Dave Chatters

[Supply, September 21st, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I am glad it is grating on this member because his comments have been grating on me all day.

I am not ashamed to stand and defend a corporation making a profit. A year and a half ago the price of crude oil was $10.50, which was below the cost of production. Today the oil companies are making a healthy profit. I do not think that is immoral.

Those profits are driven by the marketplace. If consumers were not demanding that volume of energy, the energy prices would not be there. The price of crude oil is set on the open market through a bidding process. If the demand is there the price will be there.

Certainly, when the Liberals talk about a made in Canada energy program, that old chestnut will not sell in Canada anywhere. They tried that under the Trudeau regime and it did not work. Those members rave about the evil, gouging oil companies and today the government announces a stamp honouring Petro-Canada. The hypocrisy around here just staggers me.

[Supply, September 21st, 2000]

Madam Speaker, the member said “What about the fact that the federal taxes have not changed in four years”. That is absolute rubbish. He knows better than that. He knows that the GST on gasoline increases every time the price of gasoline increases so the federal portion of the tax on gasoline goes up every time the price of gasoline goes up. It has done that all along.

The miserable failure of the government's economic policies and the supported weakness in the Canadian dollar are creating a huge problem in the energy industry that is yet to come home to roost. Sooner or later it will do that simply because refineries in this country have to buy their crude oil in American dollars and sell their product in Canadian dollars. With the Canadian dollar situated where it is, the margins in the refining industry are so fine that there has not been an oil refinery built in this country in 30 years.

Part of the problem that is driving the high price of oil, as the member we heard earlier suggested, is that while actual production is outstripping demand, the price of gasoline is not dropping because the lack of profitability in the refining industry has meant that there have been no new refineries built in 30 years and we do not have the refining capacity to catch up with demand. That is a fact. It is as clear as can be if anybody wants to look at it.

Earlier an NDP member suggested that energy is the lifeblood of Canada's economy and I certainly would agree with that. How in the world could we expect to have enough of this energy to sustain the lifeblood of the economy if we refused to allow the industry to be profitable, to expand and to build refineries and to find more oil and invest in the industry as they are doing?

In my riding alone the private sector has announced $35 billion of investment in the industry to ensure that the lifeblood of the Canadian economy is there 10 or 15 years down the road. I do not think that is a bad thing.

I think of the Liberal government and the division within the caucus with small groups of backbenchers running off with the minister's blessing to hold up a strawman to show consumers that they are really concerned about prices at the pump. I think of them making recommendations and the minister not having any intention of following up on them. I think of the socialist part of the caucus, or the environmental extremist part of the caucus, demanding higher prices at the pumps in the interest of reducing consumption, conserving energy and saving the environment.

There is no question in my mind that the price of energy will continue to rise. It is a finite resource and as the resource becomes scarcer and the demand becomes greater the price will rise. It is unavoidable. I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Calgary—Nose Hill.

The Liberal caucus is not telling consumers what is the real agenda. I am looking forward to going out and fighting the next election based on the government's plan to implement the Kyoto protocol. The Liberals are not saying it, but the David Suzuki Foundation, Greenpeace and the Pembina Institute are all telling us that it will not be that bad, that it will only mean a 3% to 5% reduction in GDP if we implement the Kyoto protocol.

I am looking forward to going out and fighting an election on the government's promise not of zero growth in the economy or zero growth in the GDP but a 3% to 5% drop in the country's GDP. That will be a lot of fun.

The public should know that. The determination of the environment minister to implement sulphur levels in gasoline is totally out of sync in Canada with the United States agenda. Here in Canada we will be creating a speciality market that will cost consumers dearly at the pumps, simply because of the minister's decision not to follow the timetable of the Americans in reducing sulphur in gasoline.

