were to have the same number of geologists, geophysicists and engineers per acre to explore this area properly as Exxon has-that is, if Petro-Canada is to do as effective a job of exploring this land as Exxon does of its global lands-then, in downtown Calgary, for the new headquarters Petro-Canada is building on a square block, a building of 853 storeys would have to be built to accommodate these people. That is what would be required in terms of staff and office space in order to accommodate the number of people necessary to undertake an adequate exploration of the land we are stealing from the private sector to give to Petro-Canada via Bill C-48. I do not hesitate to say that my ten-year-old daughter would say, "Gee, Dad, I don't think that makes a whole lot of sense." There are enough backbenchers opposite whose collective experience and wisdom is at least equal to that of my ten-year-old daughter: I would like to think that, but I hesitate to do so.
The motion we have before us, Motion No. 23, would amend Clause 28. Clause 28 says that the federal government will only steal, or confiscate, 25 per cent of those lands upon which there was no oil or gas production prior to December 31, 1980. Originally the bill said 1976, but it was amended to read 1980. Motion No. 23 in the name of my colleague, the hon. member for Etobicoke Centre (Mr. Wilson), merely amends Clause 28 to say that the state-Big Brother, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) and Petro-Canada, all those wonderful people who are confiscating those lands-will only take 25 per cent of lands upon which there has been no discovery of oil and gas prior to December 31, 1980.
The difference is very simple. The state insists on confiscating. As I indicated, there is no precedent in the democratic world for that kind of theft, but we are setting precedents with
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this government, the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) of which claims he believes in private enterprise, even while stealing private property from the private sector he supposedly admires.
However, if this government insists on stealing, or confiscating that land, we suggest that at least there should be some question of equity. The situation is that, with respect to Canada lands, provincial lands or anywhere else, an oil company, an individual, a group of oil companies, or what have you, wishes to undertake an exploration program in an area because its geologists say that perhaps there is some oil and gas thereunder. If provincial lands are involved, the company bids for the land. If federal lands are involved, various regimes have to be gone through, but whatever the regime, whether it is bidding or approaching the ministry, rights to certain pieces of land are acquired for exploration and drilling for oil and gas. At that point in time the company has not put out a great deal of money. Perhaps it had to bid for the land in the first instance, but probably it has not put out a great deal of money. If the government were then to say, "I am coming in as a 25 per cent partner," we in this party would say the government was making a mistake, but if it were coming in at that stage of the game, at least it would be participating in the future with the company when the high risk activity is undertaken. However, this government is saying, "No, we don't want to get in at that point. We want you to go out and explore first. If you find some oil and gas," which suddenly means that this land is very valuable, "then we are going to be your 25 per cent partner. We will take 25 per cent at that point in time". That is rather like saying, "We want you to go out and buy a lottery ticket and wait for the draw, and if your ticket is drawn, we are your 25 per cent partner". This motion says that if the government is going to be a 25 per cent partner, it should get in there before the draw and take the risks with the company involved. The government should not come in after the jackpot has been won, steal 25 per cent from the company and claim it is doing so for the sake of Canadianization. It is not for the sake of Canadianization; it is for the sake of nationalization; it is for the sake of state control.
As I outlined in a speech in the House the other day, the rest of the world thinks we are thieves. It groups us in with countries like Algeria, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, and other countries like that, as a country in which the risk of expropriation is very high.


An hon. Member:: Oh, no.


Harvie Andre: I hear the hon. member. I will send him the consultant's report from Frost and Sullivan, an international consultant in the business of assessing political risk. It is their judgment, not mine, that Canada is in the banana republic category because we will, as demonstrated by this bill, confiscate private assets.
It is not just foreign multinational assets that are being confiscated. The other day I read into the record a letter from
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the president of Paramount Resources Limited, a Canadian-owned junior oil company. It described their experience. That company spent a great deal of money in Canada lands. They had some dry holes and money was lost. They found some gas in the Cameron Hills area. As a result of this policy, 25 per cent of their assets have been confiscated. That is a small Canadian company, one of the small businesses this government claims it cares about and is interested in. It claims it is interested in Canadianization. I guess that means the sheep across the way will vote against our motion and vote for the bill which will confiscate 25 per cent of small Canadian business assets in Canada lands. It is confiscating, in fact stealing, the assets of that Canadian, all under the notion of Canadianization.
That Canadian does not understand it. He does not understand how having 25 per cent of his assets stolen by the government contributes to Canadianization. I do not know how any thinking Canadian can understand or accept that kind of behaviour.
I would like to think there are some members opposite who take their responsibility as Members of Parliament seriously, that they are interested in Canadians and concerned about the picture we show to the rest of the world. I would like to think they are concerned about the private sector, individual Canadians like Mr. Riddell of Paramount Resources. I would like to think they are interested in assuring these Canadian entrepreneurs, those taking the risks, that the government does not view them as a threat or as menacing. Rather, these people should be encouraged and protected. The government should want to see these people searching for oil and gas. I hope members opposite will give serious consideration to what they are doing to Mr. Riddell of Paramount Resources, to the reputation of Canada and Canadians as honest people, people who believe in fairness, justice, the value of private property and private initiative.
Rather than examine what the Prime Minister has done, members opposite should look at his speech of last Thursday. At that time the Prime Minister said he believes in the private sector. He thinks the motivating power for growth of this economy will come from there. If they are going to support their Prime Minister, they have to support that and oppose what has been brought forward by the energy minister and his henchman "Red-end Clark" and others. They should stand up, earn their salaries and seats in the House of Commons and not docilely acquiesce to whatever the minister says. They should recognize that by voting against the motion we have put forward and voting for the legislation, they are voting for confiscation. They are voting for theft and a kind of behaviour that has never before been considered by a Parliament of Canada. In fact, it has never before been acted upon by any democratic country in this world.
Frankly, I would have difficulty calling myself a Canadian and what that represents if I supported this kind of legislation calling for confiscation. I do not see how anyone could look in the mirror and say "I am a Canadian, I believe in what this country stands for, I am here as a Member of Parliament, here

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to defend, fight for and encourage that kind of behaviour. However, I will vote for this kind of legislation". Anyone who could do that is not worthy of occupying a seat in this House of Commons.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. Members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: All those in favour will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Pursuant to Section 11 of Standing Order 75, the recorded division on the proposed motion stands deferred.
Pursuant to an order made earlier by Madam Speaker, the House will consider now Motion No. 25 standing in the name of the hon. member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore (Mr. Wilson).


