Bill C-66 (Historical)

Jean-Claude D'Amours Madawaska—Restigouche, NB

Mr. Speaker, earlier this evening, mention was made of Bill C-66, which was introduced during the last Parliament and sought to improve how the Competition Bureau functioned and to put in place stricter rules to keep Canadians informed about gasoline price fluctuations.

When the Conservative government took power in January 2006, it decided to scrap that. Earlier, the Minister of Natural Resources said that the Competition Bureau had already conducted studies or investigations to analyze the situation. But the reality is clear. The Competition Bureau is currently saying that it is Canadians' responsibility to prove that there is collusion on the part of the oil companies. When the price of gasoline suddenly goes up by 10¢ a litre and all the oil companies raise their prices by 10¢ a litre as if by coincidence, this is not collusion, and it is still up to us to prove that they are getting together to increase the price of gasoline.

When we look at these things and this reality—and I would like to know what the member thinks about this—I feel that it would be much simpler and more effective to make changes to the Competition Bureau and bring in new, stricter rules to make sure people are treated fairly. In that way, people could be sure that at least the price they are paying is fair and reasonable. When we look at the situation today, and I mentioned this earlier, the companies are making huge profits, but the public is paying the price.

John McCallum Markham—Unionville, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to share my time with my colleague, the member for Mississauga—Erindale.

Let me begin by saying that during my time as minister of natural resources, I learned firsthand that energy costs are particularly difficult for lower income Canadian families, who pay a disproportionately large amount of their disposable income on home heating costs and other forms of energy. That, I think, is why so many of us in this House are concerned about the effect of the rising costs of fuel and home heating oil on all Canadians and particularly on lower income Canadians. To date, we have seen little, if any, action by the Conservative government. In fact, what we have seen is that it has taken things that the Liberal government had put in place or set in motion and soon after taking the power of government scrapped those things which would have been helpful to lower income Canadians and helpful for monitoring energy prices or taking action in the case of anti-competitive behaviour.

In October 2005, shortly before I became the minister of natural resources, the previous Liberal government tabled Bill C-66, which included a provision to create the office of petroleum price information. The office's principal responsibility would have been to monitor energy price fluctuations and provide clear current information to Canadians. The bill received royal asset in November, just before the last election.

Unfortunately for Canadians who are eager for the federal government to ensure that gasoline is competitively priced, as soon as it came to power, Canada's new government, so-called, decided to gut the bulk of Bill C-66. I find it somewhat disingenuous that the government now professes such concern for Canadians in this environment of rising energy prices while one of its first acts upon assuming office was to cancel the office of petroleum price information. The reason that office would have made such a difference is it would have provided up to date information to Canadians.

What Canadians see now are oil companies pulling in larger and larger annual profits while the price Canadians pay at the pump goes up and up. They see prices go up between competing gasoline retailers at virtually the same time and wonder if it is collusion.

Another thing that Canadians lost when the Conservatives gutted Bill C-66 was greater power for the Competition Bureau to examine anti-competitive behaviour in the energy sector. Apparently, ensuring strong competition in Canada's marketplace is not a priority for the Conservative government. The minister, when he was in the House, pointed out that a number of investigations into this in the past revealed the absence of collusive behaviour. However, that is no reason not to give the Competition Bureau more powers in the event that those powers are needed to control such behaviour. If such behaviour did not exist, the powers would not be needed. However, if the Competition Bureau is to do its job, it would certainly be better placed were it to have those additional powers.

There were other Bill C-66 casualties after the last election. The Conservatives completely revamped the home energy retrofit program in order to ensure that lower income Canadians would largely be excluded from the program. The essential principle of the program was to reduce your home heating costs by identifying possible energy savings through an energy audit. The government would pay for half the costs of the audit and then pay for half of the costs of renovations to make your home more energy efficient. The Conservative government, however, decided that paying half the costs of the energy audit was not an effective use of taxpayer dollars.

