Dave Chatters

[Manganese Based Fuel Additives Act, September 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be able to debate this issue, particularly after having had the summer months to do research and become more familiar with this topic.

I was quite flabbergasted when I heard the Minister of the Environment in her impassioned speech. I could not help but think that the passion was little more than the political puppet dancing when the strings are pulled by the masters of the power brokers in the country.

It is my understanding that the bill has come before the House today because the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association claimed that MMT was setting off the warning lights on onboard diagnostic systems when nothing was really wrong with the systems. I understand the association basically told the minister that she had to ban MMT in Canada or it would disconnect the onboard diagnostic systems on cars headed for Canada, or it would increase the cars' warranty costs or shorten the warranty period. The MVMA also claims that MMT has caused the misfiring of certain sparkplugs.

I fail to understand, in view of how extensively this topic has been studied, particularly in the United States where the product has been banned for 18 years and will again be available for use before the end of the year, why the minister has accepted without question the position of the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association.

Furthermore, I understand that the proponents of the bill claim that banning MMT will lower pollution and health risks to human beings. There have also been numerous claims in favour of banning MMT, such as the need for uniformity in gasolines in the North American market. I would like to address all of these points briefly in my presentation to the House today but most important I wish to show how the ban on MMT could be detrimental to the Canadian market.

Let me say before I get into my presentation that I and numerous other members of my caucus have met with both sides of this argument a number of times, the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association and Ethyl Corporation, which is more than I can say

for what the minister has done. She has consistently refused to meet with both sides of the argument and has only met with the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association. I hardly think one can form a balanced view of the issue without meeting and listening to both sides of the argument.

After having done so, I firmly believe that there is no health, environmental or technical reason for banning MMT in Canada. MMT has been used in Canada since 1977. It was used in the United States until 1970 and was banned in 1970 due to a U.S. clean air act establishing a process requiring new fuel additives not substantially similar to gasoline to obtain a waiver by demonstrating compatibility with vehicle emission systems.

The company that manufactures MMT, Ethyl Corporation, undertook an extensive fuel additive testing program which resulted in the Environmental Protection Agency's conclusion in December 1993 that MMT will not cause or contribute to the failure of any emission control device or system.

Contrary to the minister's statement of May 5, 1995, the U.S. court of appeal ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to grant waiver approval to Ethyl Corporation on April 14, 1995. The minister was fully informed of this decision.

In December 1993 following a large fuel additive testing program, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency concluded that the use of MMT will not cause or contribute to the failure of any emission control device or system, including onboard diagnostic systems. The Environmental Protection Agency and subsequently the U.S. court of appeal rejected concerns about the impact of MMT on onboard diagnostic systems presented by U.S. automakers.

The U.S. automakers have experienced significant difficulties in the certification of onboard diagnostic systems in the United States where MMT is not currently used in unleaded gasolines. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board have recently changed the regulations to allow for certification of vehicles that do not comply with the OBD-II requirements.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has stated in the federal register that automobile manufacturers have expressed and demonstrated difficulty in complying with every aspect of the onboard diagnostic requirements and such difficulty appears likely to continue into the 1996-97 model year.

In Canada the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association appears to be blaming the OBD-II system difficulties on MMT. The Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association members have lobbied the Canadian government threatening to disconnect onboard diagnostic warning systems and pass the cost on to consumers unless the government passes legislation to ban MMT.

The Canadian government appears to have responded to these threats without noting that the vehicle manufacturers have failed to achieve OBD-II certification in the U.S. for most new models.

Furthermore, I would like to know if this minister can explain her statement that if vehicle manufacturers carry through on threats to remove onboard diagnostic systems this would result in a tenfold increase in vehicle emissions. This false claim shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the technical issues involved and underlies the need for independent technical assessment of the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association claims.

Onboard diagnostic systems do not reduce emissions on vehicles. Onboard diagnostic systems are a monitoring system designed to notify the driver when emission control equipment is not operating properly. Removal or more likely disconnecting the onboard diagnostic systems would only serve to prevent a dashboard malfunction indicator light from illuminating. No emission control equipment would be removed.