There is certainly nothing wrong with the proposal to reduce sulphur. It is commendable, but if we do not stay in sync with the United States we will be a speciality market in Canada. One only has to look at what happened in the United States when California implemented stringent environmental regulations on gasoline compared to the rest of the country and created a specialty market in one state. Its price skyrocketed above those in the rest of the United States. The same will happen when the government implements its sulphur levels in gasoline, but it is not telling consumers that. It is telling them that it is very concerned with the price of gasoline at the pumps and that it will step forward and save the consumer in Canada.

The government is not being open and honest with Canadian consumers. It is throwing up strawmen to deflect its real position on energy prices and where it is going. I think it is time it came clean with Canadians. I am looking forward to the election campaign so that we might be able to do that.

[Supply, September 21st, 2000]

Madam Speaker, there has been so much rhetoric flying around all day on this issue over and above the incoherent rantings that we just heard from the previous speaker. So much of it simply is not true.

Liberal members are speaking out of so many corners of their mouths that I do not know how anybody could ever figure out what the Liberal position actually is. Everybody understands when the NDP raves about the immorality of profits in the petroleum industry. That is socialism and we can understand that but the Liberals have been all over the map on this issue and continue to be.

The member for Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge has flipped so many times he must feel like a burned pancake on the way to the breakfast table. The motion we brought forward to vote on comes directly out of his task force on gasoline pricing. He is trying to change the content of the motion so he will somehow be able to support it. He has managed to change it instead of simply supporting the context that he recommended to his government and with which it has done nothing for a year and a half. That makes no sense at all.

Everybody is blaming this whole issue on the evil oil cartel and the big oil companies that are gouging the consumer and all the rest of the things we have just heard. The previous member talked about doing research in his office and finding evil people hiding in places and ripping us off.

Looking back at the history of crude oil prices, in 1991 as a result of the gulf war crisis crude oil prices spiked to a record $41 a barrel. At that time the pre-tax cost of a litre of gasoline was only 42 cents when crude oil hit $41 a barrel. Today in 2000 with crude oil hitting $37 plus a barrel, gasoline prices have gone through the roof but the pre-tax price of gasoline is only 44 cents a litre.

No one can tell me that the gouging that is going on is by the oil companies. The pre-tax price of oil indicates that it is not the oil companies. It is the provincial and federal governments and their taxes that are gouging the Canadian people on this issue. There is no question about it. The information is there. The facts are there. A good part of the problem—

[Supply, September 21st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to this debate all morning. At least three times, members have stood and reminded the Speaker that the name of this party is the Canadian Alliance. That party has been deliberately misusing the name and you have not said a word. I would urge you to correct them.

[Human Resources Development, June 14th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed the HRDC minister could not answer that question. Whatever happens to her career, I am sure the forensic auditors will be eternally grateful for the gratuity.

The minister admitted yesterday that Price Waterhouse is conducting a forensic audit into the Strathroy community centre. Perhaps she would like to tell us how many forensic audits are currently under way.

[Human Resources Development, June 14th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the HRDC minister's job creation scheme seemed to be limited to just a few professions. Liberal fundraisers, police investigators and forensic auditors seemed to be some of her favourites. It has been a while since she has informed us of how many police investigations are pending.

Would the minister please tell us today how many police investigations are under way?

[World Petroleum Congress, June 8th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, we know that there are foreign civil disobedience experts training protesters in Alberta in preparation for the World Petroleum Congress in Calgary.

After the experiences in Seattle and Windsor, I ask the solicitor general why is the government not rounding up these people and deporting them? Does it really think that Canadians support foreign agitators coming into Canada for the sole purpose of causing violence?

[International Circumpolar Community, June 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, this issue is new to me. I deliberately hesitated to get up early in the rotation to speak to this motion because I was hoping that by listening to the speakers ahead of me I would hear some reasonable argument as to why we would support such a motion. Unfortunately I have not heard anything except a lot of political blathergab in the discussion so far.

