Debates of April 24th, 2001

Resource Industries

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Chairman, if the truth be known, the provinces affected by the Canada-Unites States deal have been hard hit.

Producers in British Columbia, as in Quebec, have lost some of their share of the U.S. market to other countries but also sadly to other Canadian provinces who had free access to the American market.

Members will remember that when we had free trade with the Unites States, which lasted only a few months in 1995 and 1996, prices in Canada and in the States were the same, but with the quota system, prices in the U.S. ended up being $140 higher than in Canada.

We can all imagine how provinces like Quebec, British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario were unable to fully benefit from the feverish activity in the U.S. market but had to sell a huge part of their products at a price $140 lower than in the United States.

The quota system really hurt us. It is true for Quebec, but I must say that it is also true for British Columbia, which along with the crisis in southeast Asia, had to deal with a decline in its lumber exports without the benefit of any new outlets.

[Pierre Brien, Bloc, Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased this evening to intervene in this debate, which gives us an opportunity to put the natural resource industry in Quebec and in Canada into perspective and to set the record straight, because in recent years it was fashionable to speak of the new economy and of the high tech sectors.

We have forgotten that natural resources are one of our economic forces and they are great consumers of technology. They require very specific industrial applications. The mining sector, for example, is a great consumer of technology. At home, for example, we are working to develop underground communications. These are very specific applications of research in the communications sector that find uses in the traditional sectors, which buy these technologies.

In recent years, because it is less fashionable, the technologies sector, rightly so, because the development there is fascinating, has attracted a lot of attention. However, a lot of private investment has gone into this sector as well.

We need only to look briefly at the changes in the stock markets to see how the businesses in these sectors attracted substantial capital, while it was very difficult for natural resources sectors, such as mining, to attract capital to do the research vital to ensuring sufficient reserves in the coming years.

Before going any further in connection with the mining sector, which is one of the subjects I want to speak more about today, I have a few comments about the remarks by my colleague, the hon. member for Joliette, on softwood lumber.

I found it a bit strange and surrealistic on the weekend to see the American president come to Quebec City and boast of the virtues of free trade, when his government is denying us free access to the American market in a sector such as that of softwood lumber.

I know that Canada was the host country. One does not want to start arguments when one is receiving guests, but I would have expected a little more firmness toward the U.S. president. When he was on the platform beside the Prime Minister of Canada, he was singing the praises of free trade, and everyone knew perfectly well that a few days later he was going to give us a good swift kick with respect to the American investigations into our industry.

Americans must be made to face their own contradictions. Free trade is not a one-way street. It is not because we are better than them in this sector that we should do nothing.

That said, in the coming years there will be something extremely important in the softwood lumber sector. It is a rare and limited resource, which we have probably overexploited in recent decades. To succeed, therefore, our companies will have to provide even more added value and processing of our products. This will require more investment to improve research and development in natural resource market niches, particularly in forest products.

I remember one frustration I experienced as an MP in recent years. A program such as technology partnerships Canada was not accessible to businesses in traditional sectors, or was accessible with great difficulty.

We need a bit more flexibility in the tools available to us, while complying with the constraints of international agreements we have signed, so that the capital we put into developing technology partnerships, or doing more research, is a little better targeted and more suited to the reality of the natural resources sector.

I have been through this a few times in the lumber sector. It was very difficult to get approval for proposals to invest or improve infrastructures, one reason at the time being that they had to meet very high environmental standards. The pulp and paper industry, for instance, had to invest heavily and it was very difficult to get support from the federal government because the tools were not very well suited to this reality.

All this must be taken into consideration. These companies will have to make massive investments in the coming years to maintain their sales and their growth, because they will have to further process the wood products they already have. If they do not do that, they will have problems. Everyone agrees on that. They will not experience shortages, but natural resources in the forestry sector will become rarer.

I now go back to the mining industry. The crisis is very serious. Back home, in the Abitibi—Témiscamingue region, it is one of the most serious crises ever. There are a number of reasons for that. For example, gold was used as a hedge against inflation for a long time. A lot of gold was bought up by central banks and accumulated in reserves. This is a thing of the past and we should not be nostalgic but face the fact that gold is no longer the hedge against inflation that it once was.

This means that gold may not fetch the prices it did in the past. We have a situation where small mining companies produce gold at a cost of $200 to $300 per ounce and sell it for $260. And I am not including financial costs, which means that they lose money in the process. This situation cannot go on for very long. This is not social economy and I have nothing against the social economy, but the mining industry must be profitable. So our production costs will have to come down.