On the sparkplug issue that the minister makes much of, the Minister of the Environment cited the claims to help justify her proposal for the legislation to remove MMT. However, she failed to point out that the automakers' claims related primarily to one type of platinum tipped sparkplug used primarily on one engine version only in GM automobiles. The sparkplug in question was discontinued by GM indicating that problems were related to design, not MMT.

No casual links have ever been established between MMT and sparkplug problems. To my knowledge no warranty data has ever been made public.

I have learned that to further assess the validity of GM's concerns independent testing was conducted at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, using the platinum tipped, long life sparkplugs used in all 1994 2.2-litre Chevrolet Cavaliers. The goal of the study initiated with General Motors Corporation in the U.S. was to determine the differences between new sparkplugs, failed sparkplugs and sparkplugs used which have had no problem.

The sparkplugs were fired by a power supply which increased output to the plugs in a ramped manner. Current leakage up until the plugs fired was measured. Movies were taken to document whether arcs occurred between electrodes or from electrode to shell.

The sparkplug test program showed that MMT is not associated with reported sparkplug related problems. To satisfy the U.S. clean air act requirements for the reintroduction of MMT in unleaded gasolines in the United States, Ethyl Corporation informed me that

it had conducted the most extensive series of tests ever undertaken on a gasoline additive.

The testing program was designed with the assistance of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. automakers to evaluate and document the effective MMT performance additive on automobile tailpipe emissions and to determine the implications for air quality if MMT additives were used in the U.S. gasoline.

The initial MMT emissions test program involved 48 cars representing a broad cross-section of automobiles driven in North America operated for a total of more than three million miles. Half of the 1988 cars used the test fuel with the additive and half used the same fuel without the additive.

Tailpipe emissions were checked every 5,000 miles. Testing demonstrated conclusively that MMT decreases nitrous oxide by approximately 20 per cent. As a note, the EPA participated in determining the test protocols. Also, independent testing data analysis organizations used procedures similar to those used by the Environmental Protection Agency.

On the issue of health, I would like to address the concerns with MMT. On December 6, 1994 Health Canada released the results of an independent risk assessment focusing on new epidemiological studies and Canadian exposure data titled "Risk Assessment for the Combustion Products of MMT in Gasoline".

The Health Canada study concluded that the use of MMT in gasoline does not represent a health risk to any segment of the Canadian population. Specifically the report states: "Airborne manganese resulting from the combustion of MMT in gasoline powered vehicles is not entering the Canadian environment in quantities or under conditions that may constitute a health risk". The study also concluded that there is no connection between levels of ambient respirable manganese and MMT sales or use in unleaded gasoline whether examined by geographical area or by season.

Back on April 25, 1995 the hon. Minister of Industry stated that it is crucial that we have uniformity in standards of gasoline in the North American market. The hon. Minister of Industry was referring to the fact that at the time MMT was not used in the U.S.A. but was in Canada and it was important to have the same gasoline-

[Petitions, May 10th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is from residents of the community of Athabasca.

The petitioners ask that Parliament not amend the Canadian Human Rights Act or the charter of rights and freedoms in any way which would tend to indicate societal approval for same sex relationships or homosexuality, including amending the Canadian Human Rights Act to include in the prohibited grounds of discrimination the undefined phrase sexual orientation.

[Petitions, May 10th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, in accordance with Standing Order 36, I would like to present two petitions from the residents of my constituency.

The first petition is from residents of the Caslan-Boyle area. The petitioners ask that Parliament achieve a balanced budget through reductions in government spending rather than tax increases.

[Westray Mine, May 9th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to mark the third anniversary of the Westray mine disaster.

The tragedy claimed the lives of 26 miners and plunged the community of Plymouth, Nova Scotia into a state of grief. Sadly in many ways the healing process will not begin until an ongoing public inquiry has done its work and miners' families have answers to the most basic questions-why?