Harvie Andre: Motion No. 25
That 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, be amended in Clause 31 by striking out lines 44 and 45 at page 18 and lines 1 to 10 at page 19 and substituting the following therefor:
"31.(1) The Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, prior to the commencement of the terms of an exploration agreement for relevant Canada lands, may direct that the Crown share be transferred to a designated Crown corporation and, where the Minister so directs, he shall forthwith give notice to the relevant interest holders.
(2)	Where the Crown share has been transferred to a designated Crown corporation, the Crown share shall be deemed to have been converted to a working share and the designated Crown corporation shall negotiate the terms of a working agreement with the interest holder.
(3)	Where the Crown corporation is unable to settle terms of a working agreement, the matter of a working agreement shall be submitted for arbitration in the manner prescribed or, in the absence of applicable regulations, the matter shall be submitted for arbitration in the manner provided for by order of the minister, and the arbitration shall take into account the economic and financial viability of the working agreement on all parties to such agreement and, subject to section 56, the arbitration decision is final and binding."
He said: Mr. Speaker, Motion No. 25, which you dispensed from reading to the House, seeks to amend Clause 31 of the bill. The purpose, intent and impact of Motion No. 25 is
fundamentally to change the Crown share from a carried interest to a working interest. What that means is very simple. As the act currently lays it out, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) and his co-conspirators can seize 25 per cent of the assets held by private Canadian corporations. That 25 per cent Crown share which the minister can steal can be turned over to Petro-Canada or another Crown corporation. I already talked about the immorality of that theft.
The bill goes on to compound the theft because the Crown now has a 25 per cent share which it has stolen from the private sector. Its share is different from the shares that other people have. Its share is a carried interest. What that means is that the Crown, Petro-Canada or some other Crown corporation, owns 25 per cent of a particular exploration program. It can vote. It has 25 per cent of the votes when you are deciding where to drill the well, whether to run a seismic, what sort of testing to conduct, or whether to develop or put in production platforms, and so on. It is their vote. It is a carrying partner and therefore does not put up a nickel, it does not put up any money. The corporation's cash is not on the line, but it sits there as a full voting partner.
I would ask my hon. friends opposite to think about whether they would go into a business deal in which they decide how the assets of this syndicate, or whatever they are involved in, should be spent. I would ask hon. members if they would appreciate or voluntarily accept a partnership arrangement with full voting privileges and not have one nickel resting on the outcome of the decision. I would ask the hon. members opposite to use common sense and to think about that for a moment. Think about how conducive that is to good decisionmaking on the part of the consortium. Think about the prospects of having a partner sitting at the table with full voting rights who has no money at stake. Especially in this circumstance, Mr. Speaker-it is hypothetical but not extreme and not unlikely-where there is a piece of land involving some private companies and Petro-Canada, and they have to make a decision as to where to drill the well. Anyone who knows anything about the oil and gas industry at all, Mr. Speaker- and you do not have to be an expert-knows you have to make a decision as to where to drill the well. Your geologists and geophysicists come back to you with their guesstimates-that is all it is, a guesstimate-of what are the geological features, which is the most likely place where oil and gas will be found, and where is the most reasonable spot to drill your first well.
One never knows what is under one well so you know you will drill more than one well. You start off and make various asessments, such as the cost of drilling here versus there, geology here versus there, the likelihood of discovering gas, oil, salt water or what have you. There are many factors that go into the decision-making. Let us assume you are sitting down with your partners trying to make a decision and one of your partners is Petro-Canada, which happens to own or have rights to a piece of property right next door. Mr. Speaker, the executives of Petro-Canada, if they are interested in their
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corporation, and I assume they are, will obviously want you to drill that well in an area that is likely to contribute to the information or knowledge about their land next door. That is obviously what they want done. Yet, they will be sitting there as a full partner making a decision, voting on a decision as to how the exploration should be handled on this land.
There is a conflict of interest there that makes the situation hopeless, Mr. Speaker. Any reasonable, fair-minded and intelligent person, any person concerned at all about what happens to Canada lands and the success, or lack of it, of our exploration programs under those lands, has to say, "Gee, that may be not good, and not only not good for the private sector but probably not good for Petro-Canada and certainly not good for Canada".
If Members of Parliament are concerned about the welfare of Canada, and we are supposed to be concerned, then surely we must take a critical look at this and say that maybe, and quite likely, if PetroCan is to sit at the table and make these decisions, it should be there as a full paying partner. It should be there with as much at stake as a corporation, as the other person sitting at the table.
I could mention all of the things that were said to this House by ministers of the Crown in this government about the fact that Petro-Canada would be a corporation like others and would be expected to compete and to act like other oil and gas companies, and expected to be responsible. I could bring to mind all of those solemn commitments made by members opposite to remind them of the things they said and the commitments they made. Perhaps I should. Their short memory in regard to promises and commitments is well known to the House and to this country. I should not have to mention this because they are supposedly intelligent, honest and sincere, honourable members. If they are, Mr. Speaker, then they should recognize that Clause 31 in the bill is improper. They should recognize this if they want to live up to the commitments they made, and they should have PetroCan act in the way they indicated. If they require PetroCan to undertake the obligations this House was told it would undertake, then they should insist that PetroCan, once it has the land, should operate under the same rules as everyone else. They should be working partners at the table with their corporation's cash up front. They are sitting as working partners, contributing cash, so when they contribute to a decision, their cash is there. When they make a decision, they should have as much at risk as do other partners to that decision. That is the only way you will get the proper kind of decision-making, Mr. Speaker.
Although the time is short, perhaps I should speak about the question of responsible government, about commitments made by presidents of the Treasury Board, prime ministers and ministers of finance, about the impropriety of government activities and government spending that are disguised from this House and from the people of Canada. That is the real impact of what is happening.
Petro-Canada is given a freebie of 25 per cent. The private assets are stolen and given to Petro-Canada. That will not show up in the estimates of this House, nor will it show up in
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the blue book, nor in-the public accounts of Canada. The transfer of wealth from the private sector to the Crown never shows up, unlike our tax money that shows up in the public accounts and unlike government spending of a normal nature that shows up in the blue book and is examined by the House. The House never has a chance to examine it. The public never knows about it. There is no possibility of an overview and no possibility of an examination and no possibility for any member of the House, elected by the people of Canada, to hold those executives of Petro-Canada accountable for spending our money. There is no way we can examine them. There is no way democracy can work in this circumstance, Mr. Speaker. These private funds will be transferred over to a bunch of appointed people who are accountable to nobody.
Even the meanest socialist who also claims to be a social democrat recognizes that if he is to believe in democracy, public spending must be accessible to a publicly-elected body. The people elected by the voters of Canada must have the ability to somehow determine how much is being spent, by whom and for what purposes. They must have the ability to hold those people to account, at least by way of public exposure, for the activities they are undertaking. In this bill there is no way of doing it. Hundreds of millions and hundreds of billions of dollars are being taken from the private sector and put into the hands of government appointees. They will be spent without any democratic overview. Even a socialist, if he is not also a communist, must agree that that is not correct.
This is why I fervently hope that there are enough hon. members in the House who are willing to say that they take their responsibilities sincerely enough as individual members to examine the real intent of the motion and the real intent of Bill C-48. Hopefully they will vote in accordance with what Canadians expect and with what this great country deserves.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, when the hon. member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre) referred to the meanest type of socialist, I suppose he was looking at me. I should like to say a few words in reply.
This is a very historic night. I understand that a special cabinet meeting is taking place; perhaps it is discussing a proposal to settle the constitutional dispute. We are discussing an important matter tonight as well. There is a feeling or some hope around the building-and I say this in order to put it on the record of Hansard-that we can make a major breakthrough on the constitutional matter. I am sure all people in the country and all hon. members of the House would applaud it. I do not want to be out of order. I want to talk to Bill C-48.
The hon. member for Calgary Centre said rhetorically that we should speak about the real intention of this motibn. All right, let us do so. The real intention of the Conservative motion is that they do not like the transfer of shares to Petro-Canada. They will block it any way they can. They have