We will also have to invest to develop new ways of doing things, new technologies, and in a big way. We will also have to invest in exploration, otherwise we will have a problem.

Exploring abroad used to be the thing to do. I will spare hon. members the figures, but I have here a document that was given to me by the hon. member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik. Everyone knows that generally speaking we are not close allies but political rivals, but I believe we both agreed that the crisis has made it urgent to develop common ways to help people of our region.

I am grateful to the hon. member because I think he showed a sense of fair play when he gave me this very well written document, which shows among other things the increase in production in developing countries, in South America and elsewhere. It can been seen that there has been no growth in our production and that we have not invested much in exploration.

It becomes rapidly apparent that we are beginning to face a problem. I fear that we have not yet reached the worst of it in the mining industry, and in particular in gold mining. About three years ago, the price of gold dropped under $300 and it has stayed under that level since.

I recall having read the financial reports of mining companies, which always said “We anticipate that, next year, the price of gold will be around $330”. This did not happen. It did not happen then and it is not happening now. We must admit that it will not occur next year either.

We must look at our industry in a different way. The government will have a major role to play in the short and long terms. We will have to be creative. I do not have the monopoly on solutions, but I am convinced that if we try we will find solutions.

We will have to increase support for exploration. We need to be realistic as well and to realize that the traditional vehicle of flow-through shares is perhaps no longer the way of the future.

Investors have been stung. I will give members a picture of what it is like in our area. Investors who put money into this have been burned more than once. Very few projects have seen any cost effectiveness, because exploration is very high risk. Second, in past audits Revenue Canada has set new assessments, saying that certain work had not been done or was not up to standard.

So if somebody put $10,000, $15,000 or $20,000 into projects and then got hit with another assessment four years down the line, on the grounds that the standards were not met, he or she would have to get up really early in the morning to convince him to reinvest in the same company.

This has been an area where a lot of people have been burned. Investors put money into the technology sector of the stock market. Two or three years ago, a person could invest in just about anything and prices went up. This led to a considerable drain on capital. The situation has corrected itself a bit, but investment in this sector was far less attractive, with little spinoff, but with the risk and uncertainty of potential reassessment and with less attractive tax credits than earlier.

As a result, today the mining industry perhaps needs a different kind of support. The pre-election budget improved things a little. It will not be enough, however.

My colleague from the other side of the lake, from the other Témiscamingue, the Ontario one, said yes there was an improvement over last year, but still far from enough. The level of exploration still remains far from sufficient, if we are to have the reserves required for the future.

All the better. Many of the reserves identified in the development countries are used up, and that is a good thing. Perhaps that will bring investors back here. New metals are being discovered, including palladium and diamonds, and these attract investors. This is interesting, yet not everywhere has been explored.

I know that I am nearing the end of my speech. I would like to add only one thing. When we talk about northern Quebec or northern Ontario, and I mention those regions because they are the ones I know best, people often feel these regions have been thoroughly explored.

When exploring, one makes a very small and very deep hole in various locations. Very often something could have been found only a few feet away. It is far from obvious that the exploration process can reveal all that. We have not yet explored everything that there is to be explored in Canada; far from it.

The Noranda mine in our region operated for years. A mining potential was later discovered close nearby. This shows how difficult it can be to find the deposits and to identify them.

Technologies are now getting better and research can yield maximum results, but we still have to go further.

I therefore really hope that this debate will not end with the speeches. I look forward to real action. We certainly will contribute to that. We will stimulate the debate and will be full of determination, but money will have to be spent. There is a lot of money around these days. There are large surpluses.

The natural resources sector, and I have talked about mines but the same holds true for all the other natural resources, will have to be considered carefully if we want to put a major sector of the development of our economy back on track, particularly in the resource regions, one of them being the one I represent, the Abitibi—Temiscamingue.

[Guy St-Julien, Liberal, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the comments made by the member for Témiscamingue. It is true that we have not always seen eye to eye. It took an emergency debate for me to call him yesterday afternoon to arrange a meeting. Together, we found some solutions in the best interest of the people of Témiscamingue and Abitibi. That is the only thing that matters.

He made a point about deep wells. In Quebec there is a program to provide assistance to mining companies developing deep wells and Quebec is the only one financing this program. Not to mention that the 13 mines scheduled to close within five years are located in Abitibi and northern Quebec. That is where the problem lies.