I cannot understand why we would consider supporting such a motion. My riding borders on the 60th parallel as does the riding of the member for Churchill River. We are not below the 60th parallel within the boundaries of the northern frigid zone. We are clearly in the northern boreal forest.

The northern provincial boundaries have been in place since 1906. Certainly if we were to consider changing the boundaries, if it were to make any sense in my opinion at least, the boundaries would be moved north so that the boundaries followed the southern limit of the Arctic Barrens. The Inuit people have occupied the Arctic Barrens for thousands of years and live in conditions that are similar to other aboriginal people in other barren regions around the pole.

To suggest that the 60th parallel would be moved south and include that part of the province between the 55th and 60th parallels under some guise of being beneficial to the aboriginal people who might live in that area does not make any sense at all. The aboriginal people who live between the 55th and 60th parallels are under the jurisdiction of the federal government now as are those north of the 60th parallel. I fail to see how moving the boundary down would have any great impact on the aboriginal people living between the two parallels. There can be some argument made for differentiating in either Canadian sovereign policy or international policy how we deal with the Barrens and the high Arctic where the environment is extremely fragile.

I spent most of my working years in that part of Canada. Man's footprint on that part of the globe is not there today and gone tomorrow. Once a footprint is made in the permafrost it is there for eternity. The scars that man leaves on the landscape not only stay there, they are magnified over time.

There is a unique quality to Canada's Arctic that needs special consideration and a special policy. There would be some merit in developing that policy in conjunction with our northern neighbours.

I can see nothing that would be involved in moving that parallel south except a huge fight with the provinces. Immediately, and rightly so, it would be viewed by the provinces as nothing short of a resource grab by the federal government. In my constituency, in my province, there are huge and valuable resources. There is tar sand development, heavy oil development, mineral development, diamond exploration, with future development in the diamond mining industry, as well as forestry and other valuable natural resources, which I believe the provinces would be most hesitant to part with.

When we look at what we have already done with the Canadian initiative in the Arctic council, we have to wonder. There were some serious questions raised about the benefits of the Arctic council and the cost of Canada belonging to it. Instead of giving more territory, more bureaucracy and more dollars to it, let us look at and evaluate the value of the Arctic council, which has existed since 1996. Let us see if we are getting value for our dollar from the investment we have already made in this Arctic initiative.

Personally, I cannot understand what the benefit was for Canada or what was received in terms of value for our dollar. I do not want to single out the Arctic council. There are other international organizations to which Canada pays a substantial amount of money to belong that do not demonstrate great value for the dollars invested.

The whole idea lacks credibility. From what I have heard in discussion and from what I have read in Hansard , it has no merit. The people and the countries between the 60th and 55th parallels have little in common with the true Arctic regions of Canada and, for that matter, the rest of the world. It would not make sense or add up to any benefit either for the people or for the territory. Unless I am misinterpreting the whole issue, I cannot see how we would do that.

Other countries, such as the United States for example, have not been particularly enthusiastic about the issue of the Arctic council, an international group formulating Arctic policy. That may go back to the concern of the United States over national security and national defence and the fact that the Canadian initiative on the Arctic council does not extend to matters dealing with military and national security. Of course Alaska is within the area, so the United States has a fair stake within the Arctic region, but it does not seem to be particularly enthusiastic.

It is certainly important that we maintain friendly and co-operative relationships with our Arctic neighbours, those who share the Arctic with us, but I fail to see why we would enter into these kinds of agreements specifically to deal with an area that is not even identifiable as being separate from other areas of Canada, because, as I say, a good part of the area is part of the northern boreal forest and not the Canadian or international Arctic region.

I am not advocating that we should not meet and maintain relations with our international neighbours, but I fail to see the worth of creating this bureaucracy and having it grow any further than it already has.

I have not heard any significant argument in favour of this motion and, therefore, I would urge my colleagues in my party and my colleagues in the House to vote against it, simply because there are no substantive or valid reasons why we should go down the road the motion is suggesting, and because the bad will, the cost and all of the other things involved would not be worth the benefit which we would achieve.