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tried to deny it in a motion. They have tried to change it in a motion. Now they are trying to really interfere with it and to fetter it.
That is why I do not have any problem in opposing this particular motion on behalf of my party. It is not a question of holding Petro-Canada executives accountable and saying that one is in favour of holding them accountable. The hon. member should check Hansard and the record of the meetings of the committee on freedom of information at which I suggested that freedom of information laws should be expanded to Crown corporations including Petro-Canada. I hope he will support that. I have cross-examined the president of Petro-Canada in committee. I had some hard questions to ask him. I have never cross-examined the president of Exxon. I would like to but I will never have the chance to do so.


Gordon Edward Taylor: Take a chance.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Buy a share.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I hear the seals slapping. They are suggesting that I should buy a share of Exxon and attend meetings in Houston or New York in order to cross-examine the president. Nevertheless, I have no objection to the principle that those who are directing and running Petro-Canada should be held accountable. I do not think anyone in the House opposes that principle. If the hon. member needs the support of a mean type of socialist, then I agree with it. But he should not smear us with red-baiting nonsense.
The real intent of this motion is to fetter Petro-Canada. I suggest to hon. members on my right that they should take a look at Motion No. 24 in the name of the hon. member for Nunatsiaq (Mr. Ittinuar). It was ruled out of order because a part at the end referred to the transfer of money. The hon. member for Nunatsiaq said that we should talk about Petro-Canada or a Crown corporation holding some of that 25-per cent back-in for the benefit of native people who will come along and ultimately have land claims. Also we hope that ultimately there will be a settlement of land claims. Why was the government not prepared to do that? Why was the hon. member for the Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) not prepared to support that? Where were Conservative members when I tried to hold up the Standing Committee on National Resources and Public Works on this bill, on the basis of trying to win some rights for the native people of the north? They were supporting the Liberals in committee. Let us not have hypocrisy here; let us talk about the real thing.
Hon. members might have a look at the motion of the hon. member for Nunatsiaq. He indicated what really could be done with that 25 per cent interest. I suggest to hon. members across the way, such as the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace (Mr. Allmand), that they take a look at some of the later amendments to the bill from Mr. Ittinuar which in fact would help native people.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. I remind the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell) that
he must refer to hon. members by using the names of the constituencies, not their names.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, of course you are correct. I was referring to their names as printed on the motions appearing on the Order Paper. They are followed by their constituency names.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: As long as they are members of the House I maintain that they should be referred to by their constituency names, not by the name written on the Order Paper.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I am just a new member of the House. I have to learn these rules.


An hon. Member:: You are also a slow member of the House.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Perhaps the hon. member for Calgary Centre would find more enjoyment in the British Columbia legislature. Perhaps he should look also at Motion No. 25. It contains a reference to arbitration in Clause 31(3). This is a further delaying tactic, a further fetter on the Crown's share. There is a further reference to Section 56 which is an appeal system to the federal court. This is the Conservatives standing up for their friends, the most profitable industry in Canada, the oil industry. Basically they are standing up for a foreign-con-trolled industry, the most heavily subsidized industry. They are trying to put a fetter on Petro-Canada. Petro-Canada is popular in the country. They should have learned this in the last election. They are fighting the last war, they are fighting a rearguard battle.
I think my comments summarize the reasons we on this side of the House do not feel we should support this hypocritical motion.


Frederick William Wright: Mr. Speaker, we are discussing Motion No. 25 tonight. It is basically an amendment to Clause 31, a clause which directs the government to transfer the 25 per cent confiscation to a designated Crown corporation. Basically, that is all it says, that the government may transfer its 25 per cent ownership in a discovery to a Crown corporation. All that must happen is that the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) give notice to the oil company that he is converting the government's free ride on a successful well into a working interest. In other words, during all the exploration on the Canada lands and every time an oil company makes a discovery, the government notifies it that the free ride is over and that it must be prepared to pay its way.
Motion No. 25 which would amend Clause 31 of the bill, suggests that when the government transfers its share to a designated Crown corporation-and we must emphasize here that many people believe that automatically means Petro-Canada but that is not the case; any number of Crown corporations can be designated and we do not know how many will be-it automatically becomes a working interest at what-

