Mr. Speaker, we are speaking on Bill C-3 this morning, which pertains to the Eldorado Nuclear Limited Reorganization and Divestiture Act and also to the Petro-Canada Public Participation Act. The enactment relates to the mandatory provisions in the articles of Cameco Corporation and Petro-Canada. Cameco was formerly Eldorado Nuclear Limited, to which many Canadians can relate.
This enactment provides that the articles of Cameco Corporation will have to contain a 15% individual non-resident share ownership limit for voting shares as well as a cap of 25% on aggregate non-resident share ownership voting rights. The enactment also provides that the articles of Petro-Canada will have to be amended to allow for a 20% individual share ownership limit, while the aggregate non-resident share ownership limits will be eliminated.
In addition, the prohibition on the sale, transfer or disposal of all or substantially all of Petro-Canada's upstream and downstream assets will be replaced with a similar prohibition on the sale, transfer or disposal of all or substantially all of its assets, without distinguishing between upstream and downstream sectors of activity.
That is a pretty concise legislative summary.
I think what is important to many Canadians is that, one, we are dealing with two assets that Canadians, either historically or today, have considered strategic assets. One of course is uranium and that is why we had special rules for Eldorado Nuclear. The other is the grand experiment known as Petro-Canada, which was brought in by the Trudeau government in 1975. This all became part of the national energy program of the early 1980s, so as a consequence it has been very controversial.
We have heard much discussion recently about the possibility that Petro-Canada could be on the chopping block in terms of the remaining ownership of shares held by the Government of Canada. That is in the amount of 49.4 million shares. As of a week ago, at an ownership or market price of $36.70, the shares would be valued at approximately $1.8 billion.
The question is, is this the platform to sell off the remaining shares in Petro-Canada? Bottom line, that would still not recoup the government's investment in Petro-Canada, but I think many Canadians, the international community and certainly the business community would be satisfied if the government was finally out of this business.
It is important if we are going to take that step that the government does the right thing in terms of what it does with those moneys that would be accrued at that time. My personal view is that seeing as how the taxpayer subsidized this and it has contributed to our previous deficits and our debt and is currently the subject of interest payments coming from all of us, the moneys should go to debt retirement automatically, without debate.
As for Cameco, this bill ensures that foreign ownership is capped, thereby eliminating the risk of foreign ownership of uranium resources.
On this question I believe Canadians think very differently than they do about our oil, gas and other resources. The main reason is the fact that uranium, obviously, is involved in nuclear energy and nuclear fuel. That whole area is one that we want to tightly regulate and highly regulate, which is appropriate. There is a big difference. If we look at the oil and gas sector, for example, when this whole national energy program was put into place Canadians were told by the government that we had less than 20 years' worth of recoverable oil reserves and that a high gasoline tax burden was justified in order to conserve for future energy needs.
Canada is in a unique position. We know now that was an incorrect statement. We now know that in northern Alberta alone we have 400 years' worth of recoverable oil reserves in the tar sands, which will obviously supply our needs well into the future, and that changes everything. We are very skeptical about the need for government to retain any ownership in Petro-Canada for any purpose.
In 1991 the government decided that Canada no longer needed a crown corporation in the energy business and began the privatization process. We all know that. That is why current ownership is at 18%, not something much higher. In the end it became clear that after fluctuations in the markets, business setbacks and the ever present political struggles, Petro-Canada ended up basically as an oil company, much like any other in Canada except that the taxpayer still owned 18% of the company and was the single largest holder of the stock. No one but the government could own more than 10%.
In 1994 we questioned why the government would not sell off its national oil company while the industry was strong to recoup some of the billions of taxpayer dollars that were used to create Petro-Canada in the first place. In 1994 we asked the government why it would not do something significant and use the revenue from the sale of Petro-Canada to reduce Canada's debt burden. We know there was a crushing debt burden in 1994. It is still a crushing debt burden, but it was much worse in 1994 because we were still incurring annual deficits at that time.
In 1995 a Liberal budget promised to totally privatize Petro-Canada. We can see how reliable Liberal budget promises or even red book promises are. Indeed, that is something we should consider deeply, particularly after the events of this week which saw the government say that if its members voted for a red book promise it would be a confidence motion and the government could fall if its own members voted to keep a government promise. This turns parliament and parliamentary principle upside down.
The fact remains that Petro-Canada cost Canadians over $5 billion. Petro-Canada has never provided a benefit to Canadians that could not have been provided by the private sector, and when it was finally privatized, guess what? Petro-Canada started making a profit and competing effectively.
Governments since Petro-Canada was established have never had the courage to admit to Canadians that they will be able to recover less than $2 billion, 40% of the original cost of Petro-Canada. If Bill C-3 is indeed, as we think it is, the first step in the process of the government selling off its remaining shares of Petro-Canada, my only response can be that it is finally time, long past time.
