Dave Chatters

[Gun Control, November 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, through a well timed leak we understand that the Minister of Justice now has the Liberal caucus on side on the issue of gun control.

The compromise agreed upon would be a voluntary registration of all guns over five years at which point it would become mandatory. I say what an absolutely spineless, weak kneed cop out on the interests of their constituents.

The Minister of Justice and the Prime Minister say all Canadians register their motor vehicles so why would they object to registering their firearms. I respond to that by saying that the registration of motor vehicles in great measure has been a move to tax Canadians for the use of their motor vehicles. This move to register all firearms in reality is a move to allow this government to tax all firearms to pay for this unjust firearms control policy and the bureaucracy it creates.

I ask all those backbench Liberals who would support this proposal, is this representing the interests of your constituents or are you simply hanging your heads in front of the Liberal whip?

[Hibernia, October 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, on October 19 the Minister of Natural Resources in the House assured hon. members that her government anticipates a reasonable and fair rate of return on Canada's investment in Hibernia. However, in a letter from Ken Hull, president of the Hibernia Management and Development Company, dated June 1994, he said:

Sufficient revenues will be generated to cover all gross capital and operating costs, but no return on investment.

Even this statement is suspect. If one cares to do some simple arithmetic on the project simply take $16 billion, which is the total cost of the project, divide it by 615 million barrels of recoverable reserves and one gets a figure of $20.75 per barrel. With today's oil priced at $17.55 per barrel, it is not only difficult to see any return on investment, it is difficult to see how the project will cover capital costs.

It would be nice if the minister might one day explain these inconsistencies.

[Department Of Natural Resources Act, October 17th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, the statistics I presented were provided to me by the Alberta Energy National Resource Conservation Board. In fact, the figures I quoted were based on Canada's current consumption of energy. Certainly they are statistically correct today, but 50 years from now who is to say what that might be.

It has more truth to it than the fraud that was perpetrated in the creation of Petro-Canada whereby we were running out of conventional crude oil and had to move immediately to spend $6 billion of taxpayers' dollars to create Petro-Canada. Today, 25 years later, our conventional crude oil production has not even begun to decline. Given the technology advancements, who is to say that 20 years from now we will not continue to produce the same level of conventional crude oil, not even taking into consideration the synthetic crude oil production?

I think my figures are quite valid and quite honest.

[Department Of Natural Resources Act, October 17th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, in spite of the fact that this government continues to tell us that a carbon tax or a green tax is not a consideration, it continues to come up in the news almost daily. Therefore, it continues to be of concern to us who come from those resource producing regions. Not only do we come from the regions that produce the oil and gas, we are also from a region of Canada that is very sparsely populated and has great distances.

This tactic of taxing the resource to force people to use less of the resource or to reduce CO2 emissions is the same kind of fraud I talked about in my presentation. In fact, Canada only produces some 2 per cent of the world's CO2 emissions. If every vehicle in Canada was parked and ran no more we would reduce CO2 emissions in the world by less than 1 per cent.

I say it is a fraud. If we really want to do something about CO2 emissions, let us look at some of the other countries in the world, like China that produces 20 per cent of the CO2 emissions, where doing something about it would have some effect.

[Department Of Natural Resources Act, October 17th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak in support of the principles of Bill C-48, a bill to create the Department of Natural Resources.

The Reform Party has long supported the downsizing of the federal cabinet and the reduction of bureaucracy. This initiative makes good sense particularly in the areas of provincial jurisdiction such as natural resources.

Having said that, however, I am disappointed to see another Tory bill brought before the House by the new Liberal government that promised to govern differently. There are no promises in the red book to finish Kim Campbell's agenda. All this bill does is formalize what has long been happening and has long been the case. Instead of seizing this opportunity to substantially downsize government and duplication, getting this government off the backs of Canadians, it takes half measures as we have seen in almost every piece of legislation the government has introduced into this House.

While I believe there is an opportunity in the reorganization of this department to realize substantial economic savings, it appears from my analysis of this bill that it will effect very little economic savings or the downsizing of the bureaucracy.

My colleagues who have spoken previously have addressed a number of areas of concern we have with this new super ministry. I will concentrate on yet another area that we believe could have and should have been included in this initiative to effect an economic benefit in the streamlining of these departments.