ever stage it is done. Not only that, but the terms of that working interest should be negotiated because when a company becomes a working partner a decision has to be made on who will operate the well. Will it be the government or the other partner? No allocation of duties in this regard is set down.
Moreover, this amendment suggests that if the two or three partners, or however many there are, and the government, cannot agree on working terms, then they should go to independent arbitration. All we are asking for is fairness to the other partners in the case of the confiscation of their discovery.
I should like to discuss this free ride which the government will now get, this 25 per cent confiscation of energy discoveries on Canada lands. Just who will be affected? The government will take 25 per cent of all oil discoveries. Will that affect the multinationals? That is what the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources would like us to believe, but nothing is further from the truth. It will not affect the multinationals, and hon. members opposite should understand that. The multinationals have to spread their assets and their business all over the world; that is why they are multinationals. They do not want to be established in only one country or put all their eggs in one basket. When conditions in one country are not favourable, they simply move their funds to another country. That does not mean to say they move out of that particular country, but they do not do any more exploration than they have to. That is what is happening now in Canada. The multinationals are moving to Australia, for example, and are doing more work in the United States than they used to.
The companies being hurt by this 25 per cent confiscation are the independents. Many of these small Canadian companies started out ten years ago. If hon. members opposite would look at the history of the independents, they would see that most of them were privately owned then. Some had difficulty raising capital so they merged with others and became public companies. Between 1972 and 1979 there was a tremendous expansion in the number of independent companies and these are the ones that are being hurt by this policy-not the multinationals. The multinationals can out-wait governments. They do not need to put their money in Canada. It does not matter to a multinational if it puts $100 million, more or less, into Canada; that would not alter its cash flow to any great degree, but the independents, which for the most part are one tenth or less the size of most multinationals, will be badly hurt by this bill. In the last ten years they have tended to band together to go into the Canada lands. They used to go in as minority shareholders, sometimes with the major oil companies like Dome or Panarctic Oils, and other such companies. Now some of them are moving their technical staff and funds to the United States or Australia. We will continue to relate the real problem to hon. members opposite. The action in the next five years will be in Australia.
It does not give me any pleasure, Mr. Speaker, to tell the House that there is a small independent oil company in Calgary which will go broke this week. This sad story was related to me by an individual who told me that he will inform
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his staff next week that the company is going to fold. He said, "I have been a Liberal all my life. I have supported the Liberals and gone to all the fund-raising dinners, and what did I get out of it? Nothing". He has to lay off his staff and the money he will recover from the sale of properties will be moved out of the country. It is sad that this man has to uproot his family either to the United States or Australia.
The effects of this 25 per cent confiscation have been well recorded in the exodus of the rigs. Last summer when my wife and I drove through Coutts, Alberta, we stopped just 100 feet over the border. We could hardly believe all the trucks we saw sitting by the roadside. We had heard about the rigs going south but it is hard to visualize it from this distance. I counted 60 semi-trailers and I was told that they used to be backed up for two or three miles. Next day, in Calgary, I asked someone in the oil business why this was happening, and I was told that they were not allowed to go to the border in such numbers any more. They had to make all their arrangements in Calgary so that when they got to the border they would have, at most, a two-day stay. So the transfers were arranged in Calgary and when the trucks got to the border they would have only one or two nights to stay before they went across the border.
Earlier this year it was noted in this House that one year ago there were approximately 580 rigs in Canada, of which 450 were working. At the present time there are 430 rigs, of which 240 are working. It must be remembered that in that period of time 100 rigs were built.
Unfortunately, this government still believes that its decision to nationalize the oil industry was the correct one, even if that means the independent oil companies will suffer. This means Canadian oil companies, because not one American company will fail and not one European oil company will fail. Only Canadian companies will fail. What does it mean? It means lost jobs in western Canada.
I know a plumber who had 20 plumbers working for him but he now has only five. We have a government here which says it wants to help small business. It does not want to help small business, it wants to nationalize the oil industry. That is the design of this Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and of this government. They want to nationalize the whole oil industry and they can only do it step by step.
There will be no such thing as oil self-sufficiency in Canada by 1990-we will not have it. The National Energy Board has told this government we will not have oil self-sufficiency by 1990. International economists have told the government there will be no oil self-sufficiency in Canada by 1990. This government refuses to believe them.
Twenty-five per cent interest held by the government of all exploration in Canada lands is nothing more than confiscation. This government is nothing but a group of thieves, stealing in the night, taking over things they cannot legally take over or do not have the money to buy. To say the least, this is terrible legislation and it is ridiculous that we are spending our time talking about the confiscation of an industry when we should

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be talking about interest rates and the economic turndown in this country.
We have high interest rates in this country due in great part to the energy policies of this government. Let us not forget for one moment that this is why we have high interest rates. Our interest rates are approximately 4 per cent higher than those in the United States right now. Why is that? We must support the dollar in order to bring money into the economy. This government is afraid to allow interest rates to drop because money would then flow out of the country, owing mainly to the bad economic climate created by this government.
How did this all come about? Did it come about as a result of the Prime Minister's visit to China in 1948 when he discussed communism with Mao Tse-Tung? Did it come about when he led the Canadian delegation of communists to the world communist movement in Russia in 1952? Is that how it came about?


An hon. Member:: Get into the twentieth century.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An hon. Member:: You fell on your head when you were a kid.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Frederick William Wright: I refuse to comment on the natterings of those in the left wing. Facts are facts. The present Prime Minister has said he does not want free enterprise to work in this country.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Frederick William Wright: He has said that in his writings, and all you have to do is read them. This country is heading toward economic ruin. Unless we are prepared to stand up and be counted, we will never see the country we believe in continue into the foreseeable future.
This is a band of socialists across the way. We must label them as socialists in the future because they no longer belong to a liberal party. They are nothing but socialists, and as we go into the next election that is the label we will give them. The NDP will disappear and we will have only one socialist party, and it will be right across there. How will those members reply to their constituents when they are asked about all these socialist policies. How will they justify them? How do those hon. members go home at night and tell their constituents about all their socialist policies? Do you know what the answer is? Behind the scenes they are saying that when Trudeau goes, they will change things. There is a secret directive out from the annual meeting in Winnipeg which says that when Trudeau goes, they will turn to the right. But it will be too late.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Roy MacLaren: Mr. Speaker, I have no ambitions to emulate the amusing rhetoric of the preceding
speaker. I would not want to take the House into such inanities.
I think in discussing the motion before us, if indeed that is the purpose of our meeting this evening, I would want to attempt to situate the 25 per cent Crown interest in its proper context. The provision in the bill for a Crown interest is one part of the broad, comprehensive, new oil and gas regime in the federal Canada lands, and as such it cannot be viewed, as some hon. members opposite insist, in isolation from the larger package.
Bill C-48 as a whole in effect represents a new system to replace the existing system. I would have thought if hon. members opposite had taken the trouble to read the bill and compare it with the present legislation, they would have concluded that the incentives for the private sector are greater under the new legislation than exist in the present legislation.
I refer to the fact that under the current legislation holders of exploration rights are required to return to the Crown at least one-half of their acreage, which could involve the surrender in certain cases of up to 30 per cent of their discoveries prior to obtaining production rights.
I simply do not understand the argument of those who say the provisions of the current regime for the return of acreage does not in fact pose a burden on explorers. If this were so, and it were a burden, why have explorers in several cases opted for special renewal permits, on their entire acreage, which they can do under existing legislation, thereby accepting a 25 per cent Petro-Canada back-in? They did not choose to do that. They did not choose to move directly to lease, yielding 50 per cent of the acreage but avoiding a Petro-Canada back-in. On the contrary.
Under the new legislation, holders of exploration rights will not face that dilemma. They will be allowed to retain production rights over the entire area of a gas or oil field. Yet hon. members opposite say that somehow the 25 per cent Crown share is a more onerous burden being placed on private sector companies than exists under the present legislation where they must surrender up to 50 per cent of their acreage prior to production. I do not follow that reasoning any more than I follow the reasoning that is reflected in the motion before the House.
I want to take a moment to discuss that motion because, although its language is somewhat technical, there is a difference of approach which is important; a difference of approach that does, indeed, call into question our ability to Canadianize our industry to ensure a greater degree of Canadian participation by the private sector as well as the public.
The motion before us would provide that the Crown share would cease to be a carried interest at the beginning of the exploration agreement. Therefore, it would become liable for all the expenses of exploration. The intent of the legislation is that the Crown share remain as a carried interest until the production stage, at which time it will be converted to a
November 3, 1981