I am curious about why we are getting this bill now. Petro-Canada's share prices have moved up in anticipation of the government selling off its shares. The shares have gone up by at least 50% this year and there is potential for the price to go higher. Also, with the bill in place, foreign ownership restrictions are removed, which will allow for an expanded market and that theoretically should expand the price once again.
As a business proposition this was a poor one. We are recovering less than 40% of what we put into the exercise and that is with rather inflated dollar revenues and non-inflated costs. This has basically been a disastrous business transaction. Since taxpayer dollars originally paid for Petro-Canada, I have already explained that the best way to go would be to put it into debt reduction.
There are other things that might be considered, such as our looming crisis in transportation needs and the need for transportation improvements. Or we could actually be really revolutionary. I know when it comes to these kinds of initiatives that the government has great difficulty prying its fingers away from these revenues, but we could be really revolutionary and use these moneys to cut taxes. However, that is a rather clear cut, simple, direct way to deal with the problem, so as a consequence it may not occur.
The bill does some things I can support. Referring to Petro-Canada, it does move toward opening up ownership of the company to national and international interests while still ensuring that the majority of the company is Canadian. The legislation clearly states that resident Canadians must still make up the majority of the board of directors. It also stipulates that the head office will remain in Calgary. The Canadian Alliance supports the removal of restrictions on Canadian businesses to allow for both domestic and foreign investing. We expect to see that Petro-Canada, once it is no longer manipulated by the government, will continue to show profits and growth.
Of course the legislation does not just address issues surrounding Petro-Canada. It addresses issues relating to the sale of shares in Cameco, Canada's largest uranium producer.
Canada's Kyoto commitments have increased the need for Canada to find green energy. One option of course is nuclear energy. That needs to be examined. At this point today I do not want to get into a debate about the merits or lack thereof of nuclear energy. However, the fact remains that uranium is a resource that, should nuclear energy be a factor in the world's efforts to reduce CO2 levels, will become a very important resource.
We all intrinsically know this. Nuclear energy has become a very controversial way of providing for our energy needs, but we have some nations in the world that are almost singularly reliant upon nuclear energy. We do not think about that from time to time.
France, for example, in the European community is over 70% dependent upon nuclear energy for its needs. That has all occurred over a long period of time. It continues to be the way that it functions. Its operations have never created an incident that has been worthy of international comment. That is a wonderful track record. We need to keep our minds open and our options open in terms of that whole field of endeavour.
The bill regarding Cameco raises foreign and individual ownership limits. Individual non-resident ownership increases from 5% to 15%. The limit on the total amount of non-resident ownership of shares increases from 20% to 25%.
I am pleased to see that the legislation is still mindful of the possible consequences of high levels of foreign ownership of our uranium resources. The lower limits on Cameco shares reflect across the board government restrictions on foreign activity in uranium mining.
While the Canadian Alliance is all for Canadian businesses having the opportunity to succeed, we must also be conscious of the need to keep such a potentially volatile resource within Canadian control. The bill in effect allows for greater flexibility in the selling of shares in Canadian companies. We can certainly support that effort.
As I have already stated, if the legislation leads to the government finally selling off its remaining shares of Petro-Canada, it would be legislation that is long overdue. We will just have to see what initiative will come next from the government.
At this point in time the government and many parts of the public have long since forgotten what the original purpose of Petro-Canada, emanating from the government of the day, was actually supposed to be. Unfortunately, many taxpayers have also forgotten how much money was sunk into this enterprise, never ever to be recovered.
Our policy document in regard to this whole initiative says:
We will foster a healthy economic environment for the benefit of consumers by pursuing free and open trade at home and abroad, including the elimination of inter-provincial trade barriers. We will withdraw government from areas of the economy where the private sector could deliver the same services more efficiently and will end the unfair practice of providing subsidies to industries, businesses and special interest groups.
There is a lot of wisdom in that statement. If the government of the day had subscribed to that policy statement we would not have sunk money into a sinkhole. We would not be looking at a multibillion dollar loss at a time when the country had a debt. That added to our debt and contributed to our interest payments today.
Even today with all the health care debate that we are going through on an almost daily basis, we are paying twice as much federally to service interest on the debt as we are in contributing to health care transfers to the provinces. That is a very strong indictment of mismanagement of the first order and just displays what a country Canada could have been if we would have had appropriate fiscal management throughout the years.
The people know it. That is why they endorsed this policy when it was created. As a matter of fact they were instrumental in creating this policy.
We are in favour of privatizing Petro-Canada. This bill does set the stage for doing that. The legislation ensures that foreign ownership of uranium resources will be monitored and capped. It is important for us to make sure that our support of free market competition and access does not however give away our uranium resources to foreign ownership. I want to be very clear on that and I think I have been consistent throughout my statements today that that is a direction we are simply not coming from.
I recognize that I have not used up all the valuable time of the House but I certainly put across the points that I wanted to get across today on Bill C-3.