The area I refer to is the completion of the privatization of Petro-Canada. The creation of Petro-Canada with billions of dollars of tax money was part of the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the energy producing regions of this country. This fraud through government interference and regulation deprived the energy producing provinces of billions of dollars that should have accrued to them during the oil price shock of 1973-74 when OPEC cut off the oil to the west during the Yom Kippur war, causing a tripling of oil prices within weeks. The producing provinces were never allowed to benefit from this oil price surge because of the interference and regulation from the federal government.

Because of this false fear of its future energy security, the federal government created with tax dollars a national oil company. The mandate of this crown owned oil company was through an aggressive acquisition and exploration program to provide for Canada's oil self-sufficiency. In spite of the reckless spending of the tax dollar to acquire grossly overpriced foreign multinational oil company holdings such as Atlantic Richfield Pacific Petroleum, Petrofina, British Petroleum and Gulf Petroleum, creating one of the largest oil companies in Canada, this bureaucratic boondoggle was never able in any substantial way to fulfil the mandate.

I well recall the early days of Petro-Canada's intrusion into the energy field with bureaucrats flying around in private jets and helicopters awarding extravagant cost plus contracts like the money would never run out. All this was sold to the Canadian taxpayer as necessary to reduce our dependency, or was it the U.S. dependency, on mid-east oil reserves.

We were told in Canada that we had less than 20 years recoverable oil reserves and that a high gasoline tax burden was justifiable to guarantee our future energy needs and pay for this spending binge. Now, 20 years later, we know that it was so much Liberal hogwash, a simple money grab and a flagrant breach of the principles of Confederation by the federal government, a Liberal federal government. We have 20 years later proven oil reserves that will supply Canada's energy needs for the next several centuries, almost 400 years of recoverable reserves in the tar sands of northern Alberta alone.

The past Tory government, knowing the moral dishonesty of these policies, moved with much foot dragging and procrastination to end this fraud by cutting taxpayer subsidization and even moved to partial privatization, turning our state owned oil company into a simple commercial enterprise no different than any other large oil company operating in Canada. I ask the question, why would the Canadian taxpayers want to own just another oil company? Is this oil company returning some benefit to the taxpayers in return for their billions of dollars in the form of lower gasoline prices or providing cheap clean burning natural gas to the homes in Atlantic Canada? No, it is not.

The fact is MPs on both sides of this House have been made aware of the unethical tactics of our state owned oil company harassing small independent gasoline retailers in an effort to remove competition, hardly what we might expect from our own taxpayer owned oil company.

It is engaged in the same export frenzy as all the other multinationals. Is it engaged in an aggressive Canadian frontier exploration program? No more so than any other multinational. In fact, Petro-Canada is competing with other multinational companies in the far flung corners of the globe.

Again the Reform Party questions why the Canadian taxpayer would want to own a national oil company. Why would this government not sell off this national oil company while the industry is strong and recoup some of those billions of taxpayers' dollars that were used to create this Liberal boondoggle? Why not use this opportunity when we are supposed to be downsizing and streamlining government to do something really significant and use revenue from the sale of Petro-Canada to reduce Canada's debt burden?

Could it be that we are about to become the victims of yet another Liberal fraud. This government, instead of behaving like a fresh new government with new innovative ideas that would stop this fatal spiral of debt and deficit we find ourselves in, continues to bring in this stale, tired Tory initiative that destroyed the PC Party, or it reaches back and resurrects the obsolete Liberal ideas of the Trudeau era.

In conclusion, as I said at the outset, we support the amalgamation and reduction of government ministries but let us take some new and innovative steps. Let us get government out of private enterprise and let private enterprise do what it can do better. Let us get government spending under control and reduce the necessity of this desperate sell-off of Canada's natural resources to support an unsustainable level of government spending.

Let us create technology to track the movement of profits of multinational corporations that move around the world at the speed of light and often escape the taxman. At the same time let us not tax to the point where we destroy the incentive to reinvest those profits in Canada's resource industries as we did in the case of the national energy program, particularly in value added manufacturing so we might escape the dependency on the exports of raw natural resource products.