The big problem with this is that lower income families simply do not have the money to pay for these energy audits on their own. That means they cannot qualify for the retrofit program and they cannot make their homes more energy efficient. They cannot realize the savings and they cannot help the environment by using less home heating oil or natural gas, for example. However, that is not what Canadians got from the Conservative government.

I want to really emphasize this point about the energy audit because I think this was one of the most reprehensible acts of the government. On the one hand, it is common knowledge that lower income families pay a much higher fraction of their income on energy, so they, of all people, need access to energy audits and more energy efficient home heating.

When the government says it will no longer pay for the audit and thereby excludes lower income Canadians, that is a meanspirited and reprehensible action because it excludes those who need this help most. I cannot accept the argument that audit costs are administrative costs and the government did this to save on administrative costs. Audit costs are absolutely essential to help lower income Canadians pay for the audits which they otherwise would not be able to afford.

The Prime Minister, while in opposition, used to talk about axing the tax on tax, that is to say, to ensure that the GST was not levied on the 10¢ per litre excise tax. In fact, as recently as four months before the last election, the Prime Minister pledged to eliminate all GST on fuel sold for over 85¢ a litre. That, however, was when the Conservatives were in opposition. Once they assumed power, they quickly discovered that Canadians really did not need those tax savings quite as much as what has become Canada's biggest spending government in history. I will concede that it does take an awful lot of tax dollars to increase government spending by $35 billion in just three years.

Now what we hear from the Prime Minister is “the ability of governments to affect the price of gasoline per se is so small that it is not worth doing”. He might be the only leader of a political party to ever profess to have less power to do something after becoming Prime Minister than the power he thought he had before.

These broken promises are simply a part of a larger pattern. Just before and during the last election, the Conservatives used to say, “We will axe the tax on tax and fix high gas prices. We will not tax income trusts. We will honour the Kelowna accord. Do not worry, the Atlantic accords are safe with us”. After the election, every single one of these promises turned out to have been made in bad faith with the Canadian people.

What Canadians need is more money dedicated toward building efficient systems of public transportation so that they have a real option to take public transportation in cities and towns of even modest size. We need to strengthen the Competition Bureau to ensure that it has all the powers it needs to investigate any suspicious pricing in the energy sector. It needs also to have the power to administer appropriate penalties to deter such behaviour.

What we also need to understand is that the demand for oil is not going to lessen on its own. Rapidly growing economies all over the world, especially India, China and other Asian countries, are going to be buying more and more of the world's oil supplies to meet the demands of their growing industries and middle classes.

The Canadian government needs to take a leadership position, something the government should try to understand. It has to take a leadership position, not an obstructionist position, and help our economy transform itself into an energy that relies less on fossil fuels to drive it. We need to invest in the development of technologies that will help to make Canada a global leader in alternative forms of energy not only for the sake of our environment but also for our standard of living and the standard of living of our children.

At a very minimum, if the government is not able to take a leadership position in this important area, it should at least explain to the people of Canada why, on coming to power, it cancelled three important and positive measures in the area of energy. Why did it cancel the creation of an office to monitor prices? Why did it cancel the proposal to give the Competition Bureau more powers in this area? Why did it deprive the most vulnerable of Canadians from the help they needed in carrying out an energy audit in order to produce more energy efficient housing? I would like the government to answer those three questions, at a minimum.

John McCallum Markham—Unionville, ON

Mr. Speaker, maybe it is because I am an economist that I am particularly sensitive to false numbers. With all the hundreds of billions of dollars of tax cuts, one reason why the Conservatives cannot possibly be right is that they began by increasing the income tax rate from 15% to 15.5% and labelled that a tax cut. Then they brought it back down to where it was: a double tax cut. By that example alone, they are at least $15 billion too high in their claimed tax cuts over five years.

I have a question for the minister. Speaking in my capacity as the member's predecessor as minister of natural resources, I note he would remember that as part of our own bill in 2005, Bill C-66, we Liberals committed $13 million to give Canada's Competition Bureau more powers and to strengthen the Competition Act in response to high energy prices. What did the Conservative government do when it came to power and that member became Minister of Natural Resources? They scrapped that strengthening of the Competition Bureau.