I would like to ask the member a question about exploration and another one about the R and D activities carried out at UQUAT, in Rouyn-Noranda, Val-d'Or, Duparquet and Amos. Could he tell us about this provincial program? Should the federal government get involved with the province in such programs to provide assistance to the mining industry?

[Pierre Brien, Bloc, Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Chairman, it would be an historic event if we could reach an agreement in our region. After all, if Israelis and Palestinians in areas of conflict are talking to each other, we should be able to do the same. Anything is possible.

[An hon. member]

We will never get that far.

[Pierre Brien, Bloc, Témiscamingue, QC]

We are far from that indeed, and the comparison ends there.

It would be a good opportunity to add to the program Quebec has implemented for underground exploration. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Improving on what already exists is something that could be done in the short term, until other measures are identified. That could be done rapidly and it is not complicated.

The two departments who work the best together in federal-provincial relations are the departments of revenue. Revenu Québec has already defined the mechanism. It will not be long before both departments start discussing to find a quick way to implement this. It could be done very rapidly.

Underground exploration is important, but it is true that there is more surface exploration being done. The challenge is to do more underground mining, or to operate mines with smaller potential or to have more thin capitalization companies engaged in this kind of activity. We do not want it always to be the big players doing all the development in the mining industry. A special effort has to be made to ensure that thin capitalization firms have the capacity to do more than they are doing at the moment. This is one approach.

We also have in our region a university that is very aggressive in its research and development, one of the most productive, a part of the Université du Québec network of campuses, the Université du Québec en Abitibi—Témiscamingue, with a number of research projects on the table in the natural resource sector. It is a fine way to development.

We have a project in the mining industry I mentioned earlier, research into underground communications. We also have a fine communications company, Télébec, a Bell subsidiary but with regional players in administration, who are very aggressively working to develop tools for the region.

There are forestry projects in Amos and Duparquet and in the mining industry. So we have a fine research in the natural resources sector, but the tools are lacking. It is important to point that out. A lot of money has been invested in the Canada foundation for innovation, in university chairs, and so on, but we must recognize that the big universities are not the only universities. There is a network of small universities. I know this is a big concern for people in the region. It is true in Atlantic Canada. It is true in Quebec. It is true throughout Canada.

At some point, the government must not just say that it is putting money into foundations managed independently, but guidelines are also necessary, because the small universities have a role to play in the economic development of the regions. We must make sure that a fair share of the budget goes to them.

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member spoke a fair amount about innovation and the importance of exploration companies to the mining sector and the fact that we obviously need to find ore before we can exploit a mine or ore body or potential ore body.

This is an open debate between all opposition parties and the government and it is not for me to stick up for the government side. However I certainly applauded its efforts in October of last year to bring back some form of flow through share policy to absorb the debts that exploration companies run up.

What did the hon. member and his party feel about the so-called new super flow through share which would allow exploration companies to deduct some of their debt burden by letting people invest in their companies and deduct 100% of their investment?

[Pierre Brien, Bloc, Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Chairman, yes, I certainly would not want to suggest that the move in the last budget or the measures taken before the election were insignificant. It was a step in the right direction.

The problem is that this was done very quickly. The whole budget was prepared hastily. I am not sure this fitted in a comprehensive development plan for the industry. That is where the problem starts.

The problem we have now is to convince people to invest in the mining industry. That is not an easy task. We need to have the prospect of a fair return, and exploration has to be more effective.

Governments are not the only ones involved. The industry should also take a look at itself. Take for example junior exploration companies. We should be honest enough to tell them that they cannot work in isolation anymore. Some of them could join forces to explore for resources together, share the properties, and reduce the level of risk for the investor. We can do all we want to improve the deductions for company losses of companies, for example, this is more for companies that already have mines in production, but we should improve the prospects for the investors.

We must give more support to those who are already in operation and who have an exploration potential nearby. This was a step in the right direction, but we should have a comprehensive plan that would say “Look, the federal government is telling everyone that it is a key industry. We are prepared to put money in it on a rational and sound basis”. This would send a powerful signal to investors. It would not be merely a minor, isolated measure designed to please people in the regions on the eve of an election. The intention was good in part, but the overall impression of investors was not as positive as it could have been if it had been part of a broader plan.