working interest and the Crown will be liable for its share of expenses.
As someone from the other side might say, that does not provide for compensation for the period of exploration prior to the conversion. Of course, the basic incentives under the petroleum industry incentives program will do just that. There will be incentives that will more than meet the costs involved.


An hon. Member:: There will not be anybody drilling.


Roy MacLaren: The result of subclause (2) of the amendment would be that the designated Crown corporation, whether it be Petro-Canada or another corporation, would have to negotiate special terms with the rest of the participants in an operating agreement. Of course, that is not the intent of the legislation. The intention is that the designated Crown corporation will participate in the operating agreement on a similar basis to that of the private members.
The negotiation of a severed agreement between the Crown corporation and those members, which is the aim of this motion, would defeat the purpose of the Crown share provision.


An hon. Member:: That is exactly what it is intended to do.


Roy MacLaren: That being the intention of the motion, Mr. Speaker, there is no question that it will be opposed by this side of the House as not being in tune with the legislation as a whole.
Subclause (3) of the motion provides for arbitration as to the terms of the entry of the Crown corporation into an operating agreement. Again, this would be inconsistent with the objectives of providing that the Crown corporation participate as an equal partner. The 25 per cent Crown share and the participation by a designated Crown corporation in an operating agreement is obviously known to all parties in advance. It should be unnecessary for the terms of the designated Crown corporation's entry to be a matter of arbitration.
With regard to a model operating agreement, contrary to what seems to be assumed in the motion, there is provision for arbitration in Clause 38 of the legislation. Once again, Mr. Speaker, I do not understand the purpose of bringing forward such a motion at this time.
In more general terms, we have had some discussion in the last few days, under the previous motion and under this one, on Canadianization in the broadest terms. To us on this side of the House, Bill C-48 which provides for a degree of government involvement in the frontier lands, lands that belong to all Canadians, represents a pragmatic Canadian response to a particular set of circumstances. Clearly the private sector is, and obviously will remain, the driving force behind our total economic development. Indeed, I hardly understand why the time of the House is taken with debating that proposition, with one side of the House alleging that somehow it is being called into question by this legislation. It is a truism that hardly needs repeating.
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One of the obvious motivations behind the National Energy Program and, indeed, behind this legislation before the House, is the rapid development of the Canada lands for the benefit of all Canadians. In those terms, I would draw the attention of the House to the exploration grants that are provided to all explorers. Those grants clearly will help private sector companies to expand and develop their activities in the most promising areas of oil development in our country and to participate even more actively, commensurate with their level of Canadian participation.
I said it was a truism that quite clearly the private sector will remain the driving force and is the driving force of our petroleum development and indeed of our economy in general. It is equally a truism that Canada is a unique country. It is not the United States, it is not any other country. Obviously we share some similarities with our good friends to the south, but in other respects we have our distinct differences.
I think it is idle to view the National Energy Program or indeed Bill C-48 in the context of any other situation but that in which we find ourselves in Canada. That situation is clearly that over the years the sheer size of our country and the small population have placed restrictions on the economic and social development of Canadians. This is also true of political development. It has demanded a greater role for the collectivity, if you wish, if those natural obstacles we face of a vast and hostile terrain were to be overcome.
Against that very simply sketched background, it is obvious why Canadian governments, whether they be Conservative or Liberal governments of the past, have looked toward Canadian government involvement in the form of Crown corporations and other entities to help knit together this country and develop a huge and sparsely populated land.
If such activity and involvement on behalf of all Canadian people acting through their government has been necessary in the past and has been so deemed by both Conservative and Liberal governments in areas of urban intensity and areas of industrialization, how much more evident is it that such involvement is necessary in the vast territories of the Canada lands, frontier lands, offshore and high Arctic, underpopulated, often harsh and difficult environment. Government involvement in oil and gas development in those areas is hardly to be regarded with surprise. Indeed, if Canadians are to gain control of their own future, if native claims and the environment in those areas are to be guarded and protected, then it would be negligent of this government or any Canadian government not to provide for that active involvement.
Geography is clearly only one of the elements, one of the determinants of the National Energy Program and of Bill C-48. An equally pressing reason for the type of legislation and thinking that underlies the legislation which we have before us this evening is the fact that our petroleum industry has been massively controlled by foreign companies and investors in the past years.
There has been, thanks to measures taken by previous governments, some improvement in that regard. Quite clearly, if Canadians are to have a fair and equal opportunity to

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Canada Oil and Gas Act
participate in their own petroleum industry, then the legislation we have before us will, in part, present the occasion for them to do so. We have seen in Canada as much as 90 per cent of our petroleum industry controlled outside our own country, and it is only recently that Canadian governments have begun to take the initiative to ensure that that massive ownership be controlled and in some way reduced through higher incentives for Canadians to participate in their own industry.
It will be no surprise to anyone who is aware of the Canadian economic debate over the past years that there has been widespread concern about the level of foreign ownership within our country. I am not sure some of the hon. members opposite have yet focused on that concern, but a recent poll taken by the Canadian Petroleum Association, an association dominated by large multinational corporations, and other public opinion polls have indicated overwhelming support-80 per cent or 90 per cent support-for a greater degree of Canadianization of our petroleum industry. That is why in the bill before us there are major incentives for Canadians to take part in their industry in a way that they have not had occasion to do previously.
This bill is not in any way anti anyone. The bill is pro Canadian. It is an effort on the part of this government to open the way and to provide the opportunity to Canadians to take an interest, to participate and to play a part in their own vital energy sector.