Another thing Liberals did in that bill was commit $15 million to establish an office of energy price information, whose job it would be to monitor energy price fluctuations. What did the Conservative government do? It scrapped that office of energy price information.

Therefore, if the minister claims to be so much on the side of consumers and cares so much about gas prices, why was the first act of his government and of his time as minister to scrap the office that would have monitored prices and the provision that would have given additional powers to the Competition Bureau to deal with non-competitive behaviour by oil companies?

Carole Lavallée Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC

Mr. Speaker, I must first inform you that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Jeanne-Le Ber.

Everywhere in my riding of Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, people are saying that consumers really feel they are being taken for a ride by the oil companies. How is it that the price of gas can jump every Thursday, just before the weekend, only to come back down on Monday, when everyone goes back to work? We must absolutely find out what is going on behind closed doors.

That is also the intention of the Bloc Québécois motion here today. The Bloc presented this motion in order to shed some light on gas prices, which are constantly going up, while no one understands why and we are left to imagine the schemes behind these increases.

The motion reads:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should move an amendment to the Competition Act so that the Commissioner of Competition have the power to initiate investigations of the price of gas and the role of refining margins in the determination of the said price.

As we all know, the price of gas results from adding the cost of four factors: the price of crude oil, the cost of refining, taxes and the retail margin. The concentration of refining activities during the 1990s caused an increase in prices. These increases are profitable to the oil companies, whose profits continue to grow astronomically. The public therefore has the right to know how these prices are calculated and, above all, what is behind the refining margin.

Prices are skyrocketing. Refining margins are three times too high. Oil companies are making obscene profits. Last week, the price at the pump for regular gas was $1.15, on average, in Quebec City. The average refining margin reached a record high at 23¢. That is three times too high, when we know that a profit of 5¢ to 7¢ is enough for the oil companies to earn a reasonable profit on refining. The price of petroleum products could remain high over the summer, especially since the cost of crude oil continues to rise.

The oil companies pocket the profits. There are six major oil companies in Canada: Imperial Oil, Petro-Canada, Husky Oil, EnCana, Suncor and Shell. These companies had record profits of almost $12 billion in 2006, a 25% increase over 2005 and a 70% increase compared to 2004. Is there collusion? It is impossible to say. However, the five major oil companies supply 90% of the gas sold in Canada and get along so well that they even supply one another.

Therefore the oil sector must be brought into line. The whole economy is threatened by the increase in value of a strategic resource. The Bloc Québécois believes that it is possible to limit, at least in part, price increases for gas and other petroleum products. Given the record profits of oil companies in recent years, there is a transfer of wealth in the order of billions of dollars and that worries us. First, the industry must be regulated to ensure that the middleman does not take advantage of his position or circumstances.

The Bloc Québécois is proposing measures to discipline the industry. First, it proposes to strengthen the Competition Act, which presently has some shortcomings. The Competition Bureau cannot undertake an investigation on its own unless it receives complaints or is requested to do so by the Minister of Industry. The Competition Bureau is severely lacking in powers to undertake a general review of the industry. It cannot summon witnesses or guarantee their protection to get them to talk. It cannot ask for the release of documents. Without these tools, it is almost impossible to prove collusion or any other anti-competitive practices. Even in the case of agreements among competitors, the Competition Bureau bears the burden of proof for the collusion. the Competition Act must be strengthened by giving real investigative powers to the Competition Bureau. At the end of its mandate, the Liberal government tabled Bill C-66, which was based for the most part on a complete plan tabled one month earlier. The bill died on the order paper and the Conservatives did nothing.

To bring the industry into line, a real petroleum monitoring agency must be created.

In its November 2003 report on the price of gas, the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology proposed the creation of a petroleum monitoring agency. It is quite incredible to think that the oil industry supported this initiative and the Conservatives were against it. The Conservatives are even more inflexible than the oil companies when it comes to defending the interests of the oil companies. They hardly need lobbyists, when they have the Conservative government.

