1982-06-07

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Girve Fretz (Erie):: Madam Speaker, at the Versailles conference this past weekend our Finance Minister (Mr. MacEachen) stated, "we must do everything possible to improve the climate for investment", while our Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. MacGuigan) admitted to reporters that some recent measures had been counterproductive. In light of the above, as well as the report by Statistics Canada which says, "the economic data now available for the first quarter of 1982 indicates that the Canadian economy experienced the sharpest decline since 1954", I move, seconded by the hon. member for St. Catharines (Mr. Reid):
That the Finance Minister bring in a new budget to address the most disastrous economic slump in 28 years, and get over a million and a quarter Canadians back into the work force.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


THE JUDICIARY
Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Madam Speaker, noting that the Canadian Judicial Council has reprimanded Mr. Justice Thomas Berger for his political activity while continuing to sit as a Supreme Court judge, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Simcoe North (Mr. Lewis):
That this House reaffirms its view that judges, of necessity, ought not to engage in political activity.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY
Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Madam Speaker, my motion arises out of the failure of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) to negotiate an arrangement with the Japanese Prime Minister in Versailles on the importing of automobiles into this country. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans):
That this House call upon the Government of Canada to introduce legislation immediately that would enable it to impose, in Canada, the same local content rules that exist in Australia regarding the importation of automobiles into that country.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


NATIONAL ENERGY PROGRAM
Mr. Bill Domm (Peterborough):: Madam Speaker, while the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen), and the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. MacGuigan) ate truffles in Versailles this weekend and blamed Uncle Sam's high interest rate policy for Canadian unemployment, the Minister of Energy (Mr. Lalonde) ate crow in Ottawa and provided at least some relief for the industrial-energy sector by reducing certain federal taxes on some oil production activity. It is clear that governments do retain some flexibility even in periods of high interest rates. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Erie (Mr. Fretz):
That this House recommend that the government incorporate into the new budget-the minute it returns from France-a thorough revamping of the National Energy Program, particularly excluding targets of 50 per cent Canadian ownership by 1990 as well as the 25 per cent retroactive government ownership in Canada lands.

June 7, 1982
These two measures alone would do much to revitalize the reeling oil and gas industry and provide a much needed job program in the manufacturing sectors of central Canada.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


POLITICAL PARTIES
Mr. Gordon Towers (Red Deer):: Madam Speaker, I rise under Standing Order 43 to note the Liberal Party's executive placement bureau has found havens for yet two more party hacks: the Alberta federal campaign manager has gone to his reward on the board of the national airline, and the fund raiser for the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) joins his fellow westerner, Jack Horner, on the board of CN. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor):
That Canadian taxpayers take note:
Liberal hacks don't worry about merit;
They take the plums and grin V bear it.
No experience needed; don't need to know a whit.
Just buy a card and be a good little Grit!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Madam Speaker:: The hon. member for Burnaby.


THE JUDICIARY
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby):: Madam Speaker, I rise under Standing Order 43. On Friday last the Minister of Justice (Mr. Chretien) made public the report of the Canadian Judicial Council on the complaint by Judge George Addy concerning the conduct of Judge Thomas Berger. In view of the fact that the secret hearings of the Judicial Council, constituting nothing less than a witch hunt, spurred on by the Prime Mipister (Mr. Trudeau), and apparently supported by Conservative members, have produced a report which is a discredit to the members of the Judicial Council who supported it; and in view of the fact that the same federal judges lobbied long and hard in the political arena to sweeten their own generous pension scheme, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton):
That this House condemn the members of the Canadian Judicial Council for their appalling report on the conduct of Judge Berger and note their hypocrisy in speaking out to feather their own nests while criticizing Judge Berger, whose only offence was speaking out in defence of aboriginal and minority rights.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Madam Speaker, the Progressive Conservatives have been telling the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) for several months that his November 12 budget and other government policies were killing investment in Canada and driving money and jobs out of the country, but he has done nothing about it. Then suddenly- what do you know?-while in Versailles, it finally sank through, and the minister told reporters that "we must do everything possible to improve the climate for investment." Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Erie (Mr. Fretz):
That this House recommends that the minister put some action where his mouth is and do what is easily possible and withdraw the budget at once. This will be a good start on improving the investment climate in Canada, but if he really wants to solve the problem, resign, resign, resign.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


HOUSING
Mr. John McDermid (Brampton-Georgetown):: Madam Speaker, the housing construction industry is all but at a standstill. By CMHC's own admission, the starts for new single detached homes is the worst in 20 years, down 63 per cent from the same period last year, and starts for multiple units down 35 per cent. Because of its dismal performance. I move, seconded by the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath):
That the minister responsible for CMHC tender his resignation, attached to the resignation of the Minister of Finance responsible for high interest rates, which should appropriately be attached to that of the Prime Minister, responsible for the appointment of the aforementioned ministers to this so-called cabinet.


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?
June 7, 1982


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY
Mr. Joe Reid (St. Catharines):: Madam Speaker, at least one in six jobs in Canada is automobile related. The Prime Minister of Japan has advised the Prime Minister of Canada that his concern for the Canadian auto industry is a minor matter and he proposes to take no action. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Erie (Mr. Fretz):
That the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce make a statement now as to what action he proposes to take so that the Canadian auto parts manufacturers and the Canadian automobile workers will have some role in the Canadian auto industry of tomorrow.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


DISARMAMENT
Mr. Bob Ogle (Saskatoon East):: Madam Speaker, I move a motion under Standing Order 43 to which I trust that the House will give its unanimous consent. Today the Second United Nations Special Session on Disarmament is beginning in New York. The world faces the ever-growing danger of escalating wars and nuclear annihilation. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles):
That this House recommends to all participants in the Second United Nations Special Session on Disarmament (UNSSOD II) that every possible effort be made in good will and good faith to end the arms race and restore peaceful stability to our world.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Madam Speaker:: The House has heard the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
S.O.	43 FISHERIES

Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In view of the fact that the groundfish operation at the Seal Cove B.C. Packers plant in Prince Rupert is a viable operation with a nine million pounds and $7 million throughput last year; and in view of the fact that the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce received an application for public funds from B.C. Packers earlier this year to keep the plant running, and since the St. Anthony, Newfoundland, groundfish operation is being turned into a Crown corporation today to keep it operational, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Saskatoon East (Mr. Ogle):
That the B.C. Packers request for public funds be made public so that the shoreworkers and fishermen of Prince Rupert will know the cost of keeping the plant open, and that this House endorse a fair is fair policy-if the groundfish operation in St. Anthony's can be saved with public funds, then the same level of funds should be sent to Prince Rupert, to preserve Canadian jobs.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


INTERNATIONAL JOINT COMMISSION
Mr. Neil Young (Beaches):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In view of the fact that there is virtually no action coming from the United States concerning the cleanup of chemical pollution in the Niagara River and the Great Lakes; in view of the fact that Lake Ontario will be dead in 20 years if these critical problems are not dealt with, and in view of the fact that Canada has been without an International Joint Commission chairman for months, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton):
That this House calls on the Secretary of State for External Affairs to immediately appoint a Canadian IJC chairman with instructions to raise the serious problem of toxic chemical pollution in the Niagara River and Great Lakes, and further, to express Canadian concerns that the latest Reagan budget proposals would see Great Lakes research cut to nil and will obviously make it impossible for the United States to live up to treaty obligations with Canada under the 1978 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.

June 7, 1982
Oral Questions
[DOT] (MIS)



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Michael Wilson (Etobicoke Centre):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Acting Prime Minister. It is now quite clear that the government is putting off making basic changes in its misdirected and injudicious economic policy because it would have us believe that the United States is the enemy and the cause of all our problems. Now that this subterfuge has been brought out into the open, is the Acting Prime Minister willing to admit that very precious time has been lost in putting off changes to the budget and the government's economic and energy policies, which for months have been shown to be totally inappropriate, and that this delay has caused a major increase in the unemployment rate?


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Acting Prime Minister):: Madam Speaker, the answer to this question may be found in the press conference given by the Prime Minister yesterday in Paris. The Government of Canada has not accused the United States of having a high interest rate policy. In his press conference, the Prime Minister commented that the Americans themselves, the Secretary of the Treasury Mr. Regan in particular, have deplored the excessively high interest rates in the United States and said that these levels can be reduced only by Congress, and more specifically, by controlling the deficit. I therefore feel that my hon. friend is mistaken in saying that the Government of Canada is accusing the United States, while the same problem is being criticized in the United States. Have we lost precious time by not taking action? That is of course a matter of judgment, but once again, in his press conference yesterday, the Prime Minister said that we first had to know whether the Americans were going to act responsibly with respect to Canada's interests, and in that connection, he simply said that we could certainly not wait until November.


FORTHCOMING GOVERNMENT POLICIES
Michael Holcombe Wilson: Madam Speaker, the rumours that are coming from the Summit conference indicate that the Minister of Finance is proposing to introduce significant changes in the anti-investment elements of his budget, that he is proposing to change the policy that has been followed toward foreign investment in this country, and also that he is going to attack the problem of the very, very high budget deficit which is currently approaching the $18 billion mark. These policies could have been attacked months and months ago. The only reason that we on this side of the House can see for the delays is that of using the many times discredited ploy of holding up the enemy outside as being the cause of
all our problems. Surely the minister understands this is not the reason for our problems today. Is the government going to persist in putting this slant on the problems when it presents its economic statement that is expected over the next few weeks?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, once again, I must say that the assumption made by my hon. friend is false, since the Americans are as critical as we are with respect to high interest rates in the United States. In fact, statements by Mr. Regan, Mr. Haig and others clearly show that they, too, realize that the present interest rates in the United States are abnormally high. As for the intentions of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, I heard the rumours on the subject that were circulating yesterday. The Minister of Finance will be here tomorrow. However, I doubt very much whether he will be able to confirm or deny all these rumours, some of which are contradictory, but in any case, my hon. friend will have an opportunity to put his question to the minister directly.


REQUEST FOR COMMITMENT TO INTRODUCTION OF ECONOMIC STATEMENT
Michael Holcombe Wilson: Madam Speaker, the United States is aware of these problems, but it has been acting. Over in Paris the Prime Minister said that we may have to wait another six weeks before this government acts. Why is the Prime Minister delaying this long when unemployment is approaching the million and a quarter level, when the dollar is bumping along at an all-time low, and when the economic condition in the country is as bad as it has been since the war? Will the Acting Prime Minister today commit to the House that this cowardly and casual approach of the Prime Minister will be replaced by something which will bring back some confidence to the country? Will he commit that there will be an economic statement in the House before it recesses for the summer?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, the Minister of Finance will be in a better position to say what he will do tomorrow. I think most people in Canada accepted the idea that before taking measures in Canada the least we could do was to find out what the Americans intended to do, it being generally accepted in Canada and even in the United States that the real interest rate in the United States is abnormal.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: It is only a one-hour flight from here.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Now that this opportunity has been taken-the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have had conversations with these gentlemen and with other leaders-on their way back and here in the House, presumably for a number of
June 7, 1982

days or weeks, they will be reflecting and, as we are told, putting together a package to present later.


HOUSING
Hon. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Public Works. On Friday last CMHC released the housing starts for May. It showed them seasonally adjusted at 116,000, which compares with 208,500 for May last year. Actual starts in urban areas are down 51 per cent, and single detached dwelling units are down 63 per cent. This is a disastrous situation for a period in the year when construction in residential and rental housing should be showing a substantial increase. What does the minister propose to do about this, apart from trying to blame the provinces for not doing enough?


Hon. Paul J. Cosgrove (Minister of Public Works):: Madam Speaker, the figures reported by the hon. member do not take into account some $350 million allocated in the budget of November. This was the basis for the legislation that was supported by the hon. member and members of his party. That program was passed just recently through Bill C-89 in the House. It is designed to produce 30,000 affordable rental units, one third of which will be directed toward low incomes, on a rent geared to income basis. That program will be almost under way within a few weeks and should bring considerable relief to the picture the hon. member just painted.


QUERY RESPECTING STARTS UNDER CANADA RENTAL SUPPLY PLAN
James Aloysius McGrath: Madam Speaker, 1 wish the minister would tell us how this will bring relief to the single dwelling-unit situation which is down 63 per cent and going lower. While the minister is at it, perhaps he could tell us how many actual starts have taken place under the CRSP provisions of the legislation to which he just referred. We know that there are 2,400-2,500 applications, but how many actual starts have there been? The minister knows full well that the situation is such that unemployment is now over 10 per cent. In 1976 there were 400,000 more people employed in residential construction than there are today. He knows the situation is critical because it is a labour-intensive industry. He talked about the 30,000 units, but how many actual starts are under way at the present time?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, regrettably there are none under way at the present time. The legislation enabling that particular program was endorsed recently by the House. The program has been advertised. We have received 2,500 applications, and we are in the process of starting the first development. Surely the House must remember that when I tabled that legislation on December 18 and asked hon. gentlemen for support, I pointed out
Oral Questions
that that program would really have to be in place by early in the new year to get under way. It was as a result of the holiday taken by opposition members and the delay of three months that this problem was caused. Surely the opposition has to share some responsibility for that delay.


THE ECONOMY
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Acting Prime Minister. Following the Summit conference in Paris, the Prime Minister made two contradictory statements. On the one hand he said that Canada is faced with an economic crisis and, on the other hand, he said that the government plans to wait another six weeks before taking any action. Which is it? Does the government think that we can have another six weeks of a leisurely, do-nothing policy, or does the government say that we do have a crisis that requires action now?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, I do not see a contradiction. The Prime Minister is stating that we are in an economic crisis and is saying that, as quoted by my hon. friend, six weeks will be needed to put the package together.


Mr. Crosbie:: What have you been doing for two years?


Mr. Clark:: That is not what he said.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Well, one of the things to clear up was the intention of the United States. The Prime Minister said repeatedly in his conference yesterday that he will consult with his caucus and cabinet on the package that he intends to present. Most members here would find that to be quite normal.


CONSEQUENCES OF DELAY IN GOVERNMENT ACTION
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, a year ago, when we on this side were demanding action on the economy, the government was saying that we had to wait for last year's Summit. After the Summit, when action was demanded, we were told we had to wait for last fall's budget. Since last fall's budget we were told to wait for the Versailles meeting. I say to the government that the people of Canada are sick and tired of waiting for the government to act.
If you look at what is happening to the economy now, and if we wait for six more weeks, 25,000 more Canadians will have lost their jobs, 3,000 personal bankruptcies will have been declared, and another 1,000 small businesses will have shut down on a permanent basis. Does the Acting Prime Minister think that these people can afford to wait another six weeks?

June 7, 1982
Oral Questions


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, I think that my hon. friend is exaggerating, not so much in describing the situation itself which the Prime Minister himself calls a crisis, but in somehow implying that the government has not done any thinking or made any preparation for a number of months.
Almost every day here, as I said on Friday, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, myself, or someone else gets up to announce an important development or investment, be it here, at Prince Rupert, Halifax, or elsewhere. Therefore that is an unfair commentary. The gist of the answer I want to make is that the government has been thinking and preparing itself for the Versailles meeting. Obviously, the six weeks will be weeks of consultation, and discussing among members of cabinet and caucus before the Prime Minister or Minister of Finance is able to announce a package.


John Edward Broadbent: I repeat that the people of Canada are becoming tired of consultation and tired of policy discussions. They want just a little action to preserve and create some new jobs for them. Before asking my supplementary question concerning interest rate policy, I point out to the minister that a survey done at the time of the Summit showed that the only government at the Summit that had fewer than 50 per cent of its population supporting its policies is the Government of Canada, and that will not surprise anyone on this side of the House.


INTEREST RATES
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, the main problem in the short run is interest rates. A senior official, who was part of the Canadian delegation, was quoted in today's Le Devoir as saying that the government now plans to send a message to Governor Bouey of the Bank of Canada pointing out that a lowering of interest rates will not adversely affect the health of the Canadian dollar. Is this government policy? Does the government plan to take action to bring down interest rates and, if it does not plan to do this, why not?


James Aloysius McGrath: He did it by misleading the House.


Jean-Luc Pepin: -effect by saying that there is already $350 million going toward housing which will influence development in that sector.
My hon. friend should be reminded at this point that he voted against the measure referred to by the minister responsible for housing.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


HOUSING
John Horton McDermid: Madam Speaker, I find it strange that the minister responsible for housing would blame the opposition for holding up a housing bill, which was first announced November 12 in the budget and not introduced in this House until February.
The Minister of Finance was quoted as saying at the end of the Versailles Summit that he and his leader would have to return to Canada and explain a greater sense of reality. Can the Minister of Public Works, who is responsible for the housing policy, tell us whether this greater sense of reality statement contains any kind of hope which can be offered to young Canadians today who want to buy their own homes or, at least, find affordable accommodation?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, I think the first thing I should do is to correct the record and introduction by the hon. member who, I am sure, would not want to mislead the House. The legislation to which 1 referred, Bill C-89, was introduced by me and tabled in this House on December 18. It had its first reading in January, and its second reading in February.


Some hon. Members:: That's right.


Paul James Cosgrove: It awaited the opposition-


Charles Joseph Clark: The truth comes out.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, 1 repeat that I am not in a position to announce what the package will be. My hon. friend attaches a great amount of importance to Gallup polls or the like, concerning the lack of popularity of this government. My hon. friend's party has been at the 18 per cent level for a great number of years now-


John Edward Broadbent: That was six months ago. You are out of date, Jean.


Jean-Luc Pepin: -and he still believes he will form the government one day or another.
On the subject of housing, for example, which was raised this morning again, the minister responsible for housing deflated the question raised with great-


Paul James Cosgrove: -while its members went on a two-week holiday. We had to use closure to get that legislation through the House-a three-month delay that was totally unnecessary.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


AID FOR CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
John Horton McDermid: I could carry on the debate for some time as I was on the committee and 1 know there were some times when the minister did not appear when we were ready to put that bill through.
A real estate industry study has shown that the first-time home buyer market has disappeared. No young people are buying homes, and there are no first-time home buyers left in the country. Can the minister tell us what plans he has, other

June 7, 1982

than to build apartments? We doubt that he will reach his
30,000	units. What plans does he have to help the housing construction industry get out of the very serious slump it is in at the present time with the high interest rate policy of the government?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, unfortunately, I must refer to the introductory remarks of the hon. member and try to set some facts straight before the House.


John Horton McDermid: Read Hansard.


Paul James Cosgrove: At no time was I unavailable to attend the committee. As a matter of fact, at the first opportunity, the day after the House passed second reading, I was before that committee, and then the Conservatives walked away from this Parliament for two weeks.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James Aloysius McGrath: That is a lie.


THE ECONOMY
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam
Speaker, in order to prevent the Minister of Public Works from suffering a complete nervous breakdown on the floor of the House, I will direct my supplementary question to the Acting Prime Minister. I am interested in the mysterious six weeks, the new hidey-hole the government has devised to avoid having to deal with its responsibilities. In France the Prime Minister said the six weeks were necessary so that Canada could figure out what the U.S. would do. In this House the Acting Prime Minister has said that the six weeks were necessary so that the cabinet of Canada could figure out what it would do. Will the Acting Prime Minister tell us whether the Prime Minister was correctly explaining the six weeks, or was the explanation of the mysterious six weeks delay given by the Acting Prime Minister correct; in other words, that it will take that long for the cabinet in Canada to make up its mind? Which one spoke the truth?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, 1 could not confirm or deny the interpretation of the six weeks given by the hon. member who asked me that question. I did not think it was worth picking it up and debating that subject. From my reading of the Prime Minister's press conference, I understood that he was planning to consult with his cabinet and his caucus before making an announcement. I didn't see any clear-cut indication on that subject, but,
Oral Questions
again, the Minister of Finance will be here tomorrow and, as he was there and I was not-


Miss MacDonald:: Phone the Prime Minister.


Jean-Luc Pepin: -he will be in a better position than I am to give specific definition to what was said at Versailles.


DURATION OF REASSESSMENT OF GOVERNMENT POSITION
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, the Acting Prime Minister knows that, among his duties, he is to be in a position to inform the House of Commons in the absence of the Prime Minister. The telephone has been invented. The Acting Prime Minister has had the opportunity to get in touch with the Prime Minister to find out exactly what the Prime Minister said. The Prime Minister is very directly quoted as saying that Canada could not wait "more than another six weeks" for U.S. economic policy to change before reassessing his own government's economic position. Is it the position of the Government of Canada that Canada will wait another six weeks before reassessing its position?


Mr. Lalonde:: That is not what he said.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, I know that the telephone has been invented in Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Jean-Luc Pepin: I am pleased that it was.
But the situation I faced was whether or not I should have spent the weekend on the phone to Paris, with the knowledge that the Minister of Finance would be here tomorrow to answer all the questions that have been raised by my hon. friend on this particular point. I do not think the six weeks are of major importance.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Jean-Luc Pepin: The spirit of the matter is that there will be a reassessment of the situation.
Obviously, the Prime Minister was to consult his colleagues. As the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources implied, who knows, it might be less than six weeks?


John Edward Broadbent: It may be six months, eh? Who knows?


Jean-Luc Pepin: The Prime Minister was trying to convey the feeling that he intends to take action.


Charles Joseph Clark: The interpretation from that is that it might be six weeks, or it might be six months. It might be any length of time before this government acts. The Acting Prime Minister says that it does not matter. Well, I will tell him, for the millions of Canadians who are out of work it matters. For the thousands of Canadian businesses going into bankruptcy it matters that the government is not offering any policies at all.

June 7, 1982
Oral Questions


REQUEST THAT ECONOMIC STATEMENT BE MADE IN PARLIAMENT
Charles Joseph Clark: Let me
ask the Acting Prime Minister a question that is clearly within his competence to answer as the senior minister replying for his government here in the House of Commons today-not tomorrow, not six weeks or six months from now, but today. Will the Acting Prime Minister, on behalf of his government, give us an ironclad guarantee-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, no!


Charles Joseph Clark: Excuse me, rather than an ironclad guarantee, give us a guarantee we can count on.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: Will the Acting Prime Minister give us a guarantee we can count on, that any new economic policy will be announced while the House of Commons is in session, and that the government will not draw up a new economic policy and then run away from Parliament, as it did with VIA Rail and as it did after Bonn? Can we have a commitment that the House of Commons will be here to judge any new economic policy which comes down?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, at this time I can only say that my impression is that the Prime Minister will want to do that. But may I take the question as notice and-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Jean-Luc Pepin: -discuss it with the Minister of Finance when he comes back later on today or tomorrow morning? We will possibly be in a position to give something firmer tomorrow.


REQUEST THAT COMMITMENT STATEMENT WILL BE MADE IN PARLIAMENT
Charles Joseph Clark: It may be
reasonable-I think it is not-but it is arguable that it may be reasonable for the Acting Prime Minister to wait for the Minister of Finance to come back and discuss economic questions. But it is certainly not reasonable for him to deny the House of Commons and the country the certainty that Parliament will be able to judge new economic measures until the Prime Minister comes back, because the Prime Minister is away on a longer tour. He will be out of Canada for a long time, away from this House of Commons.
The minister is the Acting Prime Minister of Canada. I am asking him a question relating to the rights of this House and the conduct of the government, not its economic policy, but, rather, its timing. Will he now give us a commitment that the House of Commons will be in session and in a position to judge any new economic policy that the government brings down?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, I did not deny it. Obviously I left that possibility open. I said I would discuss it with the Minister of Finance to see whether he would be in a position tomorrow to confirm the possibility of a statement before the recess.


INDUSTRY
Mr. Russell MacLellan (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Acting Prime Minister and Minister of Transport. It concerns the intention of Canadian National with respect to a contract in which they are involved with the Sydney Steel Corporation to purchase a minimum of 88,000 tons of rails in the contract-year beginning August 1, 1982. I would like the minister to assure me that this contract will be honoured. The minister also knows that this plant is presently closed. Does the federal government propose giving any assistance to allow this rail order to be rolled, in advance of August 1 of this year? Finally, is the minister prepared to look into the question of a disagreement between CN and Sydney Steel Corporation as to the Sydney Steel Corporation's ability to roll all types of rails which CN requires, and to try to resolve this discrepancy?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, it is a very clear question dealing with three points. First, with regard to honouring the contract, the contract is indeed at the 88,000-ton level for 1982-83. CN would like to reduce that because it will have to store light rail. However, a contract is a contract is a contract. Having made the commitment, I am willing to press CN to honour it. So much for the first question.
With regard to the advance production, the possibility is there. It is estimated that it would cost $1.4 million more to begin producing sooner, instead of in August. The Minister of Finance is willing to pay one half of that if the government of Nova Scotia or SYSCO is willing to pay the other half.
With regard to the conflict on the quality or technical difficulties, CN offered to appoint an independent assessor. I think SYSCO is now accepting that. It is being discussed this week, and I think such a decision will be made.


HOUSING
Mr. Ian Deans (Hamilton Mountain):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Housing. The minister heard the statistics today with regard to the shortfall in the number of housing units being built in the country. Given that we could
June 7, 1982

meet two basic problems by building housing, first that we could provide shelter for people who today cannot find shelter at prices they can afford and, second, we could create 100,000 or more jobs in Canada if we would undertake to build up to the level of the 220,000 housing units that are necessary, why does the minister not go before Treasury Board to ask for authority to proceed with a housing program that will meet the obvious needs of Canada today?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, I have already indicated that 30,000 units are scheduled under the program authorized by this House under Bill C-89. These are rental units that are designed to serve moderate income families. Ten thousand will be for people on a rent geared to income basis. Why the New Democratic Party, which purports to speak for people of modest income by times, will not support that, I do not know.
After that plan, we introduced other programs which will assist in getting people working in the trades. For example, we have extended the CHIP program from the eligible year of 1961 to 1971. We introduced $30 million into a Canadian home renovation program which should spring and will spring an additional $60 million from banks by Canadians taking advantage of that program. That is a total investment of $90 million, which should provide work for another 10,000 people. Those are new initiatives taken since the rental accommodation program was announced.


GOVERNMENT POSITION
Ian Deans: Madam Speaker, I do not like to quarrel with the minister, but the facts are quite clear. The programs brought in by the government do not begin to meet the basic needs of the majority of working Canadians. The majority of Canadians cannot afford to pay the prices being charged or the interest rates being charged. How is it that the government can find $2 billion to give to Imperial Esso and other such companies? How is it the government can go into the money market and borrow $750 million to shore up the sagging dollar, but cannot find any money to put into the building of homes at a price that Canadians can afford?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, I will have to repeat myself.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Paul James Cosgrove: I referred to the rent geared to income program. There is no better or more equitable housing program in Canada that I know of, to serve Canadians of modest income. They pay in accordance with a percentage of their income. The hon. member and his party voted against that program this year. They delayed that program for three months. In light of that experience, I find the hon. member's question quite hollow.
Oral Questions EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


DENIAL OF ADMISSION TO UNITED STATES OF TORONTO SUPPORTER OF DISARMAMENT
Mr. Chris Speyer (Cambridge):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. It is a matter that gives me some concern. It was raised last Thursday by the minister's colleague from York East. It concerns the exclusion of Kay MacPherson from admission to the United States. She was to attend the United Nations Conference on Disarmament. She had no criminal record, but her name came up in an American immigration computer. Can the minister enlighten the House on why she was excluded? Also, can he advise what reciprocal arrangements we might have with the United States concerning information and the names of people who might be undesirable to both countries?


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Madam Speaker, in answer to the hon. member, we cannot give full information. That decision was fully made by the United States government. There was no consultation with us. It was an application of their immigration laws. My understanding of the case is that they applied an order against hundreds of people from around the world who were to appear at the United Nations for the special session on disarmament. It was not a particular exclusion in the case of Mrs. MacPherson, but a matter of excluding a number of people under their old McCarran-Walter Act which was passed in the United States in the very dark days after World War II.
As far as reciprocity is concerned, we each administer our own immigration acts according to criteria. We would not exchange information through the immigration procedures. Obviously there are a number of contacts made in security cases, but I do not believe Mrs. MacPherson would come under that definition in any way.


REASONS FOR DENIAL OF ADMISSION
Chris Speyer: Madam Speaker, I will direct my supplementary question to the Minister of Justice who, last Thursday, responded to the question from the hon. member for York East. He undertook to the House to inform himself of the specific reasons for Mrs. MacPherson's exclusion. Can the minister now tell the House what those reasons were?


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Justice and Minister of State for Social Development):: Madam Speaker, I said I would contact the Department of External Affairs about this. They made some representations to the American government, but up to this point they have not received any specific information.
18150

June 7, 1982
Oral Questions THE ECONOMY


QUERY RESPECTING CONTACT BETWEEN ACTING PRIME MINISTER AND CANADIAN DELEGATION AT VERSAILLES
Hon. Elmer M. MacKay (Central Nova):: Madam Speaker, my question is supplementary to those asked by the Leader of the Opposition. A few moments ago the Acting Prime Minister spoke of impressions. How much direct contact, if any, has he had with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance on what actually occurred in Versailles? Does he have any knowledge or authority to answer here in the House?
Finally, how much longer, given some time limit, will it take the government to come to the realization, and publicly admit, that the national energy plan and FIRA have driven out or discouraged billions of dollars in capital from our country in the name of Canadianization while discouraging foreign investments, and at the same time causing the Bank of Canada to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to prop up the falling dollar, which was caused by the government's economic illiteracy? How much longer will it take the government to realize and admit publicly that there has to be a policy change and will the minister give us some time-frame for a new budget and new taxation policies to spare Canadian taxpayers from this double-whammy?


Jean-Luc Pepin: On the first point, Madam Speaker, I repeat, knowing that the Minister of Finance will be here tomorrow, and knowing that he was involved in all aspects of the Versailles meeting, I thought it would be normal for me not to get in touch with him and take time from the discussions the Prime Minister and the Minister were having with other leaders. I thought that was the right approach.
With regard to the causes of the present situation, I think it came out very strongly from everything in the press that the "crisis" we are experiencing is not only a Canadian phenomenon. It came out very strongly that rates of inflation, rates of unemployment, were the same in every country-10 per cent, 9 per cent, 7 per cent, in countries which are used to much lower levels of inflation than is Canada. That particular dimension of it is pretty clear to me and to most people who read the papers during the weekend.


PURSUIT OF CANADIANIZATION POLICY
Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: I want to ask the Acting Prime Minister if it also came out that Canada no longer has the luxury of pursuing narrow and ill-conceived Canadian nationalism at this time, that we no longer can afford it as a country? Did that come out?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Where? In the conversations at Versailles?


Charles Joseph Clark: No, on the telephone.


Jean-Luc Pepin: On this subject, Madam Speaker, every person in Canada is slightly ambivalent. When the Minister of
Energy, Mines and Resources gives him or her figures about the higher degree of Canadian ownership in the petroleum industry, he or she is very, very pleased. A Canadian is equally pleased when he hears that some foreign-owned company is taken over by citizens of this country. Every Canadian quite normally hopes that more and more of that will take place, but quite rightly, in my view, he is not willing either to abandon some of the advantages that foreign ownership presents. All of us on this subject hope to have our cake and eat it, too; but most of us are pretty rational when it comes to having to make the decisions.