Gordon Edward Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the comments of the parliamentary secretary. I do not think anyone in this House who is reasonable would argue in favour of foreign ownership of any industry in Canada. That is not what any of the members of my party have been doing. We want Canadian ownership. Over the period of years that the Liberal Party has been in power ministers have worked toward Canadian ownership of the petroleum industry, and with some success, but the way they have been doing it has never been argued in this House because they have been doing it in the orthodox and accepted way. This bill would give the power to a government to do things we would not permit an individual to do.
The hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell) is a lawyer, and he talked about this in terms of transferring a share. If shares were being transferred in the way the rank and file of the people of Canada transfer shares, there would be no argument in this House. If I want to transfer half my lot to somebody, I make a deal with him. We decide on the price. He deposits the money with the lawyer, the lawyer has the matter transferred in the land titles office, and when the lawyer gives the purchaser the title to that share of my land, the lawyer gives me the money given to him by the purchaser. That is transferring a share. However, this bill says:
Where the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources directs the transfer of a Crown share under this section, the Minister shall forthwith give notice thereof to the relevant interest holders.
I emphasize the word "directs". This bill allows someone who has power to say, "This is going to such and such a person; it is no longer yours." A million dollars might be spent in the north finding a successful oil well-and I hope there will be many-and the minister can direct that part of that find will go to a Crown corporation. It makes the minister a partner in the oil found. It will not just be found by multinationals but also by small independent companies because a large portion of our petroleum industry is made up of small companies. However, the minister will direct that 25 per cent of that will no longer belong to the company involved. The company will have spent its money, but the minister will be able to say that the. oil no longer totally belongs to the company. A share will be transferred forthwith. That is not transferring. That is why our motion talks about negotiations. That is why financial costs and economics are referred to. Our motion talks about a deal if a transfer is required, but we should be fair about it. I am very concerned that we are doing things at the direction of a government. That is confiscation. Some hon. members have called it theft. We are authorizing theft by law, and I object to authorizing that type of thing. We are saying to the young people of Canada that it is all right for a minister of the Crown to direct the transfer of somebody else's property without compensation and without the Crown's sharing in the cost incurred in finding the resource. Do hon. members opposite call that fair? That has never been done by a Liberal government or any other government in this country. How can that be called fair? What do we call it when a young person's father directs him to steal a roast of beef from the butcher shop?


Mr. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Just transferring it.


Gordon Edward Taylor: Is that just transferring it? He was directed by his father, but that does not make it right, and putting this into legislation does not make it right. This is morally wrong, and I plead with hon. members on the government side that we not have to tell the young people of this country that it is all right to steal and not pay, that it is all right to confiscate and that it is all right to transfer someone else's property without compensation. That is not the Canadian way. Those we will honour on Remembrance Day did not fight for that kind of country. We want fair dealings and honest dealings, and when we start authorizing the direction of one person's property into the hands of someone else without proper arbitration and without making a proper deal-without negotiations and without entering into an agreement-that is not transferring shares at all. It is expropriation. It is confiscation. In ordinary language, it is theft. We should not condone the theft of property.
Let me give a simple illustration. We are talking about millions of acres in the north, but let us say I spent a lot of money on my little lot. Let us say I had a lovely lawn and a lovely flower garden. Then the mayor of the city says, "I am going to give part of that to your neighbour who spent no money and let weeds grow on his land." The mayor is going to transfer a share of my land to someone else without my having anything to say about it. Is that right? There is not an hon.
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member opposite or on this side of the House who would stand for that if it were done with his own land. Just because we do it to multinationals does not make it any more honourable. It is not right. It is morally wrong. It is contrary to the Canadian way of life. I plead with hon. members not to leave this kind of example with the young people of this nation. The Solicitor General (Mr. Kaplan) has enough trouble without having people think it is all right to steal from certain people. One day I heard a chap say that it is all right to steal from the government because the government has lots of money and is wasting it anyhow. However, that does not make it right. It does not make stealing right. It does not make confiscation or expropriation right. These things are contrary to our way of life.
May I call it ten o'clock, Mr. Speaker?



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Mr. J. R. Ellis (Prince Edward-Hastings):: Mr. Speaker, I am rising this evening on the late show to deal with a question I put on the Order Paper slightly over a year ago, but the fact that it was over a year ago really has no bearing. In fact, I have been asking questions on this subject now for some eight years. I have put my question to the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Lamontagne) in this case because over those years I have had no answers from the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin). Since the Minister of National Defence seemed to have a great deal of interest in this question, that is who I went to. I am sorry the Minister of National Defence is leaving the House this evening. I expect I will be answered by his parliamentary secretary or the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Bockstael), the department from which I got no answers for eight years. Maybe tonight I will be surprised.
I want first to go to the question that I asked on October 21, 1980. At that time I asked if the Minister of National Defence would have his colleague, the Minister of Transport, table some of the reports in existence having to do with ELTs. The Minister of National Defence said he would indeed have his colleague look into it. I should perhaps put on the record that ELTs are electronic locator transmitters. I am sure the parliamentary secretary is familiar with the terminology, but perhaps it should be on the record.
Adjournment Debate
The Minister of National Defence said on that day that he was collaborating very closely with the Minister of Transport to see if they could devise a new ELT with a proper battery. The parliamentary secretary will recall that we had quite a session on electronic transmitters. The Department of Transport had arbitrarily said that all aircraft owners in a certain category in Canada had to instal ELTs. The ones they were to put in were those with lithium batteries. The lithium batteries slowly disintegrated. Not only did they not function properly, but they in fact caused accidents. Sometime after, realizing their mistake, the Department of Transport withdrew the lithium battery-powered ELTs. At that time aircraft owners were at liberty to choose whether or not they wished to carry the ELTs.
When the Dubin inquiry was taking place, Mr. McLeish the director of air transport in Canada admitted that they knew there were problems with ELTs. It bothers me that the director would know that and still allow those instruments to be placed in aircraft rather than take steps to have the problem straightened out.
We know that ELTs can save lives. As part of the answer to the question I asked on October 21, the minister said it would save a great deal of money. He did not know how much. At the Dubin inquiry, the figure of $8 million per year was used. That is the amount that could be saved by the Department of National Defence in its search and rescue units if we had electronic locator transmitters on all light aircraft. In order to have this work done properly, there should be some research.
At that time I asked the Minister of National Defence if he would join in some proper research that would give Canada an ELT that would work in our climate and do the job. Obviously that has not been done.
Again referring to the Dubin inquiry, I read that the defence department recommended that an alkaline or mercury battery, while not meeting the specifications, could be used because "they would be better than nothing." That may be, but not if we are to spend the kind of money that is going to be asked of aircraft owners like myself to spend. According to a press release from the department in September of this year, it appears that $3.5 million will now have to be spent by owners to put in ELTs for which there are no specific details or specifications. The best we can do is to buy one built in the United States. No Canadian types are available that will do the job. We are as badly off as we have been for the past eight years. The Department of Transport is just as guilty. Has the research been done? We do not know yet whether the ELTs will work on the satellite system that is planned. Frankly, Mr. Speaker, we do not know whether the estimate of the $3.5 million that it is anticipated will be spent will be any better than the last one which anticipated that about $8 million or $9 million will be spent to put in ELTs.
We are sick and tired of the cavalier attitude of the Department of Transport with regard to this particular matter. I am on my feet again after eight years and I look forward to the

