Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise once again on Bill C-3 to discuss the amendments to the Eldorado Nuclear Limited Reorganization and Divestiture Act and the Petro-Canada Public Participation Act. These two acts placed restrictions on individual and foreign ownership when Petro-Canada and Cameco were first privatized some years ago.
The bill intends to increase the companies' access to domestic and foreign capital and enable greater flexibility in using share exchanges and asset pooling to make acquisitions and strategic alliances. I cannot help but hope the bill will finally pave the way for the government to sell off its remaining 18% ownership or 49.4 million shares of Petro-Canada.
The bill does a number of things to make room for the sale. It raises the limit on individual ownership of shares from 10% to 20%. The 25% limit on shares that can be owned collectively by non-residents is removed. While it gives the company greater flexibility to manage its asset portfolio, the bill also provides a check against the company winding up its activities through the outright sale of assets.
The parliamentary secretary has told us that the introduction and passage of Bill C-3 does not pave the way for the sale of Petro-Canada. He says that the government will wait for the most favourable market conditions before proceeding with the sale. However, I, and I think most other Canadians, cannot conceive of a more favourable time than today. The industry is healthy, the company is strong and the conditions in my opinion could not be more favourable.
Given that, what does all this mean? Petro-Canada was created in 1975 as one of the mechanisms of the national energy program. The feeling of western Canadians, certainly myself and those representing ridings in the region, are well documented when it comes to the national energy program. We never did buy the Liberal line that the program was a vehicle for nationalist dreams and a ticket to energy self sufficiency. At the time Canadians were told we had less than 20 years worth of recoverable oil reserves and that high gasoline taxes were a justifiable means of guaranteeing our future energy needs.
When we look at where the oil industry in Canada currently stands, we see that our skepticism was appropriate. Twenty-five years later we know those empty threats were little more than Liberal hogwash, a simple money grab and a flagrant breach of the principles of Confederation by the federal government, a Liberal federal government. We now have proven oil reserves that will supply Canada's energy needs well into the future.
There is in excess of 200 years of recoverable reserves in the tar sands of northern Alberta alone. The Liberal government might have thought that it had fooled Canadians but we knew that it was the federal government poking its rather large and unwelcome nose into the oil and gas industry, an intrusion that was totally unasked for, unappreciated and clearly unnecessary.
Although the national energy program was eventually dismantled, Petro-Canada lives on, fed by taxpayer dollars without their approval.
Eventually the government changed its mind and in 1991 decided that it no longer needed a crown corporation in the energy business and began the privatization process. In the end, with the fluctuations in the markets, business setbacks and even the present political struggles, Petro-Canada ended up as an oil company much like any other oil company in Canada.
However, the government, or should I say the taxpayers, still owns 18% of the company and is the single largest holder of stock. Only the government could own more than 10%.
Back in 1994 I questioned the government why it would not sell off its national oil company while the industry was strong in order to recoup some of the billions of taxpayer dollars that were used to create Petro-Canada in the first place. I 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. In 1995 a Liberal budget promised to totally privatize Petro-Canada. We can see today how reliable that Liberal promise was and, like so many other budget promises, it is something that we should consider over the coming weeks.
The fact remains that Petro-Canada cost Canadians over $5 billion. Petro-Canada has never provided any benefit to Canadians that could not have been provided by the private sector. When it was finally privatized Petro-Canada started making a profit and competing effectively in the industry.
Governments, since Petro-Canada was established, have never had the courage to admit to Canadians that they would only be able to recover less than $2 billion of the original cost of Petro-Canada. If the bill is indeed the first step in the process of the government selling off its remaining shares of Petro-Canada, my first response is that it is about time.
I am curious as to the timing of the bill. On Bay Street investors have driven up Petro-Canada share prices in anticipation of a move by Ottawa to sell its shares. Today Petro-Canada's shares are trading at $32.75 per share. That is over a 46% increase so far this year. There is the potential for the price to go even higher.
Bill C-3 would remove foreign ownership restrictions allowing for an expanded market and potentially an increased price. If the government were to sell its shares it could optimistically find itself receiving $1.6 billion. That is a $3.4 billion loss on what Canadians originally paid for Petro-Canada, a business transaction that anyone could identify as a total disaster.
However, the government could find itself in possession of $1.6 billion. What would it do with that money? Since it was originally taxpayer dollars that paid for Petro-Canada, the funds should return to the taxpayers in a direct fashion rather than being dumped into the general revenue fund that Liberal cronies could dip into whenever they felt inclined.
I would like to see the money go to debt reduction or into transportation improvements. Perhaps we could really be revolutionary and put the money toward lowering gas taxes. What an original idea. The Liberals recently voted against that in the House. I do not expect that they would really show too much interest in returning taxpayer dollars directly to taxpayers. That is too simple, too clean cut and too direct a responsibility for the government.
Bill C-3 does a number of things that I can support. Petro-Canada is moving toward opening up the ownership of the company to both national and international interests while ensuring that the majority of the company is Canadian. The legislation states that resident Canadians must make up the majority of the board of directors. It also stipulates that the head office of the company must remain in Calgary, which is a common practice of the government and one that is not necessary as it ties the hands of a number of companies that the government has followed this practice on.
The Canadian Alliance also supports the removal of restrictions upon Canadian businesses to allow for both domestic and foreign investing. We expect that Petro-Canada, once it is no longer manipulated by the government, would continue to show profits and growth.
Bill C-3 does not only address issues surrounding Petro-Canada. It also addresses issues relating to the sale of shares of Cameco, Canada's biggest uranium producer. Canada's Kyoto commitments have increased the need for Canada to find green energy. Nuclear energy is one option that is being examined. I do not wish to get into a debate on the merits of nuclear energy. That is a debate for another day. It is clear, however, that it is part of the package the government is examining in relationship to the Kyoto accord, along with the emission reductions that we are trying to achieve.
Uranium remains a source of nuclear energy. It is a vital factor in the world's efforts to reduce CO2 levels. It has been and will increasingly be a strategically important resource for the country. The bill raises foreign and individual ownership limits for Cameco. Individual non-resident ownership would increase from 5% to 15% and the limit on the total amount of non-resident ownership of shares would increase from 20% to 25%.
I am pleased to see that the legislation is mindful of the possible consequences of high levels of foreign ownership of 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 all the opportunities to succeed, we must also be conscious of the need to keep such potentially volatile resources within Canadian control. The bill allows for greater flexibility in the selling of shares in Canadian companies, and I support that effort.
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 wait and see if that is the case. If Petro-Canada is sold off, we will see how much the Liberals think Canadians have forgotten the original purpose of Petro-Canada and the amount of money that taxpayers put forth to establish the company in the first place.
The Canadian Alliance and I will be supporting the bill as we have at each stage. We will continue to support the bill at third reading. We are pleased that the government is showing the initiative in opening up these companies to better investment and a bit more flexibility in the way that they operate.