Simply put, let us not continue on the same policies that in the last 25 years have plunged us into the position as one of the most indebted nations in the world at the same time that many of our natural resources that this country was built upon are in serious decline.

[Taxation, October 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, over the past number of days I have received letters from my

constituents demanding that this government not tax dental benefits. Geraldine Auger, Dr. Arthur Filyk, Christina Fuller, Ken Gaudin and Brian Mullally are but a few of my constituents who have expressed concern that this government will tax health care to gain control of Canada's horrible fiscal problems.

I am asking this government not to make such band-aid decisions as taxing Canada's working class even more to reduce Canada's deficit and debt. We are taxed upon our birth. We are taxed upon our death. Now we are threatening with taxes on health care in between.

Canadians are taxed to the limit. The solution is to cut government spending, not to increase taxes. Make real systemic changes that will not result in a bigger tax grab on the middle class Canadian worker.

[Canada Grain Act, October 4th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I will respond briefly to the point about the requirement for licensing and bonding through the Canadian Grain Commission. Certainly I support those initiatives. They are more important now than ever before in our industry. Some years back when most of the grain produced in the industry went to the primary elevator system and most of that primary elevator system was owned and operated by producer managed or controlled elevator companies, those regulations were less important.

Today with a proliferation of grain dealers popping up around the world every day that protection is more important now than ever before.

I do have some concerns as to why now when it is so much more important than ever before the government moves to put the onus on the farmer rather than on the Canadian Grain Commission to identify those who are licensed and bonded properly. Certainly I support that particular initiative and I think most producers would.

[Canada Grain Act, October 4th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-51 because this bill impacts directly on an industry that is very dear to myself and my family, having been part of this industry all of my life.

After studying this legislation, generally, with only a few exceptions, there is little about it that I would not support. This is not because it is outstanding or comprehensive legislation. Far from it. My first impression from reading the bill would be that the minister instructed his bureaucrats to introduce some kind of legislation that would demonstrate the government's commitment to agriculture, but certainly not to introduce anything that might be controversial or innovative or new, but something that could be demonstrated to Canadians as their commitment to our industry.

This bill ratifies for the most part what already exists and makes a few minor procedural changes, in spite of the fact that the grain producing sector of this industry has been in crisis and has been struggling to undergo a very basic restructuring for the last number of years because of extremely depressed prices caused by an American-European trade war and a severe world recession.

This fundamental restructuring has taken a terrible toll on countless families that were involved in the production of grains and oilseeds, particularly those producing for the export market. Many of my neighbours have lost their homes, their families and lifetimes or even in some cases, several lifetimes of work.

Those who have managed to stay in the industry by consolidation, refinancing or off-farm income have been asking government for some time to provide the same kind of basic, fundamental restructuring of the regulations and services governments provide to the industry.

Regulations are needed governing the transport and marketing of their crops to provide more flexibility and choices to meet the needs of this new high volume, low margin market environment of today. What does the government offer this new generation of farmers? Nothing but do-nothing status quo tinkering with the obsolete ideas of yesterday.

Bill C-51 moves to remove the onus of responsibility from the government to the seller to investigate the integrity of those buying and selling grain. That in itself could be the proper direction to move but only if those regulations are followed and adhered to strictly and not as was done by the former agriculture minister when a number of producers with close connections to him got in trouble and the minister quickly moved to bail them out at great cost to taxpayers.

If that is how these regulations and procedures count then it really makes little difference whether they are there or not. It also deregulates the elevator industry to operate in an open market environment.

These initiatives would be acceptable also if at the same time, farmers were free to sell their crops where and how they chose to. Twenty years ago there would have been substantive benefit in the deregulation of elevator tariffs when almost all of the crops moved through the primary elevator system to market. This certainly is no longer the case now.

Another disturbing trend we see in legislation coming from the government dealing with agriculture, as dealing with all other sectors in our economy, is the movement to consolidate decision making authority in the cabinet. This trend is obvious in the bill in clauses 2, 4, 9, 15, 33 and 35 and is an affront to this House which was elected to represent the interests of all Canadians.

This trend should be of concern to all Canadians in all sectors but it should especially be troubling in this particular sector, the grain industry. I remember well an earlier Liberal Prime Minister referred to just yesterday by a member of the government as the greatest prime minister in Canadian history.