One thing that I appreciate is the change of rhetoric. The new Minister of Industry is not perfect, but at least when he talks about the economy he no longer makes a distinction between the old and the new economy. I am very pleased about that, because a little too much was made of that concept.

We have an economy with many activity sectors and we must now target all sectors and the natural resources sector is one of our better performing ones. We talked about the productivity gap between the United States and Canada. We are more productive than the Americans in the natural resources. At some point, we should invest in our strengths.

The measure taken last fall was a step in the right direction, but we need more and we have the means to do more. This is my hope. I hope that today's debate will lead to action. We are creating expectations, so we will have to deliver.

[Ben Serré, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Chairman, just want to make a comment on flow-through shares or the mineral exploration tax credit.

At the convention of the prospectors and developers association of Canada in Toronto, they were the ones that called them the super flow-through share program. They agreed that what they got was even better than what they had asked for. The program came after very lengthy consultations, about two years and a half, with the industry. Thus, this did not happen during the last months before the election was called.

It is important to specify that both the association and the government did not do a good job of selling this program to investors. I met some people from the association before their convention and they distributed an excellent promotional brochure. The Canadian government had a very good presence at the convention. I think investors are aware of the program, of its value and of the fact that, on the stock exchange, dotcom companies' shares have fallen. People are realizing that these kinds of shares are not a panacea and they are going back to natural resources. I believe this augurs well for all Canadians.

[Pierre Brien, Bloc, Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I will just take a few seconds to say that we are willing to agree on this.

I talked to some brokers and they were not very familiar with the program. Things were somewhat improvised, because I do not think a budget was expected in autumn since it was usually tabled in February. The sales pitch that should have come with such measures was totally lacking and did not manage to send a clear message like “Look, the federal government is saying loud and clear that this key industry has a bright future and we believe it”.

I hope things will be corrected in the months to come and that the next time the government wants to announce some measures, it will wait a bit longer, even if time is of the essence, to ensure that the measures are built on a solid foundation. This is what I hope for next time.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—St. Clair, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I intend to share my time with my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst, hopefully with minimal interruptions from my friend to the right.

[An hon. member]

From the right.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—St. Clair, ON]

And from the right as well. I intend to address most of my comments to the issue of fossil fuels. I would like to discuss a number of issues related to natural resources but there is not enough time.

I posit to the members here and to yourself, Mr. Chairman, that the whole issue of fossil fuels requires very close attention. I think I speak on behalf of all our caucus in expressing grave concern with regard to comments the Prime Minister has made to the media in the last few days and again today in the House.

We are concerned about what appears to be a willingness on the part of the government, with very little forethought or planning, to deliver our fossil fuels wholesale to the U.S. market. That gives us great concern because it does not seem to take into account the environmental issues that are related to that type of development. It does not take into account the issue of the air pollution problems which will come from that. Quite frankly we think it does not address the issue of the cost of developing some of those resources in the long term.

As the parliamentary secretary has already said this evening, we have the tar sands. We can bring gas in from the territories. Those are very expensive processes. If we did not have some of the tax breaks that have been accorded to the tar sands, those tar sands would not be economically viable at this point. I know I will get some disagreement on this but they are certainly much more expensive than the alternative of renewable resources, like windmills in particular. Even solar energy is getting very close to being as expensive as the development of those tar sands.

The other problem with the development of the tar sands is the type of air pollutant that will result from that. I know I have thrown this figure out once before in the House, but I will do it again. The Suzuki Foundation made very clear in the research that it has done that just one tar sand plant would be equal to putting 1.3 million automobiles on our roads, and all the pollutants and toxins of course that result from that type of expansion in the use of vehicles.

The reality is we cannot keep going this way. We are faced as a society with international agreements. In spite of the fact that the Bush administration has now taken the position that it will reject Kyoto, it will probably only be there for four years. Then what will we do if we have developed the tar sands at that point? We will be faced with a new administration, probably a wiser administration as far as the environment is concerned, saying to us that it is sorry but it will be going the route of conservation of technological changes which will reduce the need for that much fossil fuels. Then we will have just blown all that money.

We will be faced with that same administration, which will be more environmentally concerned, saying to us that yes, we have to meet Kyoto and that its state governments will not take our pollutants any more. I speak very personally about this given the jurisdiction from which I come.