RAILWAYS
Mr. Jack Murta (Lisgar):: Madam Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Transport. Now that Professor Gilson has finished his study of grain transportation in western Canada, and specifically the question of the Crowsnest Pass rate, will the minister inform the House when the government will be receiving the report, if ministers have not already received it? Secondly, after the government has received this very, very important report, when will the report be made public so that the farm organizations and various interested groups across the country may have a chance and a time to analyse the report and submit to the government their approval or rejection of the report?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, let me indicate what would be the optimum scenario. I have a feeling-I am sorry I can only say that, because Professor Gilson is working, I was going to say frantically, but that is not true-he is working very hard to complete the report as soon as he can. The impression I have is that I will receive it in the next week or ten days. That is an impression only; it might be three or four, but it is coming. Second, it will then be translated and printed. It is expected that this will take two to three weeks, at the most. Then it will be made public, at that time, for people to comment on it.
Then cabinet will be asked to make decisions on it, before the summer recess. In August and September a draft bill will be produced, the bill will be presented to the House in the fall, and it is hoped that the program will come into operation in the new year.


QUERY RESPECTING POSSIBILITY OF CONSENSUS
Jack Burnett Murta: Madam Speaker, since the minister was in Winnipeg not last week but the week previous to that, with Professor Gilson, it seems highly unlikely that he does not know generally what is in the report. Can he give an indication to the House of whether he expects to have general agreement on the recommendations that Professor Gilson will come out with, and whether or not he expects the government
June 7, 1982

will have to act unilaterally on some of the key issues of concern that Professor Gilson could not or may not have been able to solve in his negotiations?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, I was indeed in Winnipeg and in Edmonton last week. I met with a number of people who have been in the discussions around Professor Gilson and all of them praised the tremendous knowledge and diplomacy that the professor brought to the meetings. Most of them said that the process of discussion was most educational for all those who took part. Will there be a consensus, will there be agreement by all sides to the recommendations of Professor Gilson-1 do not think so. There will be various degrees of support, and various degrees of lack of it.


EFFECT OF VERSAILLES SUMMIT ON EXPORTS TO SOVIET UNION
Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Prince Albert):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Acting Prime Minister in one of the various capacities he is in here, this afternoon. In view of the Versailles conference decision to restrict trade credits to the Soviet Union, one of the few decisions they made, and in view of the fact that the Soviet Union is one of our largest grain customers and is asking for credit, can the minister assure us that the Versailles decision will not result in the cutting back of Canadian grain exports to the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, I could not comment on the reference to the Versailles aspect of the east-west debate. I do not really know what the conclusion was. With respect to providing credit to the Soviet Union from Canada for purchases of grain, I think our position has historically been in Canada that we match competition. Other countries like the United States are providing such facilities, have provided credit in these instances-I do not want to be too clear-
Some bon. Members: Oh, oh!


An hon. Member:: Don't worry about that.


Jean-Luc Pepin: I just want to say that in these particular circumstances we try to match the competition.


QUERY RESPECTING POSSIBLE EFFECT ON FARMERS
Stanley J. Hovdebo: What guarantees can the minister give this House that Canada is not once again in a de facto sort of way becoming a part of the United States embargo on the Soviet Union as we were in 1980? What assurance can he give that the restrictions being put on credit do not represent a squeeze which this time, as it was last time, will be fully endorsed by Canada and will affect Canadian exports and again reduce returns to Canadian farmers?
Oral Questions


Jean-Luc Pepin: The only guarantee-


Charles Joseph Clark: Yes or no?


Jean-Luc Pepin: The only guarantee 1 can give is the facts, as they are developing in Canada now. My hon. friend knows, better than almost anybody here, how well the Canadian Wheat Board has been doing, with the support of the Canadian government, in selling wheat in recent times. Last year's export figures to the Soviet Union, if my memory serves me well enough, were 6.2 million tonnes. My information is that the same level could be reached possibly again this year. That is a clear indication that no sales are being missed anywhere. Generally exports are going beautifully. The record on shipments from the west coast was beaten, was overpassed last week; and any day now we are expecting a record export of grain from Canada for all times. That is good enough, it seems to me.


THE PRESS
Hon. Perrin Beatty (Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism. What would be the cost to the taxpayers of the Minister of State's plans to control the press?


Hon. Jim Fleming (Minister of State (Multiculturalism)):: Madam Speaker, obviously there is no plan to control the press. Our fear is that one or two companies in Canada may control the press, and that would not give much diversity. I am sure that is the basis of a free press. The cost at this time we believe will be in the range of $20 million to fund the advisory council on newspapers. Additionally, about $1 million a year for five years will be required for the grants.


REQUEST GOVERNMENT SCRAP PRESS COUNCIL PLAN
Henry Perrin Beatty: Madam Speaker, in view of the fact that of all of the minister's plans to control the press, the element that has been most criticized is the plan for a government-sponsored press council, which the minister says will cost the taxpayer some $20 million, why would the minister not simply scrap that plan, save the taxpayers the $20 million, and ask the existing press councils to hear complaints against non-member newspapers?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Madam Speaker, I would be encouraged if the opposition had an original idea or proposal. That is the first time they have suggested anything on this issue. I have said for a long time, since the Kent royal commission report was published, that nothing would delight me more than the newspapers themselves running their own advisory council with press councils. I

June 7, 1982
Oral Questions
and, I am sure, the government, are quite prepared to entertain that possibility. However, to suggest that the Ontario Press Council, for example, should be the hearing body for Alberta newspapers is a little absurd.


PAYMENT OF GOVERNMENT ACCOUNT TO ETHNIC NEWSPAPER
Hon. Steven E. Paproski (Edmonton North):: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism. I would like to know why he is discriminating against Mr. Kissin and his Jewish Press newspaper in Ontario by not paying his bill.


James Sydney Clark Fleming: am sorry, Madam Speaker. 1 do not know the case the hon. member is talking about, but I find that pretty poor language coming from the hon. member. There is a fair and reasonable system set up. If the hon. member is talking about advertising in the ethnic press-


Steve Eugene Paproski: You are not paying your bills. You are advertising in his paper and not paying him, and he has written you three letters already.


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Well, first off, I just do not believe that is the case when it comes to advertising the multicultural program. If it comes to some other program, the hon. member should be aware I am not responsible for it and have not been for some months, and the hon. member should direct his question to the appropriate minister. However, out of courtesy, before the hon. member charges discrimination against another hon. member surely the most sensible way would be to give some notice, and we would then be prepared to answer.


Steve Eugene Paproski: You have three letters from the man. You have three invoices to pay the bill.


AIR CANADA
Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton-Strathcona):: Madam
Speaker, 1 have a question for the Acting Prime Minister. Will the Acting Prime Minister tell us what single, personal or professional quality entitled Mr. Branny Schepanovich to be appointed to the board of Air Canada over the weekend and why he was any more qualified than any of 1.2 million unemployed Canadians for that post, unless the government is more concerned about patronage than getting people back to work?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, I would not doubt that the 1.2 million Canadians about whom my hon. friend talks would see themselves as fully qualified to sit on the board of Air Canada. The gentleman in question was selected on the recommendation of a number of
ministers, particularly the minister for the region involved because we try to have regional representation on such boards. 1 have read the biography of this person and inquired about him. I understand he is a distinguished lawyer and will be quite useful to Air Canada.


POINT OF ORDER
James Aloysius McGrath: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. If I could anticipate what Your Honour might say in terms of its being debate, I just want to submit to Your Honour that if a minister misleads the House, that creates disorder in the House; and the minister responsible for housing misled the House today. I am not saying he did so deliberately, but I am saying he had a case of selective amnesia when he accused us of walking away from Bill C-89.
The facts are simply this. The bill was referred to in the budget in November. It did not receive second reading-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Madam Speaker:: Order. The hon. member was right in anticipating what I would have to say about that. I do not think this is a point of order; the hon. member is simply debating.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Madam
Speaker, with the unanimous consent of the House, I would like to move, seconded by the hon. member for Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke (Mr. Hopkins):
That, pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 99, the petition of Cliff Blackmur, of the city of Saskatoon, and Robert K. Coulling, of the city of Regina, both in the province of Saskatchewan, praying for the passage of an Act to amend the Act of Incorporation of The Grand Lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the Dominion of Canada for the purpose of effecting certain technical changes in the constitution of the society, filed after the time limit specified under Standing Order 90, be referred to the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Private Bills and Standing Orders, together with the two hundred and sixtieth report of the Clerk of Petitions thereon, presented to the House on Friday, June 4, 1982, for any recommendations the committee deems advisable.


Madam Speaker:: Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to move this motion?
June 7, 1982


Mr. Doug Lewis (Simcoe North):: Madam Speaker, our party has had previous consultation on this matter and we are prepared to grant unanimous consent.


Madam Speaker:: The Elouse has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. David Smith (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Madam Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 4,237, 4,238 and 4,321.


Mr. Herbert: What is the average number of persons processed per week by the Department of Employment and Immigration at their premises at 1616 Dorchester Boulevard West, Montreal?
Hon.	Lloyd	Axworthy	(Minister	of Employment	and
Immigration): For the period of January to April, 1982, an average of 900 persons per week were processed by the Canada Immigration Centre at 1616 Dorchester Boulevard West, Montreal.

Question No. 4,238-Mr. Herbert:
1.	What is the size in square feet of the reception area at the premises at 1616 Dorchester Boulevard West, Montreal and how many chairs are available in this area for persons waiting for attention?
2.	Is the space considered adequate and, if not, is it to be enlarged?
Hon.	Lloyd	Axworthy	(Minister	of Employment	and
Immigration): 1. The size of the reception area is 983 square feet. There are 40 chairs for persons waiting for attention.
2. At the present time the space is considered adequate.


Mr. Howie: 1.	Were seats purchased by the Department of Employment and Immigration in community colleges in New Brunswick in the current fiscal year to train carpenters, upholsterers and pipe fitters and, if so, how many?
2.	Has a decision been taken on how many seats in each of the categories will be purchased for next year and, if so, what is that number?


Lloyd Axworthy: 1. Yes; carpenters, pre-employment training, 50 seats, apprenticeship, 56 seats; upholsterers, nil; pipe fitters, pre-employment training, 50 seats, apprenticeship, 17 seats.
2. No.
Petroleum Administration Act


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


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, from Thursday, June 3, 1982, consideration of Bill C-103, to amend the Petroleum Administration Act and to enact provisions related thereto, as reported (with amendments) from the Standing Committee on Energy Legislation, and Motions Nos. 4 and 5 (Mr. Hawkes).
Mr. Harvie Andre (Calgary Centre):: Madam Speaker, the two amendments we are debating jointly are an attempt on our part to have the Liberal Party keep its promises. By voting for these two amendments, the only thing that will happen is that the promises made by the Liberal Party before, during and since the 1980 election will be kept. That is all that will happen. Those two amendments would have that simple little effect. The Liberals would keep their election promises.
The first amendment, Motion No. 4, would change the amount of the petroleum compensation charge from the current $75 per cubic metre to an amount not exceeding $28 per cubic metre. To put that in units most people understand, that would change the tax on gasoline, heating oil and diesel fuel from a 52 cents per gallon level to an 18 cents per gallon level. Your Honour will recall that in December of 1979, when the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) brought forward a budget proposing an 18-cent a gallon tax, the proceeds of which were to be used for subsidizing imported crude oil, the Liberal Party said that was too much. Hon. members opposite said that was outrageously high and that it was intolerable. Neither the Liberals nor their pink friends could live with that kind of tax level. That was outrageous.


Mr. Keeper:: You should turn red in the face when you say that.


Harvie Andre: That was outrageous, said the pinkies and the Grits. No, they could not tolerate that. There was no way they could tolerate an 18-cent a gallon tax. That was horrible.


Mr. Kristiansen:: You are a big blue movie that ought to be clipped.

June 7, 1982
Petroleum Administration Act


Harvie Andre: So the Liberals brought in a proposal of their own. They said we would have a made-in-Canada system. That used to be an honourable phrase. "Made-in-Canada" used to be something one could say with pride. It represented something of substance. What was the Liberal's made-in-Canada price system? Their made-in-Canada tax was 94 cents a gallon. They said that 18 cents per gallon was outrageous when that increase was brought in by the hon. member for St. John's West, but then the Liberal Party brought in an increase of 94 cents per gallon. When the bells started ringing and the public started to pay attention to what was in that atrocious energy package-that incredible abortion-and they found out that the Liberals were planning on 94 cents per gallon, then the government backed off and made it 52 cents per gallon. That is only three times as much as was considered outrageous in December, 1979, but that is how much the government backed off.
Motion No. 4 proposes that the government back off to 18 cents per gallon. The figure that was considered absolutely atrocious in 1979 is the figure they would be required to adopt today. If there are any Liberals over there who have any integrity-and that is not very likely-if there are any who feel an oblgiation to keep promises or a responsibility to honour commitments, if there are any such Liberals in the House like the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Gray) or the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde), then they have no choice but to support this motion. It asks nothing more than to reduce the maximum level of the tax to the figure that was found to be outrageous in December, 1979.
If hon. members opposite vote against this motion-and I am sure they will, being well-trained donkeys-then the public will have the proof that the Liberals lie, that they do not keep their promises, that they will say and do anything in order to achieve electoral victory. Afterwards they feel no responsibility and no sense of obligation.
The sad thing about this is that because we share the chamber with them, they bring contempt on all of us. Unfortunately, people tend to talk about politicians being dishonest. That is because of that kind of politics and those kinds of politicians, who make promises they know to be irresponsible and then shamelessly violate those promises.
This motion would give the government an opportunity to keep that promise. If there is any sense of decency among its members, they should vote for Motion No. 4. They would be doing nothing more than keeping the election promises they made so solemnly to the people of Canada in February, 1980.
Motion No. 5, which is being debated simultaneously, is also our attempt to keep the Liberal Party honest, futile as that effort may be. The motion attempts to limit the petroleum compensation charge to the amount that is necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was intended. It was introduced as an item to provide revenue to subsidize imports so that we have one price across Canada. It does nothing more than say that is
the only purpose for which the petroleum compensation charge will be used and that it will not be used for generating funds for other purposes.
We have the solemn promise of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources that that is all the charge was intended for-for this so-called "made-in-Canada" price, for oil subsidization. The problem with the solemn promise of the minister is that we have had solemn promises from Liberal energy ministers in the past few years that have turned out to be false, promises that were worth nothing. The promises the minister has broken, the statements he has made which have turned out to be untrue, follow the tradition of the Liberal Party in the last few years, and especially Liberal energy ministers who have performed in exactly the same way.
The minister's predecessor, the Hon. Alastair Gillespie, signed on behalf of the government an energy price agreement with the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia which called for the crude oil price to increase one dollar every six months. I think the provinces believed they had a contract with people they expected to behave honourably. However, in spite of those agreements, negotiated over many weeks and months with a lot of debate and which took a lot of energy, on September 27, 1978, Mr. Gillespie announced that the final one dollar increase would not take place. He was urged to break that contract by the New Democratic Party, which is as honest and respectful of contracts and agreements as the Liberals.


Mr. Waddell:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In the House a member cannot allege that other members do things illegally, such as break contracts. In civil law that is illegal. The New Democratic Party has never advocated that contracts be broken. I spoke about that specific matter the other night. I wish the hon. member would get his facts straight and stop throwing mud.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, a Canadian Press report of 26 April, 1979, said that energy minister Gillespie had announced that the plan for a one dollar increase would not take place and that the New Democrats had urged cancellation of the previous increase. So, Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Press reports that the NDP urged the minister to violate this written contract, and he apparently listened to their suggestions.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Before the hon. member alleges that we are saying the government should do something illegal, he should quote the reports correctly. They are changing a contract in consultation with the provinces, which I advocated and talked about the other night.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, we have from the record the fact that the immediate predecessor of the current minister of energy says that if the political pressures are such, he is quite willing to disregard a contract, break his word and tear up an agreement without being overly concerned about the consequences to the reputation of the federal government as an
June 7, 1982

institution which one hopes would obey the laws and respect the practices and traditions of this country.
Then, of course, we have the commitment of the Hon. John Turner, then minister of finance, who on page 31 of his 1975 budget said:
I therefore propose, effective tonight, a special excise tax on gasoline for personal use. The tax will be at a rate of 10 cents per gallon.
Earlier in his remarks he had said:
In recent months the gap between compensation payments and oil export charge revenues has grown rapidly. This has come about because the volume of our oil exports has fallen while our oil imports have risen.
So he had proposed this excise tax on gasoline in order to help subsidize imports. What has happened to that tax today, Mr. Speaker? I do not have the figures yet for 1981, but in 1980 that tax amounted to $441 million collected from Canadians. But what happened to it? It disappeared, Mr. Speaker, into the big pot. Is it used for import compensation as the then minister of finance said it would be? No, it is not used for that at all. It is gone. Canadian consumers are paying at least $440 million too much for their gasoline today because the statement made by the Hon. John Turner turned out over time to be false. Did he behave any differently from his colleague in the cabinet, the minister who succeeded him as the minister of finance, the Hon. Donald Macdonald? He is the fellow who, on September 13, 1973, unilaterally imposed a 40-cent export tax on every barrel of crude oil exported from Canada. He said that was to put in this two-price system. Then when the provinces objected he said on December 13: Well, we are going to give 50 per cent of that tax back to the oil-producing provinces and the rest will be invested in the industry, likely through a national oil company. Just two weeks later, on December 27-in between Christmas and New Year's which is guaranteed to be a time when most people will not notice-the export tax will rise to $6.50 a barrel and the commitment to return the tax revenues to the provinces will end when the tax technically ends and is replaced by a charge.
That is the kind of "honourable behaviour" you get from Liberals. They said: "Look, we made you a promise that we will share the export tax with you; the tax is ending on February 1 so there is nothing more to share. By the way, however, on the same day we are putting on a charge and we are going to keep it all ourselves." They changed the name from "tax" to "charge" and used that as justification for violating a commitment. Then they wonder why, Mr. Speaker, they have this legacy of mistrust, federal-provincial conflict, this ongoing battle between Ottawa and the provinces and the seeming inability of the federal and provincial governments to reach an agreement without having a battle first.


John Horton McDermid: You cannot trust a Grit.


Harvie Andre: You cannot trust Liberal governments. They break their promises, break their commitments, and tear up agreements one after the other.
Is this minister any different? Let us look at a recent interview, April 2, 1982, on "Canada AM". The minister was asked by CTV interviewer Pamela Wallin:
Petroleum Administration Act
CTV: The taxpayers in this country pay more than $6 million a day to subsidize oil imports yet, now to solve a problem, we have to increase our exports?


Marc Lalonde: Now whatever we export is charged, there is a tax charge and the revenues coming from that export charge help in reducing our cost for the imported oil.
That statement, Mr. Speaker, is false. Not one penny from that export charge goes to help reduce the cost of imported oil. But it enabled the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources to get out of a tight question in that interview, and that is what is important. The truth is not important at all. What is important is to get out of a box, and if you have to sacrifice truth in order to do that, so be it. Truth is not a commodity valued by the minister or this government.
This petroleum compensation charge, Mr. Speaker, was introduced by the government to give us a made-in-Canada price and supposedly result in Canadians paying less for their gas and oil. Our party recently did a survey of the price of gasoline in major Canadian and American cities. We compared the price in Toronto and Buffalo; Halifax and Boston; Vancouver and Seattle; Winnipeg and St. Paul, Minnesota, and Edmonton and Houston.
We are told by the Liberals that Canadians are protected from world prices because of the so-called made-in-Canada pricing system. That is what the minister tells us. That is what this government promised in the election campaign. Prices in the United States are deregulated. The Americans pay full price. They are not protected on the marketplace by their government. The world price dictates their price for gasoline and oil. With only one exception the price of gasoline in Canada is higher than in the United States.


Mr. Kelly:: Why?


Mr. Dinsdale:: Because of government mismanagement.


Harvie Andre: The member on the other side asks why. He is from Ontario. The answer is very simple. In March, 1982, the typical average price for gasoline in Ontario was 40.8 cents a litre. The provincial tax was 6.6 cents a litre. The federal tax was 14.1 cents a litre, or roughly the equivalent of 60 cents a gallon. That is an awful lot more than a tax of 18 cents a gallon which the Liberals said was so outrageous.


Norman Kelly: What is the state tax?


Harvie Andre: I have just explained to the member on the other side that 6.6 cents a litre was the Ontario provincial tax.


Norman Kelly: What about New York state?


Harvie Andre: The federal tax is 14.1 cents a litre, which is more than twice as much as that charged by the government of Ontario. The Alberta government receives 6.9 cents in royalties, and the cost of crude excluding royalties and taxes paid is 3.2 cents. The leader margin is 2.2 cents. The oil company share for refining, marketing and distribution is 7.8 cents. Therefore, when you fill up your car with gasoline in Ontario,

June 7, 1982
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68 per cent of what you pay goes in taxes. That is two thirds of the cost. If you pay $15 for gas, $10 of that goes in taxes.


Norman Kelly: What is the New York state tax? Be honest, Elarvie.


Harvie Andre: The Liberal member opposite says be honest. That is like a pyromaniac saying "Don't play with matches".


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Harvie Andre: The hon. member should remember all the way back to the 1980 election when we heard "Vote Liberal and we will keep the tax down. No way will you have to pay 18 cents tax on a gallon of gasoline; we will keep the tax at less than 14 cents a gallon." That is what his leader said.


Gordon Edward Taylor: That is what Kelly said too.


Norman Kelly: Tell us the American price.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, if I thought the hon. member's ears were open as wide as his mouth, and if I thought there was something between those ears, I would be willing to devote some time and energy to helping him.


Norman Kelly: Just give us the facts.


Harvie Andre: I will be finished with my remarks in a moment. The hon. member will have an opportunity then to participate in the debate, although I doubt it.


Norman Kelly: Come on Harvie, give us the facts.


Harvie Andre: Apparently the hon. member opposite would like to speak, so I will give him the floor.


Mr. Thomson:: Tell the hon. member to get up on his feet and speak.


An hon. Member:: He is chicken.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please.


Mr. Ouellet:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please.


André Ouellet: There are no more speakers. Has the hon. member finished his speech?


Harvie Andre: No.


André Ouellet: Then stand up.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: If we can have order, the hon. member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre) has the floor. I invite those who do want to participate in the debate to rise in their places so they can be recognized. The hon. member for Calgary Centre.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member for Scarborough Centre (Mr. Kelly) would like to speak, I am quite willing to yield the floor to him. He is barracking and yelling from his seat. I thought he wanted to give a speech.


Norman Kelly: Give us the facts.


Harvie Andre: There he goes again, Mr. Speaker. 1 will yield the floor to him if he insists on speaking.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. Perhaps hon. members could grant the usual courtesies to members who are recognized. At the moment the hon. member for Calgary Centre has the floor.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, as I was indicating-


Mr. Tousignant:: Even if you have the floor, you don't have to utter any insanities.


Harvie Andre: Now we have another member who wants to speak. If he wants me to complete my remarks first, that is fine, but if he wants to speak now, then I will yield the floor to him and I will carry on with my remarks after he has finished.


Cyril Keeper: Hon. members over there can't take the heat.


Harvie Andre: First, by this amendment we seek to impose a limit consistent with all of the solemn promises made by the Liberal Party in the 1980 election. Second, through Motion No. 5 we seek to limit this tax only for that purpose. That is the intent of these two motions, which is then consistent with Liberal Party policy and commitments. If in fact the Liberals would like to live up to their commitments, they need do nothing more than vote for these motions and they will be honouring all of the commitments they made to the people of Canada.
There is one other item related to this petroleum compensation charge which should be brought to the attention of the House. It concerns the manner in which it was brought in at the outset and the manner in which it is accounted for in the accounts of Canada.
Let me deal with the manner in which it was brought in. The original petroleum compensation charge was introduced as a levy for the purposes of subsidizing Syncrude production. The House will recall that when the Syncrude agreement was reached, it was agreed to pay Syncrude world price for the synthetic crude that would be produced from that plant. That meant, therefore, that there had to be some subsidy for the synthetic crude to bring it to the lower level that was prevailing for Canadian crude. To achieve that the Petroleum Administration Act was introduced, which created a refinery gate levy, the proceeds of which subsidized the synthetic crude. That levy was brought in as legislation that had first, second and third reading. The money collected went into a special fund. This money was dedicated solely to subsidizing Syncrude production. However, the limit in terms of how much this levy might be turned out to be unsatisfactory. This should have necessitated an amendment to the legislation.
On July 11, 1980, however, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources tabled a piece of paper which he called a notice
June 7, 1982

of Ways and Means which raised this levy. This was an incredible procedure. The levy was brought in by legislation, but suddenly, in a piece of paper that was tabled in the House of Commons, the minister raised the levy. This was not a tax nor was it a budget statement. In fact, there was no statement. He just tabled a piece of paper indicating that the price would go up. It was incredulous, it was unbelievable.
We raised a point of order and the Chair said that it was a legal matter on which it could not judge. We sought a legal opinion and were told by legal counsel that what the minister had done was illegal, which confirmed our opinion. However, to pursue it through the courts would cost several tens of thousands of dollars, which unfortunately I do not have; in any case, it might end up with a Pyrrhic victory because the government might come along and retroactively make legal what was illegal. We have this incredibly arrogant attitude. The country is sick when the government blatantly, openly and with impunity breaks the law, which is exactly what the minister did, and apparently there is nothing we can do about it.
Just a few months ago I asked a legal officer of the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources in committee how the levy was changed or raised by just tabling a piece of paper, because it was not a tax and there was no tradition for doing so. He said that it was basically a tax. Then I asked why there was no Ways and Means motion preceding it in the first place, and he said that it was a procedural imperfection. Just like that, what had not been a tax became a tax! Is that not an absurd, asinine way to run the country? We are without any weapons to hold the government to account, to have it obey the law. Now it is a tax; suddenly it was changed from a levy into a tax. Because it is a tax the government has the ability to change its levels by tabling a piece of paper called a notice of Ways and Means.
Now it is a tax. Well, a tax is something which goes into the consolidated revenue fund and is accounted for through public accounts. Then expenditures by government through the blue book are funded by drawing on the consolidated revenue fund. Okay, we say that perhaps it has changed names and become a tax, but at least we have the knowledge that it goes into the consolidated revenue fund, that when it is spent it goes through the estimates procedure, that supply must be approved by the House, and that at least we will have an open and honest accounting of what is going on. Not at all, Mr. Speaker. When it comes to accounting, it goes back to becoming a levy.
How does the government do that? It is very simple. Referring to page 7-2 of the estimates for 1982-83, there is a line entitled "Payments to refiners and other persons who import crude oil and petroleum products", which shows $2,974,800,000 or almost $3 billion worth of expenditures. If we look down the list, we see another line entitled "Petroleum Compensation Revolving Fund", which shows a negative expenditure of $2,974,800,000. In other words, it is a revenue item in the expenditure accounts which cancels out the other
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expenditure. What effect does this tax and expenditure have on government spending? Nothing, zero; it does not show up.
When the Blue Book is presented, as it was at the end of February, the government has a lock-up for the media. Members of Parliament are not allowed in the same lock-up because we might talk with members of the media. Just the media is present, and high-priced officials prepare press documents for them. Then they announce to the world that government spending this year has risen 16 per cent over last year. This information goes out in all the stories over national television. This is what the people of Canada are told, and they believe it because their government tells them. In fact, if the government had not cooked the books with this little negative expenditure, spending had risen 22 per cent. We were deceived about this $3 billion expenditure.
It is a tax if they want to raise it, but when they have to account for it, it goes back to becoming a levy. If they do not want it to show up in government spending, they enter a little negative expenditure item so that a number is produced which looks nice and they can stand there and say, "We are restraining government expenditures; are we not good boys and girls?" If a private business tried that kind of creative bookkeeping, it would be in big trouble with the regulatory authorities. The Government of Canada does it all the time.
What, pray tell, can we do to keep the Government of Canada honest? Is there not a mechanism available to Members of Parliament to keep the Government of Canada honest, to keep it from cooking the books, and to keep it from changing taxes to levies and back to taxes at will, whenever it feels like it, so as to confuse?
Anyone who is concerned about what the government is doing with this petroleum compensation charge and the manner in which it has abused the House, the country, the electoral process and all of us who call ourselves politicians, by putting all of us into disrepute by its constant violation of promises, constant misinformation and distortion of the true facts of the situation, would join with us in voting for Motions Nos. 4 and 5 and in helping improve this legislation in just that little way. They do not cover everything that is wrong with the legislation-far from it. They certainly do not cover everything that is wrong with the National Energy Program-far, far from it. But at least it is a small step in the direction of being honest with the public of Canada and in fact doing what was promised in the first instance.
Before resuming my seat, let me indicate that this limiting of the petroleum compensation charge to a maximum of the equivalent of 18 cents per gallon will not result in any real loss of legitimate treasury funds because, if the government were to keep its promise that the export charge is to be used for import compensation, if the government were to keep its promise that the excise tax on gasoline would go toward import compensation, and if it directed the petroleum compensation charge toward import compensation, there is more than enough money to compensate imported crude oil so that we have a one-price system across Canada.

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In no way can this motion be construed as somehow causing the government to be forced to dip into non-petroleum revenues in order to subsidize consumption in this country. All that this motion would do is cause the Liberal government to live up to its promises and nothing more. I do not believe this is an outrageous step to ask members of the Liberal Party to take, to live up to their promises-or at least this one promise.


Norman Kelly: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. May I be permitted to ask a question of the hon. member?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: This can be done with unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Norman Kelly: I have two brief questions. The first question relates to the respective gasoline prices of the two nations which figured rather largely in the hon. member's speech. What is the difference in price and what accounts for that difference? I would hope that in answer to the second question the hon. member would do more than just repeat the prices or the price content of Canadian gas at the pump and would instead give a breakdown of the American prices so that we can see exactly what accounts for that price differential.


Harvie Andre: In the United States, as in Canada, every state or province has its own taxing scheme and it is therefore difficult to give a universal number. Unfortunately, I do not have the document. My colleague from Calgary South (Mr. Thomson) has a copy of the document which has complete comparisons. We will be pleased to send a copy to the hon. member.
However, in order to take into account the very factors which he has talked about, we conducted a survey for several months of comparable locations across the United States. We have investigated Massachusetts, New York, Washington, Minnesota and Texas to examine the comparables. Here is the document. For example, in Seattle, Washington, the price of gasoline is 39.5 cents per litre. That is Canadian cents. In Vancouver, the price is 43.6 cents a litre. The hon. member is correct that British Columbia has road taxes, but so does Washington.