As a guest in the riding of Central Nova last summer I was struck by the enormous sense of community and warmth among the people who had to bear this tragedy. The fact that hazards of mining are well recognized does not make the tragedy any easier to bear.

It follows that today our sympathy should be with the miners' families and the community as they commemorate those who died. We should also recognize the courage of not only those who labour far beneath the earth's surface but of those who risked their lives in an effort to rescue the survivors of the blast.

I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the victims of the Westray disaster, the families and the community still mourning the 26 men who lost their lives underground.

[Petitions, March 30th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, in accordance with Standing Order 36, I would like to present a petition containing approximately 200 signatures from the Slave Lake area of my constituency.

The petitioners ask that Parliament move toward a balanced budget through reduced government spending, not tax increases.

[Translation]

[Petitions, March 29th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, in accordance with Standing Order 36 I would like to present a petition from the residents of my constituency of Athabasca, mainly from the Westlock area.

The petition requests that Parliament support laws that severely punish all violent criminals who use weapons in the commission of a crime; support new Criminal Code firearms control provisions which recognize and protect the right of law-abiding citizens to own and use firearms; and support legislation which will repeal or modify existing gun control laws which have not improved public safety or have proven not to be cost effective or have proven to be so overly complex as to be ineffective or unenforceable.

[Firearms Act, March 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and speak in support of the Reform Party's motion to split Bill C-68 into two bills.

The Minister of Justice said this bill is about the kind of Canada we want. I and the Reform Party can certainly agree with that statement. He also said that the overwhelming majority of Canadians support his position. I take exception with this statement.

Certainly if the question was asked whether they were in favour of gun control, any reasonable, fair-minded, clear thinking Canadian would say yes. The fraud being perpetrated on Canadians is that pollsters have been paid to ask the wrong question, and ask they have over and over again. The minister must not get away with this misconception, pushing his agenda and serving the interests of the minority and the elitists.

Though the answer from the majority regarding firearms control is yes, it is not yes to more firearms control, but rather a firearms control that respects without question the rights and freedoms of law-abiding citizens. I must repeat that statement: a firearms control that respects the right of life, liberty and security of person and that respects the inherent right of every citizen to own and enjoy property and that respects the rule of common law.

Canada's required firearms law must be in a form that is simple, economically attainable, and derived from common sense. Canada's required laws dealing with criminals must also be simple, economically attainable and derived from common sense. I mention both firearms laws and laws dealing with criminals separately, because that is exactly what they should be, separate.

An owner of any object, be it a knife, a rock, a club, a gun or even a pillow is not a criminal until he or she violates the rights and freedoms of another person with that object. The object now becomes a weapon which then is bound to the criminal act and dealt with by criminal law.

Now that we have separated firearms and criminals, it would be easy to ask Canadians a fair question. They would undoubtedly say no to more firearms control and yes to more criminal control.

As we can see, the single politically correct question that should be asked of all Canadians regarding the Criminal Code is if citizens had a choice in methods used to curtail crime, which would they favour: control of law-abiding citizens or control of the criminal? I am sure that 100 per cent of the citizens would vote for the second choice.

A democratic government would act upon the will of the people unless, of course, that government lacked the will or the ability to deal effectively with criminals and crime and tried to create a false impression of dealing with the problem by further regulating law-abiding citizens. That is exactly the fraud which is being perpetrated on Canadians by the Minister of Justice.

The minister says this bill is about the type of society that Liberals want in our country. He says that Liberals believe only police officers and armed forces should have the right to possess arms. He apparently means but does not include criminals in the category of those allowed to possess firearms or this government would be taking some very specific action, which I will come back to later on.

If this bill is leading us to the kind of society the minister wants, that society must be one in which governments fear law-abiding citizens. It is one where governments seize privately owned property without compensation. It is a country where instead of dealing swiftly and decisively with criminal activity, the government and law enforcement authorities turn their heads and pretend they do not know what is going on.