[Cape Breton Development Corporation Divestiture Authorization And Dissolution Act, June 6th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I rise once again to speak to Bill C-11. I listened with great interest to the minister's speech. My mother used to coin a phrase that I thought was very applicable in this instance. While the minister's speech was very conciliatory and praised everyone involved, my mother used to say that actions speak louder than words. In this case I think that is most applicable.

This issue was brought before the House in October 1999. I first spoke at second reading on the bill in early November 1999. The whole thing sat gathering dust until very recently. Then it came forward again, we finished second reading and it went to committee.

There was a fairly substantial list of witnesses at committee who had interests in this bill and the issues around it. Some of those witnesses were given less than 24 hours to appear before the committee. They had to rearrange family affairs, job schedules and all of those things.

They were brought in, four or five witnesses at a time who were not truly connected in their issues. They sat down to participate in what was termed a round table discussion at committee, which did not give either the witnesses an adequate opportunity to present their case or opposition members an opportunity to question them at any length to get to the bottom of the issues they were bringing forward.

On top of that, my colleagues on the committee introduced two amendments to the legislation. I believe the NDP introduced about five amendments. None of the amendments introduced by either party would have substantively changed the bill. I support the concept of privatization. It is a good idea and it should have been done sooner. However, there were ways to do it.

Had the government really been looking for some co-operation on the bill, it could have accepted every one of the amendments introduced by my party and the NDP. My amendments, hopefully, would have brought some clarity and accountability to this deal after it was done, respecting commercial confidentiality, but having the auditor general a year from the date of the sale examine the whole sale and its terms and conditions and report back to the House. Certainly the NDP had some good amendments in the interests of the miners and the workers involved that would have protected their interests by guaranteeing certain membership on the Devco board and the pensioners' adjustment board and all of those things.

It would have been a marvellous sign of good faith for the government to simply accept those amendments and it would have been a good strategy in my opinion. If the government had accepted those NDP amendments, which were not substantive, then I do not see how either my party or the NDP could have continued to oppose the bill, but I may be being too optimistic.

It seems to me that there is some kind of agenda going on here. In committee when I asked the minister if at some point Canadians could see the terms and conditions of the sale so as to understand the terms for whoever buys Devco, the minister himself said that he would have no problem with that. Then one of his officials whispered in his ear. I have no idea what he whispered, but certainly very quickly the minister said that perhaps the parties to the sale would not accept that clarity or accountability. That is a real shame.

After the conciliatory speech of the minister I do not want to be mean-spirited, but one has only to look at the history of the government and how it has operated in the time since I have been here. I refer to some of the activities around grants and contributions in Human Resources Development Canada. I simply do not trust the government to act in the best interests of Cape Bretoners or Canadians. I demand accountability and clarity to assure that those things are met because I do not believe that they will be.

When I was in Cape Breton I heard rumours from miners, the unions and prospective buyers. The story I heard was that the government intends to sell the assets of Devco to an American company which is already importing South American coal to Cape Breton. That bothers me.

We have coal miners in Cape Breton. We have an industry that has been operating in Cape Breton for some 300 years. We have some of the best mining expertise in the world in Cape Breton. We have a guaranteed market for the coal which is mined, and we have all kinds of coal to be mined.

For the Canadian government to abandon those coal miners and that industry in Cape Breton in favour of giving it to an American company to bring American or South American coal to Cape Breton is wrong. I cannot help but think it is very wrong.

It seems to me that it perhaps has something to do with a former environment minister who stood in the House and said that the coal industry was an environmentally dirty industry and that her government intended to phase out coal mining in Canada. I cannot help but think that is part of the agenda. I do not know how else one might explain the absolute refusal of Nesbitt Burns, in co-operation with the chairman of the board of Devco, who reviewed the bids which were coming in, to accept or consider Canadian bids.