My riding, where we get a lot of the pollutants from the Americans who are in the process of starting to clean that up, has the attorneys general of both New York State and Connecticut saying to Ontario that it has to clean up. We have all those coal fired plants. They are not going to want to take Ontario's pollutants any more. We will be faced with an administration which will be saying those things to the government and country in four years. The Bush administration may not but the next one will. If it is not in four years, then it will be in eight years. We have to plan for that.

In coming back to the cost issue, just yesterday Algoma Steel in Sault Ste. Marie went down. One of the reasons was the high cost of fuel to run that plant. It was a highly efficient plant according to the statistics. It was the 12th most efficient steel plant in all of North America. One of the reasons it went down was because of the fuel cost.

We just cannot keep going down that road. We have seen the Prime Minister taking positions in the last four days which are dramatic shifts, as I see and our party see it, away from where we thought we were going, which was moving more toward conservation. We just cannot keep following them.

Let me make a couple of other points, some of which came out of the information at the summit of the people in Quebec City over the weekend.

David Suzuki was there and pointed out that from his foundation's research because of the trade deals we have a huge demand that is going to increase for bunker fuel. Over the next 10 to 12 years that is going to increase by 300%. That is just about the worst fuel we could be burning. That will be dumped into the atmosphere and the rest of the world will not accept it any more. We are hearing it very clearly at this point from the European Union.

The end result of this is going to be that some time in the next four to eight years, whether it be this political party running the government or another one, we will be faced with all sorts of communities that, having some development work done in natural resources around fossil fuels, will be looking at losing their markets.

If we look at rural development, what is going to happen? Will we be faced with a situation such as Elliot Lake where after the nuclear industry began to cut back we lost that mine? That was a success story. How many more of those can we do? Very few. We will to be faced with having to deal with those communities. If we do not do this planning and prepare for some of the alternative fuels, wholesale communities will be faced with extinction. There will become ghost towns.

From the New Democratic Party's position we are suggesting that we have to prepare for that. We have to look very closely at what we are doing. Our question is what will be done in terms of the development of those types of tar sands or bringing fuel in from the territories, if in fact the market is not there?

Bush stood up and made great statements. He said that if we had the fuel he would take it. I do not think he has the support of his congress in that and he is not going to have it in four years. I would like to know from the government side what it will do at that point if those errors have been made in developing them.

[Ben Serré, Liberal, Timiskaming—Cochrane, ON]

Mr. Chairman, first, before I answer the hon. member's direct question with regard to tar sands, I think it has become very cost effective. My colleague from Alberta will agree. At the beginning it was about $36 per barrel. It is now down to $14. It is very cost effective.

With regard to the potential new administration in the United States in four years, anyone who thinks that if the republicans are thrown out and the democrats get in that they will not need energy is living like Alice in Wonderland . The American economy and population is growing and their need for energy is growing.

We have the resources and the potential to service that market, as well as other markets in the world. We have potential resources, the tar sands being just one example. What about developing Churchill's clean renewable energy? Natural gas is one of the cleanest fossil energy resources that we can take from the west.

One cannot say that because we are turning slowly but surely toward more environmentally friendly energy sources that we have to get rid of all other kinds of energy resources tomorrow. It can be done in a couple of years. I will remind everyone that the government has invested over $1 billion in these climate changing initiatives and we are working toward cleaner energy.

Another point I want to make is with regard to the comment he made about the environment. I will remind the member that any investor from the United States who is willing to invest in the tar sands or any energy projects across the country will have to follow the provincial jurisdiction on environment and follow the rules, as we all have to do.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—St. Clair, ON]

Mr. Chairman, that is just too simplistic, it really is. I was actually going to save this line for the Minister of Natural Resources.

I am really tired of hearing about the $1 billion that we are spending on it. The reality is we have hardly done a thing. If we look at the work that Germany and Denmark have done on wind power, we have done nothing by comparison. Germany has created 35,000 jobs in wind power alone. Denmark is doing almost 10% of its energy in wind power alone. They are comparable countries to us in terms of their technological development. We should be doing that. I guess it is almost an insult. To suggest that we will be able to do this rapidly, I am not stupid. I understand that we cannot do it rapidly, but we are not doing it fast enough. I can look at other countries around the world and say that these countries are doing it. Why are we not?

Why do we not say that we will develop the wind power that can be used in the northern climes and at some point we would be able to export that technology to Russia and northern Europe? Why can we not do that? Why can we not be spending money on that? It is just too short-sighted.

We say that the market is always going to be there for that energy source. It is not always going to be there. If we keep track of the consumption of fuel in cars, in less than a decade we can cut consumption of fuel in cars by 50%. What is going to happen to the market at that point?