I fully agree that a kinder, gentler society is a highly desirable goal. However, I see no evidence of success on the part of those promoting that concept. Instead, I see a constantly rising confrontational crime rate, the result of a criminal justice system repeatedly basing action on theories that turn out to be wrong. As the risk factor rises, the public is moving toward self-protection, whether it is legal or not.

Prohibition is not a method of control; it is a method of losing any control over the situation. It is a lawyer's theory that just does not work. Most lawyers regard it as an axiom that reducing the number of weapons in society will reduce weapons crime. In all of our research we have found nothing whatsoever to support that idea. The evidence strongly indicates that the successful disarming of the community simply turns control of the neighbourhood over to the biggest, meanest thugs in the neighbourhood.

I will leave members with the conclusion of Chief Inspector Colin Greenwood of the West Yorkshire Constabulary in Britain, a country long known for strict gun control. He has done a comprehensive study on firearms control methods and their actual as opposed to theoretical effects in many countries. I quote his findings:

At first glance, it may seem odd or even perverse to suggest that statutory control on private ownership of firearms is irrelevant to the problem of armed crime; yet that is precisely what the evidence shows. Armed crime and violent crime generally are products of ethnic and social factors unrelated to the availability of a type of weapon.

The number of firearms required to satisfy the crime market is small, and these are supplied no matter what controls are instituted. Controls had serious effects on legitimate users of firearms, but there is no case, either in the history of this country or in the experience of other countries in which controls can be shown to have restricted the flow of weapons to criminals, or in any way reduce crime.

He was right. The latest British Home Office statistics for England and Wales show violent crime has doubled every 10 years since 1946. Britain's recreational firearms industry has been destroyed.

Many honest shooters now keep their firearms in Belgium to avoid the next wave of confiscation. Has gun control worked? No, it has not worked. British firearm crime rates are at an all time high and continue to rise. What else could one expect?

Firearms are easy to smuggle, police are easy to avoid while committing a violent crime and their government guarantees that the victim will have no effective way to protect himself or his family. Any criminal who has a firearm can totally dominate any victim situation.

Our Minister of Justice said on several occasions that no Canadian has any need of firearms for self-protection. If that is so, why does he and the Prime Minister regularly dip into the public purse to cover the expense of armed bodyguards to protect their own sacred skins? Are their skins any more sacred than those of other Canadians?

I must expose one other area of fraudulent injustice arising from this legislation, the whole matter of how this legislation will apply to Canada's aboriginal peoples.

When I raised this question in a departmental briefing I was chastized for suggesting there was perhaps racial inequity in the application of the legislation. My constituency has a large aboriginal population and both aboriginal people and non-aboriginal people have a right to know how this law will be applied.

The minister stated in the House this law must apply to all Canadians but will be enforced with cultural sensitivity on Indian lands. Indian chiefs and even aboriginal MLAs tell me this law will not apply to the Indian people and would be a violation of treaty rights or that it would not apply because Canadian law does not apply on sovereign Indian lands.

I hope this is not the view of the Minister of Justice because every Canadian must be equal under the law. To do otherwise would promote racism and non-compliance with the law.

The minister under section 110 of the Firearms Act has the authority to decide which persons do or do not need firearms. I am told the minister agreed under section 112(1) to exempt aboriginal people by order in council and that the issue need never come before Parliament.

I hope this is incorrect because it would be a recipe for disaster. If this is not true, when will the government do something about the illegally stored arms on the reserves along the U.S. border and do something to stop the illegal smuggling that everyone knows exists?

How will the minister apply the law in the self-governing Indian lands in Yukon where legislation passed in the House recently removes jurisdiction for firearms from the federal government?

There is no reasonable justification for treating aboriginal people any different under this legislation than anyone else. Firearms are no more a part of aboriginal culture than non-aboriginal culture. Firearms, after all, arrived in this country with the Europeans.