I met with two groups when I was in Cape Breton, both of whom submitted bids for Devco, both of whom told me that Nesbitt Burns had phoned them, had refused to give them anything in writing that they could pass on to myself, to members of the NDP or others, and told them that their bids would not be accepted for consideration.

Coming into the committee process, I asked that one of those private sector Nova Scotia bidders be allowed to come to committee to tell the story. The spokesman for that group was not even phoned and asked to come before the committee to present the story. I think that is wrong.

Of course, the other group which also had a local bid in for the assets of Devco just happens to have a lawsuit against the Government of Canada for reneging on its commitment to the company in conjunction with Donkin Mine. Again, I do not see how the government could possibly sell Donkin Mine, which is part of Devco's package of assets. How could it sell when the whole thing is tied up in litigation before the courts?

I do not think that could be done. Certainly if I was part of that group I would very quickly get an injunction to stop the sale before it took place.

There are all kinds of issues. There are issues of mismanagement, on which the parliamentary secretary would not allow questions in committee. I think there is a long history of mismanagement around the operation of Devco and there continues to be today.

I am not a miner or a mining engineer, but when I accessed the yearly financial statements of the corporation I could see for myself, and certainly others in Cape Breton pointed out to me, that for some time there has been a management regime in place that appears to be bent on putting Devco out of business and putting Devco's financial statements in the red. There was a deliberate attempt to wind down Devco through mismanagement and lack of capital investment, lack of maintenance, and all of those things.

We were not allowed to discuss those issues by the government, through the parliamentary secretary. The parliamentary secretary is a person I have come to have a lot of respect for over the years in which I have sat on the natural resources committee. I think that he has bent over backward to be fair on many occasions when he was chairman of the committee and I have a lot of respect for him. I can understand what was going on in committee and around this bill, but that does not make me any less disappointed about what took place. We were repeatedly told that the committee was a legislative committee dealing with a bill and that we were only allowed to deal with issues arising out of the bill, not the issues that are connected to the sale of Devco but are not actually part of the bill.

As the witnesses appeared before the committee, after short notice, they were asked to sit down three, four and five at a time and told that they had 10 minutes between them to present their case. In some instances we had a minute or less to ask them questions. I do not think that we were able to adequately explore any of the issues around the sale of Devco and the implications for the people of Cape Breton.

I am convinced that there was a Canadian solution. I know there was but the government for whatever reason did not seem prepared to look at that. I think it would have been humane and the right thing to do if the government had done something to offset the impact to the miners. That goes right back to 30 years ago when Devco was put in place. It was partly an effort to offset the human resources liability of the Dominion Steel and Coal Company that went bankrupt and had left miners without pensions, severance pay and all those things.

It was the government's responsibility, rightly so then as it is now, to wind down Devco. However, because of the commitment in the Devco bill that the government made to the people of Cape Breton, it would have been only right for the government to accept the human resource liability and offset it in whatever way it could.

In fact section 17 of the old act says that the corporation shall adopt all reasonable measures to reduce to the fullest extent possible any economic hardship or unemployment that may result from the closing of any coal mine operated by the corporation. The government of the day committed to doing that and that obligation is certainly upon this government to fulfil it.

Part of Bill C-11 is to eliminate that clause. If some time in the next months ahead we discover that the government sold the assets of Devco to an American company that closed the coal mines in Cape Breton, the government would be in breach of its own commitment, in fact in breach of the legislation that is in place today until this bill comes into force and that particular clause is eliminated.

I can understand why the government wants to remove that clause. It certainly would be liable if it did not. However, there were ways. The government has gone a long way through the injection of the money that the minister talked about for the economy of Cape Breton and the diversification of that economy. Those things could and should be done but that liability cannot be tied to the new owners of Devco. The liability of the miners, the families and the environmental liability of the Dominion Steel and Coal Company was what for so many years made Devco unprofitable. That was where Devco lost money.