[Dave Chatters, Canadian Alliance, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Chairman, I do not know where to start on this one. Some of the comments are ridiculous. If wind power is the answer, and Canadians support wind power and it has the potential to supply the energy needs of Canada or the United States, then industry would invest in windmills and create wind power. The fact is it has a very limited potential to supply our energy needs. Therefore the investment is limited.

The tar sands have the potential to supply all of Canada's energy needs and much of the U.S. energy needs for the next 100 years. Industry is investing $35 billion. This old myth about the huge subsidization of the tar sands is exactly that. It is a myth.

I would challenge the solar industry, the wind industry and any other energy industry to compete with the same subsidization level as the fossil fuel industry. It is there. The market is there. If it has potential it will be built.

My opinion on the development of energy is that we as a country should look at all forms of energy and put a total cost on the development of each particular source of energy. We should choose to develop the lowest cost form of energy first and move up the scale. As the natural or finite energy sources are reduced we move into the next level, then into the next most expensive and on up the line.

That would be the reasonable approach and I would certainly do that. Many of the tar sands players, energy companies, I would add, are involved in the wind power industry, the nuclear industry and in a number of other sources of energy. They are multifaceted companies which have just as much concern for the environment and supplying Canada and the world's energy needs as anybody else. I think some of these myths are just that.

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Mr. Chairman, I will try to be brief. There is a point that I want to try to get across to the member for Windsor—St. Clair. I am not in disagreement with him that we need to seek alternatives to fossil fuels and the finite resources of energy. We know fossil fuels are a finite resource. There is a certain amount of it and some day it will be gone. We continue to find more.

I take exception to his comments about Europe. Quite often we look at Europe as somehow being a warmer, fuzzier, cleaner, more environmentally friendly region of the world. I fundamentally disagree with that.

Germany may be able to say that it invests more money into wind energy or alternative energy resources but it buys natural gas from Russia and does not care how Russia gets that gas. It does not care about the political or social costs which come with that gas. It does not care about the technologies that the Russians use. Fracting a single zone in Russia, which they have developed in that zone, has never been done. They develop something deeper or something higher up the well bore. They just do not have the technology to do good work. As well, they make the rules and bend the rules to suit themselves.

We can have Europe or the European Union talking about being green and clean, but they will use uranium powered energy from France. They do not mind importing that energy. They do not mind importing Russian natural gas. They do not mind setting special levels for Norway. There is some danger in looking at Europe as the pristine example.

I am not saying that we should not head in that direction, but I am concerned that we should not put it on too high a pedestal.

[Bob Mills, Canadian Alliance, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Chairman, my comments are along the same point. Calgary residents are getting their electricity from wind energy if they so choose. I have been studying what Germany has been doing and it has a lot of windmills. I have seen some of them firsthand.

The member also mentioned Russian gas. We must also remember that 70% of Germany's energy comes from nuclear power. Green Germany run by a green government is using nuclear energy for 70% of its energy needs. We should not believe the myth about Europe being a wonderful example to follow because it is just not there.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—St. Clair, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I must admit that I am happy we are having this debate tonight. These are the most provocative responses that we have had this evening so I will take some credit for that.

I am not prepared to agree with the comments we heard from the Alliance with regard to corporate decision making. If they were real, would we ever have developed nuclear industry at all? Do we always go to the bottom line and explore the cheapest option? Once we have made the kind of commitments the oil industry has made, we are locked in to a certain degree. I recognize that the oil industry is beginning to do research and some development in wind power and solar power. I recognize that but it has not gone far enough.

I wish to go back to the initial point I made earlier this evening and that is what we see in terms of what the Prime Minister has been saying over the last four days. Have we just given up on everything else? All our eggs have been thrown in the basket of developing the U.S. market and we appear to be ignoring these other areas.

Another point I would make with regard to the comments of my friend in the Alliance is that development of the tar sands completely ignores the environmental consequences of developing that source of fuel.

I have one last comment regarding Germany. It has recognized the mess that it has made of things by depending so heavily on nuclear energy and is beginning to try to move away from it. I do not wear blinkers. I fully understand that the bottom line still is that Germany is doing much more in wind power than Canada is.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure to take part in this short debate and speak to some issues of concern for our regions and our country.

