Debates of March 16th, 1998

Competition Act

[An hon. member]

Only sumo wrestlers are prettier.

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Qu'Appelle, SK]

Well, I do not know if sumo wrestlers are prettier. That is in the eye of the beholder I suppose, but that is what these banks are like.

The irony of this whole thing is I know how lots of members of the Liberal Party feel about this. They have a caucus committee which is looking at the merger. We in the NDP are doing the same thing. I assume members of other parties are concerned as well. Why do we not get together and have a parliamentary committee look at it formally? We could subpoena the banks to come before us and give the Canadian people a chance to come here or we could go out to the provinces and territories and hear witnesses. Why do we not do that?

Why are we content as members of Parliament to be controlled by the Prime Minister's office all the time? Why do Liberal members not get up on their hind legs and say enough is enough? Let us have a democratic parliamentary institution where we can have a parliamentary inquiry into one of the most fundamental issues we are facing in this particular Parliament, the future of our financial institutions.

I see a Liberal member across the way and I know he agrees. I can hear his head shaking all the way across the floor. He agrees with me. He thinks there should be a parliamentary committee. I am sure the Reform Party feels the same way.

I am sure that the Bloc Quebecois also wanted a parliamentary inquiry on the future of our country's financial system.

If Parliament is not to debate important issues of public policy, then why in the devil is Parliament here in the first place? Why are we here if we cannot debate these issues, if we cannot have public hearings across the country, if we cannot subpoena witnesses and allow the people to speak their minds? That is what Parliament should be all about.

I know the member for Windsor—St. Clair certainly agrees with me. She is rising to her feet. Now she is smiling. She wants a parliamentary inquiry. She wants a chance to go after these mega banks. She does not agree with these large mega banks, but what can she do? She is muted. She cannot say a word. If she wants to be a cabinet minister, she does not dare speak out as the Prime Minister might get a little upset with her, and she will not be a cabinet minister. That is the kind of parliamentary system we have. That is why we have to reform this place and change it to make it more relevant to the people of Canada.

I suspect if we took a vote in the House we would find that the overwhelming majority of members of Parliament are concerned about this proposed merger. The Reform Party probably is. Liberal members are. The Bloc is. I assume the Tories are. And what are we doing about it? We make one or two speeches in the House. Let us turn this debate into a debate on this particular issue right now.

The banks have engaged a lobbying firm which is lobbying like mad to make sure the banks get their way. The banks across the country are advocating what they want and campaigning to have the right to merge. We are giving the banks a free run. That is exactly what is happening. As parliamentarians we are sitting here like a bunch of bimbos on our butts and not doing anything about it in terms of striking a parliamentary committee.

Let us turn this place into a relevant institution and have a parliamentary investigation into the wisdom or lack thereof of these mergers. However the Minister of Finance will not do it. He wants to be prime minister of the country. Who will he side with? Will it be the bankers of Bay Street or ordinary people? The member for Windsor—St. Clair has re-entered the House. I know she does not side with the bankers of Bay Street, but what about the Minister of Finance? Does he side with the bankers of Bay Street?

What does he do? He is afraid to face the music and have a parliamentary inquiry. I am surprised Reform Party is not up in the House demanding a parliamentary inquiry. I know it is a very conservative right wing party. It has more and more friends in the corporate elite. It falls in love with the Conrad Blacks of the world. Perhaps that is why its members are silent in the House about an inquiry into banking.

I see the member from Calgary, the revenue critic, shaking his head. I can hear that from here too. That is why the Reform Party does not want a parliamentary inquiry. I thought it was supposed to be a people's party, a grassroots party, speaking on behalf of ordinary people. It is not. It is becoming a party reflecting the corporate elite. It would not know a worker if it saw one.

Why are Reformers in a coalition with the Liberal government? Why do they stand four square with the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister in terms of the way they are handling the banking issue? They should be out there saying let the people speak, let the people decide, let us have a parliamentary inquiry, let us have a parliamentary investigation to see if this is good for Canada or not.

Today we have a new opportunity with the bill before the House to talk about competition policy and why we have to strengthen it. We have the case in point today to deal with, the merger of the Royal Bank of Canada and the Bank of Montreal.