We have heard members in the House, certainly the NDP members and others, say again and again that the coal mining operation of Devco was a profitable operation. It was mining coal at a price, when sold to the market that they had, where it was making money. It was the liability that the government had saddled Devco with so many years ago that made it unprofitable.

If the government intends to saddle the new owners with that liability I do not visualize anyone buying Devco. We will never know because it will be under the terms and conditions of sale. We cannot see the government insisting that the new owners of of Devco take on the responsibility for the human resources liability, such as the union contracts, the union liabilities and all the things that go with it, plus the huge environmental liability that exists there today. The minister did not talk about who would be responsible for the environmental liability.

I was down there. The liability cost of decommissioning the two mines, the coal wash plant and all the rest of it, not to mention the mess at the Sydney tar ponds and the slag pile from the Sydney Steel mills, is huge. There is no question in my mind that the people of Canada will be stuck with that cost. No company, either local, American or foreign, will buy Devco if it has to accept that liability.

Since we will be stuck with that liability anyway, why would the government not accept both the human resource liability and the environmental liability? It could then consider the local bids from the key people of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton who are willing to operate not only the Prince mine but the Donkin mine and perhaps even the Phalen mine. They could operate them locally, employ local people, sell the coal to Nova Scotia Power and use the international pier to feed extra coal into the export market. Cape Bretoners were willing to do that and this government would not even have a look at or accept their bids. That was wrong.

On that basis, there is no way that I can recommend to my party that we support the bill. It is not because we do not agree that coal mining in Cape Breton could not operate profitably under the private sector, and should operate under the private sector, but simply because of the way this deal is being handled, the secrecy surrounding it and the refusal of the government to tell the House and Canadians that it has at least made a commitment to the terms and conditions of sale and that whoever buys the assets of Devco has to operate the mine for a particular length of time.

I simply cannot support the bill and will recommend to my party that we vote against it, as I have at every other stage. I believe there is a viable coal mining industry in Cape Breton. There is a Canadian solution available that will put Cape Bretoners to work. The government has been negligent in not considering the Canadian solution, and that is a shame.

[Cape Breton Development Corporation Divestiture Authorization And Dissolution Act, June 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, once again I rise to talk about Bill C-11.

Certainly I concur with what has been said already by my colleagues in this House, both within my party and within the NDP, although our objective on the bill is somewhat different from the NDP because we support the idea of privatizing Devco. It only makes sense to me.

Over the last 30 years this government and the Conservative government have certainly proven that Devco was created for political purposes, existed for political purposes and appears is going to die for a political purpose, which is really unfortunate. What is going on here is such a tragedy. What the government appears to be preparing to do is immoral.

I talked to you before, Mr. Speaker, and I will say it again in the House; what the Liberals are doing to Cape Breton is just as horrendous as what the Trudeau Liberals did to Alberta under the national energy program. I would understand if Cape Bretoners rose up in screaming protest to what is happening. If Cape Bretoners and Atlantic Canadians never again in Canadian history voted for a Liberal candidate I could certainly understand that.

We have a history of mining in Cape Breton that goes back hundreds of years. We have some of the best mining expertise in the world in Cape Breton. We have hundreds of millions of tonnes of coal in the ground in Cape Breton. We have a market in Nova Scotia for all the coal that Cape Breton miners can produce for Nova Scotia power. We have management capability in Cape Breton that wanted to bid on the assets of Devco and wanted to operate the mines, the wash plant and all the rest of the assets for the benefit of Cape Bretoners and Nova Scotians.

This government, it would appear, is denying them that opportunity without even a fair hearing. That makes no sense to me and it again smacks of the same kind of mismanagement, corruption and patronage that has dogged Devco for the last 30 years.

I tried to get into those issues in committee. I tried to expose some examples of the patronage and mismanagement that went on. The president and chairman of the board of directors of Devco was quoted in a local Nova Scotia newspaper on how terrible the management of Devco had been and how that was the reason Devco could never be profitable.