I will try to limit my comments to the situation of the mining industry in my area. We are lucky to have several mines, like the Brunswick mine, Heath Steele, Cariboo Mine or Durham Mine in the Fredericton area.

The mining industry is not at all like the fishing industry. Although the fish stocks have all but disappeared, if we are cautious, they will come back. The same thing should happen in the forest industry. We can cut trees down; it is a beautiful resource that meets everyone's needs. If we are careful, we can replant trees and the forest will grow back.

However, as soon as we start operating a mine, we can start estimating the date it will close. It will never come back. That is the problem with mines.

As I was saying, we had several mines in my region. The Durham mine in the Fredericton area is closed. The Heath Steele mine is closed, since the gold deposit is depleted. The Cariboo mine closed because of low mineral prices. Operating that mine was too expensive. Prices would have to be much higher for that mine to reopen. As for the Brunswick mine, it is estimated that it will stay in operation for about ten more years.

I sat on the natural resources committee for a period of three and a half to four years. I started talking about the problem with mines and what we should do about it as a country.

I can use my region as an example. I am not the only one. I am sure that for my friends from Abitibi, we talked about it earlier, it is also a problem.

One of the problems is exploration, how to find new mineral deposits. That is what is lacking. I think we do not have a good program. That is the problem.

I say these are good jobs. Some people would not want to work in a mine all their life; they would not want to work 4,000 feet underground and never see the sun. Some people would not like that. I liked working in a mine. I liked it and miners like it. A miner is a miner. These are jobs that pay fairly well and offer good salaries and bonuses. People make $50,000, $60,00 or $70,000 a year.

This is good for the regional economy. In my riding, in Bathurst, New Brunswick, when people say that the Brunswick mine will be finished in the next ten years, this is a disaster. When I took this to the Standing Committee on Natural Resources, I remember the Liberals saying “Yvon, you are complaining again; you never seem to have any good news for us”. I thought it was the opposite.

We had to start thinking in advance. We had to start thinking ten years in advance in order to know what we were going to do to replace these jobs. I was really taking preventive action. Already, I was starting to talk about it and to say “In ten years, we are going to lose our mine. What are we going to do today? What are we going to do to replace those jobs?”

They should not start by saying “Listen, we are sick of listening to you because you are always negative. You are negative because there are no more fish in the ocean”. It is not my fault if there are no more fish in the ocean. That is enough to be negative about. There are no more jobs. It is not my fault if the mine will disappear in ten years. I am here to talk about it. It is my responsibility to talk and to try to find solutions with the government.

I find that the government does not push exploration enough. It does not push it enough. What happens is that companies leave and invest in other countries. This does not cost a lot. This week I went to the people's summit. I attended a meeting and an evening event on the mining industry, where there were Canadian workers from Cominco. There were also workers from Chile. They had a collective agreement. The Canadian workers' collective agreement was about 200 pages long. The Chilean workers' agreement consisted of two pages.

One can imagine how these people were being exploited. Can one believe it, two pages? I am sure that one was for management and the other for the workers.

[An hon. member]

Sometimes, there is more in two pages than in ten.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Can you imagine? After that, those companies will invest somewhere else because they cannot get any help here, in our own country, to find ways to explore and develop our mines. Those companies move out of the country, then take the minerals and dump them on the Canadian market. Later they end up in places like Algoma Steel, a steel company.

We know that, at that time, the government of Ontario, under Bob Rae, made a great deal of effort to help the company, which had put itself into debt, but the workers and the community in Sault Ste. Marie saved that company. Now, with all the dumping from foreign countries, we are on the verge of loosing Algoma Steel.

I am afraid. Let's hope we will not lose it, because there are good jobs in Sault Ste. Marie. These are well paid jobs in the steel industry. How many similar situations are happening across the country? I think this is important. It is important to look ahead.

I was talking about New Brunswick. We used to have four mines, but we have only one left. Soon we will have none. What are we doing to open new mines? Surely we have not extracted all the minerals in the ground. There must be some left somewhere. These are good jobs, but dirty work. Do not worry, it is not the Parliament of Canada. When they come out from the mine, they are dirty and their skin is black.

People in my region like those jobs, which have been good for our community. Having touched on mines, I will now say a few words about forests. A few words on this and a few on that, as we say.

I come from a region where natural resources are plentiful. In modern forests, we have to invest in tree planting.

How long have companies been clearcutting? They were getting rid of the wood, selling it to mills and they did a lot of that. No government rule ever said that when a tree was cut, another one must be planted to replace it.