Mr. Speaker, I know if you were a member on the floor of the House you would be getting up to make the same kind of speech. In fact you are applauding me there in the chair right now.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member. I was not applauding. I was simply indicating to him that his time has expired.

[Sarkis Assadourian, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the comments of my colleague in the NDP.

I have to inform the House that soon after an offer was made by the Royal Bank and the Bank of Montreal I sent out a questionnaire in my riding. The response was four to one in opposition to the merger.

Based on that response I wrote a letter to the Financial Post in which I said the situation reminded me of the Titanic . It was big too at one time but once it hit the iceberg it sank, taking 1,500 people with it. The point I was trying to make was that we were not ready. That is why we have debate in the House, to make sure we are prepared if it ever takes place.

Would the hon. member agree with me that when the recession hit us in the 1930s no Canadian bank ever went bankrupt? That was because we had laws to protect consumers, unlike the United States and now as we see in southeast Asia. If we have no protection for the consumers we will go the same way. However, the way it is we have lots of protection for consumers. I do not think we will be hit or that it will happen the same way it happened in southeast Asia.

Is the protection we have for consumers enough to protect us in case we are hit by an iceberg?

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy the member sent a survey out to his riding which came back four to one in opposition to the merger. I believe that tells us what the Canadian people are thinking.

I guess my question back to him is whether or not he would agree with me that we now need a parliamentary inquiry, a parliamentary committee, so his constituents and my constituents have a chance to speak out publicly on how they feel about that particular merger.

It would be very helpful if some members of the Liberal Party would rise and say publicly that we need a parliamentary investigation.

I also want to say to him that I do not believe the consumer legislation is strong enough for ordinary people. That is why we want to strengthen the competition bill. That is one reason for the particular debate today.

Historically our banks have been a very protected sector of our economy. That is why they have an obligation to be more forthright with Canadian people. That is why they have an obligation to reduce bank service charges, for example. That is why they have an obligation to be more generous in terms of loans to small businesses and farmers. I am sure the member agrees with me.

I believe we need stronger competition policy to protect the consumer, but I also invite him to rise with me in the House and ask the Minister of Finance in a very polite way for a parliamentary committee investigation right now made up of all five parties and not just Liberal backbenchers having hearings behind the scenes. That is not a parliamentary democracy.

[Howard Hilstrom, Reform, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is very interesting to hear the discussion regarding wanting to keep both the Royal Bank and the Bank of Montreal in Outlook, Saskatchewan. I would like to contrast that kind of thinking with the Reform type of thinking that happens to come out of my constituency and out of Reform country, which is most of western Canada.

We are quite pleased when one of the banks happens to pull out of town because one of our local credit unions walks right in and opens a branch. The first thing we know the credit union that is owned by our small farmers and the union people who work at various unionized shops in my riding get together and put together a credit union that then provides banking services. We keep the profits and all those good things at home. That is Reform country.

Does the member support the big banks or does he support the little guy as he is supposed to?

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, that is like the chicken lecturing Colonel Saunders, a Reformer supporting the co-operative movement and credit unions.

For my whole life I have been involved in the co-operative movement. I guess the member does not know my background, about my family being farmers. They have always taken their wheat to the wheat pool and have been members of the credit union. I am a member of the credit union.

[An hon. member]

Wheat board.

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Qu'Appelle, SK]

I said “wheat pool”. Somebody does not know the history of co-operatives in western Canada.

If the merger goes through, it opens up a great opportunity for credit unions. We will see the closure of a lot of branches. We will see the opening of more and more credit unions. If this happens, I certainly encourage the credit union movement to get out into more communities and to expand existing credit unions. I support them all the way.

It is refreshing to hear a member of our most conservative far right wing party, the Reform Party, actually supporting credit unions. I am really pleased to hear that.

[Jason Kenney, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I too am shocked with the support the hon. member for Qu'Appelle has given to the big banks. It is terrible that the NDP has not only turned its backs on the Regina manifesto's clarion call to nationalize the banks, this party of markets and competition, but now it wants banks to populate small town Saskatchewan. The member wants all the big banks to go into small prairie villages.

I grew up in the little town of Wilcox, Saskatchewan, with a population of 220 on the Sioux line between Drinkwater and Yellow Grass. When the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce shut down three decades ago, a local credit union emerged. It was a local co-operative bank established by the farmers and workers in that area.