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Adjournment Debate
answers from the parliamentary secretary. I strongly suspect, Mr. Speaker, that I will be on my feet again in the near future with the same problem.


Robert Theodore Bockstael: 
VIA RAIL-CUTS IN SERVICE IN NEW BRUNSWICK
Mr. Fred McCain (Carleton-Charlotte):: On Monday, October 26 I asked the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) to explain with rationality and proper philosophy how he plans to put the passengers from two overloaded trains into one when he cancels the Atlantic as it passes through New Brunswick. I asked what accommodation the minister planned to extend to the travelling population of Canada on emergencies or on holiday excursions, if he now proceeds to destroy the equipment that gives us some kind of service. I asked whether New Brunswick Liberals objected to the cancellation of the Atlantic Limited and the Moncton-Edmundston VIA service. To date I have received no statement from the minister which was either rational or philosophical or logical or explanatory. He continues to affront the House with rhetoric and supposition. I urge him to reconsider his drastic move to eliminate the Atlantic Limited and the Moncton-Edmundston service until he has had time to hear from the multitude of people who depend upon that train service.
We in the official opposition at least took the time at our own expense to hear from groups and individuals, not only in the maritimes but across the country, in order to better understand the hardship this cutback would produce. We spent many long hours listening to testimony on how the cutbacks will isolate towns, destroy businesses, shatter livelihoods, and break apart the very fabric upon which this great country was originally founded. It is a divisive force.
What advice or lack of it has perpetuated the minister's irrational decision? When we were in government we faced the same list of alternatives but, much to the credit of the former minister of transport, the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski), the decision was not to implement the cutbacks as the minister has announced but to increase the VIA budget. One thing is certain: government members from New Brunswick ignored local advice and voted to support the cutbacks. I hope they are planning holidays somewhere else other than in their own constituencies, if they expect to enjoy "peace on earth." They are certainly not expressing "Good will to all men" in their support of VIA Rail cutbacks.
Time does not permit me to go into a detailed report of all the submissions which the task force received, but I urge the minister and hon. members to read thoroughly the task force report. I particularly suggest that maritime members take a look at pages Nos. 41 to 45 of the report wherein all responsible people who made representations on behalf of the continuance of the service are listed. Let me list but a few. There were representations from four different unions, boards of trade, the mayor of Dartmouth, the government of Nova Scotia, the city council of Halifax, the mayor of Saint John, the mayor of Fredericton, city councillors of Moncton, the mayor of Sussex, the mayor of St. Andrews, Fredericton Junction, Mr. Lamey, the director of the Capital Development Commission, and the list goes on. I suggest that hon. members from Atlantic Canada should read the list of influential,
November 3, 1981

significant and important people who made these representations. May I say that my folder would not hold the representations prepared on short notice which we got in the city of Saint John alone, that my briefcase would not close when I put in it the representations, which were placed in haste but with sincere earnestness, by the time we had visited Halifax, Moncton and Saint John. This is the kind of hard work those people were prepared to put into their objections to try to enlighten us and the Government of Canada.
It is obvious that the cutbacks in rail service will affect tens of thousands of Canadians as well as thousands of tourists. The ramifications will be felt by virtually every Canadian, whether they use trains for transportation or depend upon them for bringing customers to them for business. Earlier the minister spoke about isolated communities. Canada will never know what it is like to have isolated communities until rail passenger service is withdrawn to the extent proposed at present. Why is the minister so adamant on the subject of rail passenger service when his director of air transport went to Quebec City and said that the proposed domestic aviation policy was not cast in iron and that there was room to accommodate changes?
This comes from Mr. Hans Lovink, the director of domestic policy for air transportation. An article in The Globe and Mail of November 3, 1981 reports an interview with him as follows:
He said, however, that Transport Minister Jean-Luc Pepin is prepared to listen to arguments for changes and the purpose of the proposal was to generate discussion.
Why should there not be discussion on the cancellation of VIA Rail? Why should there be nothing but an adamant, obstinate pursuit of this abandonment? At a time when other countries see fit to expand and renew their rail passenger services, our government reduces it in this country. In spite of the fact that other countries have had to restore the service at great cost, this government proposes to remove from passenger transportation the one service which takes only 5 per cent of its costs in energy, when automobile and air transportation take approximately 30 per cent of their cost of operation in fuel energy consumption.
I would remind the minister that it was only about two years ago, after a lengthy and productive public hearing, that the CTC recommended that the Atlantic Limited be put in place.
The minister of transport for Nova Scotia has said that for the federal government to overturn by order in council the hard work of the CTC after less than two years is a disappointment to those who participated in the public hearing process and who felt that consultation had produced a beneficial solution. He went on to say that the plan to kill the Atlantic Limited is premature and completely incomprehensible.
May I have an answer to my question, Mr. Speaker.


