Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to speak to Bill C-48, a bill on natural resources. This is particularly important to my constituency of Kootenay East because many of its people are directly employed in the resource industry.
I would like to speak briefly about mining and about forestry. In my constituency I have Canada's largest operating mine. In 1991 over 5,200 British Columbians were employed directly by the coal industry. These jobs represent 12,500 jobs in the service sector. As a matter of fact, over 15,000 workers in the transportation and service sectors rely on the coal industry for their livelihoods.
My constituency office is in the town of Cranbrook and is as directly related to that as is the Elk Valley. The House should also recognize that coal accounts fully for 20 per cent of all rail traffic in Canada. Therefore coal is a very important issue to Canada and to our natural resources.
One of the difficulties I have had in coming to Ottawa, indeed in coming to the House, is that there is very frequently the impression left that natural resources somehow are a sunset industry, that is that industries related to natural resources are somehow in sunset and that the information highway is going to carry us off into the future.
Truly we do have to be working on the high tech side of our economy but as I see it we continue to be in Canada, whether we want to be or not, very dependent on natural resources. In 1991 B.C. coal producers exported 22 million tonnes of metallurgical coal and 2.8 million tonnes of thermal coal. These sales were worth $1.6 billion. That is a lot of money. When I combine that together with the international sales of forestry of $22 billion, we get an idea of the importance of natural resources.
The problem particularly in the case of the mining industry is that the multilevel of Canadian governments is basically taxing the business out of existence in Canada. Between 1987 and 1991 the B.C. coal producers combined earned only $8 million, but they were taxed $454 million. Let me repeat that because I think it is very significant. Combined over a five-year period the B.C. coal producers earned only $8 million but in the same period of time paid taxes of $454 million. For every $1 of profit these producers were taxed $57.
Since 1991 tax increases in B.C. have added $12 million to $15 million a year to the coal producers' costs. The B.C. coal industry is facing a grim future. The choice is between coal output and reducing employment. Unfortunately for the workers in the Elk Valley they are too familiar with the choices that are
currently having to be made. The cost of increased production is unmanageable. The only choice in order to remain solvent is to reduce jobs.
In 1992 two of the coal mines in my constituency closed, causing the loss of 1,900 jobs in an area with a population of approximately 10,000. We can see the significance of this. Although the mines have reopened, they now only employ half the original number of employees. The House should also also be aware of the fact that human resources development currently has decided to go against a ruling by Revenue Canada and is going after registered retirement pension funds of the former employees in an attempt to regain overpayments of UI.
I am currently fighting that on behalf of the workers in the area. We get an idea of how far we have gone. Some of these people are losing their homes and the government, right now with two departments in conflict with each other, is going after these people's registered pension funds. I find that absolutely, totally unacceptable.
Back to the issue at hand, the Canadian mining industry is already taxed higher than any of its international counterparts and because of the larger tax burden Canadian coal has become less competitive in international markets. The fact is that international prices have plunged 35 per cent in metallurgical coal and thermal coal has plunged 20 per cent since 1987. Yet what has happened to taxes? We know what has happened to taxes. They have increased.
Another problem for the coal miners in my area is that mineral minimum taxes are more than three times higher for coal mines and hard rock mines in British Columbia. Property taxes are more than three times higher for coal industry than residential rates.