That member does not like it because he would rather have the millionaires from the Bank of Commerce running the banking business in Wilcox, Saskatchewan. I say shame on the hon. member standing up for his friends with the big banks. I will point out he did suggest in his remarks that the Reform Party was friendly with the big money people on Bay Street.

The Reform Party more than any other party, with the exception of our socialist friends, relies more on the contributions of individual donors than corporate donors. Three dollars to one is what we get in terms of individual contributions to corporate contributions. There is a good reason the NDP does not get any business contributions. It is because businesses know it is not in the best interest of Canadian workers to support its kind of monopolistic policies.

Could the hon. member comment on what happened to their policy to nationalize the banks? Even Ed Broadbent used to talk about nationalizing one of them. Did that just sort of flitter away with their other socialist principles?

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I say to my socialist comrade from Alberta that talking about turning away from this, my friend from Alberta used to be the executive assistant to the now minister of agriculture when he was a Liberal. He knows all about turning away from things.

[An hon. member]

Was he not kicked out of the Liberal Party?

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Qu'Appelle, SK]

No, he was not kicked out of the Liberal Party. He saw the light but he went the wrong way and went right instead of left. My friend from Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre obviously must be thinking of somebody else.

The president of the Credit Union Central of Canada is a fellow named Bill Knight. Bill Knight used to be a member of Parliament for the NDP Saskatchewan riding of Assiniboia. I know that my friend from Alberta knows that, because the former leader of the Liberal Party in Saskatchewan was an MLA from that riding when he worked for that particular MLA.

Bill Knight, as member of Parliament for our party and now the head of Credit Union Central, will be trying very hard to make sure we establish more and more credit unions across the country. I support the credit unions as the people's bank. It is grassroots and owned by the people. It is a co-operative and the profits are shared by the people.

It is not like the friends of my friend from Alberta who stands in the House and says that Conrad Black pays too much in taxes and that millionaires are overtaxed, which is what he said in the House last October. That is not our philosophy. We support the credit union and the co-operative movement.

[Werner Schmidt, Reform, Kelowna, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I found this to be a most interesting diatribe out of both sides of the mouth at the same time. I am wondering if the hon. member has a single message.

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I think the revenue critic for the Reform Party would have a point of order when he is being accused of talking out of both sides of his mouth.

[John Solomon, NDP, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say a very few words. Bill C-20 respecting the Competition Act is a bill I have had some experience with in the past.

There are a couple of good things in it. I will get the good things out of the way quickly because I want to provide some suggestions as to how we can improve the bad things.

The telemarketing fraud section is a good amendment. A number of seniors in my constituency in the province of Saskatchewan have been the victims of telemarketing fraud. As a matter of fact, it has been such a problem in western Canada that we have had to undertake to educate as many seniors as possible by sending out householders in my constituency to alert them to the potential problem of telemarketing fraud and what sort of action they can take if they receive calls or have been victims of this very nasty approach by suspicious so-called business people.

I also remind people that on CTV National News last night, David Goldhawk, a very well known crusader for many issues that are important to Canadians, in particular seniors, told a story about a senior citizen who was bilked out of a fair amount of money through telemarketing fraud. Through his intervention he was able to salvage most of the money she had been fraudulently bilked of. I wanted to mention that in my remarks.

With respect to the other parts of the bill with which I am not so happy, they pertain mostly to the merger notification process. It is my view that the merger notification process in the bill is inadequate and very weak. It does not address the real problems that I think Canadians want addressed. It is my view that it should be done in a way which strengthens the legislation as opposed to weakening it as it now does.

I want to make a very brief comment about the changes in Bill C-20 that are not necessarily attractive to me when it comes to mergers. Right now, as my colleague from Qu'Appelle outlined, the big bank merger before the country and parliament is an issue very near and dear to the hearts of many Canadians. Many people bank with those two institutions and have a lot of friends, relatives, neighbours, acquaintances and so on who are employed there. These mergers could potentially cost jobs.

I am wondering whether the government of the day, which has put forward these recommendations, has given any consideration to this aspect where mergers result in fewer jobs. As I read through the bill and through the accompanying notes of the minister, I found that this issue was not addressed at all.