To make it look as if it was doing something, the Liberal government—which was no better—set up an Internet site that gave the price of gas in major cities. It was just an Internet site. It did not conduct any study on the oil industry and was unable to recommend any course of action. In other words, it achieved nothing. It takes a real office to monitor this industry.

Oil is making Quebec poorer. We have to stop this bleeding. All the oil Quebec consumes is imported. Every litre it consumes is money out the window that makes the province poorer and the oil industry richer.

In 2006, Quebec imported $13 billion worth of oil, an increase of $7 billion in three years. At the same time, Quebec went from a trade surplus to a $7 billion deficit in 2006, not to mention that the increase in Albertan oil exports made the dollar go up, which hit our manufacturing companies and further emphasized our trade deficit. The increase in the price of oil alone plunged Quebec into a trade deficit. Last year, every Quebecker consumed $1,000 more than he or she produced. Oil is making us poorer.

We have to redistribute resources in order to stop the oil industry from making our society poor. We have to impose a $500 million surcharge on the oil companies' profits. We have to repeal the accelerated capital cost allowance for investments in the oil sands, when the price of crude exceeds a threshold of somewhere between $40 and $50. The government announced this measure in its last budget, but it will not come into effect for another three years.

We have to repeal the changes made to the 2003 natural resources tax system, which allows oil companies to lower their taxes by another $250 million a year. We have to make the oil companies pay for the environmental damage they cause by establishing emissions caps, together with a carbon tax and a permit trading system.

But in the long run, the solution is to reduce our dependence on oil.

Prices of petroleum products have been on the rise for several years. The figures I am going to quote come from the Régie de l'énergie du Québec. The price of crude oil is increasing and today is fluctuating between US$60 and US$62 a barrel. It has gone up 13% since the beginning of the year and 83% since the beginning of 2004. It is even exceeding the level reached in September 2005, when hurricanes in the southern United States pushed the price up to $69 a barrel.

The price of heating oil is also going up. It has averaged 70.7¢ since the beginning of 2007, up more than 10¢ or 20% over two years ago. According to Statistics Canada, roughly 500,000 households in Quebec still heat with oil or another liquid fuel.

The price of gas is rising. Two years ago, in April 2005, a new record was reached in Montreal when the price of regular gas topped $1. Fluctuations aside, gas prices in Quebec are rising steadily.

Until we put measures in place, one by one, to decrease our dependence on oil, we need to clean house and find out who is making unfair profits. The government therefore must move an amendment to the Competition Act so that the Commissioner of Competition has the power to initiate investigations into the price of gas and the role of refining margins in determining gas prices.

Robert Vincent Shefford, QC

Mr. Speaker, the people in my riding are asking themselves some serious questions. A year ago, a barrel of oil was worth $73, and gas sold for $1.06 at the pump in Quebec. Today, gas sells for $1.15, while the price of a barrel of oil is much lower, at $61. If a barrel was worth $73 a year ago, how is it that a year later, when it is $61 a barrel, we are paying more for a litre of gas? The difference lies in the refining margin. While a reasonable refining margin is 4¢ to 7¢ a litre, last March and April it was over 15¢ a litre. As well, it climbed to 23¢ a litre last week, four times the reasonable margin.

There are four factors that can explain the rise in gas prices: the price of crude oil, the refining margin, taxes and the retail margin. The latter varies from 3.5¢ to 6¢ a litre, depending on the region. Apart from that, the retail margin is stable.

Some will say that this is because of taxes, but taxes are also stable: the excise tax is 10% and the GST is 6.5%. The same is true at the provincial level. Taxes are not what make oil prices fluctuate.

Refining, on the other hand, is a different story. To reduce their costs, the oil companies have closed a number of refineries, and as a result have been able to increase their production capacity. The gap between supply and demand has narrowed, and so the slightest weather-related or technical problem leads to a price increase to maintain the balance between those two factors.