Robert Theodore Bockstael: Mr. Speaker, last night I answered a very similar question on the reasons for discontinuing the Atlantic
Adjournment Debate
Limited. The main point I tried to make was that extremely high costs had forced the government to eliminate one of the two transcontinental services between Halifax and Montreal. On both the Atlantic Limited and the Ocean, the taxpayer pays an average of 70 cents for every 30 cents of ticket revenue. The services cost the taxpayer a total of $45 million in 1980 for the Atlantic region.
The government regrets the inconvenience caused to residents of southwestern New Brunswick who must backtrack to Moncton to connect with the remaining transcontinental to Montreal. However, even the member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Howie) acknowledged last night that the rail liner service being extended from Saint John to Fredericton was "a progressive move."
The other service being discontinued in New Brunswick is the dayliner between Moncton and Edmunston. This line is being terminated because of very poor performance. The revenue-cost ratio is 13.6 per cent. In other terms, a $22 ticket is subsidized to the extent of $140 to make up the true cost of transporting that one passenger, which is $162. The occupancy rate on the train is about 28 per cent, but it should be noted that almost one in four passengers on this train travels on passes and therefore generates no revenue. The service lost over $2 million in 1980, and carried a total of 32,500 passengers, or less than 100 per day in each direction.
Although some communities will be somewhat isolated when this service is terminated, there is every hope that alternate transportation services, such as buses, will be developed and improved in the near future.


REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT-ELIMINATION OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND PUBLIC SERVICE POSITIONS (B) ADMINISTRATION OF FEDERALLY FUNDED PROGRAMS
Mr. Tom McMillan (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, last Friday, in the House of Commons, I posed two important questions about the recent elimination of 161 provincial public service positions on Prince Edward Island following the signing of the third and final phase of the P.E.I. Comprehensive Development Plan.
My first question, directed to the President of the Treasury Board, (Mr. Johnston) noted that the federal government clearly intends to take over some programs from the island previously cost-shared by the two levels of government but administered by the province of Prince Edward Island. I asked the President of Treasury Board whether he knew that this new approach by the federal government is, in large part, the reason why the province has been forced to lay off some 138 provincial public employees.
My second question was directed to the Acting Minister of Regional Economic Expansion. I wanted to know whether the federal government had yet identified which programs it intends to take over from the province of Prince Edward Island now that the third phase of the Comprehensive Development Plan is in place. If the government had identified those programs, I wanted to know what they were.

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Adjournment Debate
In response to both questions, ministers of the Crown were content merely to say to me and to the House, and through the House to the people of Prince Edward Island, that the government of P.E.I. was laying off more public employees than could be attributed to the signing of the third phase of the P.E.I. Comprehensive Development Plan. I wish to set the record straight in the few moments I have at my disposal.
First, much of the problem stems from the fact that the Prince Edward Island Comprehensive Development Plan has not been wildly successful. The 15-year program was inaugurated in 1969 with great fanfare by the provincial government of the day. It was touted as the blueprint for a complete revitalization of the economy of Prince Edward Island. Hope was held out that at the end of the 15-year multimillion dollar program our island province would be so self-sufficient that it alone, without continued infusions of federal government money, could sustain the hundreds of public employees recruited under the plan. But the opposite has happened. Although the plan did produce some successes, P.E.I. is now just as dependent on the federal government as when the plan was inaugurated 12 years ago. With the development plan currently coming to an end, the day of reckoning is near. Since the federal government is backing away from shared-cost programs, not just in Prince Edward Island but right across the country, in favour of services delivered directly by the federal government rather than through the provinces, my question is, will provincial public employees be a thing of the past in Prince Edward Island in three years' time when the program comes to an end? Certainly, the current trend suggests that such an outcome is indeed possible.
In the area of agriculture, for example, the relevant provincial department expected to receive more than $8 million in each of the three remaining years of the development plan, for a total of about $25 million. As it turned out, the federal government decided to spend $7.6 million of the total amount in the province on a direct delivery basis rather than through the provincial Department of Agriculture. Thus the P.E.I. government, in that one department alone-and I mention it as an example only-will be receiving $17.6 million instead of $25 million. Consequently, in the Department of Agriculture the staff has had to be slashed by 60 employees, roughly half of the total number. Other departments, covering a broad range of programs and services, have similarly been affected by the federal government's decision to direct deliver services, rather than to participate with the province on a shared-cost basis, with P.E.I. handling the delivery.
Indeed, of the $90 million which the federal government will contribute over a three-year period in the third and final phase of the P.E.I. Comprehensive Development Plan, almost $40 million-I think it is $39 million plus-will be spent on programs that effectively exclude the provincial government as
far as administration and delivery are concerned. Is it any wonder then that the province has been forced to lay off the public employees who have been laid off?
I urge the federal government, in the strongest terms possible, to rethink the way in which it plans to administer federal expenditures on Prince Edward Island and in other areas of the country. At the very least, in P.E.I., every possible step should be taken by the federal government to recruit any provincial public employee laid off because of the recently signed third phase of the development plan. Presumably, if the federal government persists in controlling programs formerly administered by the provincial government, more federal government employees will have to be hired on Prince Edward Island. Surely, when hiring, the federal government should give priority to those people whose competence has already been demonstrated by years of service at the provincial level.
In conclusion, may I note that the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Campbell) is here, and no doubt he will want to respond to my observations. I invite him and urge him to join me and other islanders in putting pressure on the federal government to bring wisdom to bear on this issue.


Hon. W. Bennett Campbell (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I find this question slightly unusual in that it is being debated in the House of Commons because it is probably the first occasion on which the federal government has been asked to determine the staffing patterns for a provincial government in this country. Of course, the reason is given that, as a result of changes in the funding and delivery of development programs in the province of Prince Edward Island, 161 employees have been directly affected.
I think it is fair to say that there is no question that the decision by the Government of Canada to direct deliver a number of programs has had an impact upon provincial government jobs. It has had an impact to the extent of 40 to 50 jobs. It is also clearly understood, not only by the government of which I was a member but also by the present government, that funding and cost-shares for salaries would gradually diminish over a period of time. In fact, during my period as minister of finance, we did absorb a sizeable number of the 350 employees whose salaries were no longer cost-sharable under the federal plan.
The interesting part about the situation which we presently face is that many of the employees whose positions have been abolished as a result of the decision made a week ago Friday, are positions which were never cost-shared under the development plan. We never cost-shared, for example, the artificial inseminators in agriculture. We never cost-shared the plumbing inspectors in the department of municipal affairs. These were clearly employees whose functions and salaries were paid for totally out of the budget of the provincial government.
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As a result of the impact on roughly 50 jobs, the decision to direct deliver programs will lead into opportunities for approximately 30 positions. I am certainly very sympathetic toward these employees and I am sure the opportunities are there. I certainly encourage all employees, as the hon. member across the way has done, to take advantage of those competitions when they come up.
Adjournment Debate


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: 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.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.30 p.m.

Wednesday, November 4, 1981