I want to make reference in particular to how Bill C-20 deals with the Conrad Black and Hollinger takeover of Saskatchewan newspapers. In essence they purchased the Leader-Post , the Star-Phoenix and the Yorkton Enterprise , basically all the daily newspapers in the province.

Under the Competition Act, which we are now debating, this was processed.

The purchaser of the newspapers, Mr. Black from Hollinger Inc., would sit down and say “Here are the benefits of a merger”. In fact, the Competition Bureau would sit down with them and say “Here is a process in which you can undertake to accomplish the merger”.

Other than that, they have no responsibility to ensure that basic services are required or that some of the employees who will lose their jobs should be provided with alternate training or some sort of severance arrangement, enabling them to gain employment in other parts of the country.

I am very concerned about this in relation to jobs in particular because mergers, whether the newspaper mergers of Conrad Black and his company Hollinger Inc. or the bank issue before the House of Commons, will result in significant numbers of families being affected.

It is estimated that for the bank merger alone, somewhere between 15,000 and 30,000 jobs are potentially at risk. I think that is a serious enough implication of a merger that the House of Commons and the Government of Canada should be taking a review of this matter.

I join with my colleague, the member for Qu'Appelle, in calling for a parliamentary committee to ensure that the mergers (a), are necessary, and (b), are going to be beneficial to the country that provides them with the charters to bank in the first place.

It is my sense that the resulting review of the merger situation does not provide satisfactory evidence and that it will benefit Canadians and people working in Canada if the merger is allowed to proceed anyway.

Maybe we can provide other people who will provide banking services to Canadians with the charters that they are due and entitled to under the Bank Act.

Of course where these jobs will be lost will be all over Canada but mostly in rural Canada, in small town Canada, particularly in communities where both the Bank of Montreal and the Royal Bank have branches.

I wonder, when we are considering a merger and we have the commissioner of the mergers reviewing the merger, why we cannot have a commission and a Competition Act that asks merging companies how many jobs the merger will create in this country as opposed to how many jobs will be lost. There should be some regulation about that.

Maybe we should have in this Competition Act some sections that call for a community reinvestment act. That would be a novel idea. It means that if they are going to merge or move an amount of capital around, they should be answering about how many dollars should be reinvested in the communities where they made their profits. That would ensure there is certain economic activity and that they were returning some of those profits to the community where they were earned.

People in parts of Canada say “This is just another left wing idea”. It is not that left wing. It is actually in existence in many countries in this world. The home of free enterprise and capitalism, the U.S.A., has a reinvestment act, the Community Reinvestment Act.

When the Bank of Montreal bought the Morgan Bank in Chicago just a few years ago, before the purchase of the Morgan Bank was allowed to proceed under U.S. regulations, the Bank of Montreal had to commit $497 million to reinvestment in Chicago and district alone because that is where the Morgan Bank was servicing clients.

It had to commit $497 million over a period of time. I believe it was over five years. They had to invest in small business, in low cost housing and in other areas where they were getting a return. It had to commit that amount of money to reinvest in those communities.

Why can we in this Competition Act which we are debating today not have sections that would encourage, if not provide, an opportunity for a reinvestment act in this country? I think Canadians would welcome this. They would embrace this act. I would assure the government opposite that the NDP would certainly support that initiative.

I want to leave these recommendations with the government. I think they are very important. I also want to say that the Competition Act should also consider the MAI, the Multilateral Agreement on Investment.

The Multilateral Agreement on Investment will affect the Competition Act. If the Competition Act is in law and is operating in this country, will the MAI supersede an act of this Parliament with respect to competition? We do not know the answer to that. I hope the government will respond to it. Although the Competition Act is fairly weak, we should be mindful of the opportunities and the challenges which the MAI will provide with respect to this particular issue.

The final point I want to make pertains to the lack of teeth in this bill. I have brought forward issues in the House of Commons such as gas pricing, where the competition bureau reviews superficially gas pricing practices in this country, but does not have the authority to go into corporations to look at documents like it used to be able to do under the Combines Investigation Act, which was abolished by the former Conservative government of Mr. Mulroney.

That legislation was abolished because, from the large corporations' perspective, it was intrusive. Of course intrusive meant that the anti-combines people could in effect look at mergers or the purchasing of companies to ensure that the public interest was defended and protected. Consumers were protected and defended. Now that legislation is gone and we have the Competition Act, which is a shadow of its former self.