Norman Kelly: What are they?


Harvie Andre: I do not know what the British Columbia taxes are either. What difference does it make?
St. Paul, Minnesota charges 41.3 cents per litre, and Winnipeg charges 39.9 cents per litre. It is higher in Minnesota than in Manitoba. In Buffalo, New York it is 39.5 cents while in Toronto it is 38.8 cents. Therefore it is a little bit more.


Norman Kelly: What are the Toronto figures?


Harvie Andre: As of April 5, Toronto was 38.8 cents. We know it has gone up since then. In Buffalo it is 39.5 cents.


Norman Kelly: Does that include ad valorem taxes?


Harvie Andre: I will send the hon. member the document if his research department is not able to make those phone calls.


André Ouellet: It is cheaper in Canada.


Harvie Andre: That must be put in context with the promises made by the Liberal Party that in no way, shape or form would we be paying world prices and that we were going to be protected with oil prices much lower than world prices. The Americans are paying world prices.


André Ouellet: No.


Harvie Andre: Where there is a difference, I would like the Minister for Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Ouellet) to check-


André Ouellet: He knows they are not paying the world price.


Harvie Andre: He says they are not paying world prices in the United States.


André Ouellet: Check what they are paying in Europe.


John Horton McDermid: That has nothing to do with it. The problem over there is that they do not understand the business.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, the minister said that the United States is not paying world prices. He must be talking about the united states of eastern Slobovia, because in the United States of America they are definitely paying world price for crude oil. The difference is that in Canada the government has loaded up huge taxes. The minister says that they have done so in Europe. They have certainly done that in some European countries but those governments are not standing up at the same time and saying they are protecting their citizens from world oil prices, the terrible oil companies, the Arabs, Venezuelans and Mexicans who want to charge so much. At least European countries are honest enough to say that they have to conserve and so they are raising the price to that very high level in order to achieve conservation.


Norman Kelly: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: The question was posed by way of a point of order. Unanimous consent was given. I think we have no choice but to hear out the hon. member for Calgary Centre. I will hear the point of order after he is finished.


Norman Kelly: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: It is very difficult to recognize the hon. parliamentary secretary on a point of order. Unanimous consent was given on a point of order for the purpose of asking a question which the hon. member for Calgary Centre is in the process of answering. There is no way I can entertain another point of order at this time.


Harvie Andre: The reality is that the difference between Canada and the United States with respect to the price at the pump, where it counts if you are a consumer, is that we are in
June 7, 1982

fact paying the equivalent of world price at the pump. The difference between the United States and Canada is that the Canadian government has loaded the price up with taxes while the United States has not. It perhaps might be forgivable for the Canadian government and provincial governments to have loaded up with taxes if there was at least the decency to be honest about it. They should at least have had the decency to be honest and to say it was putting on these taxes for those reasons. But it certainly is an affront to decency and an affront to the House for the government, its spokesmen, minions and ministers to stand up and say they are protecting Canadians from world prices through the made-in-Canada price. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is not protecting anyone from anything. It is, in fact, bleeding the consumers for the benefit of the treasury in a dishonest way.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to this bill. I have heard this controversy between the Conservatives and the Liberals over oil prices for some time. Last weekend I attended a reunion of high school friends in Perth, Ontario. Most of the people there were from Mississauga, Oakville or west Toronto. It was very interesting to talk to those people. They are family people who are in their middle and late thirties and hard working. Frankly, they think we in the House of Commons are crazy when they see us yelling at each other and making great unsubstantiated charges. They are also worried about high prices and would like us to do something about them.
When I heard the last hon. member go on to rail about the opposition and when I heard the replies, it reminded me of a quote from Macbeth:
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Instead of some sound and fury, today I would like to try to give some facts concerning the petroleum compensation charge and blended oil policy. I notice that the critic for the Conservatives has left so I hope some of his colleagues will take this message to him, because I want to compare Liberal and Conservative oil prices right now, and I would like the other parties to reply, if they can.
As of June, 1982, the Liberals' blended or consumer price per barrel is 75.8 per cent of world price. A blended price is taking Canadian oil, which is lower than world price, and world price oil, which we have to import because we do not have enough Canadian oil. We exported most of our cheap oil in the early seventies, adding on the various taxes, levies and charges, and then blending them all together and getting a price at the pump. The Liberals promised that the blended price would not exceed 85 per cent of the world price.
The Tory budget of 1979 promised that the Canadian price would not exceed 75 per cent of the world price from 1979 to 1982 and 85 per cent of that price from 1983 to 1984. The
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Conservatives also added an 18-cent a gallon excise tax on the gasoline. What we must remember is that it is a wrong impression when my friends to my right, the Conservatives, say: "Well, we were just putting 18 cents on". They put 18 cents on right away and then they were to make an agreement with Alberta and the other producing provinces and the price would have gone up and up. Likewise, the Liberals have made an agreement with Alberta and the other producing provinces which also makes the price go up and up.
I stand to be corrected, if I can be, but my comparison shows that as of June, 1982, this month, Liberal prices are approximately 41 cents a litre for regular gasoline, amounting to $1.85 a gallon. That varies slightly, up and down. Conservative prices would have been 42.8 cents a litre, or $1.92 a gallon. Therefore, it seems to me that the Conservative gasoline prices would be 7 cents a gallon more than the present price.


John Horton McDermid: Talk about home heating oil.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: The hon. member asks me about home heating oil. I think the Conservative price for home heating oil would have been less than the present Liberal price, because there was no 18-cent a gallon excise tax on that.


John Horton McDermid: And gas?


Ian Gardiner Waddell: It may have been slightly less than that for natural gas. But the point is-


John Horton McDermid: The point is-


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Wait a minute. Perhaps the hon. member would let me finish. The other point one must consider in the equation is that the Conservatives also promised an energy tax credit which would have given some money back to low and middle-income families, although we really never knew the nature of the credit. That must be considered. But the point is that both the Liberal and Conservative Parties are high-cost parties. They are approximately the same. So to spend 20 hours slinging darts or arrows at each other across the floor of this chamber is rather useless, it seems to me. The consumers are still getting hosed and there is nothing to help them.
The hon. member who spoke for the Conservatives tried to put blame on our party for breaking contracts. We never suggested breaking any contracts. In July there is to be another increase to $2.25 a gallon for gasoline. We said that that increase need not come, that there could be negotiations with the provinces to stop that increase and to give the consumer a break. That is what the consumer needs, a break. We gave the oil companies a break the other day. We gave Imperial Oil and its friend $2 billion and we gave them a break. We could find that money. This is what The Globe and Mail had to say about that in its article on June 3: "Imperial Oil Limited of Toronto is one of the big winners in the federal petroleum industry relief package." Sure, some small industries benefited and they needed to benefit from that, but the big boys also benefited. They were not happy. Shell's reaction was this, according to the Canadian Press: "Shell Canada
COMMONS DEBATES_____________ June 7, 1982
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Limited said Ottawa's $2 billion aid package for the industry is modest in scale and temporary in nature and will not significantly increase exploration in western Canada".
When I met with my friends this weekend at our reunion, as I mentioned, they asked me how the government could find $2 billion for the oil companies. They said, "The government is not taking any action against bank profits and we do not get anything. Our oil prices have gone up a great deal." As a matter of fact, they were right; their oil prices have gone up an average of 30 per cent in the last year. I have in my hand some statistics. The price of home heating oil went up from $770 a year to $1,100 for the average family. The price of gasoline, as I said, went up from $730 to $945 for the average motorist. That is substantial.


John Horton McDermid: Who gets most of it?


Ian Gardiner Waddell: My friend asks who gets most of it. Well, the industry gets a lot of it and I will tell hon. members why.


John Horton McDermid: Most of it.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: The government gets a lot of it, too. The industry gets most of it because it found oil when it was really cheap, $2 a barrel, and now it will sell that oil on the market for $30 a barrel. So they are getting a windfall there. There is no doubt about the fact that they are getting the money.
Who else is getting money? The federal government is getting money. The hon. member and I will agree that for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) to stand up in this House and say that it is all the fault of the provinces is sheer nonsense. There is a federal excise tax. As the hon. member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre) pointed out, the government extended that tax. The minister could cut back that tax if he wanted. The provinces, too, are villains. The Government of Ontario, the hon. member's province, tagged on an ad valorem tax. It got into the grab for money, too. The governments are grabbing the money, the oil companies are getting some money and the consumer is getting hosed. It seems to me that the facts are there.
I have in my hand a list of price increases under this Liberal government which I would like to read, but I get tired when 1 read it. There were two increases on August 1, 1980. There were increases on October 28, 1980, November 1, 1980 and two increases on January 1, 1981. There were increases on March 1, 1981, May 1, 1981, and two on June 3, 1981. There were increases on July 1, 1981 and September 21, 1981. The list goes on and on.


John Horton McDermid: Keep reading.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: The price of oil has risen from $14 a barrel to $30 a barrel. We know two things. We know that Canadians were living in a bit of a fool's paradise in the sense that we had oil prices which were too low. We know that western Canada is entitled to adequate compensation for its oil and gas resources. We knew the prices would rise. We should be honest with the people and tell them what they will rise to and let us not pretend, as the Liberal Party is pretending-


John Horton McDermid: The Tories told them.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: The Tories were not being honest. I just pointed that out.


John Horton McDermid: Oh yes, we were.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Well, the hon. member has listened since the beginning of my speech and can reply to it. The impression I get from this debate on Bill C-103 is that the Conservatives are saying, "We would have put on only an 18-cent a gallon tax." That is not true. They would have put substantially more on. As a matter of fact, as I have said, their price would have been 42.8 cents a litre today.
The Liberals made a promise that we would have low oil prices and they broke that promise. They are not, perhaps, being straightforward enough to say so. I will give Your Honour an example of where they are not being straightforward. The headline of an article from The Citizen dated March 2 states, "Lalonde offers hope of cheaper gas". That is what the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources said. He said that Canadians may get a slight break at the pumps because international prices are going down and the government might consider reducing the special tax it levies to subsidize gas prices in eastern Canada. That is the petroleum compensation charge that we are debating today. Then last week, when he gave $2 billion to the oil industry, the minister said that the consumers will not benefit. I meant to say that he said the consumers will not hurt. They will not benefit, obviously, but they will not get hurt. He said there would be no change for the consumer. He did not say to forget about cheaper gas. The money being collected under the petroleum compensation charge will be in surplus. It could have gone to reduce the charge to the consumer. However, it will stay as a tax and the consumer will not get a break. Only one journalist, Les Whittington of the Ottawa Citizen, picked up what was happening to consumers. The rest of the press were misled by the slick press releases of Energy, Mines and Resources.
We have two parties essentially the same when it comes to oil prices, both protesting too much that they are low-priced parties. There is no relief in sight for the consumers. They will have a 30 per cent increase on their energy bill, and nothing to shield them from the worst.
There could have been a reduction in the petroleum compensation charge, but the minister will not do that now. The money will go to the industry. It will go to the industry because of the change in the price of oil, old oil discovered between 1973 and 1981.
Instead of the old oil price, it will be called an old-new price and they will almost get the new reference price. It sounds like mumbo-jumbo. It is an increase in price. It has to come from somewhere. It will come from the government forgoing lower prices to the consumer.
June 7, 1982

The government has to forgo other things as well. It will drop $25 billion in projected revenue because of the decrease in world prices and consequently the take for the government. That means the government will ultimately have to tax personal taxpayers more or forgo social programs. Either way the consumer gets hosed again. The consumer will get hosed at the gas pump, in his hydro bills, tax bills, and social programs. It is tough for the consumer.
I get back to my friends at the reunion. They need a little help. I will end on a positive note. The government could look at the petroleum compensation charge and at the agreement with the producing provinces. It could go back to Premier Lougheed and say that when the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and Premier Lougheed made their champagne toasts over the oil price deal, clearly the small oil companies were stuck; and now that we have helped them, how about helping the consumers?
If the federal government cannot persuade Premier Lougheed, Premier Devine and Premier Bennett, then it should forgo its share of the new price increase coming in July. It would be a break, albeit a small one, for the Canadian consumer. The consumers are getting hosed and they need a break. That is what we should be debating here today instead of hurling insults at each other.


John William Thomson: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell) said that we were not honest with the Canadian people as to the prices they were going to have to pay for gasoline, heating fuel and natural gas.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Now, not then.


John William Thomson: We were completely up front with the Canadian people. We were completely up front with the Canadian people in the Crosbie budget. We said exactly what we would charge in terms of a gasoline charge and exactly that the consumer would have to pay for home heating fuel and natural gas. We told the Canadian people the prices that would be paid for crude oil over the next four and a half years.
We were completely up front, completely honest and open with the Canadian people, as distinct from the point made by my colleague for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre) with regard to the Liberal government. This government was completely dishonest. It misled the Canadian people. It is quite unfair for the member of the New Democratic Party to put us in the same boat with the Liberal Party.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I am talking about now, not then.


John William Thomson: The Liberal government prices for heating oil are much higher than those introduced in the Crosbie budget. Natural gas prices are also much higher. We had an energy tax credit for all low and middle-income families in Canada. There is no such tax credit offered by the Liberal government.
If the hon. member wants to talk about fairness, let him be fair and put all the facts on the table, not just those facts he wants to impute to us which put us in the same boat as those rascals across the way.
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Further, the oil industry in this country would not now be lying devastated and in ruins had we followed the 1979 Crosbie budget instead of the Natural Energy Program we have today. Alsands would be two years further down the road. We would be well on our way toward an additional 260,000 barrels a day of oil and oil self-sufficiency in this country. If the hon. member wants to tell the truth, he should tell the whole truth and not just part of it.
The other night the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) went to great pains to tell Canadians what a great thing his National Energy Program was. He said that it was working beautifully for everyone, that it was glorious and that we were well on our way to energy selfsufficiency. The minister said that we have low prices and that Canadians have the best of both worlds. Why? Because of his National Energy Program, which he says has been glorious. He failed to mention, however, that it has caused a good deal of our unemployment problems. He conveniently forgot that it has contributed in no small way to high interest rates in this country.
More than anything else, the Liberal government and the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources do not understand that because of the National Energy Program, investors do not trust the government any more. They do not trust it because it has changed the rules in midstream. It has confiscated the assets of investors. Therefore, they do not believe the government.
For quite a few years before becoming a Member of Parliament, I was in business. Like most businessmen, I guess, I made a few mistakes here and there, perhaps more than some. I was in the oil well drilling business. I could drill 100 wells per customer and not make one single mistake. Every well would go according to program. One day I drilled a bad well. The 101st well was a bad one. We had problems, some within my control, some not. However, I was always remembered by that customer, not for the 100 good wells but for the one bad one.
That is the problem which this government and other governments face today. Investors do not trust it. Why would anyone want to invest in Canada when this government has confiscated the assets of people and changed the rules in midstream? It expropriated their assets. The Minister of State for Finance (Mr. Bussieres) shakes his head and says they did not confiscate anybody's assets. What about when the government backed in to the Canada lands for 25 per cent? That is expropriation. That is what investors call it. Expropriation, without compensation; that is confiscation. Why would someone not invest in Canada? Investors do not have faith in us, that is why. They do not believe what this government is saying.
It has diminished cash flow. People invested their money in Canada to expolore for oil and gas. Then two levels of government come along once they find oil or gas and they take all

June 7, 1982
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their money away from them. They do not leave anything that gives them a decent return on what they have already invested. It is a sad thing today.
The reason the National Energy Program, for some Canadians, seems to have sold so well is just that the oil companies seem to be bad guys. They are the scapegoat, so then the National Energy Program must be good. That is the tragedy. Most Canadians automatically think that Imperial Oil, Shell, Gulf are ripping the people off; therefore Petro-Canada must be good. What a sad, sad story.
The people of Canada put up $600 billion of their hard money for the privilege of buying their gasoline at Petro-Canada stations. Do they get it any cheaper? Is one cent a gallon any cheaper? No, they pay the same. But that is only the half of it: there is no return on that $6 billion, either. It is just going down the tube. Petro-Canada came out with a great big statement saying how much money they have made. Any other company in Canada that made as little money on $6 billion as Petro-Canada makes would not be in business, let alone have anyone investing in it. Petro-Canada is a criminal abuse of taxpayers' money, and Canadians will have to wake up and understand that that is what is contributing to the high interest rates.
Where do hon. members think the Government of Canada is getting that $6 billion? Do they think they just manufacture it out of thin air? They had to go out and borrow it, because the Government of Canada could not tax the people enough to pay for it. When you go out and borrow $6 billion, you have to pay the going rate of interest.
Interest rates, whether we like it or not, are a function of supply and demand. If you buy a car or a house today, or if you buy food for your table, what you pay is a function of supply and demand, and interest rates are just that. So the $6 billion that is being poured into Petro-Canada is causing the Canadian people to pay 17 per cent, 18 per cent, 22 per cent rates of interest today on their homes and cars and credit cards.
We are not going to get this country back on the rails until governments, and particularly the federal government, recognize one fundamental issue, that until you have investor confidence people will not invest. When you do not invest, not only are we not creating jobs for ourselves, but we are not creating jobs for our kids. We are losing jobs because people are taking capital out of the country. Ten billion dollars went out of Canada last year, $10 billion that could have created
200,000	jobs.
Until the federal government and other governments recognize the investor and treat the investor fairly, we will not create jobs, we will have further unemployment, we will have higher interest rates.
As for the National Energy Program, or the update thereof last week, I said that the minister seemed to blow his horn, trying to tell the Canadian people what a glorious success this had been and what the National Energy Program had done for
all Canadians. But if you do not have the cash, you offer some incentives, some modification to the program. For example, for the small Canadian oil or gas company the government offered a credit against the PGRT of $250,000 a year. That is quite a bit of money: it represents one 5,000-foot dry hole.


An hon. Member:: They don't even know what that is.


John William Thomson: That is what $250,000 will buy you, Mr. Speaker. We have 400 oil and gas companies in western Canada, so we can drill 400 more dry holes a year. We cannot complete them, but we can drill them.
People are not going to drill. Taking a man's cash flow away from him is like walking into your neighbour's house and stealing his silverware, and then coming back and saying: "I am sorry, here is your silverware back that I took last week".
The point is that the oil and gas industry does not have the available cash flow to go out and drill for new oil today. The new oil prices are attractive, I grant you that, and some of the incentives are attractive; but you must have the cash in the first place to go out and drill for that new oil. If you do not have the cash flow, you are not going to do it.
Apart from the petroleum and gas revenue tax relief of $250,000 a year for each individual oil and gas company for a period of four and one-half years, apart from that one tax concession, all of the other concessions were made for a period of one year. When you go out to look for an oil and gas well that you hope will produce for 15 years, or perhaps 20 years in the case of gas, you do not predicate your investment decisions on one year. When you are going to invest the kind of money that it takes to find an oil well or a gas well, you predicate that investment on a tax regime that will be in place for at least the term of payout, which is at least seven, eight or ten years. How can investors have any confidence in a program or a tax modification which amounts to saying: "We will change it for a year, then we will have a look at it, and if we do not like it we will change the rules back again". How can you reasonably expect any investor to have confidence in such a program? It is ridiculous.
The devastation the government has caused in the industry in my province, Alberta, by virtue of the National Energy Program is really sad. Here was an industry that was providing jobs not just for the people in Alberta, but it was the only industry that could have helped Canada through this period of recession. I do not say it would have solved all of the problems, by any means, but it certainly would have helped. Many people who do not have jobs today would have jobs. It would not have solved our high interest rate problem, but our interest rates would not have been quite so high without the National Energy Program.
For every $100 that is spent in the oil and gas industry in Alberta, only $29 stays in the province; $71 goes to other provinces. And $41 of the $71 goes to the province of Ontario alone. For every one job that is created in the oil and gas industry in Alberta, two jobs are created in the province of Ontario.
June 7, 1982

What this government has done has caused sadness not just for Albertans but for all Canadians. I keep asking myself whether it was by design or by accident. Was it the deliberate intention to destroy the oil and gas industry in this country, or was it just because hon. members opposite did not know any better? I see my hon. friend smiling. Has he asked himself that question? If it was done by design, I think that is pretty frightening.


John Horton McDermid: All the jobs lost in Quebec, and he laughs.


John William Thomson: My hon. friend laughs at that proposition.


Mr. Collenette:: Be serious.


John William Thomson: Since I came here three years ago it has been my understanding that the fondest hope of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and the Liberal government and one of the Prime Minister's cherished dreams was to unite this country. I tell my friend that he has done more in the last three years to take this country apart than has been done in the last 15 years.


David Michael Collenette: Rubbish.


John William Thomson: The sad part of it is I do not think my friend even knows what he has done; nor does he have any appreciation of it.


Mr. Irwin:: What have you done in this country other than spread that type of nonsense?


John William Thomson: What have I done?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Want an election?


John Horton McDermid: Right now!


David Michael Collenette: Nineteen eighty-four.


John William Thomson: If we were the government today, we could put this country back together on a solid footing, which is something that hon. member does not have the courage to do. Hon. members opposite do not have the necessary gumption; nor do they understand the problem.


David Michael Collenette: You gave away the store.


John William Thomson: This afternoon we are debating Bill C-103, which is part of the National Energy Program. It is a bill which will completely overhaul the Petroleum Administration Act and change its name to the Energy Administration Act. The maximum allowable oil export charge will be raised to $55 a barrel. The charge will be determined by the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources instead of by the National Energy Board. We set up the National Energy Board to look after these determinations for us, but the government does not like that. The government does not like the independence of the National Energy Board. We gave the National Energy Board too much authority, so we are going to take that away so that the minister can set these charges by order in council. The government will be permitted to return 50 per cent of the proceeds to the producing provinces if it sees fit.
Petroleum Administration Act
A transportation fuel compensation recovery charge can be applied to all aircraft and ships leaving Canada. In practice, the charge will no longer be applied to foreign aircraft companies. A petroleum compensation charge can be levied to a maximum of about $12 a barrel in order to pay oil import compensation. By the insanity of our National Energy Program we are importing 400,000 barrels of oil a day into Canada, and we have 300,000 barrels of oil shut in in western Canada trying to find a market. We are paying $40 a barrel every day for 400,000 barrels while we have 300,000 barrels in the ground out in western Canada. What kind of absolute irresponsibility is that? It is just incredible. The government says we have commitments to foreign suppliers. Perhaps we have, but how long would we be paying for foreign oil imports if the compensation charge was reduced? At the same time, surely to goodness, could we not reasonably expect that the government would not mind allowing western Canada to sell
300,000	barrels of oil to the United States? The United States is importing 5.5 million barrels of oil every day, 300,000 barrels of it from western Canada. But no, the government thinks we should keep it shut in. "Let's keep our thumb on those westerners; let's not give them a break."
Bill C-103 gives retroactive authority to the government to introduce a special compensation charge for any cutbacks in western Canadian oil, and the bill allows the government to levy a Canadian ownership charge to a maximum of $1.15 a barrel and to a maximum of 15 cents per MCF of natural gas. The tax ceiling would have been $4 a barrel under the previous legislation, and the proposed Energy Administration Act would establish the Canadian ownership account into which the funds would go. Further, the proposed Energy Administration Act would give the government the authority to amend the pricing terms of the Syncrude agreement.
The motions we have before us this afternoon are Motions Nos. 4 and 5, and my colleague, the hon. member for Calgary Centre, has explained the purpose of those motions. The purpose of Motion No. 4 is to reduce the maximum level of the petroleum compensation charge, in effect to 18 cents a gallon, which would correspond with the 18 cents a gallon set forth in the Crosbie budget. By passing this amendment, hon. members opposite at least would be saying to the Canadian people that they have not exceeded their election promise of 1980. I think my colleagues have explained that.
Motion No. 5 would limit the petroleum compensation charge so that it could be used only for purposes of subsidizing imported crude into Canada. It would not be allowed to be moved over to the Consolidated Revenue Fund or to be used for other purposes.
Those are the two motions we have before us this afternoon and, in my view, they appear to be quite reasonable. I see no reason why anyone should object to them.
I just want to say a further word about the National Energy Program while I have the floor. One of the stipulated intents of the National Energy Program was to provide energy security

June 7, 1982
Petroleum Administration Act
for Canadians. I have spoken about some of the other tragedies of the National Energy Program in terms of its devastation, the unemployment it has created and so forth, but in my view the greatest tragedy to the Canadian people of all is in terms of energy security or security of supply of oil. We in Canada rely very heavily upon oil. We rely on it to the extent that over 50 per cent of all our energy consumption in Canada is oil-related. As I have said, we import 400,000 barrels of oil of the approximately 1.6 or 1.7 million barrels of oil consumed per day. We are importing 25 per cent of our oil.
Through the National Energy Program the minister told Canadians we would have security of energy supply. That is a fraud, because the National Energy Program is depriving Canadians of oil security. Our reserves are diminishing at a very fast rate. We produce about 1,200,000 barrels of oil per day out of a total of 1.6 million that we use. We import the balance of 400,000 barrels a day. Our conventional oil reserves are declining at the rate of 100,000 barrels per day per year, so in ten years our conventional oil and gas fields will be capable of producing one million barrels per day less than they are producing today. If we do not find any more oil, our conventional oil fields will only be capable of producing about
200.000	barrels of oil per day by 1990.
The government should tell that to Canadians. Instead, it tells people not to worry because it will be possible for them to substitute gas for oil. The government feels confident that people will conserve a lot more oil. Last year for the first time people practised conservation and consumption was reduced by 7 per cent. But the easiest part of conservation is over, Mr. Speaker, and the easiest part of substitution is over.
I say the government is practising a fraud on the Canadian people by insinuating that they will have oil security. I wonder how much of last year's 7 per cent saving was attributable to the recession? I wonder if we really conserved anything or if that 7 per cent was all due to the recession.
Assuming that oil consumption does not increase one barrel between now and 1990 and that we are still consuming
1.600.000	barrels per day then, our conventional fields will only be able to produce 200,000 barrels per day. So we must ask where the other 1,400,000 barrels will come from. Will they come from Hibernia, from the Beaufort Sea, from the megaprojects, the oil sands? The minister did not say anything about that the other night, not a word. He implied that we will be secure because the government will continue to make substitution possible. Does he mean that will come by conversion to gas, Mr. Speaker? In his wildest dreams does he believe that he is going to be able to substitute natural gas, coal and electricity for 1,400,000 barrels of oil per day? He does not have a shred of evidence to support that claim that he is willing to put before the Canadian people or this House. I wonder who we will buy that oil from in 1990? At the moment we buy from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Mexico. Even if they are able to sell it to us then, I wonder what price we will pay? Will it be $40 per barrel or $100 per barrel?
When we have the opportunity in Canada to be self-sufficient, why would the government introduce a National Energy Program that would deprive us of that opportunity? I cannot understand that and my constituents cannot understand it. Why would the government be so hidebound, so doctrinaire, as to introduce a program that will deprive Canadians of the opportunity to achieve self-sufficiency? No one will explain that to us.
Bill C-103 and all of the National Energy Program was never intended to come to grips with the primary goal of selfsufficiency. That is just a nice set of words used to describe the government's main intent, which was complete control over the oil and gas industry and to siphon off huge amounts of revenue so that it could continue with its profligate spending. In the forecast of revenues over the next five years the government includes $53 billion from the industry. It might not be so bad to destroy an industry if that $53 billion were used to create jobs and help bring interest rates down. But that is not the case, Mr. Speaker.
The second priority of the National Energy Program, which the government ranked ahead of self-sufficiency, was Canadi-anization of the industry. With the introduction of Bill C-103 and other parts of the National Energy Program, Canadians are witnessing a new era in which government not only shares the planning function with business, but where government actually makes the business decisions for the industry.
This bill, together with others, is the most massive, coordinated program of regulation, tax measures and other interventions aimed at moving the government to the position where it virtually controls every single aspect of the industry. We are about to see, or probably have already seen, a bureaucracy of accountants and lawyers the like of which we have never seen before to administer this legislation. By virtue of these regulations the government will control the day to day decisions of managers in the oil and gas industry. The substance of this legislation, in many cases, is such that companies and individuals are guilty unless they can prove themselves innocent. Public servants are placed in the position of making recommendations which will depend on highly discretionary choices between different proposals.
In short, Mr. Speaker, what we have is government bureaucrats who will be directly involved in commercial decisionmaking. I say we are dangerously close to becoming a socialist republic. In one form or another the new regulatory moves are designed to gain complete influence and control over business decisions. As I said, these regulatory measures have been coordinated with a host of other programs, like the changes to the tax regime which are designed radically to increase the fiscal take of the government.
It is hard to imagine the administrative burden which all these regulations will place on the industry. The cost of doing business will be increased to a staggering level-indeed, it already has been. The cost of compliance with the new information requirements for COR, PIP and PMA will be out of all proportion to the economic benefits derived. Time, manpower and money will be spent filling out forms instead of being
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June 7, 1982

devoted to production activities. Rather than an oil and gas finding operation the industry will be turned into a bookkeeping operation of lawyers and accountants.
Let us look at what happened in 1981 as a result of the NEP. We know the industry is lying in ruins. We know exploration in western Canada has fallen by 30 per cent. We know the Cold Lake and Alsands projects are dead. We know drilling in western Canada fell from 9,000 wells in 1980 to 6,600 wells in 1981. We know that last year our imports of crude and refined products averaged 418,000 barrels a day. We know the federal government paid out $4.5 billion last year to refiners to offset the extra cost of imported crude. We know that industry cash flow declined by 35 per cent during the year, with earnings down a similar amount. We know that $10.2 billion left the country. We know that because of the government's Canadianization policy more than $7 billion of that $10.2 billion went to acquire assets of foreign-controlled companies. We know these purchases created a burden of debt which seriously hinders future oil and gas exploration and development, and they did not add one single barrel of oil to our energy reserves. We know that $3 billion left Canada to explore for oil and gas in the United States and elsewhere. These companies are exploring for oil and gas in other countries and we are still importing 400,000 barrels of oil a day. It is madness. This large outflow of capital is one of the major factors in pushing the value of the Canadian dollar to a 50-year low and interest rates to a record high.
What about the oil well and drilling rigs service industry? Here was a Canadian industry, 90 per cent owned by Canadians. What has happened to them? Twenty-three companies are bankrupt today by virtue of that government. Two hundred and twenty-seven rigs have left the country, mostly for the United States. One hundred and seven oil well servicing rigs have left the country. Of the 461 rigs left in Canada, there were 121 working last week. In June, 1980, prior to the NEP, there were 360-odd rigs working in Canada. Industry has lost
25,000	jobs. Thousands of professionals engaged in the industry have left our country, driven out by a senseless and inane government.
Is it any wonder that we see this hostility and bitterness in western Canada toward the federal government? The Prime Minister in a speech not so long ago blamed racism for the election of a separatist to the Alberta legislature. Just how far out of touch can the Prime Minister be to make such an assertion? He cannot have any appreciation whatsoever of the alienation felt by western Canadians caused by his dogmatic approach to the Constitution, the NEP and the Crow rate. The election of a separatist in Alberta has absolutely nothing to do with racism. It is a sad indictment of our Prime Minister that he should so gravely mistake the enormity of the feeling which exists in western Canada today. If he or any of his cabinet would spend even a little time listening to the people in western Canada and remove themselves from their centralized isolation in Ottawa, they might learn that there is serious-very serious-trouble brewing on the prairies. I do not say this in any sense as a threat; I say it because this government has turned
Petroleum Administration Act
its back on the people of western Canada and they feel helpless with nowhere to turn. Believe me, I have never seen the level of frustration and desperation which exists in Calgary today.
The minister of energy had a press conference last Friday. In his opening statement I read this:
We today introduced legislation to implement the final major elements of the National Energy Program designed to give Canadians control of their energy future and ensure self-sufficiency in oil by 1990.
The people of this country do not believe that. They do not believe this government. The minister may believe it, but he is the only one. I sincerely hope the Beaufort and Hibernia will eventually produce enough oil for us to be self-sufficient. I think the potential is there, but it will not happen by 1990, and for the minister to pretend it will is a serious misrepresentation of the facts to the Canadian people and he knows better. In looking at the amendments to Bill C-103, I would hope the government will have enough courage and wisdom to accept the amendments and throw out the bill.