The planet does not belong to us. It does not belong to me nor does it belong to the Chairman. It belongs to everybody. Everybody should be able to use it. I find that we do not treat our planet and the people working on this planet properly.

A nursery was sold in my area; in fact, the provincial government got rid of it. Then the local forestry union got involved in the process and said “We now want to plant our own trees. We can do it, but we would need federal funding to do it”. The province gave them part of the money, or $250,000. They needed $650,000, but no, this did not come under federal jurisdiction. Come on, what are we doing here?

Things can be done for the well-being of the population. Things that will be beneficial. The same applies to Northern Ontario, whether in Kapuskasing and elsewhere. I have visited the whole area and lived there. People live longer in northern Ontario because of the forests. Whether in White River, Manitouwadge, Wawa, Chapleau, Kapuskasing, Hearst or Arpin, it was the livelihood of how many people? Now new investment is necessary; it is long term investment that benefits everybody and which will create jobs.

I had thought that ten minutes would be more than I needed, but now I see that I will be short of time. Anyway, I think things like this are what is important. The government will, I believe, have to invest in this area. It is all very well to talk about all that went on in Quebec City, free trade and all that, but our people need jobs.

We ought to take a serious look at mine exploration, forestry and tree replanting so that there is new growth. The same goes for the fisheries, aquaculture and all that. Secondary and tertiary processing have to be done, whether in forestry or fisheries. Even in the mines, second and third level processing can be done.

Take natural gas, for example. This is an energy source we are having to fight for in north-eastern New Brunswick, and we are wondering whether we are going to get natural gas. It is good for the environment, good all round, and supposed to cost a whole lot less than what we are running our smelters on at present, and all those other things, to produce.

Those are the comments I wanted to bring before the House. I appreciate the opportunity to do so and to look at our future, because our children are our future, provided they can find jobs. Not all the work for them is in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver. We need to look out for the rural areas, where there are also people working.

As I have said on many occasions,“You don't get 2x4s on Toronto's Yonge Street or rue Sainte-Catherine in Montreal”. Regions like mine are needed to produce them. That is where the investments have to be made, if we want to create jobs.

[Cheryl Gallant, Canadian Alliance, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I have three brief questions to ask the government. One of Canada's natural non-renewable resources sector petroleum products appears to be in short deliverable supply. Does the Ministry of Natural Resources feel that reactor generated energy is necessary as part of Canada's energy mix?

[The Chairman]

I do not want to interrupt but obviously this is a very new format. Before I allow the intervention, I will seek others who might have had comments or otherwise on the intervention of the member for Acadie—Bathurst.

[Andy Mitchell, Liberal, Secretary of State (Rural Development) (Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario)]

Mr. Chairman, the last comments of the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst might have been provided by my speech writer about the need to remember rural Canadians in the overall context of the nation, and not simply to deal with the urban centres.

One of his opening comments was interesting because I spent some time in Elliot Lake when it was a mining community. One of the comments made was that the first day of the end of a mine is the first day of operation, when the first shovelful is taken out, because the material mined is a non-renewable resource.

However I do not know why the member would characterize himself as a doomsayer by wanting to talk about how we would deal with the issue 10 years down the road because that is exactly the appropriate way we would have to look at it. A multifaceted and dynamic approach needs to be taken. There is not just simply one aspect to it.

First of all, we in rural Canada, when we are natural resource based communities, need to maximize the resource we have. Let us take the mining industry as an example. The member talked about that in a number of areas and it is important to emphasize in terms of remembering that there is a very fine line between what is ore and what is rock and it is basically the cost of the ingredient and the cost to produce it. Therefore, one of the things we need to work on in the natural resource industries in rural Canada is using technology. We need to use research and development and to support that in order to bring down the costs of production so we can lengthen the amount of time a particular mine can be in operation.

The member also mentioned the need to value add to the commodities we are harvesting or are mining. That again is another strategy to maximize the benefit of a resource.

I think the third component of that is indeed to look ahead to the time when that particular mine may not be there. We need to look ahead by continuing to do further exploration so that other mines may come on stream or, as in the example of Elliot Lake, to find an alternative way to sustain your community.

These are the types of things I talked about in my intervention when I mentioned that there is a need for a public policy perspective that is unique to rural Canada, that is specific to natural resource based economies and that deals with those very specific issues that I think the member put forward very well.