As my colleague from Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord said, long weekends and vacations are not unforeseen events. And yet the oil companies do not seem to be able to prepare for them. One would think they were unaware that such events will occur and the price will fluctuate. And yet every year, and every time there is a vacation period or statutory holiday, we see their prices go up.

Can we imagine a small businessperson failing to keep any inventory in the lead-up to Christmas, and then claiming scarcity to raise prices? He or she could do just that; that is what we are experiencing, and yet it is the oil companies doing it. Because they sell an essential product and there is little competition, they make off with it all, while we depend on them.

We can conclude that the inability of the refining industry to overcome the slightest hitch is responsible for recent increases. Is that situation intentional or not? We do not know, because the Competition Bureau does not have the tools that would enable it to carry out a serious, complete investigation; and that is the reason for our motion today.

One thing is certain, however: the structure of the oil industry encourages precipitous price increases and provides the opportunity for abuse. That is why it must be monitored. In Halifax, Esso refines for all the companies; in New Brunswick, it is Irving; in Quebec City, it is Ultramar; and in Montreal, it is Petro-Canada and Shell. The refineries have all cut their gasoline supplies, and in so doing have caused the price to climb about a month earlier than usual.

However, the oil industry is making huge profits. Some may say that the oil companies are not making money, but let us look at the profits they are making. Petro-Canada made a net profit of $590 billion in the first quarter, which is twice as much as the $206 billion it posted last year. It doubled its profits in a year. ExxonMobil took in an enormous net profit of $9.3 billion for the first three months of 2007 alone, which is a 10% increase over the same period last year. However, its sales were down 2% because the market price of oil went down. As I was saying earlier, the price per barrel of oil went from $73 to $61.

How was ExxonMobil able to exceed the record profit of $39.5 billion it posted in 2006? Thanks, in large part, to its refining margin which increased substantially. If the price per barrel of oil goes down, the oil companies lose a bit of money. They then increase the refining price in order to more than compensate for any loss.

The gas crises may be a result of lack of competition in the oil industry. The three largest refiner-marketers have 75% of the market share. The five largest represent 90% of the market. The net profits combined of the six major integrated oil companies in Canada, Imperial Oil, Shell Canada, Husky Energy, Petro-Canada, EnCana and Suncor, reached $12 billion in 2006. In three years, they doubled their profits. It is incredible. The net profits of the entire oil industry have gone from $17 billion in 2003 to $20 billion in 2004 and $35 billion in 2006. That is a 100% increase. After all that, they complain when we want to take back a bit of that money. Give me a break!

Furthermore, the oil companies that are investing in tar sands development in Alberta—the representative of the governing party and especially the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry were wondering about that—can deduct 100% of their investments from their income from the first year onwards. They can invest a dollar and deduct it the same year. It does not cost them much; things are going all right for them; life is beautiful.

A recent study prepared by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers did a three-year projection of the impact of all the tax breaks given to oil companies. I am talking about breaks, but we could call them gifts. In 2005 they paid $5.1 billion in taxes; in 2008 they will pay $2.3 billion. The income tax they pay has been cut in half. These are tax breaks from this government. We have to get our feet back on the ground. This is a federal income tax reduction of 54%. I would like all the citizens of Quebec to receive such tax reductions, not just the oil companies. The Bloc Québécois has often criticized these tax breaks for oil companies, but no one has made a move. It is time to do so now.

There are proposed measures for disciplining the industry. First of all the Competition Act must be strengthened. I am going to target the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry again. Because he misunderstood, I am going to explain to him so that he understands. The Competition Bureau cannot conduct an investigation on its own initiative; it must receive a complaint or a request from the Minister of Industry, who will doubtless be asleep again, since has been asleep at the switch all this time.

The Competition Bureau is sorely lacking in powers when it conducts a general review of the industry: it cannot summon witnesses. How can it operate? The bureau cannot even summon people as witnesses to find out whether there is any collusion. That is not right. It cannot ensure their protection so as to get them to talk. They cannot even be summoned, they cannot even be protected so that they will tell the truth. And then we are told that the Competition Bureau can do its work. Somebody should wake up. There is something missing here.