Norman Kelly: Mr. Speaker, I got involved in this debate earlier through a number of interjections and a couple of questions, and I want to round that off by making some brief observations. I want to restrict my remarks to the issue of price, which was raised a short while ago by the hon. member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre) and then commented on by the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell).
I do not debate the conclusion that prices generally appear to be higher in Canada at the pump than they are in the U.S. I have heard enough evidence from learned members of this House and interested constituents to convince me of the accuracy of that observation. The point of my original interjection was to ask why the price was higher, because it was argued that the reason was the policies of this government. If you look at the price of gasoline when it leaves the refinery in both countries, Mr. Speaker, 1 think you will see a substantial difference. I think any objective and honest member of this House would agree that at that point Canadian prices, at about 75 per cent of the world price, are far cheaper than their American counterparts.
If that is the case, why do Canadians have to pay more at the pump than the Americans do? The answer is obvious, and in a way it was contained in the response that I got from the hon. member for Calgary Centre. It lies with the high provincial taxes that we have in many provinces in Canada. If we are looking for a culprit to blame for higher prices, and that seems to be the intent in many debates in this House, I suggest you do not have to look any further than, say, Bill Davis in Ontario and John Buchanan in Nova Scotia. Mr. Davis, as everyone knows, recently introduced a 20 per cent ad valorem tax on gasoline. That accounts for the higher price of Ontario gasoline compared to its counterpart in New York state. Premier Buchanan in Nova Scotia just introduced the 15-cent a gallon tax in Nova Scotia, which accounts for the higher Halifax price compared to the Boston price. _

June 7, 1982
Petroleum Administration Act
Having commented on the arguments developed by the Conservative spokesman this afternoon, I would like now to pass on to the arguments presented and developed by the spokesman for the New Democratic Party. First, I will comment briefly on the preface to his remarks, when he reproached us gently about the unseemly squabbling which characterized the interaction between myself and the hon. member for Calgary Centre. I could not help but smile inwardly as I compared the rhetoric with the apoplectic intervention by the hon. member several days ago when he rose continuously in this House on points of order, attempting to score points against the very member who was the object of my interjections this afternoon. Perhaps the hon. member had a brief or a selective lapse of memory when he brought the Shakespearean reproof to our attention this afternoon.
The New Democratic Party is attempting to pose as the low-price party in this House during this debate. I would like to point out that I have to doubt the honesty of that posturing and I do so based on two arguments. The first argument arises out of the fact that the New Democratic Party is, in essence, a western party. It may have an eastern leadership, but it is in fact a western caucus. I do not believe that any party that is so dominated as that party is by its western members could convincingly argue to anyone, at any time, that it could negotiate a cheaper price with the western premiers and with its western constituents than we did or the Conservatives thought they did.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Norman Kelly: I do not buy that argument at all. I do not think anyone else who has looked through the debates of this House over the preceding two years would buy that argument either.
Second, the New Democratic Party is a very ambitious party. The members of that party have had the courage of their convictions to outline in this House, in some detail the energy policies they would execute if only, through some miracle or divine intervention, they formed the Government of Canada. If you review the list of policies which they are proposing, Mr. Speaker, you would find that they are very expensive proposals. I would ask the hon. member or the audience beyond this House how on earth the New Democratic Party expects to pay for those ambitious expensive policies. I suppose that it would not impose the cost at the pump. In not doing that, the party could lose as a low-energy-price party. But someone, somehow, somewhere, at some time, will have to pay the price of its energy policies. I would argue that if you are not paying for those policies at the pump, as we are asking the consumer to do for many of our policies, you will be paying for those policies through your taxes.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: You got it.


Norman Kelly: For hon. members of the New Democratic Party to argue that their party is a low-energy-price party when, in
fact, it would be socking it to the taxpayer for the most expensive energy policy of all the three parties constitutes, I think, a ludicrous and farcical assault on the very honesty which that gentleman attempted to bring to this debate a few moments ago.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: 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 Central Nova (Mr. MacKay)-The Economy-Query respecting contact between Acting Prime Minister and Canadian delegation at Versailles, (b) Pursuit of Canadianization policy; the hon. member for St. Catharines (Mr. Reid)-Astra Trust-Position of depositors, (b) Minister's statement; the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mrs. Mitchell)-Status of Women-Parliamentary report on battered wives-Government action.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of Bill C-103, to amend the Petroleum Administration Act and to enact provisions related thereto, as reported (with amendments) from the Standing Committee on Energy Legislation, and Motions Nos. 4 and 5 (Mr. Hawkes).
Mr. John Gamble (York North):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to deal with the propriety and wisdom of Motion No. 4 and Motion No. 5 placed before this House, I might comment initially upon the remarks made by the energy spokesman for the New Democratic Party, to whom I listened with considerable interest. It seems convenient for members of that party to recall part of the facts but not all. It was not until the hon. member was reminded of the specific plans we had when we formed the government to include an energy tax credit, which would have been of substantial benefit to a great number of Canadians, that reference was made to that specific proposal when he compared prices of the Liberal Party today to prices proposed when our party formed the government. We had to be reminded also that the 18-cent federal excise tax of 1979 was not to apply to home heating fuel.
The issue before the House is not to compare energy policies of 1979 with energy policies of today because the public, the
June 7, 1982

final juror in determining the merits of the 1979 tax proposals, made its decision. That decision is one we cannot question. The issue surely before the House today is whether the proposals contained within the ambit of Bill C-103 are effective in implementing a program promised the Canadian people when their votes were cast in February, 1980, and whether that program is in line with specific commitments which have been made and whether they are in order today. The answers to those questions are most definitely not so.
I can recall vividly my experience on the election platforms prior to the February, 1980, election when I was advised by my Liberal opponent that the consumer in Canada would be confronted with a blended petroleum price and that was easily explained, said he, as being a combination of three specific prices; the price for conventional crude oil, the price for synthetic crude and the price for imported foreign oil.
I raised the question at that time that one of the constituent elements of the price happened to be an unknown quantity, that of the price of imported foreign crude over which this government has no control. Under those circumstances, how could he then assure my constituents that the price which would be paid by them would be less than the price they were then paying? The promise was, "Vote Liberal and the price will stay down".
The one component of that composite price which was never mentioned, although it should have been obvious to all, was the petroleum compensation charge, an equalization charge which permitted Canadians from coast to coast to pay relatively the same price for a gallon of gasoline, a gallon of crude oil or a gallon of diesel fuel. We are looking at that obvious omission today, the public already having been subjected to some impositions of the same nature as those which related to the Alberta levy to compensate for a cutback by the province of Alberta in two of three stages. The crucial issue was the commitment of the current government, in the words of a specific advertisement during the time of the 1980 election in the riding of the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen), to "vote Liberal and the price will stay down." What was omitted from the campaign literature was the small print, which should have read: "until the Liberal government takes office." The print was so small that it was not seen, and the public believed.
The proposals which we have before the House with respect to Motion No. 4 would have the effect of reducing the petroleum compensation charge from the current $75 per cubic metre to $28 per cubic metre. That change would result in a reduction in the price per gallon from 52 cents to 18 cents, an amount which will correspond to the amount of excise tax to be used for the purpose of paying the petroleum compensation charge referred to in December, 1979, and an amount above which the new Government of Canada pledged itself not to go. Accordingly, it is appropriate to point out that the entire amount, as it currently stands, is a reduction from the originally sought amount by the government of 95 cents per gallon.
Petroleum Administration Act
After the nights and days of the long bell, that amount has been reduced.
This piece of legislation is but one of a series of bills which have resulted from that action, an action which, incidentally, even in terms of the bill as it presently stands, has had the effect of saving the consumer of Canada, who may have driven on an average of 12,000 miles per year and derived 25 miles per gallon from his vehicle, $201 in the course of a year on his gasoline consumption. In the event that this specific proposal in Motion No. 4 should be passed, the additional saving to the same consumer, driving the same number of miles per year and deriving the same miles per gallon, would be $163 per year. That is not an insignificant amount. It is one which could be better used in the hands of hard pressed-consumers of Canada than in the Consolidated Revenue Fund maintained by the government.
I listened with some considerable interest to the comments of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) when he stood in his place last week and announced some adjustments to the National Energy Program. It was of significance that in the course of his address he made no reference to two most significant circumstances which had developed since the announcement of the NEP. Those circumstances were the abandonment of both the Alsands and Cold Lake projects, after the Government of Canada had pumped $50 million into the accounts of Imperial Oil for the purpose of shoring up a plan which ultimately was to fail. The money was badly spent because, throughout its negotiations with the province of Alberta and with the province of Saskatchewan, the government had adopted a stance of confrontation, the same kind of confrontation politics it adopted in dealing with the province of Newfoundland with respect to the Hibernia issue and generally with respect to the province of Quebec. The entire western part of the country has been abandoned to confrontation and bitterness, a fact which quite frankly is well known to some government members who have raised this very issue with their government but with no results. It is fundamentally important to the country that the benefit of all Canadians be looked to. That can never happen if the national government picks a fight with every province at every turn to get its own greedy way. Its own greedy way has been to take more and more of whatever is left in the pockets of consumers.
In 1917 the Government of Canada of the day imposed a tax which took effect in 1918. That act became the Income Tax Act of today. It was a temporary, war income tax measure designed to raise revenues for a specific purpose for a limited period of time. The Government of Canada soon recognized that it had found eldorado. This system of regularly and consistently extracting funds from the public, first of all in small amounts and then gradually in greater and greater amounts, was the salvation to the rapacious appetite of the federal government. The government today has given new meaning to the words "black gold".
The oil which is generated and produced in western Canada has become a new eldorado for the federal government. It has tapped into that resource to the extent that originally it

June 7, 1982
Petroleum Administration Act
anticipated, generating over a five-year term $53 billion. The government was to get it in a variety of ways-compensation charges, Canadian ownership charges, royalties or levies. Whatever it might call them, they were all a form of taxation. When a government reaches into the pocket of a citizen and extracts therefrom an amount, that amount, properly given its name, is a tax. To call it an ownership charge, to call it a petroleum compensation charge, or to call it a donation to a benevolent fund, is frivolous and deceitful. It is purely and simply a tax. That tax has grown and will continue to grow under an administration which recognizes that it has a new source of wealth which it can tax and indirectly take from the pockets of the taxpayers and consumers of Canada without their intimate knowledge.
The government's convenient metric system which it uses to determine the charges that are made is part of the program to confuse the taxpayers so they do not know how much they are paying. In order to determine an amount which taxpayers will understand, it is necessary for someone to sit down and calculate exactly what $75 per cubic metre is. When all of that is done and government members stand in their place to claim that the provinces have imposed a special road tax or ad valorem tax, such as that Ontario has placed on petroleum products at the pump, they fail to mention that of all the entities deriving part of the final sale price of a gallon or litre of gasoline, the one with the biggest hands and longest grasp is the federal government. As of March this year, fully 34.5 per cent went into the hands of the Receiver General for Canada.
The issue of the ad valorem tax imposed by the province of Ontario is one that I lament. I do this because it adds a tax to another tax, which adds to inflation. It is a signal to the public that governments believe that tomorrow's price will be higher than today's price. If that were not so, why would anyone impose an ad valorem tax? Governments expect the price to be higher tomorrow. However, in doing so the provincial government has but followed the lead of the federal government, which did the same thing with its excise taxes.
When those issues were debated in the House, I drew to the attention of the Minister of Finance what the consequences would be. There is an alleged battle between the government and inflation. The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) told us as recently as last weekend that it is true that you can wrestle inflation to the ground so long as you wrestle the economy to the ground. He has accomplished the latter but has failed in accomplishing the former. Nevertheless, it is measures such as this which fuel inflation. The government is taking more and more instead of less.
How can the hard-pressed consumer expect to pay for the increased costs that are imposed upon him by a government when he has less money as a consequence of specific programs which are advocated and undertaken by the government to extract more from the pocket of the consumer, who is left with less to pay with? That is the result. It is deceitful then to turn around and say that its battle is with inflation, and to say to
Canadians; "You have too great a demand upon the public; working as you are, you should reduce your demand on the economy because in that way we will achieve our desired goals of combatting inflation". The greatest contributor is the federal government itself.
This measure but adds to inflation. It takes more from the public and adds it to the consolidated revenue fund, but not as a charge or something which can be specifically identified for a certain purpose and allocated and invested in the interim to generate income to be used for the purpose of paying the alleged levy. The charge is quite clearly a simple form of taxation. We have a perfect example of how the measure is ineffective in terms of meeting a specific commitment.
It is to this issue that Motion No. 5 is directed. When we examine how Clause 40 of the bill has been drawn up, we see that it was designed to offset the cost of additional petroleum compensation payments that had to be made to Canadian refineries when it became necessary to import more foreign crude to offset the loss of Alberta crude. That Alberta crude diminution, the House will recall, resulted from a failure of the government to negotiate an arrangement with the producing provinces of the west which would have obviated the need for ever imposing that charge.
In any event, what are the facts as they surround this particular circumstance? We are asked to pass a measure to allow for a certain amount to compensate for that special petroleum compensation payment made to the refineries. Since we know the period that it covers, the amount of oil that had to be imported as well as the specific amounts which had to be paid to the refineries, we can determine that this specific provision of the bill as it stands today generated $142 million more than was required. The specific provisions are designed, as I have indicated, to cover the shortfall in Alberta production. Yet $142 million more was raised to cover the 120,000 barrels a day than was needed.
The interesting fact in all of this is that at the very time that these charges are to be imposed, that is, effective March 3, 1981, until September 21, 1981, the actual consumption of petroleum products in Canada declined by more than the
120,000	barrels a day for which this compensation is allegedly imposed. I would have thought that the Government of Canada, if not recognizing that that reduction in consumption should immediately offset the Alberta charge, should have at least prorated the amount. But it did not because it has one conception of all charges, levies and amounts. The conception is that these are all forms of taxation which provide an opportunity to grab from the public. Why diminish the appetite of the government at all? It can surely spend that somewhere else.
This brings us to a very significant point in this entire issue which was discussed in some detail by the hon. member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre) when he directed the attention of the House to the fact that when these charges are shown in the public accounts they are not reflected as revenue imposed upon
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the taxpayers on one side and as an expenditure of the government on the other, but as a flow-through in which the Government of Canada is treated as a conduit. It is taking from the taxpayers and paying to another. But if that be true, then there should be no $142 million surplus, because the whole justification for the approach taken is that what we have taken from one group of taxpayers we have paid to another. But that is not the case.
It is deceitful, to be kind to the government, to proceed in this fashion. It underlines the fallacy of the entire concept. Whatever government takes must be shown as revenue derived, and whatever government spends must be shown as an expenditure of government. There is no flow-through. There is no conduit pipe. If this concept is given the full extent to which it may be taken, can Your Honour not conceive of the Government of Canada raising a special tax which it might call the "Canadian Benevolent Fund" which would be used to pay the salaries of public servants? Since it would be a special imposition under the conduit pipe concept, the accounts of this country need never show the payment of a dime to the public service of Canada.
The whole theory is deceitful. The government must disclose what it really spends. In terms of these revenues, it has spent over $3 billion in compensation. What it has retained in the Consolidated Revenue Fund is another form of tax which was not distributed to an alleged recipient at all. These measures become essential at a time which is most crucial to all Canadians, when our economy is suffering and revenue could best be left in the hands of Canadian business and Canadian taxpayers generally.
The Prime Minister has acknowledged that we have an economic crisis. He made that acknowledgment in Versailles over the weekend. One wonders whether he learned that only when he arrived in Versailles or whether he knew it before he went. If he knew it before he went, why has he not done something about it other than to sit in this House with his colleague the Minister of Finance explaining that we are waiting for the Americans? We have been waiting for the Americans for over a year. He wants to wait for the Americans for another six weeks. Wait for them to do what? This is a sovereign government. We need not wait for the Americans to do anything. The people of Canada elected this government for the purpose of taking specific measures with respect to the economy and their hopes for the future. It was not elected as a surrogate of a government in another country. Yet if we listen to the government ministers, they would have us believe that they are powerless to do anything, that they can do nothing but wait until they are in a position to transmit to the Canadian public whatever decisions may be made in a foreign country. If that be the case, why do we need the Minister of Finance? Why do we need the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources extracting funds of this kind? Why can we not simply rely upon the administrators in a foreign country. The Canadian people are not prepared for that. They expect action.
I submit that of all the action which can be taken, the most crucial is certainty. We have been waiting since November 12,
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1981, for a bill to amend the Income Tax Act. One would have thought that that piece of legislation would have been before the House long before now, but it has not come. In the result, Canadian businessmen have declined to take any action, hoping that the measures which were anti-business, antiinvestment and anti-enterprise will be changed. And there was change. They are wise to wait, but waiting is costly for the entire economy. Precision and certainty are absolutely required. This delay, the delay of the year, and now the delay of six weeks, is inexcusable. Measures of this nature strike at the root of all our nation's problems. The government knows and has known for some long time that its economic policies are misplaced. They are for another time, another country, maybe another planet, but not for here and now in Canada. The government has not taken the decisive steps to build confidence. Instead, we are dealing with a piece of legislation which once again imposes additional taxes on Canadians.
These measures that our party recommends in terms of Motions Nos. 4 and 5 would, in the first instance, bring within the level of the promises of the government the price structure for petroleum products which resulted in part, and maybe in whole, in the government's election in 1980. The provisions contained within our Motion No. 5 would see to it that the revenues derived from the compensation levy were, in fact, no greater than those genuinely needed for the purpose of meeting the compensation payment to the refineries. How can any hon. member of this House who believes the purpose to be as set forth in the legislation object to and complain about that kind of logical restriction on the Government of Canada?


Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain):: Madam Speaker, 1982 is the one hundredth anniversary of many towns in southeastern Saskatchewan and it is being celebrated by most of them this summer. One of the thoughts which will be in the minds of many people attending these celebrations is the background to these very motions we are discussing today. I speak with some personal knowledge of this, not only because my people came to Saskatchewan in 1882 when it was a territory of the federal government and went through that long period of struggle for self-government which came in 1905, but also because when I go back to check the statutes of that time, it brings back the names of men who sat in this House, of men who sat in the territorial legislature in Regina and of men who later sat in the legislatures of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
The tragedy of that decision in 1905 to set up these two parts of the Northwest Territories as two provinces, Saskatchewan and Alberta, was cruelty of the highest order. It gave to these two new territories the right of self-government, but it did not give them the wherewithal to run those governments. The setting up of the two provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905 did not give to the pioneers of those territories, to keep them out of the hands of the Americans, the right to own their own resources. These people had to fight with railways and grain companies to survive, but it did not give them the rights to their own resources.

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Every other province from 1867 had the right under the British North America Act to own and enjoy the income that came from its resources. Little Manitoba, little British Columbia, little Ontario and Little Quebec-and they were small provinces in 1867-had that right. Under the British North America Act, the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia were enlarged. They always had the resources, but Saskatchewan and Alberta did not.
This was remedied after a long battle. They won the battle of self-government, with no financial power, in 1905. It was remedied in 1930 by amendments to the British North America Act which gave to the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan the right to own the properties in their provinces, the mineral, water and land properties, and to enjoy all the revenues and royalties from them. Any person who took those revenues was stealing. This is what happened in the period between 1905 and 1930.
The federal government retained those resources, as it does in the case of the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Any revenues that came from that wealth went to the federal government and not to the people who lived in those territories. That injustice in 1905 has come back to this House today to haunt us.
I do not think the House would mind if the record showed what turned out to be, and I will quote from it, the Saskatchewan Act. This is the Saskatchewan Natural Resources Act which was an amendment to the British North America Act of 1930.1 will read just a few phrases:
And whereas the Government of Canada desires that the province should be placed in a position of equality with the other provinces of Confederation with respect to the administration and control of its natural resource as from its entry into Confederation in 1905-
After all those years as a territory and then as a partial province, it finally agreed in 1930 that this injustice would be remedied. It makes it very clear. I will just read a sentence or two. I quote:
the interest of the Crown in all Crown lands, mines, minerals (precious and base) and royalties derived therefrom within the province, and all sums due or payable for such lands, mines, minerals or royalties, shall from and after the coming into force of this agreement and subject as therein otherwise provided, belong to the province-
It was part of the Magna Carta of western Canada, in the parts called Saskatchewan and Alberta, that in 1930 in this House Parliament accepted this proposal and made the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta equal in rights and privileges to those of other provinces.
Today we are debating amendments to the Petroleum Administration Act in the form of two tax laws dealing with that act. I want to put very clearly to the House what the background and perspective is. I am not participating in the debate on the details of how these taxes are too high and for common interests, both economic and moral, we should reduce them. I want to talk about the fundamental, moral and legal principles that made this country.
In my opinion, the Petroleum Administration Act, which these two motions are in effect amending, is unconstitutional. I
said that at the time of the passing of the act in this House in 1974. I must confess that I got no support from lawyers on either side of the House or from the provinces when I pointed out that the Petroleum Administration Act was an infringement on the British North America Act.
The minute this Parliament said that under the Petroleum Administration Act of 1974 it was going to use the trading power of the federal government to overwhelm the property rights power of the British North America Act granted to the provinces, that, in my view, was unconstitutional. I do not blame the lawyers of this House or the lawyers of the provinces for being reluctant to get into this debate. Constitutional law is strange to the great majority of lawyers I know, certainly those in politics.
At that time I was sensitive to the fact that the Queen's property was being exchanged and moved around without the consent of the Queen, as the debates of 1974 will show, and that the House with its eyes wide open was warned about it. I must confess with sadness that the only people who seemed interested in my arguments at that time were the Clerks at the Table. I want to add a little more meat to that argument for the purpose of showing that some day this House will have to remedy the mistake we made in 1974 by going into the powers of the provinces laid down in the Constitution and for not having paid proper compensation for so doing.
I quoted from the statutes. I could quote similar phrases from the Alberta statutes and later amendments. However, the two constitutional arguments that were used were, first, that in the national interest the trading power of the federal government was superior to the property rights of the provinces. If you think about it, you realize the deep concern, I might say the alarming concern among various members of this Parliament from Alberta and Saskatchewan. They are very conscious of the fact that the property rights of the provinces were infringed by the Petroleum Administration Act and, of course, this tax under these motions. They know in their hearts that we have no right to steal the resources of a province without compensation.
The legal support for this is very simple. There are many cases in our courts which say you cannot do indirectly what you cannot do directly. Coming at it on the basis that the Petroleum Administration Act was in the public interest because there was an adjustment of prices going on in the world, that gave the federal government the power to move in and arbitrarily take control of the property of these provinces. Once you allow one level of government to get into the heartland of the other level of government, it is very difficult to take it out.
I listened to the hon. member from Calgary speak earlier. He posed the question: Was this action taken by Parliament deliberately or was it taken blindly, unknowingly? I, like him, do not know the answer. If I were to be truthful, I think many people have already decided what the answer is, namely, that with a little bit of time, there is a given group of people, mostly
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in Ottawa, who seek and long for the day when the federal government will control not only the property all across the country but also the actions of the people all across the country.
There is much evidence to support this trend, both here and in the United States. In the current effort, we have our Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) saying to the cattle producers that he will not help them because agriculture is a joint responsibility of both provinces and federal government, and until the beef producers bow their knee and accept the concept of a marketing board that will apply all across Canada and will control the production, sale and distribution of those animals.
Here we have a force loose upon the people, a force which emanated originally from Europe but which was known in North America 30 years ago. It has been accepted by a large group of civil servants in the department of agriculture in the United States, and it has been accepted by the civil servants in the Department of Agriculture in Canada, that the only way we can run the industry is to get control of the farmers' production and thereby direct things on a planned basis so that we do not have a surplus. We will get prices up by creating a scarcity; they call it supply management. They have it in the dairy industry today; why not apply it to the beef industry, they say? Most farmers, I believe, would not mind a marketing board if it were to market the stuff, sell it, under rules fair to all the participants. But the farmers do not want a board that is a controlled board, particularly one that is controlled by civil service experts-whose track record in Canada is pretty bad. Their track record in other countries is worse. We have seen the dairy industry lose 5,000 farmers a year; the civil servants simply put the dairy farmers on supply management. The beef farmer would rather go broke with his own mistakes than go broke with the mistakes of a group of people who are very good at drafting memorandums and regulations, and so on, but who have not got a sense of the situation and who believe they can take the Lord's place in this moving around in the market field.
I have no quarrel with the sincerity of these people. I am simply saying that there is reason to believe, in the minds of many of our people in Canada, that there are strong forces at work here in Ottawa, as well as in other places in Canada, trying to get control not only of the resource but of the people who produce that resource. I have not yet got to the stage where I can believe that those people are going to succeed.
In my own province, Saskatchewan, where this force is very strong, I saw a complete reversal of the majority vote in that province. I hope that the same feeling will eventually prevail in provinces like Ontario, on the same kind of decision we are discussing now. Put your mind to the question asked by the member from Calgary: Was this Petroleum Administration Act deliberately designed or was it an accident by people who do not know what they are doing? For the moment I think we had better agree, in the interest of respect for each other, that it was an accident by people who did not know what they were
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doing. The only way we can operate this House is by believing that that was the reason.
That does not change the fact that what we are doing by this amendment today is continuing the error of the original petroleum administration bill, which, 1 suggest, has some day to be fought out in the Supreme Court. That will have to be done by a reference from Parliament that asks the questions in clear and precise English that we can all understand, questions that ask the court to give us an answer in clear and precise English that we can understand, namely: Where do we stand on this question of property rights that are now within the realm of the provinces? Where do we stand on this priority of the trade power versus the property power? These are rather exotic subjects for this House. They can only be settled by the right type of reference, over an extended period of time, with the time to think it through.
We have a responsibility here as Members of Parliament. If the judges cannot make up their minds what we meant when we agreed to the British North America Act in 1867 and when we agreed to the Alberta and Saskatchewan acts in 1930, then we had better pass a resolution, with support from all sides, that tells the judges at all levels: "This is what we meant when we spoke in 1867 and this is what we meant when we spoke in 1930". This federation system, this federal system, cannot work unless there is a clear-cut understanding of what it means. When you give them powers to restrict the subject to one level of government, that must be honoured and not used indirectly to do something that cannot be done directly.
This is one of the reasons this whole discussion of the bill of rights which we had here for the last year or so was to me a complete fraud. Nothing has been done to clarify the rights of the provinces concerning their property. There is no use in trying to pretend to people that we are putting it into the bill of rights here federally, beause it will not make any difference until we make it clear in the minds of the judges where we stand, so that we do not get these silly decisions that we get from them occasionally.
Once again, the first point is the trade power versus provincial property rights. The second constitutional issue is the question of prices. We have always assumed that, by judicial decision only the provinces have the right to fool around and countrol prices and wages. We have always assumed that and taught our children in school that this was the law. The only exception to that law was where there was a national crisis, where we were in complete extremity, and all the rules go by the board. The only type of extreme necessity really comes down to a shooting war.
The House will remember the imposition of the War Measures Act in 1970. The plea that was made for breaking the laws of Canada was that there was an apprehended insurrection, and the army was moved in. They arrested several hundred people, that is all they could find, who might possibly be considered to be about to organize an insurrection; it turned out that there were only ten or 12 people that they could hold. So we had the shameful experience of seeing Members of