The fact is that coal mining in Cape Breton can be profitable, but certain conditions have to be met before that is possible. The government does not appear to be allowing those conditions to be put in place. To preserve Devco as a crown corporation and to preserve the system imposed on the coal mining industry in Cape Breton would never be profitable. It would never survive without the ongoing billions of dollars of subsidies that have been poured into it. They would have to continue to be poured in.

If Devco were privatized and not saddled with the liability of the successor rights of the existing union contracts today, or the huge liability going all the way back to the Dominion Steel and Coal Company which succeeded Devco, and if a private company could buy the assets of Devco and operate it without those liabilities and without the huge environmental liability that has accumulated over the years, which everybody has been trying to ignore, coal mining could be profitable in Cape Breton. It could do much for the economy. It could employ miners. It could be a wonderful opportunity for Cape Bretoners to control their own destinies, to have jobs and benefits, and to carry on.

The government will not allow that to happen because then Cape Bretoners and Atlantic Canadians would be independent. They would not have the strings attached that they would have by shutting down Devco, putting in a call centre and perhaps creating hairdressers like they did in the TAGS program. Those programs always have strings attached. There is always a political payback for those kinds of programs if the government puts them in place. That is what the government is trying to maintain in Atlantic Canada. That is such a shame because I think there are real opportunities here.

We will not support a few of the amendments in the three groups. The NDP has reintroduced at report stage debate the amendments we introduced in committee. We will support them as we will support the NDP amendments to ensure that there is some local representation on the board of Devco and on the pensioners administration board. Why would anybody not be willing to do that? It only makes perfect sense.

The only amendments we will not support are the ones dealing with successor rights under the union contracts. If the government has not already guaranteed, and I think it has, those successor rights guarantee that whoever buys the Devco assets will never operate the mines, or at least not operate them for any length of time, and will therefore shut them down.

It is pretty obvious that the government has refused in committee or in debate to indicate whether or not there was any requirement in the conditions of sale of Devco that whoever buys it would have to operate the mines even for one day. I suspect not.

When I was in Cape Breton the miners that work underground in the Prince Mine told me that the real reason there is such a rush on the bill is that they are working on a particular coal face in the mine. Instead of preparing another coal face at the same time so that when that one is mined out they have the next face to move to and continue, there is no preparation for another coal face. This indicates to me that there is no intention, once the current coal face is mined out, to continue operating the mine. They could not, if they wanted to, without that forward thinking.

When we look at some of the yearly financial statements of the corporation we see no long term plan to operate any of the mines in the Devco corporation. Certainly there is no capital investment, maintenance or upkeep of the assets. It can be seen as plain as day that it is heading for a dead end and will be shut down. It is being strangled to death.

It is no wonder that the people of Cape Breton, the NDP, our party and the Conservative Party are suspicious. This whole issue is shrouded in a veil of secrecy under the guise of commercial confidentiality.

When I asked the minister in committee if Canadians would ever know the terms and conditions of the sale, he assured us that once the sale had gone through and the bill had passed he would have no problem disclosing the terms and conditions of the sale, until one of his minions leaned over and whispered in his ear that it would not be possible, that the terms and conditions of the sale would have to remain secret forever, that they could never be exposed.

Why would everyone involved not become extremely suspicious of what is going on? A very valuable asset is on the auction block, and that is the contract with Nova Scotia Power. Clearly that is what is being bid on. As far as anyone in Cape Breton knows and as far as anyone here knows, and I guess only the government knows for sure, any local bids have not even been considered in the sale. The bids being considered are foreign bids, American bids, assuming the coal is to come from offshore.

When the transport minister was asked a question about the mess in the airline industry, he stood in the House to say that is a small price to pay for a Canadian solution. There is a price to pay for a Canadian solution in Cape Breton, and we should pay it.