Madam Speaker, I am very happy to get involved in this debate. I compliment the member for Churchill River for raising this issue for two good reasons. It touches on two things people think about a great deal: one, saving operating costs for homeowners, businesses or property owners; and two, saving our environment.
We obviously have to do something about the urgent issue of greenhouse gas emissions. As much as the Reform Party denies it is an issue, we know it is an issue. We know that the hole in the ozone layer is growing. We know that Canada has an obligation to do something, to do all it can to bring down harmful greenhouse gas emissions.
I used to work on the oil rigs. I used to work in the oil patch on oil rigs, on those big triple rigs we see. There is something I am kind of ashamed of. I was always mystified frankly, but for the industry's sake I am ashamed of it, that every time we hit gas everybody would curse “Oh no, more gas”. We would cap off the well, tear down the rig and move to another hole.
Sometimes that gas had such force, there was so much of it. It had such force it was actually dangerous to cap it off. It was very difficult to contain what we had tapped into. There were these huge massive reserves of natural gas, a precious energy commodity like that and nobody could have been more disappointed. The driller would be dejected and the engineer would probably be fired for putting us into an area where we would hit gas again. I just wanted to share that story.
That has been the attitude about something the rest of the world considers absolutely precious and we in this country do not take full advantage of it. It is our most abundant energy resource, yet we choose to heat our homes, businesses and factories et cetera with other more expensive means of energy.
Unbelievably, in much of Atlantic Canada homes are heated with coal thermal generated electricity, the most wasteful, expensive and polluting way to generate electricity. Some of these people have heating bills of $900 a month I am told. I have never lived there but apparently $800 or $900 a month is not unrealistic. Imagine a working class family living in a harsh climate and the best system their government can think of to provide energy to heat their homes is thermal powered electricity. It is unbelievable.
It raises the question, should the government be involved in the distribution of natural gas? Should it ever be involved in it or should it be left up to the private sector? I would remind members that one of the most famous debates that ever took place in this House of Commons was the great pipeline debate in the late 1950s. It is legendary. I still hear stories about it from the veteran parliamentarians who relish telling the story about that great debate.
Fortunately, saner heads prevailed and we did build the trans-Canada pipeline. We did build a national infrastructure. Frankly the plan then was how to sell our resources. It was not so much as how to distribute them in Canada. I am suggesting we need a whole new national pipeline debate.
Again, I am very proud that the member for Churchill River has brought this up today. Now we have to talk about something even more pressing, which is the distribution. How do we as Canadians benefit from our precious natural resources instead of finding ways to fire them out of the country?
Another thing that was raised was that with the FTA and everything else there are more and more opportunities to get our products on to distribution networks south of the border. I would caution hon. members that when they read NAFTA and the FTA carefully, whatever rate of export we have we are bound to. Even if we run short of that resource in our country and even if we do not have enough fuel to heat our own homes, we are committed to maintain the same level of export that we started. It is a tap we cannot turn off. It is one of the things we have always criticized about the free trade agreement.
The public should be involved in natural gas. It is a special thing and we have the luxury of having an abundance of this resource.
In the province I come from, which has a Tory government, Manitoba Hydro is publicly owned. It is a crown corporation. Centra Gas is a private gas distribution company owned by Westcoast Energy, I believe, or some massive conglomerate out in western Canada that owns all of the natural gas companies.
Just recently Manitoba Hydro, a publicly owned company, bought Centra Gas. It saw the sense in having gas distribution publicly owned because it is too important a thing to leave to the free market. Apart from that we were being jerked by Centra Gas. Being a privately owned company it was making bad real estate investments and then passing on its losses to gas customers. Homeowners were getting jacked up rate increases because Centra Gas made some bad flip on the real estate market.
That is an example and it is a Tory government. It sounds like a socialist idea that maybe we should nationalize the natural gas industry. I am not saying we should go that far, but in Manitoba we just did. In 1999 with a Tory government Manitoba saw the sense in having a government role in the distribution of natural gas. I wish we could convince the members on the government side that there is nothing wrong with that idea.
We seem so afraid to start national projects. Somebody even mentioned that we should not be diving into megaprojects.
In my province we have what we call Duff's ditch. Somebody in the 1960s had the sense to dig a diversion around our town so the town would not flood every spring. They called Duff Roblin a madman for digging Duff's ditch. It was the largest engineering project ever undertaken in the country at the time and it has saved our bacon every year thereafter. It was the best couple of million dollars ever spent. Yes, it was a megaproject and yes everybody dumps on megaprojects these days but it was a necessary megaproject.
We are arguing that government get involved in a natural gas distribution project of this kind. Yes, it could be called a megaproject but it would be spread out evenly throughout the whole country. Every rural area that needs that break and an abundant supply of cheap clean energy would benefit. The megaproject would not be concentrated in any one area where all the jobs would be, it would be all over the place.
The hon. member for Churchill River mentioned the unbelievable job creation opportunities. We could put a generation of kids back to work in the new burgeoning field of rural gasification, if we did it in a big way and not in little minor flare-ups where it was financially profitable.
I really like the idea of one of the Tory members who said we should use the old rail lines. We are ripping up railroads all across the prairies. In every small town that used to have a rail spur they are ripping them up. We could turn something bad into something positive by using them as the road beds for natural gas pipelines.
Imagine the difference it would make if we could reduce the operating costs of our homes and businesses. Every dollar not spent on energy could be spent elsewhere in the economy. We would achieve the multiplier effect where every dollar is spent four times before it finds its natural state of repose. It usually winds up in the pocket of somebody like Conrad Black but it does circulate into the economy many, many times first. That is a benefit. Then there are the jobs.
We are talking about energy retrofitting. We are talking about job creation through energy conservation. The natural gas heating system is only one aspect of a comprehensive energy retrofit.
Let us start with all our publicly owned buildings. There is a good reason right there to bring a natural gas spur line into a smaller community where there might be a federal government building. We could bring down our own operating costs and provide ourselves an energy cost break.
We did a lot of research on this. When I was the head of the carpenter's union we did abundant research on the job creation opportunities in energy retrofitting as opposed to new construction. There is seven times the person years in employment per dollar invested in energy retrofit construction as opposed to new construction. There are the benefits of reducing operating costs by 30% and 40% and creating seven times the number of jobs. It is an absolute win-win situation.
Of course that involves the building envelope and the HVAC system. The heating system is where the natural gas aspect of it comes in.
One of the things industries look for most when they are looking for a place to locate is an abundant supply of cheap clean fuel. The clean is not usually that much of a consideration; cheap energy is what they really want. There is almost the feeling of build it and they will come. If we are trying to expand the economic development in rural and underdeveloped areas, one of the most important things that can be done is to provide a constant supply of cheap clean energy.
I want to thank the hon. member again for raising the issue. I hope we can convince more people in the second and third hours of debate.