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Parliament on both sides of this House supporting the government's imposition of the War Measures Act in a time of peace over a problem of a few social drop-outs.
That mistake should be written deeply into the minds and hearts of all of us because we were all guilty, with just a few exceptions, of making that mistake. We should remember- now that we are not in a period of apprehended insurrection or an immediate shooting war-that now is the time to get our thinking clear and to make sure the judges know what our thinking is on these fundamentally important things like property rights and the relative power of the federal government in times of crisis.
The Supreme Court was given a reference on this question of prices and ruled that there was a national emergency because oil prices had gone up. That is part of the background to the legislation we are now amending.
Any person knows-and every person should have known eight years ago-that there was no national energy emergency. This country and the United States had energy running out of our ears, and as long as the industry is nursed, we always will have energy running out of our ears. What there was was a price adjustment. We had been stealing oil from producers, mostly the Arabs but also the people of Alberta, Venezuela and Nigeria, for over 50 years, and the rule of law on prices was set around the world by seven big international oil companies. All this is in the record. The producers to whom I referred had been stolen from-for over 50 years in some cases-and they set up an international cartel. We had to unite to fight it, but all it was was a group of producers making an agreement to get the price up to something equal to its competitive level measured against electricity, measured against the cost of producing oil from tar sands or whatever measure they used. We allowed ourselves as a nation-as the Europeans, the Americans and the Japanese did-to believe that when there is any evidence of a group of producers standing up to protect themselves by a price agreement, that must be fought, because if we had been stealing from them for 50 years that meant we had a God-given right to keep on stealing.
All this has been said, but it has to be said over and over again. There was no energy crisis in 1973. What there was, was a price adjustment going on. You do not bring out the troops when someone is finally getting a reasonably fair price for his product. Parliament acted fairly responsibly in 1973 and 1974 with respect to oil-it did in 1973, at least-when we said that we had to adjust, but by stages, and that we should try to adjust by keeping our prices just a little bit below the world price. All this was said by people of all parties in 1973. However, at the same time as oil prices started moving up, mineral prices also moved up. We have had a political record here for many years of asking the provinces to tax mines more heavily. Their tax level is a little lower than the average tax. Even royal commissions recommended that. Then suddenly when the provinces saw prices go up, they did exactly what we had been recommending; they raised their taxes on minerals
and on oil to get the windfall profit, which was theirs by right. They owned the property, but they had to break every agreement in the book to do it, which was immoral.
The faults we are discussing today are not entirely our own. It is a question of the greed of foreign governments. Our own governments have tried to grab as much as they could of this rising value of resources and, as a result, we have gone too far. The National Energy Program was based on an agreement with the provinces in which both levels of government tried to squeeze the most they could out of this resource. Legally and morally it all belonged to the provinces, but the provinces did not fight that issue. They simply fought to get the most they could, and the guy left at the bottom of the heap was, of course, the man who invested money in oil and gas companies. Of course, they had no choice but to move out, and they will not be coming back in for a little while. They had to move out because the moves we made gave a bigger percentage to the oil companies, but the percentage was of a much smaller pie. They still do not have any money.
We are paying a heavy price for ignoring the fundamentals of our Constitution and of what this Parliament is all about. We should be legislating here based on the Constitution, with a sense of equity and fairness; but we are overcome by this great greed on the parts of governments and all levels to get in on this bonanza of rising resource prices.
I say flatly that much of the blame is not only on our shoulders and the shoulders of the provinces and the companies but also on the shoulders of our courts. This is an unusual statement for a member of the Privy Council to make, but 1 honestly believe we in Parliament are going to have to face up to this issue and get our own thinking clear. If the courts cannot give us a decision according to what we meant in 1905, in 1930 and in 1867, I think we have a duty to propose a resolution stating flatly our interpretation of the legislation. As Your Honour knows, there are not too many precedents for that, but I think we may be forced into that because reality and common sense tell us that none of us is perfect. I would like to have Your Honour believe that what I have just said about the courts is reluctantly said, but I do say it. I have a feeling the courts have just as much frailty as we have and that until we make what we meant very clear in plain English, I think we will have to wait until we can get the courts to give decisions which are based on the real meaning of the legislators in 1867 and 1930.
I have already mentioned what should be done about this. I think we should have a resolution of both Houses putting into plain language what the property rights are and where they stand in relation to the trade power. We should take a look at property rights and where they stand in relation to prices. By juggling prices, can we pretend there is an emergency and change the Constitution? Can we relate property rights to the definition of crisis? These are things about which we will have to speak up if we want to clear our honour and reputation as parliamentarians.
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My conclusion is on the political side. Much to the regret of all Canadians, there was a certain amount of politics involved in this whole issue. Originally it started out merely as an attack on Alberta, the "blue-eyed Arabs", and the people of Alberta responded, as we might expect, with pretty violent counter-attacks. Then this got down to realities in 1974 with the Petroleum Administration Act and became an attack on the oil producing provinces.
We had the federal government's response in 1974. All the provinces raised taxes on oil, gas and minerals, and the federal government came back with a sledge hammer response saying that all royalties and taxes of the provinces on oil and gas were non-deductible under federal income tax regulations. That was a complete breach of the Alberta Act and of the Saskatchewan Act of 1930, and a complete breach of the terms of Confederation in 1867. Many members of this House warned the government that an attack on one resource would lead to attacks on electric power in Ontario, Manitoba, B.C. and Quebec, and pretty soon in the Atlantic provinces. It soon moved into the forestry industry. Once the trend is set of the federal government, under very dubious constitutional authority, attacking the provinces, there is no end to it.
I think that in the next two years, and perhaps sooner, the Petroleum Administration Act should be subjected to a complete examination by the Supreme Court of Canada, particularly Clause 16 on page 11 of the bill which reads as follows:
Where no agreement is entered into under Section 22 with the government of a producer-province, or any such agreement is terminated by the declaration of the parties, or, in the opinion of the governor in council, is not effective or is not capable of being effective, the governor in council may, by regulation, establish maximum prices for the various qualities and kinds of crude-
There is no other way to describe action where the federal government unilaterally takes the power to set prices for products that, under the Constitution, belong to that province, than to say it is stealing. Until the record is cleared of this provision which appears again, word for word, in the clause relating to gas, we in this House have not done our duty to the country.
There is nothing in these amendments that clarifies the principle of compensation. In the Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta Acts of 1930, the principle of compensation is allowed if the federal government, for the national good, takes over any part of the property. That principle of compensation was vaguely included in the Petroleum Administration Act, but there was no clear-cut formula for it. The federal government can stake a claim to $50 billion or $60 billion worth of wealth for the next few years and the only compensation offered amounts to less than $2 billion. We have to face up to these things and get rid of the Petroleum Administration Act. Working in co-operation with the provinces is the only way to do that legally.
The final question that we have to ask is what we can do now that the bill is in place. I think the answer is self-evident. All this talk about how Alberta has backed up on the National Energy Program by $5 billion over the next five years, and the declaration that the federal government has backed up by $2
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billion, have not solved anything. Certainly this action has reduced the percentages taken by the province and the federal government. It has increased the percentage due to companies, although it has decreased the actual amount so that the companies have not been helped.
Where is the culprit then, Mr. Speaker? Over 80 per cent of the cost in any capital intensive enterprise today is accounted for by interest rates. A person who deals with small figures such as a $50,000 mortgage knows that over 30 years the mortgage will cost him $200,000. Based on 10 per cent money, over 75 per cent of the amount goes to interest.
What bothers the home owner is the same thing that bothers the oil companies. So much of the money they receive each year is spent on paying interest, and they do not have enough money left to pay back the principal. As a result there is a long period of pay-out. When they look at these figures and relate them to present value, they just drop all sorts of oil and gas projects. That applies to the mining industry as well-all sorts of minerals are left in the ground.
Under this method of financing, with long pay-out periods held up by high interest rates, every capital intensive project in the world is doomed, becuase this does not apply just in Canada. It applies to small people, to big people, to farmers and businessmen. There is no difference when it comes to fighting the common enemy.
Interest rates should be decided by the law of the market and not by the theoretical approach of a group of financial experts in world banking. We are part of a world system, so let it decide what interest rates shall be. With the present high interest rates in the United States and Canada, we are driven to Europe to get money at much lower interest rates. We all know where it comes from. The only risk is the fall of the dollar. These people, who have all this money to lend, are now proposing that if governments will borrow from them, they will lend it for a premium. It is just like buying insurance-it protects the borrower and the lender both. If the premium is less than two per cent and the money is borrowed at six to nine the per cent, it is not a bad deal.
I think we should get our house in order and make a deal with the provinces and the oil companies that everyone will get off the back of the industry, and that the industry will not take anything out either, until the debt is paid back. There is hardly an oil field or gas field that I know of, or a combination field, that could not pay back in four to five years at present prices. Once free of the interest load, and the principal load, there would be a big pie to be divided. Under a contractual arrangement all that would be necessary would be to decide how it should be divided.
All these matters were discussed in great detail when the Hon. Donald Macdonald was minister of energy, mines and resources, and when the Hon. John Turner was minister of finance. Both gentlemen are on the public record of this House as agreeing that this is the right way to go about things. The companies would have enough operating capital and also would make a good profit. Mr. Macdonald suggested that the

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provinces should get 50 per cent because they owned the resource, and the companies should get 30 per cent to meet the cost of the operation so that they could make a little profit. The federal government should get 20 per cent, which would be much more than it is getting now.
This is all on the record, and it indicates that some people were putting some thought into this matter just eight years ago. Now here we are eight years later, caught up in this great catharsis of everything failing: the NEP-zunk. It cannot go forward because it is capital intensive; our big companies- zunk. They cannot go forward because interest rates are too great for their cash flow. All the little companies, the farmers and small businessmen, are caught in the same way.
There is no need to panic. We have had interest rates bothering us for over 3,000 years. Look back at the laws of Greece and Rome. All their major reforms had to do with interest rates. It is not a new problem. In 1919 there was a great uproar in western Canada and Ontario about high interest rates. The farmers threw out the other parties, elected a new party called the Progressives, and scared the daylights out of the government of the day.
We then got an amendment to the Bank Act which put a ceiling on interest rates of 6 per cent. The banks operated for years under that ceiling, and grew and prospered. Now we have changed that.
The banks came in with a very good argument, based on a royal commission report, that if we took off that ceiling they would compete so hard that interest rates would go down, perhaps to 3 per cent or 4 per cent. Well, Parliament bought that argument. But we had not figured on theoreticians saying that high interest rates were good for our souls, and we would have to slow down our growth because we were too greedy and enjoying life too much. They have us slowed down all right, but they are ruining us in the process.
The amendments contained in motion Nos. 4 and 5, Mr. Speaker, say in substance that we should, in our own interests, reduce taxes. But more basic even than the reduction of taxes is that there should be a recognition that there is a lot more to do. I would like to see come out of this debate recognition of that fact by all parties. In the meantime we can show our sincerity, and concern over where we are going, by supporting these two motions.


Mr. G. M. Gurbin (Bruce-Grey):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to follow the hon. member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain (Mr. Hamilton). For a relative novice like myself it is very stimulating to hear the hon. member bring forward a great deal of argument of historical relevance to some of the discussions we have in the House. I think the basic point the hon. member referred to is indeed a question that Canadians must be pondering as they listen to debates like this, read the newspapers, and note the progress of events in Canada over the past months, indeed years.
The question the hon. member raised and responded to was really whether legislation like Bill C-103 has been brought in knowingly and purposely by a government with a particular
direction and motive to be served. I, like the hon. member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain, do not know the answer for sure. What I do know is that many of the measures brought in during the time I have been able to follow politics closely all have a common thread. Through the 1970s right up till now we have seen progressively greater government involvement through legislation in the fields of health care, energy, and business. Maybe that is by accident, but I think we have to question this seriously, as previous speakers have done today.
As I speak on these two motions, Mr. Speaker, I am going to make a specific proposal. I shall not ask for much, but I would like to have the opportunity to suggest to the Minister of Energy (Mr. Lalonde)-who is in the House and I hope will be here when I make the proposal-that we make one change which I believe will help to overcome some of the difficulties created by the NEP. I will get to that specific suggestion in a few moments.
Motion No. 4 was presented for a very specific reason, and people might wonder why we suggested $28 as a possible increase in that motion. The $28 translates into what amounts to an 18-cents a gallon tax. As it stands now, the tax would be $78 a cubic metre of oil, or 48 cents a gallon. The tax is now about 24 cents a gallon and it will rise to 48 cents under the authority of this legislation. We chose that figure of $28 because we have seen over the past few years, the NEP, the minister, indeed the whole government being very seriously compromised in the eyes of the Canadian people.
We have seen how the 18-cent a gallon tax was dealt with by the government when it was in opposition and during the last federal election, and it is in Motion No. 4 to show the Canadian people in British Columbia, Nova Scotia, in fact in the minister's own province of Quebec, that there is a very serious question about the legitimacy of introducing additional taxation. This bill amounts to taxation without representation because it will allow the minister, in his own way and in his own time, without any additional review, to increase those taxes significantly.
At a time when Canadians had been living with energy prices that were well out of line with world energy prices we were faced with a serious political problem, because it was pretty difficult to run a campaign telling people that they should pay more for energy. That is difficult enough, but the hard part is to do that when you have other people in the same campaign telling people that they do not have to pay more, indeed should not pay more because it would not be fair or equitable and "if you voted in a particular way, you would not have to face that kind of increase."
Memories are short. Sometimes it serves a purpose to forget things that happened years ago, but two and a half years are not that long ago. In that two and a half years we have had successive increases in energy prices which make a mockery out of the claims and promises made to the Canadian people at that time. They may have been justified if there was some way
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to rationalize why those prices should increase or, indeed, what was being done with the money.
I would like to put on the record some of the figures which we were looking at in December, 1979. At that time a gallon of regular gasoline cost $1.14 or 25.1 cents a litre. At the end of March, 1982, it cost $2 for a gallon of gasoline, or 44.1 cents a litre. That price may vary from place to place. In any event, the price of a gallon of gasoline in Canada is higher than in the United States. Our prices have about doubled in two years.
At the time we faced the challenge of having to defend increased energy prices we knew there was a considerable amount of criticism attached to the fact that we suggested energy prices should increase by 18 cents. What were we hoping to gain by that 18-cent increase? First, we could have avoided some of the confrontation with the producing provinces. The excise tax that we were talking about then did not require an agreement. The increase was well within the domain of the federal government.
More important we were looking at a way to bring Canadian energy self-sufficiency and energy security into focus so that by 1990 Canada, as a nation, would not have to depend on unstable and unreliable sources of oil and petroleum products from other parts of the world. Considerable blame was attached to our party for trying to do that. It is somewhat reminiscent of the position the government has now, of attaching blame to other people for the economic crisis in Canada.
It has been a long time since we have heard the government take responsibility for interest rates and the kind of financial policy that we have in our country. Right now we are told that it is the fault of the United States because of its interest rate policy, and that it does not really matter that our interest rates are several points higher than those in the United States. Obviously if you can make the political argument that it is not your fault, that is the best political position you can have. But if Canadians and the Canadian government are not to blame for the kind of economic policy that we have, who is to blame?
The Americans do not make our laws. The Americans have not been in charge of our economic policy for the last 14 years. The Americans have not been in charge of legislation that has controlled energy development in Canada for the past 14 years. The Americans do not determine what the Governor of the Bank of Canada does.
This government continually uses scapegoats. The Government blames the opposition for creating unrest in the Canadian people because it says we talk of things that hurt people, about people losing their homes, their farms and their businesses. Similarly the government has blamed OPEC for setting prices for petroleum products higher and higher. The government blames the United States government because of its domestic interest rate policy. This government continually avoids its responsibility for the programs it has put in place over the last 14 years. The taxes that have been put on petroleum products in Canada are taxes on top of other taxes. But now I think this government is in danger of the Canadian
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people reacting. It will be a reaction that has never been experienced by any other government in Canada before.
What I am speaking of has happened south of the border. What happened in California is an example of this. The feeling I get from talking to Canadians is that we are on the verge of experiencing a reaction here. I hope what happens here is as peaceful as what happened in the United States. There have been times when reactions to taxation have not been peaceful.
The government should understand that there are a number of serious problems existing in the country. Perhaps I can compare this to talking about a death. The first thing you do is to deny it. I think the Liberal government is denying the real problem now. Canadians are experiencing severe economic stress of unparalleled proportions.
Several days ago I put a question to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources in this House. I suggested to him that one of the major reasons for a decline in domestic oil requirements was the recession. He quickly responded we did not have a recession at all last year. In fact, he said that our gross national product increased by 3 per cent. That response, I think, points out a very real problem, and it is partly responsible for the introduction of Motion No. 5 by our party.
I think the minister should look at the last six months of 1981 and he will find gross domestic expenditure decreased in the third quarter by minus 0.5 per cent and it decreased in the fourth quarter by minus 0.9 per cent. Therefore, in the last six months of 1981 Canada started to experience a serious and a significant recession. Authorities are now saying that if things continue with the same single mindedness which the Minister of Energy and others have expressed over the last several months, we will be facing an economic situation which will be truly classed as a depression. But from what we have seen so far from the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) and the Minister of Energy it will be six months or even a year after that before they will even know it has happened.
That is one of the problems of this government. I do not know whether its members think a thing will go away if they first deny it and then blame it on someone else. After that we have to hope there will be some kind of a response. But the question is whether we will get a response that will make a significant difference or whether we will get band-aid measures, in other words, whether we will get an aspirin or the cure. I do not have any confidence that we will get the cure.
We had an example with the changes to the National Energy Program called "Update 1982." These changes were put into a very pretty red document. The update contains a lot of information. For example, at the front it contains a metric conversion table which is helpful. Now we know what an exajoule, a petajoule and a cubic metre of oil really mean. But, more important, within that document we have a $2 billion concession by the government over the next several years to an industry which has been so severely affected that it will take at least four or five years for it to get back on track, to bloom once again and to help fuel our economy as it did before.

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Petroleum Administration Act
This document is really an admission of failure by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. It is not a change in mentality, the type of change we need if we are to restore confidence in and the vitality of the industry, if we are to get the industry flying as it flew before and providing the petroleum resources we need to achieve self-sufficiency.
The minister must have looked at the 1981 figures to know that there were no significant new discoveries of oil in Canada. Probably that was one of the reasons for getting this document and these concessions. I do not know what he thought of the findings of Dome Petroleum and Esso in the Beaufort in the last week or so. They were hoping for a well which would come in at about 35,000 barrels per day, and what they got was
3.500	barrels per day.


Marc Lalonde: That is not correct.


Gary Michael Gurbin: I will correct my figures. They were hoping for
3.500	barrels per day. In any event, they got one tenth of what they needed for an economic find.


Marc Lalonde: No.


Gary Michael Gurbin: That is what the reports I have indicate. If the minister has other reports, that is okay-


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Perhaps I might help the hon. member in this particular situation. He mentioned that they hoped for a figure of 35,000 barrels per day from a particular well. No one hoped for that amount. Some of the forecasts indicated 3,500 barrels per day for the Tarsiut well. The tests indicate an assurance of 3,000 barrels per day, and the analysis of Gulf is to the effect that the well could produce 3,500 barrels per day on a continuous basis. It estimates on the basis of what has been drilled that there may be 500 million barrels of oil in reserve. It will drill two more wells this summer to find out how big the reserves are. It is estimated that the company will be ready to proceed with commercial production on the basis of one billion barrels, that it has a field of one billion barrels. The discovery is significant; 3,000 barrels per day is a large well by any measure in Canada. Obviously the company feels that it needs two more wells to ensure itself of what are the reserves. These are the facts.


Gary Michael Gurbin: Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his intervention and for his assistance with the figures. The minister raised several important points, the first one being the size of the well. That was clearly an error on my part, but the figure was significantly lower than Dome had hoped for and indeed did not prove the viability of the enterprise. As the minister suggested, they do need additional wells in order to make it an economic enterprise.
This brings up another important point which has been suggested by Dome Petroleum as well. Canadians should know that the real cost of bringing a barrel of oil out of the Beaufort is estimated at approximately $100. At $100 per barrel, that is between three and four times as much as Canadians are paying now. With the minister hanging a lot of hope for his energy
program on that enterprise, we have a serious problem not only with the inflationary aspects of it, but with the environmental aspects, its reliability, and everything involved in what is really a new technology. We cannot count on that. Although there are some high hopes, the initial well and the findings are below expectation. We do not know for sure whether we will get the extra wells which the minister suggested are necessary for economic viability.
In passing, I am pleased to mention that the hon. member for Oxford (Mr. Halliday) is in the chair; he is a very capable Speaker.
The taxes which are being presented to Canadians require some explanation. Most of us would accept the fact that the federal government needs revenue or needs somehow to raise money, because it provides some programs which are of benefit. There are criticisms which can be made of many of the programs, but I think the need for revenue is understood.
What has happened over the past year and a half with the increased price of energy? In 1981 a typical family driving one car, and heating with oil, paid about $550 more per year than in late 1980. The important point is that of this increase, $409, or nearly 80 per cent, was paid indirectly to the federal government. About one third of the total taxes are federal taxes. This massive increase has created many difficulties, whether in terms of heating homes, operating farms, or operating businesses. The massive increase varies, but 80 per cent of it can be related to federal taxes.
With Motion No. 4 we have tried to put a limit on how much the federal government can take from the pockets of Canadians. We have tried to keep the hand of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources out of the pockets of Canadian businessmen, Canadian farmers, and Canadian home owners who have to heat with oil because alternatives are unavailable to them, and there are still a good many such home owners.
Our second motion is designed to try to put some control on the petroleum compensation charge. The charge in this year alone resulted in revenues being taken in that were $1.4 billion in excess of what was required. This really amplifies one of the points I tried to make earlier, that the indirect response or lack of sensitivity to a changing environment, of the federal government, whether it be a departmental problem or a question of not understanding quickly what is going on, resulted in this additional amount being taken directly out of the pockets of consumers when it was not justified in the legislation we have, and not for the purposes for which it was designed.
We have an extra $1.4 billion which has been taken as a compensation charge on energy which must be imported from offshore. That money, which will be used by the federal government to avoid consumer reaction in Canada when prices would have risen in July, has been sitting there and gradually increasing over the past year because the federal government did not have the ability to respond quickly to a changing scene. The original justification given for this charge was to pay for
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oil imports. It has now collected SI.4 billion more than it needs.
There are several ways to approach the current situation. Through our motion we have attempted to ensure that it be the government's responsibility to prevent an exorbitant amount of money being collected in an unfair or unreasonable manner. A number of other steps could be taken, particularly with respect to resources of that magnitude. I would like to propose a concept to the minister which I hope he will at least consider. It is a positive suggestion which may help him, particularly in the face of his many failures over the past several years. It may be a way to help him to achieve energy self-sufficiency by 1990, which we would all like to see, and it may help rationalize some of the inequities which exist in Canada's energy scene.
The hon. member who spoke just prior to me suggested as well that Canada had many forms of energy running out of its ears. It is a known fact that we are net exporters of energy. We also know that there are many arbitrary and unrealistic pieces of legislation and policies regarding various forms of energy. For example, electricity is treated differently from oil. Solar energy is treated differently from other types of energy. Various forms of energy are not considered for their respective values but only when they happen to evolve through various forms of development.
This taxation measure, which has resulted in federal coffers being swollen by $1.4 billion more than is needed, presents an opportunity to introduce a concept of parity in the various energy fields. This may not be a new concept, since I know that the minister realizes that a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. However, as far as I can determine there is very little legislation to show that we are making any serious attempt to address the issue of equally developing different forms of energy.
I believe it is important to realize that while many people are looking at the husbanding of the petroleum industry and its resources, which we know are finite, we now have an opportunity to enter some of the windows of technology and to take advantage of some new opportunities for energy resources which have been developed to the point where commercialization is possible. A possible alternative manner in which this petroleum compensation charge to equalize the difference between domestic and imported oil could be used is to use a small portion of the fund to provide a balance which would allow other energy sources to be developed to the point of competetiveness, and enter through the window where these resources can be expanded at a pace which the marketplace would allow.
Let us use solar energy as an example. We know that each barrel of oil has approximately four gigajoules of energy. An equivalent value of gigajoule solar energy could be determined considering the world price, domestic price and the import compensation charge. On a comparison basis solar hot water heating would cost $100 per gigajoule.
This is what the compensation charge gives in a preferential way to the Canadian energy scene in order to pay for the difference between domestic and imported oil. Why can we not
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introduce the concept of parity and allow that level of compensation to an energy source which would replace a given amount of oil with an equivalent amount of alternate energy? It would be an equalizer in the system and would help develop a source of energy which is at a commercial stage now, and which can reliably provide 50 per cent of our hot water needs in the domestic situation, and probably a lot more in some commercial operations. This would allow it to earn its way. It would amount to $100 per gigajoule. Although these figures could be refined, I am confident that this is approximately what it would cost. It could be worked out under a grants system or other financing programs. The equalizer would be $100 per gigajoule, which is roughly equivalent to $400 per barrel over a 20-year period. This is one manner of relating different types of energy on an equal and even basis.
The hon. member for Athabasca (Mr. Shields), who will speak after me, will have more to say about the tar sands issue. I am not suggesting that we extend the use of solar energy, which includes ethanol and methanol to the point where we no longer need the tar sands or Cold Lake, but only to the point where it is on equal footing with those petroleum resources. If we relate the amount of spending to stimulate the industry in the Alsands project, to another energy area one can see a significant opportunity to provide the energy which we are missing since it is presently unavailable.
Everyone knows that those projects must and will be developed at the appropriate time, but it probably will not happen until a change in government. However, at this point there are many things which can be done to help provide a replacement for the loss of security and oil production which would have come from those projects. I would appreciate it if the minister would consider that suggestion. We will be presenting an additional amendment to suggest precisely that.


Mr. Jack Shields (Athabasca):: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak on Bill C-103 and the motions to amend it, Motions Nos. 4 and 5 which we are presently discussing. Motion No. 4 states:
That Bill C-103, an act to amend the Petroleum Administration Act and to enact provisions related thereto, be amended in Clause 31 by striking out line 13 at page 19 and substituting the following therefor:-
We should remember that on page 19 the words that our party wants to strike out are the words "amount not exceeding seventy-five dollars", and we want to substitute the words "amount not exceeding twenty-eight dollars".
The change proposed here would lower the maximum level of the petroleum compensation charge to $28 per cubic metre from the $75 set down in the bill as it now reads. The petroleum compensation charge is presently levied at a rate of $39.64 per cubic metre, or $6.30 per barrel, which has the effect of raising gasoline prices at the pump by 24 cents per gallon.
In effect, this amendment would force the government to lower the petroleum compensation charge from its present

June 7, 1982
Petroleum Administration Act
level and require that the excess amounts collected by the petroleum compensation charge at the rate above $28 per cubic metre since January, 1981, be reimbursed to Canadians through a lowering of the petroleum compensation charge. The $28 per cubic metre, approximately $4.50 per barrel, would limit the PCC effect upon motor gasoline prices to 18 cents per gallon. I think that might sound vaguely familiar. This is the same increase, of course, as was proposed in the Crosbie budget-


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Pure coincidence.


Jack Wendele Shields: -and which has more than doubled under the Liberals since December, 1979.
The petroleum compensation charge has been the largest component in the Liberal-caused gasoline price increases, having been raised from a level which translates from four cents a gallon at the pumps to 24 cents per gallon.
The government ended up with a surplus in the petroleum compensation fund last year, 1981, of $1.4 billion. Where is the $1.4 billion? Is it in general revenue? Is it another form of taxation? This is a far cry from what the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) acknowledges may be a slight surplus.
It is a reasonable amendment and one which I feel the government should seriously consider. Motion No. 5 which, again, is a conservation motion, would add the following:
The tariff of charges set out under subsection (1.1) shall be set at such a level that the aggregate of revenues from those charges does not exceed the amount required to pay the compensation payable under the provisions of Division I of this act.
In other words, what we are basically saying is that there should be a sliding scale for the compensation charge. Surely the monitoring board can determine what the compensation charge should be. Surely the monitoring board can monitor the price of oil that we must purchase from off shore and compensate it accordingly so that Canadians are not overtaxed for this compensation fund. If we added this new subsection to the Petroleum Administration Act, it would write into law the rules for setting the charge that is now only implied by the way the scheme is supposed to operate.
It would require the petroleum compensation board to monitor any changes in the cost of imports so as to be able to make the appropriate changes in the petroleum compensation charges as quickly as possible. In other words, we would not then go through what we did over the past eight months when we found we were in the ludicrous situation of importing oil from other countries. At that time, the refiners were able to purchase on the spot market more cheaply, by up to $4 a barrel, because the compensation charge was paid, which effectively shut in crude oil in the western basin. We were importing oil and it was being paid by the taxpayer, the guy who pulled up to the pump to fill his tank. The petroleum compensation charge was actually being used to give windfall profits to the refiners in Montreal. I cannot imagine anything more idiotic or stupid.
As I said before, in 1981 there was a surplus of more than $1.4 billion from taxes to raise revenues for the purpose of subsidizing oil imports. Obviously, the level of charges should have been adjusted and should be adjusted in the future to raise only enough revenue to cover the cost of subsidizing imports. An error of $ 1.4 billion, as I said before, is definitely more than the small surplus which is possible according to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. I am sorry to see the minister leave.


Marc Lalonde: I'm listening to you.


Jack Wendele Shields: One thing has become very apparent to me since coming to this House. I suppose it has been partially due to my background in a small business, not a large business. However, I think it also holds true with large businesses, or in the business community in general, that when a mistake is made in a business decision, the people responsible for running that business admit their mistake. They admit it immediately and say, "It is wrong and we have to correct it".
It was very obvious that when the government introduced its tax measure in the guise of a national energy policy, a mistake was made. The government insists on going along the same road with that mistake, instead of standing up and saying, "We made a mistake. We will have to re-evaluate. We will have to change". But, no, we do not hear that. If the government admitted its mistake, I would be the first one to stand in this House and say, "Good for you. You recognized the mistake and you will change it". But instead, we stand here, discussing over and over again the problems that the national energy policy has created for my constituency, for the Alberta and Saskatchewan economies, and, indeed, for the Ontario and Quebec economies. It has affected virtually every province in this great country of ours.
However, these discussions fall on deaf ears. Why? It is because hon. members come to this House, and they can only think to themselves, "We cannot show that we are backing down. The government never makes mistakes." That is absolute, total garbage, and any reasonable man will understand that governments make mistakes as businesses make mistakes, and as individuals make mistakes. However, it takes courage, it takes leadership, and it takes vision to be able to stand up and say, "We have made the mistake and we will rectify it." We do not find that courage in the present government. We do not find it in the cabinet. We do not find it in the back benches. In the government we do not find the leadership which has the vision to see what it is doing to the country. I spend a great deal of time talking to members on the opposite side, both cabinet members and backbenchers. Individually, I find them to be thoughtful, considerate, capable men. As a group, with policy set by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) who has lost all sense of direction, they lose all this. They lose it the minute they walk into this House and legislation is introduced.
In committee we go through legislation clause by clause. I have had Liberal backbenchers come to me after sitting on the national energy committee and saying that what the national
June 7, 1982

energy policy is doing to the oil industry in this country is a crime. They do not have the courage to say that in committee or to stand up and say it in the House.


Mr. Kaplan:: Name them.


Jack Wendele Shields: I find that absolutely sickening.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Do you have the courage to name them?


Jack Wendele Shields: I suggest that the Solicitor General (Mr. Kaplan) talk to some of those members.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Which ones? Who are they?