Without these tools, it is almost impossible to prove collusion or any other anti-competitive practices. And even when competitors reach an agreement, the burden of proving collusion is on the Competition Bureau. Imagine that! This is a long way from burden of proof reversal. But that is what is being asked for.

We must reinforce the Competition Act by giving real powers to the Competition Bureau.

Near the end of its mandate, the Liberal government introduced Bill C-66, which was for the most part inspired by a comprehensive plan tabled one month earlier. That bill died on the order paper. Why? Because, once again, the Conservatives did nothing.

When Konrad von Finckenstein, the competition commissioner, appeared in front of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology on May 5, 2003, he identified the following shortcomings in the Competition Act:

—while the bureau's mandate includes the very important role of being investigator and advocate for competition, the current legislation does not provide the bureau with the authority to conduct an industry study.

It seems to me that it would be preferable to have a study on the overall situation carried out by an independent body that would have authority, that would be able to summon witnesses and gather information. It should also have the power to protect confidential information that someone is not necessarily going to want to share, but which would be vital in order to reach a conclusion based on the real facts.

Hence, the motion from the Bloc:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should move an amendment to the Competition Act so that the Commissioner of Competition have the power to initiate investigations of the price of gas and the role of refining margins in the determination of the said price.

Lucienne Robillard Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC

Mr. Speaker, the current Conservative government seems to have forgotten that it voted unanimously, in this chamber, for Bill C-66, which contained specific projects such as the EnerGuide program and all sorts of projects to help the environment. The Conservatives voted for it at the time. They should not now be saying that they have not cut these programs. They cut them outright without an assessment.

We demand to see the assessment of the programs cut.

Bev Oda Clarington—Scugog—Uxbridge, ON

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about the critical need for a change in the leadership, government and culture in how this country has been run.

Today, we have a corrupt and arrogant government that does not believe in democracy, accountability, and has learned nothing from the Gomery report or the Auditor General of Canada.

First and foremost, I stand on behalf of the honest hardworking men and women, the families across our country, the seniors who after a lifetime of work deserve better, and our children and youth who will inherit this country as the next generation. The government has made a mockery of the democratic process and robbed the public purse with which it was entrusted. This is not the legacy we should be creating.

The citizens in my riding of Durham want the same things Canadians in Nova Scotia want. They want the same things Canadians in Quebec and B.C. want. Honest Canadians want honest government, principled and accountable to the people. However, my constituents know that this is not possible with the government. They know this country has a sorry future with a government that has been found guilty of criminally stealing public funds and makes promises it has no intention of keeping.

If we allow the government to continue in office, what does that say about us as a country? What does it say to our children whom we want to grow into adults with integrity and principles, who see a purpose in hard work and earning an honest living, who enjoy the fruits of their labour, and will willingly contribute to the well-being of fellow Canadians and to this country's future?

If we allow the government to stay in office, we are saying that bribery, criminal activities, and deception are the basis on which we choose to build our country, making us no better than countries based on corruption and thievery, countries many of our newer Canadians have left behind. The Conservative Party is not prepared to let that happen.

We believe that Canadians deserve a government that earns their trust, not abuses their trust, and a government that believes it is accountable to every voter and not entitled to break laws and deny it when caught. This Liberal government is about sponsorship, HRDC boondoggles, Shawinigate, and remember our subs and helicopters.

For years members of the Liberal Party have been abusing taxpayers and using our money for their own purposes. The Liberal Party ignores laws and does nothing to strengthen laws to protect Canadians. Despite the Prime Minister's promise to clean up government, like his other promises, the scandals and abuse just keep happening. This cannot be allowed to continue.

Canadians want an open, transparent, and accountable government that cares about the issues that they have to deal with every day, such as jobs, the environment, education, public security, and rising energy prices and taxes. These are the issues that we should be debating in the House of Commons.