Even the United States of America has anti-combines legislation on its books to this day. There is more powerful legislation in the homeland of capitalism, in the land of free enterprise, than we have in the so-called social democratic country of Canada.

[An hon. member]

Social democratic country?

[John Solomon, NDP, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

I am referring to the governments of Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Yukon and Quebec which have introduced social democratic policies.

It is my sense that the Competition Act, before the amendments were put forward, was a shadow of what it used to be. The new proposals will not strengthen it that much. It will be a little better in terms of responding to telemarketing fraud. However, it is a total failure when it comes to defending consumers, small business and jobs in this country. As a result of that, I am looking forward to the government making some amendments in those areas so we can support the bill.

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his fine speech. I want to ask him if he could be a little more precise and elaborate a bit more on why he thinks the Competition Act is not strong enough today to deal with the bank merger which we face in this country.

I repeat that these two banks have a stock market value of around $40 billion. They are very large. They have assets of $453 billion. By far and away this is the largest proposed merger in the history of the country. The largest merger before this involved some $14 billion, if I am not mistaken, which was the merger of TransCanada Pipelines and another gas company.

I would like him to elaborate a bit more as to why he thinks the Competition Bureau and the Competition Act are not strong enough to deal with this merger. I certainly do not think it is. I believe we have to strengthen it. With the existing legislation it would just get snowed under.

I think it is very important that he elaborate on this very important point.

[John Solomon, NDP, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Qu'Appelle for his question.

This reminds me of question period when a Liberal backbencher stands to ask a question of their Liberal colleague. There does not seem to be a lot of opportunity to discuss issues because they are all very busy people. Likewise, the members of my caucus are very busy, so my colleague has asked me a question with respect to how we should enhance this legislation so it can be effective when dealing with bank mergers.

There are a number of ways in which it can be strengthened. The commissioner should have the power to ask these questions when considering a merger: What will be the benefits to Canada if the merger proceeds? How many new jobs in Canada will be created if the merger proceeds? Will the banks commit a percentage of their deposits to reinvest in the communities in which they are operating?

If those three criteria were dealt with, discussed and met, and there was generosity in co-operation with the Canadian Competition Bureau, as there has been with the Bank of Montreal in co-operating with the Chicago Morgan Bank and the U.S. regulations to invest money in their communities, then I believe that Canadians would look at this in a broader way. These are three very quick things off the top of my head in answer to the member for Qu'Appelle. I would be happy to entertain any more questions from my dear colleagues in the House.

[Chris Axworthy, NDP, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member. He will know, as we all do in this House, that large corporations contribute significant numbers of dollars to the Reform Party, the Conservative party and the Liberal Party.

I wonder if he has any comments or thoughts on whether or not there is a link between the opposition of the large corporations to the significance of pro-competitive merger legislation, and the support of the Reform, Tories and Liberals for this present situation and present legislation which really does nothing to enhance competition in Canada?

[John Solomon, NDP, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that question.

Everyone knows that the reason the Liberals, the Reform and the Conservatives support the bank merger is because the Liberals, for example, received on average between the two banks, the Montreal and Royal, $150,000 in political contributions, in the last year available to us where we have the records that are public. That is $150,000 from two individual companies to support the Liberals.

The oil companies that support the Reform Party give substantial contributions. Imperial Oil and Shell give substantial contributions to both the Liberals and the Reform. Each of those big companies give the Reform Party about $50,000 or $45,000, depending on the year. Pan Canadian also makes substantial contributions. This should not surprise anybody because lo and behold, all the legislation that we have seen the Reform and the Liberals support has been to reward these particular companies.

The other sector that seems to get rewarded for their generous contributions to both parties is the pharmaceutical industry. Bill C-91 provides monopoly protection for 20 years to the pharmaceutical industry, to charge whatever they want for prescription drugs. Lo and behold, those huge corporations financially support substantially the Liberals, the Reform and the Conservatives Parties.