Jack Wendele Shields: The Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) brought in an update on his energy policy. He will give back more than $2 billion. I say give back because the national energy policy is not an energy policy but a tax policy. It is a tax policy of greed of this government which wants money to allow it to continue spending like a drunken sailor all across this country.
The Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources is marching backward to the tune of $2.5 billion. Something must be wrong. However, that is the only time Canada starts to march forward. I would say that is not enough. The investment climate in this country today has been totally destroyed. Investors will not invest in Canada. Why should they trust a government which moves in with a national energy policy by which it steals 25 per cent of the assets that have been developed? It does that through a back-in provision of the national energy policy. It is not just foreign investors but Canadian investors as well who do not want to invest in the economy of Canada. They do not look forward to the time when things are going to change.
I travel around my riding talking to businessmen and entrepreneurs. They believed that this country had a future and wanted to invest in it. They wanted to build something from nothing. They wanted to build something by themselves. I talk to these people no more. They are bailing out as fast as they can, those who are still surviving, those who have not gone bankrupt or are in receivereship.
These people are putting their money into cash investments in order to draw interest. Why work 16 or 18 hours a day for a government that is greedy? The government will either heavily tax those people or, with the stroke of a pen on one fateful night in the House, change the economic climate with a budget called the national energy policy.
The only problem with the oil industry today is government greed. The oil industry was making the wheels of the Canadian economy spin, creating jobs right across this country. What did the government do? It attacked the multinationals. It said that "multinational" was a good dirty word and it could use it to swing Canadians behind the government. It was not the multinationals that got hurt. It was those Canadians who were doing exactly what the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources wanted them to do, those Canadians who, as statistics will show, were buying the oil industry. Ownership of
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the oil industry was progressing satisfactorily. It was moving ahead.
Time after time we have heard the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, in interviews over television and in press releases, congratulating himself and patting himself on the back for the wonderful things that have been done by the national energy policy. He said it is dong what the government said it would do. He says, "Look how we are conserving oil in Canada, thousands of barrels a day." He says, "We are using less than we were last year or before the introduction of the national energy policy."
That is because the wheels of industry have ground to a halt. Plants are closing in Ontario and Quebec. Oil rigs, service rigs and trucks in western Canada are being sold. I said before in the House that the largest auction sale of all oilfield equipment in the history of the Canadian oil industry took place at Nisku, south of Edmonton. Oil rigs which cost a million dollars to purchase and which were still new, never having been spudded into the ground, sold to American buyers for $510,000. Is that a multinational oil company? No. It is a Canadian oil company.
Two men in Fort McMurray built one of the finest welding and machine shops north of the city of Edmonton to service the industry. Then the national energy policy came in and everything these men had built up over 20 or 25 years went down the tube. I talked to the wife of one of these gentlemen. They had lost their home and their furniture. The sheriff stood in the doorway and told them to take only their personal belongings. She asked me whether there was anything I could do. The sheriff would not let her take a table that belonged to her great-grandmother. I could do nothing because it was classed as household furniture. In spite of this, the minister congratulates himself on the success of his national energy policy.
We were told that after the energy agreement was signed, Alsands and the Cold Lake synthetic oil plants would go ahead. As we all know, they died. We were told that the energy agreement would encourage Alberta's petrochemical industry. Now the economic development minister for Alberta has stated that the Ottawa domestic tax on ethane threatens to make Alberta non-competitive. That is strictly a federal tax imposed by a greedy government, with no thought to what it is doing to the industry. Or, if there is a thought, it is a designed thought, and I do not believe that anyone could be that callous and say, "We are going to teach Alberta, we are going to teach these people in the west a lesson." I do not believe it. I believe it is ignorance on the minister's part. He is listening to bureaucrats who do not understand what they have done.
We were told that Canadian ownership would be accelerated by these policies, that we were going to be able to wave the flag and say that we own the oil industry. Mr. Speaker, we know what has happened to Dome; will Dome survive without massive government assistance? We do not know. Turbo

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Resources, another Canadian company that took this government at its word, went out on an expansion policy and started to move in and buy out foreign investors. Are they going to survive without massive government intervention? These are just two of the companies that trust the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources to their peril; to their absolute peril they trusted him. Now the saying is, with Dome, Jack Gallagher is a pretty sharp cookie, he has got the government now in his corner, they have got to bail him out, and if they do not, maybe a couple of banks will go with him. Mr. Speaker, that is sure some government policy to move toward Canadian ownership.
The national energy policy was imposed on western Canada by a government without representation in the west. It was imposed on the energy industry without any representation or discussion with that industry. The national energy policy seeks to control Canadian economy, with bureaucratic control and government control. This is the government that rewards people like Branny Schepanovich with a directorship on Air Canada. He is the Liberal in Alberta, the one and only Liberal in Alberta, who is supposed to be the superman in the organization field. He has been a Liberal since he left university about 16 or 20 years ago. He has let his neck stick out there. He has received his just reward, on the board of directors of Air Canada. That is the sickness of this government.
There is a survey just released from the Petroleum Services Association. 1 would like to put it on the record for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. He has left the House again but perhaps his parliamentary secretary could bring it to his attention. He will not believe it, he will think up some reason why this cannot be, because it is coming from an opposition member. I ask him to get a copy of it. Let us look at this survey. It is a survey by the Petroleum Services Association. It says that 13 oil-well drilling and service companies have gone bankrupt, and that 23 more oil-well drilling and servicing companies are expected to go bankrupt this year. Where are they located? They are all located in Alberta and Saskatchewan. And 12,000 direct jobs have been lost in that area of the oil industry since the national energy policy, that is direct jobs, and I stress direct, because it is too difficult to determine how many indirect jobs are lost, because they are not buying pipe, they are not buying trucks, they are not buying motors. We all know where those materials are produced. They say that 227 drilling rigs have left Canada, rigs that were busy in Canada and working in Canada. Those 227 drilling rigs have left Canada since the inception of the national energy policy.
What is a drilling rig? Let us talk about that, Mr. Speaker. It consists of 227 small factories employing anywhere from 24 to 35 or 40 people. It is a small factory on its own. Can you imagine the hue and cry that would come out of Quebec or Ontario if 227 small factories were forced to close the door because the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) introduced that policy into the House of Commons and at one stroke of the pen destroyed this industry? Can you imagine that? But we cry in the wilderness in the hinterland provinces, and it upsets me. Members will get up and say that it is members from the other
side of the House, members who go back to their riding, who are causing the division in our land. That is not true and they know full well that it is not true. We have 461 drilling rigs left in Canada today. Of those 461 that are not being put up for auction-some of them will be, they will be going across the auction block soon-out of those 461 drillings rigs there are 84 actually drilling in the western basin today.
What about the downturn in the economy? If they were receiving for their production the world price, the same price that we pay Venezuela or Mexico or Iran or Saudi Arabia, if they were allowed to go in and drill without the tax regime that is being placed in front of them now, they would be finding the oil. But the attack was on. I am convinced that the attack was on the western basin. It was an attack on the oil industry in general, it was an attack that said, "We are going to move all the focus on energy development and finding the oil; we are going to move it to Canada lands, to the north, to the offshore." Even with the collapse of Alsands and the shelving of the Cold Lake project, we still hear the minister saying that the Alsands are not needed, that we will have plenty of oil coming from the Beaufort Sea in the north, that we will still have plenty of oil over in Hibernia. Mr. Speaker, they think they had it tough with Alberta when they were trying to work out an equitable agreement on sharing the exploitation of the natural resources in Alberta. "They ain't seen nuthin' yet" because I do not think Newfoundlanders will stand by and allow this government to steamroll over them, not for one minute. I am absolutely 100 per cent behind the Newfoundland government. This government knows nothing but unilateral action. That was confirmed when this government said the reserves in the Hibernia field and off the coast of Newfoundland belong to the federal government. The federal government has been unable to negotiate because it does not sit down and talk and try to work things out in a co-operative way, in the old way, in the Canadian way. Hon. members opposite emulate our famous Prime Minister, who stood and said, "Co-operative federalism is dead". In other words, "To hell with the provinces, we will do it our way or it will not be done". Where are those members of the Liberal Party who sit in government? Where are those backbenchers with spines who can stand up and tell their leader that enough is enough because what he is doing is destroying Canada?
I have never seen more animosity toward a government on the part of the people generally than I have seen build up over the past two years. That scares me because I love my country. I want my country to become great. I want my country to adopt the vision adopted by people like Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier. We have lost that vision totally because of one man and his lackeys in the cabinet.
I have said it before and I will say it again: only ten backbench Liberal members are needed to stand and say to the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, "Enough is enough". They are destroying the
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country, and if they will not admit their mistakes, those ten backbench Liberal members could withdraw their support. That would change the direction of this country.
People in this country no longer have any faith that things will turn around. I had occasion to speak with a chap who had been down in the United States, where the rate of unemployment is high. He was down there on business for a week. He told me he got a real boost when he went down there because the attitude of the man on the street-the people-is that they will work together and beat this thing. Their attitude is that they will drive inflation down, as they are doing. Their attitude is that they will drive interest rates down and get their country moving again. There are problems in the United States, but that chap told me that coming to Canada is like coming to another world. Businessmen are down. They are looking for more of the same that we have seen over the past two years. They are asking us when we will get rid of our incompetent government, which is doing nothing. There is indecision. There is no longer any national will in Canada. It is gone. It is gone because of the divisive, unilateral policies of the present government. I never thought I would see the day when individual Canadians would hang their heads and say, "I don't see a future here." Men I have known intimately since I was in grade school have telephoned me and approached me to ask if I could find out how they could emigrate to the United States or Australia. At least ten have done that, and that is a conservative estimate. There are men who love their country but no longer see a future here because of this continuing idiocy.
The amendments we have moved are very reasonable. All we are asking is that the government stop ripping off the people at the pumps through its National Energy Program. If the government needs a petroleum compensation charge, sure, Canadians do not mind spreading the grief around and compensating those in other parts of the country who have to pay more for gas or fuel. But why should the minister be allowed to gather up in his kitty $1.4 billion, as he did last year, and then say, "Well, there might be a slight increase?" Our amendments are reasonable amendments. They should be looked at, and I hope the government will act on them.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank you very much. I appreciate the time you have given to me.


Mr. J. M. Forrestall (Dartmouth-Halifax East):: Mr. Speaker, 1 follow the hon. member for Athabasca (Mr. Shields) with some sadness. 1 know him to be a very forthright man who is deeply concerned about his country. I sat here for 35 minutes and listened to the impassioned plea of a representative of a great part of Canada which is, of course, the oil sands centre. What is perhaps even more important, the hon. member for Athabasca is a man who thoroughly understands the industry and thoroughly understands the arduous task of making a living under the uncertain conditions this government has imposed not only on him but also on the men, women and families he represents.
It was disquieting to hear the hon. member for Athabasca talk about the loss of oil drilling rigs and the loss of jobs, not just in Alberta but right across the country. As the hon. member pointed out, we know where pumps are built. We
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know where pipes are put together. We know where gaskets are made. We know where trucks are manufactured. Indeed, we know where refrigerators, toasters and irons are manufactured. As the hon. member for Athabasca has said, it is not just the people of Alberta and Saskatchewan who are affected.
What bothered me most was the hon. member's despair and his near loss of hope. That is what we must redress, and there must be changes.
Under the leadership of our distinguished energy critic, the hon. member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre), we have put forward a number of amendments. There are more with which we must yet deal. We have put forward amendments attempting to remove, for example, Clause 12. Such amendments would, in effect, do away completely with the transportation fuel compensation recovery charge. We have dealt with that. That motion is pending and will be voted upon in due course. It attempts to bring some sense to the direction in which this government is leading us with the support of the National Energy Program.
In our second motion, which has already been discussed, we have attempted to restore some direction as well. In that instance we did so by moving to strike out Clause 16 for the purpose of denying the cabinet the unilateral power to revoke price agreements. This afternoon the hon. member for Calgary Centre spoke at some length about the government's attitude to written contracts. It was a damning comment on the government's regard for agreements.
In our third motion we approach the question of credibility and attempt to restore some rational approach to it. This is a reasonably technical amendment which deals with bringing into balance the pricing of crude oil, which will affect those who do the exploration and consumers who use the product as well as governments.
The motion before the House now extends that attempt to bring some sanity and some thoughtful rationale into the process. The change proposed would have the effect of lowering the maximum level of the petroleum compensation charge to some $28 per cubic metre from the $75 provided in the bill as it stands.
The PCC is presently levied at the rate of $39.64 per cubic metre or about $6.30 per barrel. This has the effect of raising the price of gasoline at the pump by 24 cents per gallon. Our amendment would force the government to lower the PPC from its present level and require that the excess collected above the $28 per cubic metre since January, 1981 be reimbursed to Canadians, through lowering the PCC.
In actual fact, as has been pointed out by others on this side of the House, this is more than symbolic; in a sense it is poetic. It would have the effect of limiting government to its promises of just a couple of years ago. It would also have the effect of reducing the increase in the cost of gasoline to the 18 cents per gallon level promised by the hon. member for St. John's West
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(Mr. Crosbie) under the leadership of the right hon. gentleman who then led the government.
The need for these approaches becomes clear in other amendments. There is a need for guidelines that are understandable, credible, believeable, workable and acceptable. Our next amendment would achieve those things. We would require monitoring and adjustments from guidelines that would be understandable, that would be known and would be clear. If we had a projection of the money that will be collected by the government if left untethered, it would be revealing. Already it has been identified as exceeding SI.4 billion, and theoretically there is no end to it. That is $1.4 billion already misappropriated, in effect, from the consumers of this country. It is in excess of the amount required to pay compensation for imported oils.
The hon. member for Athabasca and others have touched on this in recent months. We all know that we could do better on the spot market.
It is pleasant to see that the distinguished Secretary of State (Mr. Regan) from Halifax has entered the House. I trust he raises his voice in caucus-


Mr. LeBlanc:: He does.


J. Michael Forrestall: Not to much effect, though. I would put this rhetorical question to him: who pays the second highest electricity rates in the country south of 60 and north of 45? Was he effective with his colleagues on that one?


Mr. Regan:: How much higher would they be if we had gone to world price for oil?


J. Michael Forrestall: We would be at 18 cents per gallon instead of 92! I do not have to calculate that for the minister.
There would be no need for massive increases in the cost of electricity in the Atlantic provinces next year if the minister had shown any concern and had approached the government asking it for compassion to include some cushion for people on fixed and low incomes in its program.
Prince Edward Island is paying two and a half times the domestic electricity rate of any other place in southern Canada, from P.E.I. to Vancouver. From north of 45 and south of 55, no one is paying more than Prince Edward Islanders. Very few people pay more than Newfoundlanders and even fewer pay more than Nova Scotians where the cost of electricity is approaching twice the national average: In part, that is because the petroleum compensation charges are so far in excess of reality that they have driven the price of oil-fired electricity way up.
The distinguished member from Halifax may speak out in caucus and cabinet, but he does not speak out in public very often. He has not been effective because the cost of electricity in Nova Scotia is double, and in some cases is more than double, the cost to other Canadians.
There is a great need for a return to some semblance of reality, and this can be seen in a number of ways. As the oil compensation charge now stands, it hurts farmers, fishermen and those who must find their living in our forests, as well as
small industry. It is not just the domestic users of electricity who are affected; the entire secondary manufacturing base is directly affected at a time when it is difficult enough for them to survive the present high interest rates and bad mortgages. It affects our fishermen, and it affects our young people who might very well want to go into fishing or follow their parents on the farm. It is discouraging because there is no end to it. The effect of our amendment would be to take away the excess amount of taxation and allow people a little bit of freedom and a greater opportunity to get on with the development of their own lives.
In addition, Mr. Speaker, as we will be demonstrating in the days ahead, we want to put some sunset clauses into this bill with respect to the charges. We will move amendments which stipulate that the charge will continue only until it has reached $1.46 billion, that being the amount required to buy Petrofina, not including the brokerage fees paid to-the minister's son is with us today in the gallery, Mr. Speaker. Happy birthday. How is he going to get a job? Ask Dave that tonight. Today is a very significant day for David Regan; he becomes a teenager today. His dad is a better fighter than that; he is a better fighter for all Canadians. We look forward to great things from him in the area of oil and gas pricing.
We will move other amendments in this area, Mr. Speaker, which we hope will have the impact of ensuring that the Canadian ownership account is used for its original purpose: to increase Canadian ownership. There is nothing complex about that. As it now reads, the bill allows the government to buy Canadian companies; that is not increasing Canadian ownership. The whole purpose of the Canadian ownership account and these enormously inflated tax levels was to increase Canadian ownership. You do not increase Canadian ownership by buying companies already Canadian owned. At least if you do, I have not quite been able to figure out how. Perhaps someone over there might enlighten us. The points we are putting forward have been designed to try to rationalize this process and return some sanity to the NEP.
The hon. member for Athabasca said that individually members over there are not bad; some of them are reasonably intelligent. The whip is a great man but apparently unable to persuade his colleagues to a sensible point of view. The Minister of National Defence (Mr. Lamontagne) is unable to persuade anyone. On his own he is not a bad fellow; reasonably intelligent, smiles once in awhile. Too bad he does not have a military force to play with any more. As you go down the line, the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Rompkey) and the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. LeBlanc), on their own, after five in the afternoon, are not bad fellows. But something happens to them when they go to work at 8.30 in the morning, and no one has been able to quite figure out what it is.
Three or four times today, directly and indirectly, the Acting Prime Minister, the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin),
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was asked: have you talked to the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau)? Well, do you know what I believe? Since the Prime Minister went to Versailles, not one of them has picked up the phone and called the leader of this country and said, "Look, we have a problem. What are you doing over there? What are we supposed to say to Canadians?" Mr. Speaker, I do not think there has been any communication whatsoever. Is that the way you operate? Is that what happens to you between 8.30 in the morning and when you leave your office? Do you lose all capacity to communicate with one another except through the bureaucracy? Perhaps if you did talk to each other, the time of the House would not be taken up trying to restore some sanity to the minister's NEP.
All we are trying to do, Mr. Speaker, is to take the excess taxes-which in some cases have been misused or ill used, improperly used certainly-and put them back into the pockets of Canadians. We want to give the little fellow a break, the senior citizens, persons on fixed incomes or low pensions. Give the fellow driving a car a bit of a break. For most Canadians a car is no longer a luxury, it is a matter of necessity. That is what we are trying to do, curb the over-zealousness and blindness of this government in its pursuit of an energy program which has failed this country. They were warned it would fail, and yet they steadfastly and blindly refused to alter or change it.
Well, Mr. Speaker, this debate will carry on. The debate in the country will carry on. Sooner or later, whether or not it is here on the floor of this chamber, the answers to these questions will be given. The questions will be answered in a general federal election. If one were held tomorrow the questions would be answered to the very clear and distinct advantage of the Canadians who have to bear the very unfair burden of this government's National Energy Program. Somebody said the other day that if you cannot talk to one another any more, that if you are so broken down in the treasury benches that no longer are there lines of communication, that if you do not hear direction from the Prime Minister as to what you should be doing here, and if you have lost control of the bureaucracy-the budget of the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) is one sign of that and the National Energy Program of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) is a clear indication of it-why in the name of all that is good and holy do you not do the honourable thing, call a general election and resign?


Dave Nickerson: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to speak on report stage of Bill C-103 and the two motions before us tonight. I, like many members, have had the opportunity to speak at some length on second reading of this bill. At that time I laid before the House those things that I thought objectionable in the bill, the philosophies contained therein and the principles which were incorporated in it. In reading the draft which has emerged from committee I do not think many improvements have been made. It is my intention tonight to impose upon myself the rules of relevancy. These are not usually adhered to strictly in the House. But I intend to speak solely on the proposals that came out of the
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Standing Committee on Energy Legislation and the two motions before us tonight. As a consequence, my presentation will likely be rather technical, somewhat dry but, mercifully, quite short.
It seems the changes proposed at report stage by and large are technical changes. There has been no change in policy and no change in substance. We are dealing with rather small technical changes. I wish that had not been so, but what more can you expect from the government in office?
I count about five separate proposals in the bill reported to this House on June 1 by the hon. member for York East (Mr. Collenette). In my opinion, it proved to be somewhat of a disappointment. The first change is to be incorporated into Clause 9 and Clause 33 of the bill. Clause 9 deals with penalties for the non-payment of the oil export charge, Clause 33 deals with very similar penalties to be levied for non-payment of the petroleum compensation charge. I point out that the penalties referred to here are not penalties to be imposed in the case of fraud; they are penalties such as those with which the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Rompkey) is familiar. They are not cases of deliberate fraud but rather oversights on the part of people supposed to be paying these taxes.
In the original Petroleum Administration Act, the amount of penalty to be levied in cases of default was 1 per cent of the outstanding amount. This seemed quite fair and reasonable. People have lived with that levy for some time and have become used to it. However, in the original version of Bill C-103 it was the intention of the government to increase this penalty charge from 1 per cent to 1.5 per cent of the outstanding balance. I do not know why the government wanted to increase it by that amount. It would seem that 1 per cent per month, which is 14 per cent or 15 per cent per annum, is quite reasonable when there is no case of deliberate fraud. I presume the government thought that inflation would continue and in that case it might be better to levy a penalty charge amounting to some 20 per cent per annum or 1.5 per cent per month.
I am pleased to see that the penalty was rolled back to the original amount prescribed under the Petroleum Administration Act, that is, 1 per cent. In effect, having gone through this exercise, there is no change. I am pleased to support this recommendation of the committee, and I do not think any useful purpose was served by the proposed increase to 1.5 per cent per month.
I would, however, point out that when it comes to deliberate non-payment of the various charges and taxes to be levied, then we have a much different situation. The government has in no way backed down from the vicious penalties that it wishes to impose on people for deliberate non-payment. As an example, I will quote from page 12 of the bill. Clause 18 refers to penalties to be levied with respect to non-payment of the transportation fuel recovery compensation charge. These are very similar penalties prescribed for the non-payment of the compensation charge or non-payment of the oil export charge. In Clause 18 we read:
"(a) on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding one hundred thousand dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or to both-

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Petroleum Administration Act
Under the old Petroleum Administration Act the maximum fine for a summary conviction was $200,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months. The prison term has been doubled. Similarly, for conviction on indictment under the old Petroleum Administration Act the maximum penalty was imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, whereas under Bill C-103 and the new energy administration act, the penalty prescribed is, as we read in Clause 18:
(b) on conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding one million dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or to both."
I have registered my objection to these penalties before. It seems that if you are convicted for murder, rape or armed robbery you are likely to be back on the streets again in six months to a year, whereas if you refuse to pay your Petro-Canada tax you are fined $1 million and end up in jail for five years in the lowermost dungeon operated by those opposite.
When it comes to prescribing penalties under the law, it seems that those who would break the tax laws of this country are subject to much greater penalties than those who commit crimes against generally accepted moral standards of behaviour. I think that at some point in time we should take a look at the penalties prescribed under the Criminal Code for certain offences and then take another look at the penalties prescribed for breaking the tax laws of this country. In my opinion, the penalties for breaking tax laws are grossly out of proportion.
The second recommendation of the committee deals with a rather technical subject. It deals with overpayment in the EPF payments from the federal government to a province. You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that we dealt not so long ago with this very subject when we were talking about writing off certain sums of money in cases of provinces having been found to have received too many EPF payments because their estimated population was below that subsequently established by the recent census. Provinces found themselves owing fair amounts of money to the federal government. In certain cases those amounts were written off. If an overpayment has been made under EPF, it can be counted as part of the refund on certain oil export charges which under the Energy Administration Act would be accruing to the particular province. It could deal with agency fees because I understand that the provinces, by reason of their collecting the oil export charge on behalf of the Government of Canada, are eligible for certain agency fees.
This is a technical change. It has certain advantages to it, despite the way in which I have explained it which was rather complex. It should simplify the bookkeeping somewhat and it should get around the problem which we very often have where the federal government gives a cheque to the province and three weeks later the province writes a cheque to the federal government. It should simplify some of that, at least in theory. It will avoid certain double payments.
For these reasons I support the change, but it is illustrative of the very technical nature of the legislation before us. It is extremely complex legislation. I imagine there are very few of us in the House-and even fewer in the general public-who could understand the bill clause by clause. It is technical,
administrative law designed for a very technocratic government.
Although I do not expect that it will be the case, I hope we can simplify some of the tax legislation. I am pleased to see the Minister of National Revenue sitting opposite. I am sure he would like to see that happen as well, but he probably suspects, even more than I, that it will not be the case. We find ourselves living with these very complex tax laws, rules and regulations which are very difficult to interpret. The more technical we get, the more likely it is that some technocratically-inclined lawyer will find loopholes in them.
I have another difficulty with Clause 10 of the bill which amends Section 17 of the act. It is difficult to read the new draft of Bill C-103 which was reprinted as amended and reported on June 1. Clause 10 amends Section 17.1 of the Energy Administration Act. Clause 10 becomes Clause 10(1) which deals with four subsections. If we go by the way the amendments have been printed, we come to the end of Clause 10 which deals with Section 17.1(4), and suddenly we are stuck with Clause 10(2). It is very difficult to find out to what that refers. The main difficulty is that subclause (2) is inserted, and it is the only one in the bill which does not amend a section of some other existing act of Parliament. Every clause in the bill, including the short title, amends the Petroleum Administration Act or some other act of Parliament but Clause 10(2) does not. It stands on its own, the way I read it.
If somebody wanted to make an update of all new legislation, he would take various acts of Parliament and all the clauses which amend different sections of different acts and apply them to the various acts. He would find that he had one subclause left over with no place for it to go. After all the other clauses were taken out and applied to the respective acts, we would have an act of Parliament comprised of one subclause. It is inconsistency in drafting, and it is very difficult to explain or to comprehend. Would it not be possible to rewrite or renumber Clause 10(2) so that it applies to the Petroleum Administration Act? It quite rightly belongs there. Then it would amend some section of that act and would not stand on its own in the middle of nowhere. This is a very technical matter which is best addressed by draftsmen in the Department of Justice. I hope someone in that department will read my remarks and take another look at it before third reading.
Now I should like to deal with what I perceive as the third major change recommended in the report on Bill C-103. It alters the wording in three clauses-Clause 11 which deals with the oil export charge, Clause 38 which deals with the petroleum compensation charge and Clause 44 which deals with petroleum compensation payments. Again this is a fairly technical matter, but previously compensation charges and payments were to be levied and made in respect of certain materials. Paragraph 65.19 of the old act gave the governor in council the power by regulation to designate certain products for payment or charges. Paragraph 65.19(a) allowed the governor in council by regulation to designate any hydrocarbon or mixture of hydrocarbon resulting from the processing
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or refining of hydrocarbons described in paragraph (a) or (b) of the definition "petroleum" in Section 65.1(1) as a petroleum product. This did not include the possibility of a petroleum-like product such as synthetic crude oil produced from coal. In the first draft of Bill C-103 we see in a similar place in the legislation a redefinition which indicates that the governor in council may make regulations designating any product resulting from the processing or refining of hydrocarbons or coal as a petroleum product.
This so very often happens when we try to be more encompassing with our legislation; when we try to be more specific, we run into difficulties. There are certain difficulties with that definition. Thus, under the new proposal it was necessary to redefine what was really meant. The new definition has certain advantages. It indicates that the governor in council may "designate as a petroleum product any substance resulting from the processing or refining of hydrocarbons or coal if such substance is asphalt or a lubricant, or is a suitable source of energy by itself or when it is combined or used in association with something else." No doubt that is a better definition, but it still leaves us with certain difficulties.
In my opinion it would exclude certain things which should be excluded. Certain oil products should be excluded from the definition, such as aniline, benzene solvents, and various dye stuffs. Also it would exempt certain petroleum products such as solvents, plastics, and these types of things. This was good because we needed to encompass in our definition of these chargeable products certain coal products such as synthetic oil from coal to which I referred earlier. I understand that there is a certain amount of research being conducted by the Canmet division of Energy, Mines and Resources. I was pleased recently to visit that research establishment. I certainly hope, as do many other Canadians, that their research work proves successful.
It would also presumably include synthetic pipeline gas produced by hydrogenation processes, beginning with coal as a raw material. I do not know whether certain products will be included or excluded in this definition. In this respect we have run up against difficulties of clearly defining what is meant. First, coke produced from coal-where does that fit into it? Very little coke is used for heating purposes in Canada but there is metallurgical coke used. Where is the line drawn when metallurgical coke is put into the furnace, because part of it is used for the purpose of reduction and other parts of it are used at the same time as an energy source? Where would metallurgical coke fit into this definition? Where would water gas and producer gas fit into the definition? What about petroleum coke, which is produced in the process from which synthetic crude is derived from the tar sands in Fort McMurray, Alberta? I understand that there are large stockpiles of petroleum coke at the present time for which a market cannot be found. This is a good energy source which whould be used, but if it finds itself subject to taxes and charges which are proposed in this bill it would be very difficult to find a market for it. It is difficult enough now, and if it becomes taxable, as it might under this legislation, it will cause even more difficulties.
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The fourth matter arising from the committee report concerns the Canadian ownership account. It has somewhat broadened the scope of the minister to appropriate funds for public ownership. On this side we have a philosophical objection to the way in which the Liberal government has gone about nationalizing everything in sight and saying that it intends to follow on with that process. I will not get into an argument over that tonight but rather will just look at some of the details. Whereas the minister was formerly allowed to appropriate these funds for acquisition of certain investment instruments-debt instruments and equity instruments-he will now be able to use his powers of appropriation of public funds to engage in any form of appropriation. I do not know why the government has wanted to give those all-encompassing powers to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde), but it has.
I am pleased to see that the drafting of Section 65.36(3) has been tidied up. We now have specific reference to an order which the governor in council must make when these powers of appropriation over the public purse are to be used. There are very complex rules and regulations which deal with a negative resolution on the part of Parliament when the minister desires to use these powers.
I must confess that I have read through about six times both drafts of the procedure to be adopted by the government and in Parliament when such an order is to be made. 1 find it very difficult to understand exactly how that process is to operate. If you read the proposals coming out of committee it seems that the proposed system has been watered down somewhat, that is if you go from the old draft of Bill C-103 to the new one.
As one illustration of that let me point out that the time period in which the government must table that order in Parliament has been extended from 15 days to 20 days. Originally, under the old draft, if such an order was contemplated and the government wanted to have the force of law behind it, that order had to be tabled in Parliament within 15 days of its issuance. That has now been extended to 20 days. We see a watering down of provisions there.
I Find it difficult to interpret this. One can contemplate many things that could possibly go wrong. Where does the House of Commons and the Senate fit into this legislation? What happens in the unlikely event that the House of Commons chooses to agree with the order and say that it is good for the country for the government to spend so many billions of dollars to take over the assets of certain companies to give to Petro-Canada, and the Senate says no? I have read through this on several occasions and I can envision serious constitutional difficulties which could arise if the Senate decides to take a different approach than the House of Commons on a particular order.
From a personal point of view, I would have preferred if the power of a negative resolution, which would have the objective of overthrowing an order proposed under Clause 65, had been

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confined to one House of Parliament, which presumably would be the House of Commons since it generally deals with money items. Those items are not usually dealt with in the Senate. It is very unusual to give the Senate the power to address money items.
The last point that I can identify in the report which was handed down by the hon. member from York East deals again with a rather minor item. It deals with interest payments on petroleum compensation payments made in error. Under the first draft of Bill C-103, if the government paid a certain compensation payment to a particular refinery and subsequently discovered it had paid $100,000 too much, and that $100,000 remained in the hands of the refinery for a certain period, the refinery would be obliged to pay interest back to the government set at such a rate as the governor in council decided. I do not see anything particularly wrong with that unless the interest rate was set at a punitively high level. However, the recommendation of the committee in the new draft of Bill C-103 says that this interest will no longer be payable. If the government makes an error and pays the refinery or oil importing company too much money, it is the government's fault and it is out of luck. Of course it will get its original amount returned but it will not collect interest on that money. It seems rather unusual that the government itself has recommended in this particular case paying what is in effect a penalty since it will lose the interest that it might have received on that $100,000. It seems rather unusual for it to do that when one considers the UFFI situation where it has made a mistake but is not really willing to make any special form of compensation under those circumstances. In this case, if it makes a mistake it is in fact giving the oil importer or the refinery a bonus for its mistake. The company will be collecting interest on the moneys it has on deposit in the interim. I find it rather unusual that the government has proposed this. It is only a minor matter so I will not raise any great objection.
Now we come to the two motions which have been proposed by the official opposition. The first one deals with the petroleum compensation charge and the maximum amount of the charge which the governor in council will be permitted to make under this proposed legislation. We in the opposition have proposed that the maximum amount of the petroleum compensation charge be restricted to $28 per cubic metre. Believe it or not, it works out to 18 cents a gallon. I guess we must plead that we are somewhat guilty of nefarious objectives in proposing this figure of 18 cents a gallon. Your Honour will recall that some two and a half years ago, in the budget proposed by the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Cros-bie), the figure of 18 cents was the proposed increase to the excise tax on gasoline. Since that time, I believe taxes in excess of 90 cents have been imposed. The 18 cents we propose would be applied solely to the petroleum compensation charge, not to the myriad of other charges and taxes which have been levied by the government opposite.
When the vote on this motion takes place, I want to see how many hon. members opposite rise to vote in favour of a tax or petroleum compensation charge of $75 per cubic metre, some
54 cents a gallon. At the time of the last election they said that if the people of Canada voted Liberal, the taxes would never amount to 18 cents a gallon. I want to see which way hon. members on that side of the House vote on this very simple amendment we have proposed and put forward.
The second motion we have proposed is likewise very simple, but it addresses a serious problem. We propose that the amount of public revenue the government be allowed to collect by way of the petroleum compensation charge should not exceed petroleum compensation payments made to importers and refiners under this bill. We on this side of the House are scared because, as so often happens when the government first imposes its tax, it says that it will be applied for a certain reason, but after a while that reason disappears and the government still continues to collect the tax. In the case of gasoline, we can think of provincial road taxes which were first applied many years ago. The idea was to apply a tax on "motor spirits", as they were called in those days, in order to build roads, but after a while the connection between the two was forgotten and the taxes on gasoline were increased all the time. That money was not necessarily used to build roads. It just went into general revenue. This continued year after year ans taxes on gasoline are now a constant part of the Canadian provincial tax scene. They will never go away. If Your Honour will recall, the same thing happened at the federal level with income tax. It was first to be levied as a special charge to help fight the war, but then the war ended. Did the income tax go away? No, it did not go away. It has been with us ever since and it has increased and increased. We do not want this to happen with the petroleum compensation charge. I do not think there is the need, but if there were the necessity to have the charge and a compensation system where Canadian oil producers were taxed in order to bring imports for this country, we would live with it. However, when that need disappears, then that petroleum compensation charge should disappear. Our amendment is quite simple. It says that the two must remain in balance and that that particular tax should not exist any longer when the reason for it is gone, and should not be used as a mechanism to collect general revenue.
Those, then, are my observations with respect to Bill C-103. I hope that with regard to the two motions we have before the House, everyone will see fit to at least support Motion No. 5. It has been a pleasure for me to speak on such a technical subject.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The question is on Motion No. 4. Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.
June 7, 1982


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Pursuant to Standing Order 75(11), the recorded division on the proposed motion stands deferred.
The question is now on motion No. 5. Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those in favour will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Pursuant to Standing Order 75(11), the recorded division on the proposed motion stands deferred.