The seniors in my riding are facing rising costs, lost income and struggling to stay in their homes. Why did the government keep Bill C-66 off the order paper for so long, a bill that would provide them with the help they need? Why threaten income trusts which are the retirement savings of thousands?

Why did the government cancel the take note debate last week on the agricultural crisis requested by a member of the opposition? Why did the government vote against so many motions to help farmers in Canada? Why did the government vote against the bill to protect young children from sexual predators? Why has the government not delivered its promised auto strategy only to see the announcement this week that almost 4,000 auto workers in Durham are facing job losses? I could go on and on.

The government has to be held to account for its inactions on so many issues challenging Canadians today. Conservatives have shown good faith in trying to make government work. Of the 72 government bills put before the House of Commons, the Conservative Party voted to support or indicated it supported over 60% of those bills. Canadians have given each of us in this chamber their trust, a trust that we will look to their concerns, well-being and futures.

Canadians' tax dollars are an investment in a prosperous future for our nation. That prosperity will not become a reality under the government. Why? Canadians' tax dollars are being wasted on a $2 billion gun registry, but gun violence increases.

Payments to advertising agencies end up in envelopes to pay for Liberal election campaigns and millions are lost and unaccounted for in contracts to Liberal friends. Now the government is on a free fall spending spree with no more forethought than the spectre of the upcoming election.

As each day passes the amount goes up and up at a rate of a billion dollars a day. This frantic frenzy has to stop. This is craziness. It is no more than bribery for votes. The Liberals are trying to bribe Canadians with their own money.

Canadians will not be fooled by these shabby tactics, nor will they be deceived by the threats that seniors will lose their GIS increases that have already been passed by the House.

The military knows that as of last April it has been receiving the raises in salary the Prime Minister claims will be lost if an election is called. The municipalities in Durham can be assured that their infrastructure dollars are not in jeopardy.

I am certain that these final, desperate attempts to cling to power will only reinforce the resolve of Canadians to elect an honest, principled and more accountable government. We need leadership that will not close its eyes or deny its culpability in these acts.

The Gomery report may have exonerated the Prime Minister from responsibility for the operation and management of the sponsorship scandal. Sure, he was not the shop foreman, but as the finance minister, the second in command at Treasury Board, in control of the Liberal Party in Quebec, how could he have not known? Either he was involved or he was incompetent. Either way, we know that this is not leadership.

Let us remember, the Prime Minister was there for the GST flip-flop. He was there for the tainted blood scandal. He was there for the APEC inquiry, Pearson airport and David Dingwall.

Now is the time for principled Conservative action. Now is the time for the Leader of the Opposition's federal accountability act, a contract with Canadians, to clean up government and put Canada back on the track to prosperity.

I came to this chamber with a deep sense of pride and the weight of the responsibility given to me by the voters in Durham. Each of us has a duty; the duty of public service, not entitlement. I was honoured to have the opportunity to work for my constituents, for all Canadians and for my country. However, there is no honour in allowing corruption, mistrust and inaction to invade the core system of our nationhood, the federal government.

At the beginning of this new millennium it will be a Conservative government that will fight to bring honour and pride back to Canada. Under the leadership of the Leader of the Opposition, the Conservative Party is a powerful and effective force in Parliament, a party of principled direction, honesty and vision.

We are a party with a plan for Canada. We have a plan to give families jobs and the right to the rewards of their earnings; a plan so seniors can live in their retirement without worrying about access to health care, paying bills and safety in the street; a plan for economic prosperity and growth; and a plan so our children and youth will care about their neighbours, their community and their country because they are proud to be Canadians.

We believe in and hold the same values as Canadian families, communities and individuals. We believe each one of us deserves the same opportunities to a good job, an education, and to the economic well-being for families and seniors in safe, strong communities.

Let the people of Canada define themselves as a people who want trust and integrity, not corruption; action, not only promises; a prosperous future, not financial woes. Canadians must have the opportunity to decide the kind of Canada they want and the future they believe the next generation deserves. That is why I am confident Canadians will choose to elect a Conservative government.