The Reform and the Conservative Parties get substantial contributions from the banks, the oil companies and the pharmaceuticals. Guess what? In all the legislation, we have a specific bill for the pharmaceuticals that gives them monopoly protection. I wonder what effect the Competition Act, Bill C-20, that we are debating today in this House, will have on Bill C-91? I bet it will not have any affect. It will actually ensure that Bill C-91 is there forever.

Whether it is the banks, the oil companies or the pharmaceuticals, who tend to be gouging consumers and defending only their shareholders outside of Canada rather than Canadian consumers, they are the ones who are always getting the benefit of legislation from these three parties that happen to embrace this legislation with both arms.

[John Herron, Progressive Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleagues here on the left, the New Democrats. They have spoken a fair amount, from a competition perspective, with respect to the potential bank merger which we may or may not see in the coming weeks.

The questions that I have for the hon. member relate to the bank merger. Given the fact that there are nearly 92,000 jobs that actually come into play, does he not think that there is actually some kind of a moral obligation on behalf of the government to ensure that this decision is actually done in a reasonably expedient fashion?

A little while ago two insurance companies that merged were London Life and Great West Life. When that was done the government was able to make some kind of a rapid analysis of whether it met the criteria for the Competition Act. Given the fact that on February 14, 1997 a WTO ruling made the banking industry open to foreign competition, is it the hon. member's assessment that the finance minister should be surprised that the other banks would actually be talking at some time or other?

[The Deputy Speaker]

I am afraid that the hon. member will have to wait until the next time this bill is debated for his answer.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

[Charles Caccia, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question deals with the implementation of the Alternative Fuels Act which was proposed by Senator Kenny and adopted in 1995. It requires federal departments and agencies to select motor vehicles capable of operating on alternative fuels.

The act takes a flexible approach in defining alternative fuel as a fuel that is less damaging to the environment than conventional fuels. Widely available alternative fuels include ethanol and ethanol gasoline blends, propane, methanol and natural gas.

The Alternative Fuels Act requires the shift to alternative fuels by the federal government to occur in three stages. The first phase requires 50% of the fleet in the fiscal year that began in April 1997. The second phase requires 60% of the fleet by the fiscal year that will begin on April 1. The third phase requires 75% of the fleet for the fiscal year commencing April 1, 1999. For every fiscal year thereafter there will be an increment.

There are good reasons to switch to cleaner fuels. The question now is whether the right example is being set. In some cases we are setting a good example. I am told that the Minister of Natural Resources and the deputy minister of that department use vehicles operated by propane and ethanol blends. The President of the Treasury Board uses an ethanol blend. The minister and deputy minister of the environment use propane in their vehicles. The deputy minister of finance uses an ethanol blend.

However, I am told that the Minister of Finance is not yet using alternative fuels. The minister and deputy minister of national revenue use gasoline vehicles. The minister and deputy minister of fisheries and oceans use ethanol blends only “where available and cost effective”. Neither the minister nor the deputy minister of health uses an alternative fuel vehicle.

As for the departments, I am told that National Revenue operates 588 vehicles but only 12 use alternative fuels. This is in spite of the fact that there are 423 propane stations, 48 natural gas stations, 97 ethanol stations and 6 methanol stations within 10 kilometres of the fleet operated in various locations by this department.

The Department of Health has indicated that in the fiscal year 1997-98 it will purchase 75 vehicles. I am told that not one of those vehicles will operate on alternative fuels. In reply to a question on the order paper in the Senate presented by Senator Kenny the Department of Health said that it has 575 vehicles in its fleet, with none operating on alternative fuels.

I was told that the Department of the Environment would purchase 30 vehicles in the upcoming fiscal year and that 20 of these would run on alternative fuels. However, of 657 vehicles currently operated by Environment Canada only 60 are run on alternative fuels.

There are at least 17 refuelling stations offering alternative fuels within 10 kilometres of this House. These stations provide propane, natural gas, ethanol and methanol, four of the most commonly available alternative fuels.

I have a few words about cars running on gasoline. Here the departments could give leadership by using a gasoline ethanol blend. When it comes to adding new vehicles to their fleets, departments can show leadership by ensuring the engines can run on propane. Using propane makes a lot of sense because it is less expensive than gasoline and other fuels.

My question for the President of the Treasury Board is what progress will be made in implementing this important legislation and, in particular, is half the federal fleet operating today on alternative fuels as required by the Alternative Fuels Act?