Gordon Edward Taylor: Motion No. 6
That Bill C-103, an act to amend the Petroleum Administration Act and to enact provisions related thereto, be amended in Clause 39 by striking out lines 14 to 17 at page 25 and substituting the following therefor:
"each subsequent month until such a time as the amount of revenue collected
under this section is equal to the sum of one billion four hundred and sixty
million dollars".


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, Motion No. 6 deals with Part III.2 of the Petroleum Administration Act amendments, Bill C-103, which relates to the Canadian ownership special charge and taxation. During May of 1981, in violation of Liberal election promises, this sneaky little tax was brought in to finance Petro-Canada's purchase of Petrofina. In early 1981, at the urging of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde), Petro-Canada made that outstandingly shrewd business decision to purchase Petrofina.
Mr. Speaker, as a player of the stockmarkets, you may recall that in the summer of 1980, before the National Energy Program, before the investment public came to know the true nature of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and the ideologues who were advising him, the Canadian oils stockmarket was pretty buoyant. In fact, it was at a high, as some of us have learned rather sadly. At that time, Petrofina's stock was trading in the order of $50, roughly. Then some rumours started to spread. Apparently some believe it was more than just speculative rumours. The stock went from $50 to $80 or $85, even though the general stock market for gas and oil stock remained static and may in fact have gone down slightly.
About that time when Fina stock was going to about $80 or $85, the rest of the stock market in terms of oil was stagnant,
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perhaps slipping a little. Fina had not made any major discoveries. There is no other reason for the action of the Fina stock than that some people apparently knew something that others of us did not.
The government announced a takeover offer and then shrewdly engaged its agent, Mr. Maurice Strong, well known for his Liberal connections, to purchase Fina at the price of $120 a share. Those people who bought Fina stock at $50 in August were pretty happy. I do not know of anyone in this party who got wind of that information, but those who did came out rather well. The total price was $1,476 million. That was a very shrewd purchase for Canada. It did not create one new job for Canada, did not add one cubic foot of gas or one new service station or refinery. It did not add a thing to Canada unless, of course, the million dollar fee paid to Mr. Strong is considered an addition or the millions and millions earned by those who speculated fortuitously in the stock are counted.
That money had to come from somewhere. In order to pay off the owners of the stock, the money had to be borrowed. Borrowing costs at that time were in the vicinity of 18 per cent and 19 per cent. We had to borrow $1.5 billion at 18 per cent and 19 per cent to buy this company which had been paying dividends on its capital of about 2 per cent.
We did not gain any new jobs, an extra barrel of oil, an extra cubic foot of gas or anything else. For the same capital structure, we were paying 18 per cent and 19 per cent as opposed to 2 per cent. That was a really shrewd deal for Canada. For what cost us 2 per cent, we were now paying 18 per cent or 19 per cent.
Even though the assets of Petrofina were transferred to Petro-Canada, we could not burden that poor Crown corporation with the real costs of purchasing those assets, the 18 or 19 per cent. Heaven forbid! If they would have to bear the real cost, that would make their income statement and balance sheet look a little bit awkward. No, no, Petro-Canada could not be expected to pay the real cost. The consumers of Canada were going to bear the real cost.
Those little geniuses in Energy, Mines and Resources who invented the National Energy Program and the rest of this absurdity which has driven this country to its knees came up with the Canadian ownership charge. They said, "We are loading on all these taxes already, such as the petroleum compensation charge, the petroleum and gas revenue tax, the natural gas and gas liquids tax, the incremental oil revenue tax, the excise tax, the sales tax, the income tax. Who will notice the Canadian ownership charge-it is only four cents a gallon." It went on and nobody noticed. The Liberals broke every promise they had made during the election campaign. That was all right. A promise broken only hurts if somebody notices it. If nobody notices it, it is a great deal. That little four-cent a gallon tax went on. The little geniuses were delighted because it was politically successful. It was a great success. When Petro-Canada took over the Fina stations, they

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rushed out and painted the dead maple leaf on it. The television cameras were there and the announcers were saying, "Holy smokes, we are Canadianizing."
The station was there before. The gas was exactly the same. You did not get any better gasoline or any more gasoline. No jobs were created. All that happened was that the consumer was paying four cents a gallon for the privilege of seeing that dead maple leaf on the new station. It was a real deal!
Those geniuses in Energy, Mines and Resources were so happy that they said they would allow the minister to raise that tax to 24 cents a gallon. Then they could buy four Petrofinas a year. We could then have these dead maple leaves painted on every service station in the country. They said that would make them so happy, it would generate jobs and make us self-sufficient. They said it would be marvellous, all the wonderful things that were going to happen.
With the passage of time we realized that the $1.5 billion we paid for Petrofina was at least a billion dollars too much. If Petrofina were still privately owned, the stock today, if it behaved the way the rest of the oil stocks are behaving, would be trading at $20 or maybe $30. We paid $120 a share for shares that today are worth $20 or $30.
It was a shrewd business deal. It really fills you full of confidence. You just wish from the bottom of your heart that the people who made that deal were in charge of the entire industry. If they ran all the oil companies in this country, wouldn't we be well off with those clever people? My goodness, we could have deals like that every day, paying $120 a share for stock that is worth $30 a share.
As things go it is not the habit of this government to admit mistakes or to apologize for blowing at least a billion dollars, and probably more, of public money. It is blowing it, just blowing it. It gathered it in taxes and sent it to Brussels.
If that money had gone to a Third World country in the form of aid, that would have made a little sense. Why, though, for goodness sakes, are we collecting taxes from the consumers of gasoline and heating oil in this country to send to Brussels? Why did we send a billion dollars of unearned income to Brussels? We did not gain a job out of that transaction, we did not gain a barrel of oil, we did not gain a cubic foot of gas, we got nothing. We just took $1 billion and sent it to Brussels. And, because we could not afford it, we have had to keep our interest rates high, to borrow back the equivalent of $ 1 billion from some place else around the world. So we have this shrewd little business deal worked out by the geniuses in the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, it cost us $1 billion, it generated not one job and it contributed something to the higher interest rates that Canadians are suffering from. A few more business deals like that, Mr. Speaker, and we will not have one and a quarter million unemployed, we will have two million unemployed.
These central planners in the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, who think they are so much smarter than everyone else in the country when it comes to energy matters, are no smarter than those central planners in Warsaw or in
Moscow, and they plan just as badly as the central planners there. And you wonder how many of these horrifying experiences we have to go through before there is a recognition of that fact, Mr. Speaker.
This amendment contained in Motion No. 6, is very simple in its intent. It would merely say, let us stop after Petrofina, enough is enough, let us stop, no more taxes collected to hand over to the bureaucrats to go out and buy companies and to earn fees for Maurice Strong and other people, no more, because that sad experience has cost the country dearly, let us not do it again, let us stop after Petrofina. The amendment simply says that after you have collected $1,460 million, the amount of money to buy Fina, pay off that debt, which is costing us 18 per cent or 19 per cent, just call it a bad experience, a bad decision, and let us not repeat it. That is all this amendment does. It is a very simple amendment, that commends itself on its face.
Surely anyone who would look at the experience of that particular purchase and the consequences of it, would have to say, ah, ah, no more, let us not do that again, let us not have that exercise again, let us not create this little kitty for the minister and his minions to dip into and buy companies when the urge strikes him.
If state ownership of companies were the answer to Canada's problems, we should not have any problems, because we have over 400 Crown corporations. If Crown corporations were the answer to providing us with the window on industry, to let the central planners make better decisions, we should not have any bad decisions. Owning Air Canada, owning CN, how is it possible that we can have bad transportation policies, when we have this monstrous window on industry? If these windows are the thing that will provide us with the information so that governments can make good decisions, then they really have no excuse for not making this a utopia, as they have over 400 windows right now. It is a fallacy that Crown corporations provide anything but a repository for has-been politicians to earn handsome salaries. You may not have guessed that I am talking about Jack Horner and the chairmanship of the CNR.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Harvie Andre: Hurrah, hurrah, applause. Marvellous. Little toys, that is what they are, toys to give Maurice Strong fees, toys to give the Jack Horners and the Bryce Mackaseys of the world comfortable positions to be collected at the public trough. They do nothing for Canada but cost us money. We have a Crown corporation in the broadcast business and apparently it took 74 of them to report the Versailles Conference-74 accredited persons from the CBC to report at Versailles.
I realize that the ideologues on my left here believe that Warsaw and Moscow are the ideals toward which we should work, where the central planners are in total control of everything. But those who have the capability of reasoning and who look back on the Fina purchase objectively and measure objectively what we have achieved as a country as a result of
June 7, 1982

that purchase, I am sure will reach the inescapable conclusion that it was a mistake and that we should close off that little source of funds, after the Fina purchase has been paid for. That is what Motion No. 6 says, Mr. Speaker.
After they have collected that money from this sneaking tax, pay off Petrofina, to give Maurice Strong and those people what they have not earned but what nonetheless they will receive. Let us close the books on that sad experience and not leave that kitty in funds for the minister and his ideologues to play with at our expense.


Some hon. Members:: Elear, hear!


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, I want to speak briefly on this bill and on the amendment, in support of my colleague who has just spoken. He made a good point about the ludicrous position in which this country finds itself because of the lack of co-ordination even between the Crown corporations in the exercise of government policy, whether it is in the field of energy or elsewhere.
Certainly no one could quarrel with his statement that it would be absolutely appropriate, once the sum that was. paid for Petrofina has been taxed from the people of Canada, that this particular charge should cease to function. That makes eminent good sense.
Another thing is very obvious to those of us who are watching the way the Crown agencies and government control exist in this country is the difference in other countries. For example, in Japan there is a meaningful relationship between the country and the entrepreneurs who take guidance from the government. In Japan the government is a close partner of private enterprise and helps it to land orders; it avoids regulations and practices which will impede business. On the contrary, it fosters success.
With respect to this particular piece of legislation, I can think of nothing more incongruous than to look at the argument that was made not by politicians but by the Air Transport Association of Canada, ATAC, to a government committee. It pointed out that the government and the national energy policy sought to put on a particular tax, with Bill C-103, called the transportation fuel compensation recovery charge, enough in itself to baffle most people trying to make some sense out of this particular taxation measure.
As the submission made on May 5 goes on to point out, this charges, or purports to charge a tax on both foreign and domestic air carriers. But, lo and behold, we find out that because of treaty and other regulatory obligations our domestic air carriers are forced to pay the tax while foreign competitors are not subject to it. We also find out that the loss that Air Canada, our own national carrier, experienced in the last quarter, about $27 million, probably was caused by a tax approximately equal to that amount which it had to pay under this particular inequitable and stupid tax. Our national air carrier was forced into a loss position because of a misguided tax which the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) saw fit to impose on the Canadian air industry. Can
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hon. members think of anything more stupid? I certainly cannot.
It is obvious that this government is not well inclined toward the private business sector. It is suspected rather strongly that since the present administration can boast of few members with any business experience of any sort, it does not really know business very well, and this particular legislation is a good example of that. This might explain why, for example, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources delights in his new oil consortium which was recently put together by Esso Resources to take advantage of the special grants which are offered under the National Energy Program to Canadian-controlled companies. However, when we look at the makeup of this consortium, we find that it looks as if the minister were going to achieve exactly the opposite of what his policies were meant to do, in the same way as he has achieved exactly the opposite effect to what he intended with regard to the tax on Canadian air carriers and foreign air carriers.
The National Energy Program Canadianization features were meant to put more of the oil industry in Canadian hands and control. This new oil consortium which was created entirely to make it eligible for the preferential incentives accorded Canadian-controlled firms not only will be headed by an American-controlled firm, but the 80 per cent grants it will receive will be the most extravagant financing by taxpayers of oil exploration in history. This will also be very harmful to management standards in the industry.
In a recent column Bill Wilson, the noted business commentator and columnist, said that Lewis Carroll, the creator of "Alice in Wonderland", would have thought twice about writing this scenario in "Through the Looking Glass," but Canadian law makes reality of the most remarkable consortium ever to search for oil in the harsh conditions of the Beaufort Sea. Esso Resources' $600 million deal with this group of smaller Canadian companies-some not even in the oil and gas business, according to Mr. Wilson-is a direct product of the National Energy Program's discriminatory features. Mr. Wilson said:
Because Esso Resources is American-controlled through Imperial Oil back to Exxon, it was one of the primary targets of the NEP's discrimination against foreign ownership. On its own, it could only have secured 25 per cent grants to aid in exploring the oil leases it holds in the Beaufort, both off and onshore.
To obtain the full 80 per cent grants it found thoroughly Canadian companies with which to make a deal. The only problem is that some of the companies are in the real estate or investment business with no more gas and oil experience than filling up a company car at the service station.
The biggest of them, Home Oil, is the project operator. The problem is that Home has no experience that would qualify it to undertake a $600 million exploration in the appallingly severe Beaufort environment. So, because Esso is the only company in the consortium with the technology and experience to run it, it will become the project operator's agent, doing the actual work for Home Oil.
Wilson adds that this illustrates with stark clarity the degree to which Esso Resources and other companies like it are needed in Canada, whether they are ultimately controlled in

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the United States or in Timbuktu. And before anyone gets carried away over the Canadian content aspect of the consortium deal, Wilson warns that they should remember what the last burst of Canadianization did. It produced the takeover frenzy of 1981 that did much to weaken the Canadian dollar by shipping $10 billion out of the country. It rigidly locked the country into substantially higher interest rates than would otherwise have been necessary, despite Washington's levels, and helped precipitate this very serious recession. It also helped determine its depth and severity.
While this consortium scheme does not carry the same risks of exporting capital, it will, however, test with a vengeance the scheme of providing 80 per cent grants from public funds to finance northern exploration. Mr. Wilson concludes in his column:
It is beyond all rational belief that any company, no matter how well managed, can maintain its own economic efficiency if the funds it is spending come 80 per cent from government, and only 20 per cent from its own cash flow or borrowing. It is not a disparagement of Esso Resources and its management to say that it cannot insulate itself from the effects of this sort of financing, no matter how hard it attempts to maintain its effects. Those cheap dollars will erode the best cost controls.	*">.
%
^.eanwhile, the real help companies should be getting is nSt available to them. The National Energy Program has seriously harmed their cash flow just when they need it most to deal with the high cost of borrowing and just when the budget has further eroded their cash position, and the government now says it does not have the necessary funds to promote research and development as it should be promoted to give our industries a chance to compete on work markets.
So, when one says that only growth will give us jobs, as many of us in this House believe, 1 have to add that we will never achieve any growth under the present administration unless it changes its posture. Surely we have seen the ultimate irony take place in Versailles. At a time when a summit conference was held to deal with energy and other problems and at a time when the country is full of misery and apprehension, where is the economic conference held? It is held at Versailles. It is one of the most obvious symbols of opulence and luxury the world has ever known. And who is the host? Why, it is a socialist who is the host, President Mitterrand. Who is the man who is the chief centre of attraction? He is the free enterprise President of the United States who is universally vilified by all concerned, including our Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) and the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), for taking steps to help his own country. And those steps of President Reagan appear to be working. Surely we are faced with a lot of paradoxes. The Prime Minister is now taking an extended tour. In the old days in Rome they used to say that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. We have seen here today that Pepin fiddles while Trudeau roams! What do they say in Quebec? I wish I were more bilingual, but is it not something like this:-
[ Translation]
-the more things change, the more they stay the same.

We have seen that the more things change the more they remain the same. We have seen other energy policies put forward by Donald Macdonald when he was minister of energy, mines and resources. We were going to have energy self-sufficiency by 1980. We were going to have pipelines to the maritimes. Everything was going to be fine, and now it is more of the same, and the goal of energy self-sufficiency gets further and further away.
If this government is going to do anything to help this country, it has to stop its drifting, ad hoc approach. The Liberal government will do such damage to our economic position that we will find it increasingly hard to hold our place in the world, much less improve it. The November budget should be withdrawn. Incentives to invest and produce should be restored. The National Energy Program should be further amended to allow experienced companies to invest and not have to put together these artificial consortiums. Now that the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources has seen some light and has reduced the harmful petroleum and gas revenue tax to some extent, he still needs to worry about low investor confidence. The measures he has taken have not impressed the financial markets at all. Meanwhile, these few measures he has taken have just provided a further drift into economic stagnation.
The only way we will get any improvement is for this government and the Minister of Finance, who no longer have any credibility on economic issues, to withdraw the budget, change further the National Energy Program and create better incentives for Canadians to invest in their own country. This government needs credibility badly. Its lack of credibility in energy matters extends back to when the Minister of Finance put those unebelievably crass advertisements in the papers in Cape Breton. He said: "Vote for Allan J., and the price of gas will come down and stay down." Anyone who is knowledgeable-as the Minister of Finance must be held to be; He is a veteran politician-who would say something like that could only be suspected of putting the interests of his party ahead of the interests of his country. This government has come back to power. It has come back bankrupt in policies, and its lack of policies has bankrupted our country.
Surely the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and his cabinet colleagues can read the handwriting on the wall. Ever since this country started to do away with incentives, to fool around with capital gains taxes and to pay oil companies to explore for oil when they were perfectly capable and willing to do so on their own, and ever since confidently forecast revenues failed to materialize, surely the handwriting for depression has been on the wall. I hope that members in the chamber will show at least a modicum of common sense and support the amendment of the hon. member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre). In this way they can show that this ill-advised and obviously quixotic attempt to buy a service company in the guise of Canadianizing our energy industry when those revenues which have been allocated for that purpose are being taken from the pockets of Canadian taxpayers, is enough of
June 7, 1982

this particular brand of taxation. The amendment ought to be enthusiastically supported by all members in the House. That would be a step in the right direction.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, before I get into my comments I wonder if the hon. member would permit a question.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Certainly.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Given that our oil industry was 75 per cent foreign owned and now is about 68 per cent foreign owned, how would the Progressive Conservative Party propose to Canadianize the industry?


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, Canadianizing a diminishing resource when allowing our manufacturing and other sectors to fall into gross undercapitalization and underutilization, is not the priority I would put forward in this country. I think that ownership is secondary to management control in this sophisticated environment. If our energy sector is well managed and efficient, I am not so concerned about who owns it as long as the Canadian people are getting lots of energy at a reasonable price.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I thank the hon. member for being so frank and straightforward, as he normally is. That question bothered me so much that I went back to peruse some old Conservative Party statements. A report of the 1974 Conservative Party conference has this to say:
To maximize the benefit to Canadians the Progressive Conservative Party believes that as a cornerstone of such a policy for the 1970s and the 1980s Canadians must dedicate themselves to acquiring and holding ownership of more than 50 per cent of the non-renewable resource industries in Canada. A Progressive Conservative government would take the lead in this direction ... (and) would negotiate realistic arrangements for the phased marketing of foreign-held shares to accomplish the objective in an orderly fashion.
Strangely enough, it was the hon. member for York-Peel (Mr. Stevens), the slasher, the member who considers himself the blue Tory, who presented that motion. So we have a blue Tory saying that it is the policy of the Conservative Party to Canadianize the industry and to negotiate the "phased marketing of foreign-held shares to accomplish the objective in an orderly fashion".
What does that mean, Mr. Speaker? It seems to me that the Conservative policy is simply to wreck Petro-Canada. That is not much of a policy, and I do not think they have an alternative.
The hon. member referred to Versailles and he is right, there was too much splendour there. It is rather ironic while so many people, especially young people, are unemployed in the western world, to see all that magnificence. In my province alone thousands and thousands of people are unemployed and UIC there costs $33 million per month. When hon. members to my right were referring to Versailles, I kept thinking about the philosophical mother of the Conservative Party, Marie Antoinette and her spiritual successor, Ronald Reagan, telling
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us all to eat cake. That is exactly what their policy is aimed at-except that there is no cake.
Let us try to deal with the Canadian ownership special charge in a proper way. The idea of the special charge was that money would accumulate into a Canadian ownership account and would be used to increase the participation of the Government of Canada in the petroleum industry. I hope it is agreed by all parties that it is unacceptable to have such a key commodity such as oil controlled by non-Canadians. Earlier I said it was about 70 per cent foreign owned. We let that happen and we are all to blame for it in various ways.
We in the New Democratic Party believe that the government should participate in the industry and be more than a mirror on the industry. That is why David Lewis and Tommy Douglas pushed for Petro-Canada in the House. We think that Petro-Canada must be put in the driver's seat because of the logic of dealing with multinational corporations. Anyone who reads about them will realize how difficult that is.
It is ironic that the sources of our future energy, off Hibernia and in the north, are areas controlled by multinational corporations. In Hibernia it is controlled by Mobil of New York, in the north partly by Dome, if it survives, but also by Imperial Oil of Exxon in New York and by Gulf. So the multinationals are directing the area where our new energy is to come from.
We have often said in the House that we do not want to see a Petro-Canada that is a place for patronage appointments. We want a Petro-Canada that is fully accountable to the people. I draw the attention of the hon. member to the speech given by the hon. member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie). As he so often does in the House, he tends to deal with things in a novel way. He was talking about how to make a Crown corporation accountable to the people. If a Crown corporation is not accountable to the people, the solution is not to get rid of it but, rather, to make it accountable.
I think that Canadians like Petro-Canada so far and they are using it. They feel it is their company, and I think they would like to see it expand. There will be problems in future with Petro-Canada, no doubt. It will have to become more accountable. There will have to be some dealings with the gas stations. It may be that it will have to rebate some money to the purchasers of gas. But right now I think Canadian trust Petro-Canada and I hope that trust continues.
While I am on my feet I should like to pay tribute to William Hopper, the president of Petro-Canada. If we are going to have someone directing large government corporations, they should be people like Bill Hopper. He has some guts and is willing to stick his neck out and do things for the people of Canada.
I do not think it helps for the Conservatives to stand up day after day and attack Petro-Canada. I do not think that is good politics either. It is ironic that we in this party are called ideological and not pragmatic, yet we are not standing up attacking the notion of Petro-Canada on ideological grounds. I find it strange that a party which, as Robert Stanfield pointed

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out not too long ago, is really the founder of the CBC, now stands up and attacks the concept of Crown corporations.
The Liberals are slightly misleading Canadians, Mr. Speaker. Petro-Canada is not the number one oil company in Canada. It is Imperial Oil.


Gerald Augustine Regan: I like Petro-Canada better.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: The minister may like Petro-Canada better but the government's policies continue to prop up Imperial and keep it as the number one company. The number one Canadian company is not even Petro-Canada. It is Dome Petroleum. Still, the internationals are the major companies in Canada. For all this fuss and bother of the National Energy Program and the Canadian ownership account, there has not been much progress in making Petro-Canada the number one oil company in the country. This Canadian ownership charge has been reduced from a maximum of $4 a barrel to the present $1.15 a barrel. This is a significant backing down from the October, 1980 budget wherein the government indicated that in its pursuit of expanding the role of PetroCan and other Crown corporations in the energy field it was prepared to raise the necessary funds from the special levy. The levy is now at its maximum, and that covers the takeover of Petrofina. It would appear in fact that there will be no further takeovers. In fact, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and the Minister of Finance have said this. On March 5, 1981, Ambassador Towe said to the National Association of Petroleum Investment Analysts in the United States:
Purchases by Petro-Canada are one way of increasing public ownership, but they are not intended to place the public company in a predominant position in the industry.
So really the takeovers are finished. It is true, as the hon. member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre) said, PetroCan paid too much for Petrofina. It was grossly inflated. But because they paid too much does not, by itself, make public ownership bad. What is bad is that they paid too much. The gas stations coast to coast was the correct thrust; it gives PetroCan an image, Canadians can see the sign and so on. But they could have done it quite differently because in fact it is window dressing for public ownership.
It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that this Liberal Canadianiza-tion is really inadequate because it is basically privatization. The basis of the NEP is not the takeover of public companies-that is pretty well finished with the takeover of Petrofina-it is in fact privatization. It gives to the Dome Petroleum's of this world the chance to take over part of the foreign-owned industry. Well, it is not worth it. The petroleum incentives program, which we will debate in the next bill, is a scheme to give $8.9 billion to private Canadian companies so they can drill in the Beaufort. It is a terrible scheme because, first of all, we should not be drilling in the Beaufort. We should be using the conventional system in Saskatchewan and Alberta. There are more jobs there, Canadians can participate and it will help the industry. The small companies in Alberta told us there was no way they were going to go to the Beaufort, they cannot afford it. It will be the American companies or
groups or consortiums controlled by Imperial Oil, or some dummy group or company pretending to be Canadian.
Look at the Canadian ownership rate, Mr. Speaker. It is almost impossible to figure out. I challenge any of the accountants in this House to try to figure out what is going on. This will just build the bureaucracy. It seems to me there is a simpler way, and that is to use tax revenue or some of the revenue from the Canadian ownership charge to get away from PIP grants. These people want private enterprise; let them have private enterprise. Why do they need financing from the federal government? Why do they need 93 cents of every dollar from the federal government to explore in the Beaufort Sea? Take that money and, right out front, pass an act in this House setting up a fair takeover procedure for Imperial Oil. It would cost a heck of a lot less and in a short time PetroCan would be number one in the industry.
I will say this about my Conservative friends, except for the matter which I brought up at the beginning of my speech they are pretty straightforward in their positions. I may not agree with them, as I do not agree with what the hon. member for Calgary South (Mr. Thomson) says, but he says it honestly and in a straightforward manner. I think we in the NDP are at least being out front in our position on this. We make no bones about it, we are not going to play around with PIP grants or COR programs; we would make PetroCan number one by moving straightforward and taking under public control one of the American majors. I think there is support for this in the Canadian public. A group which appeared before us in committee, a number of distinguished people from business and labour, took a poll and said that people wanted 75 per cent Canadian ownership by 1985, not 1990. By a two to one margin they wanted PetroCan to take over one of the large multinationals and be number one in the industry. That is exactly the policy we are advocating here.
I want to say, Mr. Speaker, to the hon. member for Calgary Centre when he tries to tar us with this brush of Soviet central planning, or Polish, or whatever it is he calls it, I suggest he read Geoffrey Simpson's articles in The Globe and Mail. He has written some articles on Statoil of Norway, a government company which directs the exploration and development of oil in the North Sea. The people benefit from it. The United Kingdom has the same thing. The irony there is that it was developed by Tony Benn, who is on the far left of the Labour Party in England, and it was kept up by and large by the right wing Thatcherites. Why? They are not stupid, they realize that they need a directing force for this vital industry in order to benefit the people. There is Pemex in Mexico. By and large all oil-producing countries have state-owned oil companies which act as the directing influence for their oil industry.
The state does not have to own everything in industry; that is nonsense. Small companies are vital. Small private companies in the west should be getting the breaks, and I have spoken in the past about some of the things we could do to help these small companies. I will not go into that now, but what we are saying is: make PetroCan the driving force in this industry
June 7, 1982

in Canada. That seems to me to make some sense and it is a way we can really get energy security for Canada.
Energy security is not something that should be used by the Canadian Petroleum Association or by big oil companies to say to Canadians: give, give, give us more. As I said, Mr. Speaker, I talked to people this weekend who were just astounded at how the government could find $2 billion for Imperial and its friends, but cannot find the money for medicare, job-creation programs or for aid to certain other depressed industries. It cannot find the money to help people with their mortgages but it can find $2 billion to help the oil industry. I know parts of the oil industry are in trouble. I have suggested ways in which they could be helped. I do not think it is good enough to stand up and say that the Canadian ownership charge is a communist conspiracy and to say that Petro-Canada must be broken up or changed. I warned the Conservative Party about this.
We have had experience in British Columbia. The B.C. government tried to BCRIC the state energy and some other companies but it was not the answer. It is not the answer. I know people in other parts of Canada have not seen how BCRIC works. It is simple. What happens is you sell off all the publicly owned corporations. You are told it is going into the hands of the people. But it goes into fewer and fewer hands. The company is controlled outside of the province or maybe of the country. In the end you have a corporation that is responsible to no one, not even to its shareholders. I hope the Conservatives will explain what phase marketing of foreign held shares is and how you phase in that marketing. I know how we in the New Democratic Party would do it. We would simply use the Canadian ownership charge. We would use some of the taxes instead of giving away more money and pouring it into empty holes in the north. We would use the money to take over the company, such as Imperial Oil. Then we would have Canadianization of the Canadian energy industry.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell) entertain a question?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Central Nova (Mr. MacKay) has asked if the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell) would entertain a question.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Yes, Mr. Speaker.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: I appreciate my friend's courtesy, Mr.Speak-er. I can agree with what the member has said about a straightforward approach toward nationalization. It makes a great deal more sense than the back door approach which is exemplified in the $600 million Esso consortium approach. But does the hon. member agree with me that it also makes a lot of sense to terminate the taxation of Canadian people for purchasing Petrofina once that purchase is a fait accompli and use the revenue derived for some other purpose, public or private, rather than to continue leaving the door open for undetermined and uncontrolled spending by the government, and will the hon. member support our amendment?
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Ian Gardiner Waddell: Yes, Mr. Speaker.