If this law is bad for aboriginal people, this law is bad for all people. We are convinced the major predictable effect of enacting this legislation, so poorly researched, so badly designed, so basically silly, is an increase in the number of Canadian voters killed, injured and robbed in the years to come. We reject this legislation.

[Borrowing Authority Act, 1995-96, March 24th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the deceit that I speak about is not in the figures in the budget. It is the failure to tell Canadians honestly and truthfully the measures that will inevitably have to be made. We have no alternative but to cut another $25 billion from government spending or increase taxes to reach a balanced budget. That is where the dishonesty and the deceit lie in this budget.

To answer the question, I do not think the hon. member is correct in the assumption that those kinds of cuts would have a destructive effect on the economy. Certainly that has not been the case demonstrated in Alberta where government costs over a three year period have been reduced by 20 per cent. In fact, the exact opposite has been true. Those cuts have had a stimulative effect in the private sector and unemployment continues to drop.

[Borrowing Authority Act, 1995-96, March 24th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening with great interest over the last number of weeks to the debate on the budget while I waited for my opportunity to participate. I have been truly amazed with the disregard the government is showing for the intelligence of the Canadian public.

The budget represents a betrayal of the red book or election platform on which the government was elected; also the betrayal the dishonesty and the deceitfulness of the rhetoric surrounding the cuts that must inevitably come if we are some day to reach a balanced budget.

Canadians were told by the Liberals during the 1993 election platform that the Liberals could solve the deficit problem through economic stimulation and job creation. Today unemployment is still unacceptably high and the deficit is still out of control.

Canadians were also told by the Deputy Prime Minister during the 1993 election that they would eliminate in the GST in one year or she would resign. To my knowledge she is still a member of the House.

Another inconsistency the Liberals told during the 1993 election campaign was that they would never cut the civil service. Upon making this promise they were viewed as the friends of the civil service, unlike the Tories. We must wonder what these same civil servants are now thinking with 45,000 of them being shown the door.

Canadians who voted for the Liberals in 1993 believed they would never cut transfers to the provinces in support of health care, education or social services. All seniors believed the Liberal Party would never cut old age security. Lo and behold only a year and a half later the Liberal government has done a total flip-flop on these and other election commitments.

Are Canadians to believe the Liberals really believed these commitments to be realistic or was it really the old political strategy of telling the people what would get them elected because a long time ago Canadians gave up holding politicians accountable for election promises.

I do not think Canadians will forgive so easily. I will do my best to see they do not forget. I will remind Canadians the Prime Minister's red book commitment to rebuild respect and integrity in government was simply more empty political rhetoric.

During the 1993 election campaign the Reform Party presented a plan to balance the budget in three years and the Liberals labelled us the slash and burn party, the destroyers of health care and old age security. Now only one and a half years later in the budget the government has implemented many of the zero in three cuts and even went further than that zero in three plan, not because it would choose to do so but because as we predicted there was no alternative.

This year again Reform put forward a budget and a plan to balance the budget in three years and again the Liberals rile and rave about the proposed programs and put their spin doctors to work to sell their own deceitful budget and hide the reality of what must inevitably come.

They continue to hide the realities in rhetoric like the following: "By consolidating our existing resources into one human investment we can then sit down with the provinces as we are doing now on issues of child care and literacy and work out new partnerships and new arrangements with the provinces and municipalities and private sector partners. It gives us the flexibility we need now to engage in a new generation of social programming that really fits both the reality and the changed circumstances that the country finds itself in".

This is the best example I could find of the dishonesty of the rhetoric being thrown at us. I will leave members opposite to surmise which member might have spewed that gem on us.

The truth must be told and we must face the music now as painful as that may be because if we postpone balancing the budget to somewhere in the future, say the year 2000, the debt could then be approaching $800 billion and the cost of interest on the debt will have risen to the point at which we can no longer

sustain even the core of our social safety net programs which have made Canada the most desirable country in the world to live in.

I have heard the howls of disbelief from the members opposite. They say they are a caring and compassionate government. They say what about the human deficit.

I listened carefully and the arrogant hypocrisy makes me very angry. Who do these people think they are that only they have compassion or care about people? The single most important reason I joined what is now the least respected profession in Canada, at least outside of this place, is my concern for the future of this country and what 30 years of Liberal and Tory governments have done to the future of my children and grandchildren.

What this government is doing to future generations of Canadians is not caring or compassionate, it is greed and selfishness; it is the me generation saying: "I am not going to live within my means and the next generation cannot only pay for my greed but can no longer enjoy the benefits and the standard of living this me generation has had".

The best example of this greed is the refusal of the Liberal caucus power brokers to give up their gold plated pension plan. As long as I am a member of the House I will do everything within my power to see that the first pensioners who do not receive an old age security pension check because the country is broke will be the same greedy politicians who mismanaged this country to the point we are at today.

The examples of mismanagement are everywhere. A few examples lie within my portfolio as natural resources critic. Petro-Canada is one of my favourites. Every budget since 1984 has promised to privatize Petro-Canada. Canada's window on the energy industry was created by the Liberal government at a cost of over $5 billion. Petro-Canada has never provided any benefit to Canadians that could not have been provided by the private sector. Governments since have never had the courage to admit to Canadians they will only be able to recover less than $2 billion of the $5 billion it cost to create Petro-Canada. Although this is the second Liberal budget that has promised to privatize Petro-Canada, I doubt very much if it will happen soon.

Let us have a look at how this budget and this government in past budgets have squandered Canada's natural advantage in the world marketplace. Gasoline, a favourite cash cow for governments, has always been a cheap source of energy. It has allowed compensation for Canadians for the great distances we must move our produce and our people compared with other countries.

Governments have gone back to the well so often that in the last 10 years taxes on gasoline have risen by over 500 per cent if one includes the 1.5 cent increase in this budget. Almost 25 cents of every 50 cent litre of gasoline is tax. At the same time the government is moving to eliminate transportation subsidies across the country. Long gone is our natural advantage. The U.S. is importing Canadian crude oil with a $1.40 dollar, refining that oil and selling the same gasoline at almost half of what we are paying in Canada.

The final example is the elimination of the income tax transfer on privately owned utility companies. The finance minister stated in his budget that if government does not need to run something, it should not and in the future it will not.

How many provincially owned utility companies will ever consider privatizing under these circumstances? In spite of vowing to prevent discriminatory taxation against Alberta during the election campaign, the Minister of Natural Resources remains totally silent on this issue in the House.

I could go on endlessly but time does not permit. The budget does, however, represent a dramatic reversal in Liberal philosophy which the reform Party can take some credit for. That shift is so dramatic that even some of the Liberal dinosaurs in the Liberal caucus have threatened to withdraw support for the budget.

As dramatic as this change might be, it does not go far enough to break the back of the deficit. If in the next three years the government cuts $12 billion from spending and the interest costs rise by $12.7 billion, I hardly think the monster has been mortally wounded and I am sure after a short respite it will be back to threaten to destroy our economy.

Already the real agenda begins to leak out in well planned trial balloons. The Prime Minister says our health care system will be reduced to the provisions of 50 years ago. Liberal members are suggesting that the minimum pensionable age will have to be raised to 67.

These adjustments to our social safety net may indeed be necessary, but who knows? This government clearly has no plan to balance the budget in the foreseeable future.

One fact is indisputable. By postponing the balancing of the budget to the year 2000 or beyond, the cuts that will have to be made will be far more destructive and devastating than those proposed in our taxpayers budget. This is where the deceit and the dishonesty in the Liberal budget lie.

I think the Prime Minister and the finance minister would do well to heed the words of a very wise man, F. J. Clark, when he said: "A politician thinks only of the next election. A statesman thinks of the next generation".

[Gasoline, March 24th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it is generally accepted that the use of higher cost alternative additives in gasoline will force the price of gasoline up.

Would the minister tell Canadians how much more they can expect to pay for a litre of gasoline after the banning of this additive?