Gordon Edward Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I would like to discuss some of these matters. When we talk about Canadian ownership, I like to think of businesses today that are considered Canadian owned. I look upon our farms as being largely Canadian owned. Some Canadian farms are individual proprietorships, some are owned by partners and some are family farms. There are some large corporate farms. The owners of the farms stand on their own feet and they make their own decisions. If they make money, they have a profit. But if they manage badly, they incur a deficit. In my view, however, that is the Canadian way of doing things. When it comes to businesses, we have the same thing. We have hundreds of businesses in this country that are Canadian owned. These businesses are owned by individual Canadians who make their own decisions. They make a profit or a loss according to conditions and the way they manage, etc. But we should make a very distinct difference between a company owned by the state in which individual Canadians have no say in the way it is managed. Canadians receive none of the profits personally if that company does well. They pay for the cost of this state-owned company eventually through taxes. Canadians may get some benefits through government services, but there is no direct link through the company that is nationally owned. It should be made clear that when we talk about Canadian ownership we are talking about Canadians owning the business, not the state owning it. That is what is confusing to people today.
Our friends to the left talk about Canadian ownership. They are talking about state ownership or nationalization. The Liberals opposite talk about Canadianization when they really mean nationalization. The government is taking over business.
Canadians are well aware of the difference between Canadian ownership and nationalization, and we should not be confusing them with terminology.
Let me talk about Canadian ownership in the petroleum industry. In 1976 the tax laws were changed by the government then in power. Canadian ownership started to increase. Canadian ownership was on the increase right up to the time when the National Energy Program started. Then Canadian ' ownership came to a sudden halt and started going backwards.
In the Conservative's 1979 budget we had what was called a Canadian stock ownership program which would have increased Canadian ownership in this country. The Progressive Conservative Party has stood for Canadian ownership and a gradual progression to the point where Canadians own the greater part of the businesses, the farms and the resources of this country. But we draw the line with state ownership. We are asking for Canadians to own things, not for the state to own things, and we want that made very clear.
Our program would enable Canadians to own, manage, control, make a profit, or take a loss, according to the free enterprise system.
I would like to deal now with the matter of the Canadian ownership charge. The hon. member for Calgary Centre (Mr. COMMONS DEBATES
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Andre) has dealt with this subject so exhaustively that there is little left to be said. The COC was first mentioned in the Petroleum Administration Act. It allows the government to charge up to $4 a barrel or 60 cents per MCF of natural gas in order to pay for the purchase of oil and gas properties by Crown corporations. In other words, it allows the government to take over or nationalize corporations in this country. The current level is about $1.15 a barrel or 15 cents per MCF in order to pay for Petro-Canada's purchase of Petrofina. If the information given to Canadians is correct, namely that this charge was there to buy Petrofina, then every member on the other side of the House will support the amendment because once Petrofina is paid for, it is paid for. If there is something else to be purchased, that is a new deal entirely. We will be watching for that. And I am asking the Canadian people out in the great beyond from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the forty ninth parallel up to the Arctic to watch when the vote is called to see how our friends on the Liberal side of the House vote. People should watch to see whether the Liberals will vote to mark finish when the total amount for the purchase of Petrofina is paid. If the Liberals do not vote for the amendment, it means this government wants the tax to go on and on and on so it can nationalize other businesses.
When Petrofina was nationalized we took something away from those Canadians who owned shares in the company. People who owned shares had some say in the company. They won or lost according to what that company did. If the company made money, they made money and if the company lost money, they lost money. They were part and parcel of Petrofina. But when Petrofina was purchased by the Canadian government people were paid a tremendous amount of money. Instead of it being a highway robbery, it was a highway gift from the public treasury. People were paid $120 a share for shares running between $30 and $50. Now those Canadians sold the shares because they had no choice, but they were Canadian-owned shares and now they are Canadian government-owned shares. If there is anything which shows the difference between nationalization and privately owned, surely it is this. Of course these people received a pile of money through the sale because they owned shares, but now those shares are no longer owned by Canadians; they are owned by the Canadian government. That is the difference between Canadianization and nationalization.
I should like to review one or two of these other taxes. We have talked about so many of these taxes that people are beginning to wonder just how many taxes are involved in the National Energy Program. The NEP did not do anything to bring the oil industry into Canadian hands. As a matter of fact, it did the very opposite. Scores and scores of Canadians who owned small businesses lost them because of the National Energy Program. Is that Canadianization? That is what happened. The NEP was not very profitable to Canadians. It may have been profitable to the Government of Canada, but not to Canadians.
We can see the ill effects of the National Energy Program right across the land-loss of jobs, businesses going bankrupt and farmers going bankrupt. All these things have ramifications. The NEP must take responsibility for many of the bankruptcies and losses. It did not bring the industry more and more into Canadian hands; it took more and more of the industry out of Canadian hands, in fact some Canadian industries went out of the country entirely. I will refer to COC a little later if I have the time, but that is enough for now.
Let us look at the PGRT. On October 28, 1980, the budget of the present Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) initiated the PGRT effective January 1, 1980, at the rate of 12 per cent of all oil and gas production. The federal-Alberta agreement of September, 1981, indicated that the rate of the PGRT would be raised to 16 per cent but that a resource allowance of 25 per cent of the price of oil would be deducted from the taxable revenue. This raised the effective rate to 12 per cent of the wellhead price of oil. This tax change was given effect in the 1981 budget as well. There we have 12 per cent of the wellhead price going to the Canadian government; it is just one tax.
Now I should like to deal with another tax which was initiated by the government, namely, IORT. In the federal-Alberta agreement the government settled on price increases significantly above those scheduled in the National Energy Program. The increment, that is the difference between the NEP and the agreement prices for 1981, was $2.50 per barrel, with a similar increment in 1982. For the years 1983 to 1986 the increment will be $3.75 per barrel. The IORT will tax back 50 per cent of this incremental revenue. While this revenue is not subject to corporate tax, it is subject to PGRT. In addition to the 12 per cent PGRT tax, we have up to 50 per cent of the incremental revenue coming back into the federal treasury.
Already we have a pretty good sum coming out of the industry, but then we have PCC which allows the government to levy a special charge on all oil consumed in Canada in order to pay for the equivalent in compensation which importers of world price syncrude oil would receive. The maximum levy was originally set at $1 per barrel, but in July, 1980, the government raised it to $1.75. In the 1980 budget the government rolled the syncrude levy into the petroleum compensation charge which was imposed on all oil in order to pay for the import compensation and oil sands production, including the special compensation charge used to pay for Alberta cutback oil. This charge is being levied as high as $8.15 per barrel. A scheduled increase for January, 1982, of $2.50 was cancelled. The current levy is $6.30.
Under Bill C-94, which would have been passed by the Liberal majority had we not started the bells ringing and kept them ringing until that bill was split into several bills, this charge could have gone as high as $20 per barrel. The maximum order of this levy imposed on oil has now gone down to $12 under Bill C-103. Let the people of Canada out there who thought that the bells were a game or something to amuse ourselves know that it saved them $8 per barrel on every barrel
June 7, 1982

of oil. This levy is imposed on oil as it enters the refineries, hence the oft-used reference to refinery taxes. That is the PCC. We have the PGRT, the lORT and the PCC.
There used to be a story in the old Alexander readers about the fellow who wanted to get all the golden eggs from the goose at one time. He killed the goose so that he could pick them out, but got nothing after all. This is what is happening now. The government is taking so much out of the industry that there will be no industry left. It is killing the goose that lays the golden egg. The government has already started to give some back. An hon. member of the New Democratic Party, its energy critic, said that he would like to know where the money came from. That $2 billion came from the oil industry, and the government is just giving some of it back. It should never have been taken in the first place. Killing the goose will not help the country.
Then we have the Canadian ownership charge, COC, which I have already discussed. Then there is the federal sales tax. The government originally imposed a 5-cent per gallon tax on gasoline and diesel fuel. The budget of the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) sought to change the fixed rate to a 9 per cent ad valorem tax imposed on products as they leave refineries. Now we have a federal sales tax on the price of gasoline and diesel fuel. Finally we have another tax-perhaps I should not say "finally" because there may be some about which I do not even know-which is the excise tax on gasoline. This tax is a vicious tax indeed. The excise tax on gasoline was originally imposed in the June 23, 1975 Budget of John Turner at the rate of 10 cents per gallon. In November 1978, in an attempt to curry favour with voters in the pre-election period, the then minister of finance, the hon. member for Saint-Maurice (Mr. Chretien), reduced the tax to 7 cents in order to offset the impact of a crude oil price rise which was due to flow through to consumers. The budget of the hon. member for St. John's West on December 11, 1979, would have raised this tax to 25 cents per gallon. In the mini budget of the Minister of Finance in April 1980, the excise tax was imposed at the rate of 1.5 cents per litre, which is the current rate. This tax is refundable for those using gasoline for non-personal purposes.
That is a list of at least six taxes which are taking money out of the petroleum industry, yet some people wonder why the petroleum industry is dying and going bankrupt, why business after business are going bankrupt, and why some of them have even fled the country in an attempt to stay alive. It also tells some of the story that the hon. member for Athabasca (Mr. Shields) told the other night about equipment costing tremendous sums of money being sold for a song because there was no use for it any more; it was being sold and taken out of the country, for the large part. This is supposed to be Canadiani-zation? What the government is doing is bankrupting the country.
Let us see what some of the people have had to say about this, people such as businessmen who have been successful through the years and had started from scratch. They started by using their backs and their arms, by thinking and by cooperating with other people so as to build up businesses. There is one chap, Ron Southern, who today is president and chief
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executive officer of Atco Limited in Alberta. This is a good company. I had business dealings with this company when I was involved with the highways department in Alberta. That company always gave dollar for dollar value and tried to be a good corporate citizen. This is what Mr. Southern said:
The Canadian government failed to recognize fundamental investment factors in creating the National Energy Program, and the result is a policy which carries the seeds of its own destruction, and will require substantial modification.
It will require this if it is going to survive. The absence of the oil industry itself at the planning table was very, very evident. In other words, the people who did not know the intricacies of the industry decided to tell the industry what was good for it and how it should operate. It is no wonder that there was an absolute and complete failure of the National Energy Program and, along with that failure, it has ruined many other parts of the country.
Mr. Southern went on to say:
The federal government tried to impose a program as though there were no other players in the game. It avoided debate by refusing to allow the oil industry itself a place at the table.
He went on:
One does not know for certain whether the federal government knowingly set up a possible situation that could eventually lead to a consolidation of the industry into a handful of huge petroleum companies, the majority of which are government-owned, or heavily influenced, or that the government genuinely did not understand that the elements of the NEP could produce such a result.
The hon. member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain (Mr. Hamilton) said this afternoon that he would give the government the benefit of the doubt. However, there are too many instances like this. We have seen where the National Energy Program has ruined one industry in this country. Now we have something similar happening through Bill C-85 which provides for the creation of Canagrex, a brand new corporation which is to have such control over the food and agricultural industry in Canada. It will even be able to tell the farmers what they can grow and what they can or cannot sell. What are we coming to? Is this government trying to get control of energy and then control of agriculture to make us subjects and slaves to it, subject to an all-powerful government? If it is not, then why is legislation like this being allowed by their own members who will suffer just as much as anyone once they are out of the House?
The people of Canada are angry and afraid of what they see happening. They are fearful when they hear about Canagrex. I received a letter of sadness from a lady who lives on a farm. She said, "It almost makes me feel as if I have to sell the farm and get out of the country." She said, "I am afraid, if our government is going to take this powerful control over the exporting and growing of food in Canada."
There is an attempt to do this in the oil industry and now the government is attempting to do this in the food industry. How much further will it go?
As Mr. Southern said, he does not know whether it was by design that the government consolidated the industry into a
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handful of huge petroleum companies, the majority of which are government owned or heavily influenced by the government, or whether it simply made a mistake. The government itself will have to answer that.
Mr. Southern went on to say:
NEP has done irreparable harm to the smaller Canadian-owned independent petroleum companies, the contract drilling and well service companies as well as Canadian manufacturing and supply companies. Ottawa will eventually be forced to modify its plans in order to restore lost confidence and revitalize the petroleum sector in particular and Canadian manufacturing and service industries in general.
The other night the government recognized that it had made some mistakes. It is giving $2 billion out of the $6 billion that it has taken from the industry back to it. That is not enough. It will start the industry rolling again to some degree but will do nothing for the consumer. It is not doing anything for the many consumers who cannot get jobs.
What are these taxes doing to our people? Let us examine the price of gasoline. Out of today's price per gallon of gasoline, 77 cents is federal government taxes. Out of heating oil, 40 cents out of every gallon is federal government taxes. I recently talked about the fact that people across Canada who are burning heating oil have had their bills go up, and 40 cents out of every gallon that they purchase goes into the coffers of the federal government. That is where the major charge comes from and that is what makes the big difference. The government calls that Canadian ownership. It is no wonder that the people of Canada are rising up in anger when they say, "You talk about Canadian ownership, but you are robbing me of my income so that I cannot even pay my taxes or my mortgage. I will lose my home and I will lose my business, and you call that Canadian ownership?" That is what these taxes are doing. The government has been entirely too hoggish. It is trying to get every possible cent it can from the industry, and it will not only ruin the petroleum industry, it will ruin the other industries as well.
This is true even in the farming industry. With respect to the excise tax, we urged the members of the House on the government side not to put an excise tax on farm products or food production, such as on fertilizer. Would they listen? No, they insisted on putting it on fertilizer and applying it to the price of food so that everyone who buys food will have to pay more. Home-owners, widows, old-age pensioners, the crippled and the retarded will all pay more because of that excise tax.
We even asked the government to wait a few extra days so that the co-operatives in Alberta would not have to go to the bank to borrow money, thereby increasing their charges and putting a heavier burden on the farmers. The government will not even give it an extra 30 days. It said that they can pay it. The Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs would not even recommend it. Those people in the coop came down here and gave sound arguments but could not get anywhere because the government would not listen. Nor would the Finance Committee listen.
Farmers right across Canada, from Ontario, Quebec, the prairies, the maritimes and Newfoundland, who use fertilizer are being penalized. That has been one of the factors which has caused the increased numbers of farm bankruptcies. All the government has to do is to look at its excise tax. Not only does it want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg, it is killing the entire country. It is time that it awakened to the fact that the people of Canada will only stand for so much. When Canadians get to that point, the government better beware. The people are getting sick and tired of this taxation, taxation, taxation.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, I would like to continue the matter that I raised today with the Acting Prime Minister, the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin). It was obvious to those of us who were in the House today listening to the question period as you were, Mr. Speaker, that the Acting Prime Minister did not have the mandate or the benefit of the party line when he was speaking for his government this afternoon. As you may recall, I asked him what contact he actually had with Versailles. Did he have any knowledge or authority to answer for the government here in the House? Finally, I asked him how much longer it was going to take the government to come to the realization that it could not continue to use the national energy policy and the ill-conceived and capriciously administered foreign investment review legislation. The government could not continue to use these two devices to derive billions of dollars from this country while expecting the taxpayers to subsidize the falling Canadian dollar which was the result of these policies, with still more taxpayers' funds to keep it from falling to a level which the government deemed to be unacceptable. The Acting Prime Minister said: "I thought it would be normal for me not to get in touch with them"-"them" being his cabinet colleagues, I suppose, the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) and the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. MacGuigan)-"not to take time away from discussions they were having with other people."
I think it is really a shocking situation and an insult to Parliament when the Acting Prime Minister in this administration will admit to the House of Commons that he has apparently had no meaningful contact with his colleagues who were participating in this supposedly high level economic
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conference at Versailles, to which he has been referring for weeks in all economic questions as being the venue in which some results would be produced. I think that that is absolutely shocking.
The minister was then convicted by his own answer when he said, "1 thought that that was the right approach with regard to the causes of the present situation. I think it came out strongly, from everything in the press, that the crisis we are experiencing now is not only in Canada." If we are to take this literally, it means that the Acting Prime Minister, the spokesman for the government, only knows what he reads in the press, and he is here in Parliament not as an enlightened spokesman conveying to the people of Canada and to the members of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition the latest developments from a highly touted economic conference; rather, all he is doing is stalling with old, stale press reports, until the Minister of Finance wends his weary way home again.
This whole business of the way in which the national energy policy is being administered, is very interesting. This debate directly follows from what has been said a few moments before and relates to the questions to which I tried to obtain some answers this afternoon. I do not wish to repeat what I said a few moments ago, but the paradoxes are certainly so striking that they must certainly be underlined again. This government is intellectually and, I suppose, practically bankrupt when it comes to advocating any new policies. It can only fall back on whining and complaining about what the President of the United States feels it is necessary to do to promote economic recovery in his own country, measures which appear to be having at least some success. I would like to say something further to what the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell) said some time ago, and it has been noted before in the House. There are areas in which hon. members in my party, and members in the New Democratic Party do not agree. We sometimes have a certain amount of agreement concerning civil rights and environmental matters. We usually take completely opposing stands on our approach to economic management in this country, but I think there is a measure of respect because of that. However, the government opposite stands for very little except expediency. It will embrace any half-baked policy as long as it can achieve a mandate during an election campaign. Then, when it must produce as it is now expected to produce, having convinced the people of Canada that our approach was wrong, it falls back and whines and complains and blames everything on President Reagan. It is really a very shocking situation.
In addition to the other paradoxes that we see implicit in this and in some of the other things which have already been said about the National Energy Program and the government's tug-of-war economic policies, I think the question bears repeating again in this context: just what is the national energy plan doing to its government's own policies? I come back again to what it is doing to the airline industry in this country. Again I repeat the submission which I have briefly summarized but which I believe to be accurate. It is the submission AT AC
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made to a committee of this House. I may not have put it on the record in its entirety a few moments ago, but I would like to refer to it again because it fits right in with the kind of information and approach many of us were trying to elicit from the government a few moments ago and this afternoon. This particular policy in the national energy plan has been characterized by ATAC as charges imposed on both foreign and domestic air carriers. As they point out, it was effective as of January 31, 1982, to be replaced by this new scheme that will be and has been explained in the House and in committee. They said this:
In our view, this governmental attitude is incongruous inasmuch as it seeks to legalize a charge which has already been judged by government to be in violation of Canada's bilateral treaty obligations and for which as stated above, government has already informed the foreign carriers that they would be refunded (to the exclusion of Canadian carriers).
How can any national energy policy be held to be rational when, on the one hand, it is driving billions of dollars of capital from our country and, on the other hand, it is discriminating against our own air industry, and when the Acting Prime Minister cannot answer for the government but only refers to press clippings and then begs us to wait until the Minister of Finance, who never had any answers before, returns from Versailles to enlighten us.


Mr. Douglas Fisher (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has given us the usual Tory Eaton's catalogue of haphazard complaints. His story tonight is that the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) has given him an inadequate answer, based on the fact that that minister has not incessantly telephoned the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) in Versailles in anticipation of the hon. member's question.
He makes it sound as if the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance are off in some hidden, silent world not covered by the press and not accessible to reasonable people. He makes it sound as though the Canadian public have not been exposed to what many observers call the biggest media circus in the world. The poor hon. member has not been able to get information from the media or any other source, and he complains because the Minister of Transport asks him to wait for 24 hours.
If I may add a little conjecture, I would imagine that if the Minister of Transport had been on the telephone incessantly in anticipation of this question, we would have had complaints about the telephone bill. That is the kind of attitude that was adopted in that last address. It was not a reasonable presentation, and it deserves the kind of political answer 1 have just given.


ASTRA TRUST-POSITION OF DEPOSITORS. (B) MINISTER'S STATEMENT
Joseph Lloyd Reid: Mr. Speaker, on April 26 last, investors in the Astra Trust Company were told by the

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Adjournment Debate
Federal Court of Canada that even if they could prove negligence against the officials or the ministers with regard to supervision, licensing or inspecting of the Astra Trust Corporation, they would not be allowed compensation.
Since the Government of Canada managed to obtain compensation for itself, I took the liberty on April 26 to ask the Minister of State for Finance (Mr. Bussieres) what he was prepared to do for those individuals who had lost their life savings and hard-earned earnings in the collapse of Astra Trust. I argued then, as I still do, that this government has an obligation to those depositors because Astra Trust was incorporated by this government after it was refused incorporation by the province of Ontario.
It was through that incorporation that the subsidiary mortgage and investment corporations were established as wholly-owned subsidiary corporations of Astra Trust. Because it was incorporated as a trust company with whatever indications that trust really means, it invited the public to make deposits, and so they did. Unfortunately, it went through those subsidiary companies which did not have the protection of the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation.
The minister replied that it was the fault of the province. It was the usual shifting of the buck which we on this side are used to. The minister's response was deceptive in that he led this House to believe that the federal government honoured its commitment to its depositors, that it was the Ontario government that left and continues to leave the suffering victims of the subsidiary companies without compensation.
That was the usual manly dodge on the part of the minister and his government as they peeled off the S29 million of the assets in the hands of the receiver and left a measly sum of less than $10 million for the benefit of the great number of individual depositors and claimants.
What this whole matter boils down to, Mr. Speaker, is the incorporation of Astra itself. We know of the heavy and constant pressure brought on the different officials of the federal government in the incorporation of Astra. We know also of the reluctance of those officials and ministers to appear before standing committees to respond to questions why it was incorporated and why it was so licensed to do business.
We know, too, that the people who were set up to do business by this government were one and the same group of individuals who carried on the business in those subsidiary corporations, and they carried it on fraudulently and dishonestly. Not only that, why should the government not bear some responsibility to those depositors? They set the rules. If you walk into a trust company, do you see a sign saying something like this-I do not see one when I walk into any such company-"Deposit more than $20,000 at your own risk?"
The Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation, a federal Crown corporation, one of many, reimbursed individual depositors up to a maximum of $20,000 each, for a total of $21 million. This was in addition to the repayment of $8,400,000
on a loan that they gave that same company to bail them out of financial difficulty-so that they knew they were in financial difficulties. The Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation then received 90 per cent repayment of those advances, which in turn took more than 90 per cent of the total of the assets in the hands of the receiver-adding insult to injury, Mr. Speaker. In fact, the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation, while others went broke, increased its deposit insurance fund by $33 million in the very same year it paid out the $21 million to the Astra depositors. In other words, the insurance fund would have in effect remained healthy, even if it had not received a penny or a single dollar in return from the Astra Trust when it collapsed.
In review then, Mr. Speaker, if this government has not a legal obligation to those victims, then surely it has a moral obligation to protect them in their life savings and hard earned moneys deposited with that company. First, there was the unusual and irregular incorporation which permitted-in fact, invited-the public deposits. Second, Astra Trust incorporated by this government did then incorporate subsidiary corporations, investment and mortgage corporations. Third, one of the reasons why the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation was set up, was to guarantee the public and depositors against such an instance as this of collapsing or going bankrupt. No one could foresee then, and should not be able to foresee now or foretell, that there was the same deposit guaranteeing corporation on the ground, that would get its hand in there first, to the detriment of the depositors they were designed to protect.
The minister did not state his response in the House, but waited until he got outside of the House, to announce that there would be no return for those depositors. I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that there should still be hope for those depositors, there should still be a chance for them to receive some return; and the only person that they can turn to now is the minister in his capacity to ensure that the depositors in finance companies incorporated by this government are truly and properly protected.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member for raising a very serious question that has considerable implications for ordinary people. I think that he has obviously thought out his concerns considerably in detail here. May I say that to the extent that the federal government had an obligation to Astra Trust depositors, such claims have been largely met. Insured deposits in the "guaranteed" fund and the "agency" fund were reimbursed by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation in the summer of 1980. Total payments were about $21 million. In March of this year the liquidator of Astra Trust made a court-approved interim distribution of the assets of the company, and some $15.6 million of the $17 million was paid to the CDIC as reimbursement of its claims against the company. The liquidator has indicated that additional payments may be made in the future, which means that there is a possibility that the depositors in the "guaranteed" fund may be reimbursed in full.
June 7, 1982

The hon. member has referred to an $8 million loan from CDIC to Astra Trust. This loan to Astra was made for liquidity purposes some time prior to the decision to wind up the company. CDIC obtained repayment of the loan by assuming ownership of the assets pledged to secure the loan. It is simply not true that the federal government received repayment of funds at the expense of the depositors. The federal government met its obligations to the depositors.


STATUS OF WOMEN-PARLIAMENTARY REPORT ON BATTERED WIVES-GOVERNMENT ACTION
Mrs. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, on May 12 I asked a question of the minister responsible for the status of women concerning battered wives. To the horror of Canadians, a number of male Members of Parliament responded with loud guffaws when I told the House that one in ten husbands beat their wives regularly. A protest from all parts of Canada has flooded in to all Members of Parliament. Articles and letters continue to express general outrage and demand redress on behalf of Canadian women. Unfortunately, since neither Hansard nor television cameras identified the offenders, all Members of Parliament have been shamed and must prove their innocence as a result.
Fortunately, this outrageous incident awakened a public and political awareness of the very serious and high incidence of problems of wife battering and the need for government action on recommendations which were made in the report on violence in the family tabled in the House by the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs. The lip service we have had from ministers, and even from the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), is not enough, however.
On May 12 1 asked the Minister of State for Mines (Mrs. Erola), who had a secondary responsibility for the status of women, to initiate immediate federal action on this matter. Her reply was that she would consult with the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) to try to give some leadership to develop transition houses under the Canada Assistance Plan. This was quite unsatisfactory, since this would require provincial agreement, and the result would be inadequate funds. It seems the minister had not studied the report, which recommends that the federal government should take immediate federal action on its own to provide start-up funds and facilities for new transition houses. The federal government should also ensure adequate ongoing funding to maintain a core staff.
There are over 90 transition houses now in Canada, most of them inadequately funded and barely able to survive, and many more communities need similar and better services.
The minister responsible for the status of women also misled the House when she said she had discussed this matter of battered wives at her meeting with provincial ministers, when actually she merely announced at that meeting the report had been tabled.
I also asked the Solicitor General (Mr. Kaplan) to take immediate action on recommendations concerning justice and
Adjournment Debate
law enforcement, and he bragged that he was training young RCMP cadets. The committee recommended, however, that there be retraining and sensitizing of all police officers to deal more effectively with wife assault, not just training of young cadets who have little serious interest or experience in domestic disputes. The Solicitor General also ignored recommendations for affirmative action in the RCMP, which is needed to provide male-female teams on the beat. He ignored the recommendation to have police lay charges against assailants, since this can rarely be done by battered wives who fear reprisals. A large increase in the number of federal judges was also recommended, to deal with exclusion orders and to protect spouses. The minister ignored all these recommendations. These are all matters of federal jurisdiction that can and must be dealt with immediately by the federal government to stop what is criminal assault.
CMHC is to be commended for providing low-interest mortgages and start-up funds to some new transition houses such as the one in Charlottetown. However, the report also recommends that CMHC initiate policy to encourage several units in every social housing development to be reserved as second stage housing for battered wives. These would pay normal rents, and as the minister need not provide further funding he must take action on this matter.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, I want to say that last week I visited Anderson House in Charlottetown, a typical transition house which has had continually to scrounge temporary funds from the Department of Employment and Immigration, the Secretary of State (Mr. Regan), and receives inadequate per diem payments from the province. The staff has had to be cut by 50 per cent. This is a costly and inefficient way to provide inadequate funds which should be replaced by a federal advance of permanent core funding to maintain staffing and overhead costs of transition houses. The provinces could then contribute a per diem rate for each resident.
If we are serious about the problems of battered wives, the federal government must take these initiatives immediately. To do less is to continue to treat criminal assault as a chauvinistic joke.


Mr. Jack Masters (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to begin my remarks by reminding everyone that when the subject was brought into Parliament by the hon. member opposite the question began as follows, "Madam Speaker, I have an upbeat question for the minister responsible for the Status of Women." I somehow think that might have been the subject of the laughter in the House at that time, rather than the content of the question.
Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to respond to the question from the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mrs. Mitchell) who has been a member of the committee studying the issue of wife battering.

June 7, 1982
Adjournment Debate
The commitment of this government on this issue is well known. In the Speech from the Throne the government stated that the serious problem of violence against women will also be addressed, along with other amendments to the Criminal Code, and efforts will be made in concert with the provincial and territorial governments to improve health and social services for women who are victims of violence.
The hon. member opposite may recall that both the Solicitor General (Mr. Kaplan) and the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) have stated that the RCMP now has, as part of their training program, sessions on family violence. This training is presently under review with a view to expansion.
Mr. Speaker, the problem of violence has been addressed by members of all parties of this House through the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs as a result of unanimous consent given to a motion by the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Howie). This motion empowered it to examine appropriate measures for the prevention, identification and treatment of abused persons involving intra-family violence and in particular to address the issue of battered wives and dependants.
The minister responsible for the Status of Women appeared before the standing committee early on in the proceedings and made a major, and widely reported presentation on this subject, and several of her recommendations made to the committee were very well reflected in the recommendations brought forward by the committee in its report.
The House may recall that a few weeks ago the first ever federal-provincial conference of Status of Women ministers was held and it was indicated there that this subject of wife battering is a concern of the provinces as well as of the federal government. The minister responsible for the Status of Women has assured us that the area will be examined more closely at the next federal-provincial meeting.
Also, the justice minister has promised that wife battering will be discussed at the next meeting of federal and provincial attorneys general.
In all the work that has been done on this subject, the great concern has been to bring this issue to the public attention. This report has certainly done that. The work of the members of that committee is greatly appreciated.
Mr. Speaker, I call on the hon. member opposite, and indeed, all our colleagues in this House to join together to help to protect Canadian women and, as Linda McLeod, in the report of the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women termed it, put an end to the vicious circle.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow afternoon at two o'clock.
At 10.25 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.


Tuesday, June 8, 1982