Many of those sitting in the benches opposite were also members of this earlier government. This Prime Minister in my opinion did more to destroy Canadian unity than anyone has before or since. As I said, I well remember the arrogant disdain that this Prime Minister had for Canadian grain farmers. We all remember the infamous Trudeau salute to western grain farmers.

The present Liberal government shows more and more of the same arrogant disdain toward those who are asking for real change and an open response of government. While there was little reference to the concerns of agriculture in the red book, there was a commitment to open, effective government.

If there really is a commitment to Canadians, why do we continually have to deal with these do-nothing, go-nowhere bureaucratic tinkering pieces of legislation? Why are we not dealing with these minor adjustments as part of a comprehensive plan to restructure regulations dealing with the licensing of new crop varieties, the bottlenecks in the grain transportation sector, the restrictive marketing policies of the Canadian Wheat Board and the free flow of agricultural products anywhere in Canada?

To demonstrate briefly some of the things that I have tried to talk about and tried to demonstrate, earlier this year, back in April, a group of producers in my area were attempting to receive an experimental licence to grow a variety of hemp used to produce industrial fibre. These varieties have been long grown in France and Britain and to some degree in the United States because the hallucinogenic quality of this particular product no longer exists and has been removed from the product.

I believe we have an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the development of a new crop with terrific potential for the production of industrial fibre. One acre of hemp is capable of producing as much fibre as four acres of trees and this one acre can do it on a yearly basis where it takes some 70 or 80 years to produce the kind of growth in our forests to produce that kind of fibre.

In an attempt to assist this group I approached the minister and he responded to me in a letter received some two and a half months after my initial approach on the subject. In his letter he says: "The information you provided presents a strong case for the exploration of the commercial production of hemp as a source of industrial fibre". Further on he says: "The legislation currently before Parliament would have enabled the minister of health to license growers of hemp for industrial purposes". Further on he says: "Bill C-7 would provide the foundation for the legal framework that would allow for the exploration of hemp as a source of industrial fibre".

Not having realized there was this huge potential in Bill C-7 I went to the bill and examined it very carefully to see where this provision could be. I failed to find any implication that would show me where this might happen. Being confused I contacted the offices of the Minister of Health who was sponsoring the bill. I contacted the Solicitor General's department and the justice department. All three departments assured me there was absolutely no provision in Bill C-7 that would deal at any level with the production of industrial fibre from hemp.

We are at a stalemate and seem to be at a dead end in our efforts to get Canadian agriculture involved in the development of a crop with huge potential for income and a crop that could displace some of the lower income producing crops that have traditionally been grown on the prairies.

Not only was the minister not prepared to help this group he did not understand the issue or in fact western Canadian farmers at all in their mission here. This is so typical of what we get time and time again. If the government, as we heard a few minutes ago, is going to be the protector of Canadian agriculture and to try and bring back some of the strength and financial equity to our industry which is so important to Canadians, we certainly have not seen any demonstration of that, at least to this point with the legislation we have been dealing with.

I encourage the government, as a new government in the first year of its mandate to bring forward some new initiatives, some real changes, and to listen to the industry that has been asking for these changes instead of this tinkering and do-nothing stuff we have seen to this point.

[Canada Petroleum Resources Act, September 23rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this bill today, the first bill that I will be able to speak to in my new capacity as Reform Party critic for oil and gas within the Department of Natural Resources.

Bill C-25 addresses an issue in an area of Canada I am quite familiar with, having been involved in the drilling of several wildcat wells in the Norman Wells field fringe area. Bill C-25 contains a minor amendment to the Canadian Petroleum Resources Act in order to exempt the Norman Wells amending agreement which will now be expanded to include the additional lands which are under the jurisdiction of that act.

Although this bill deals with a minor wording change it is important that this bill pass in order to exclude the Norman Wells agreement from the Canadian Petroleum Resources Act so the governor in council can proceed with its action to extend the boundaries.

At the risk of being repetitive I would like to talk briefly about the history of this oil field, discuss the necessity for this bill and talk about the positive actions the governor in council will be taking to extend the life of this field.

There is a long history leading up to this current amendment. The first oil well was drilled in Norman Wells in 1920. Since then it has grown to be the fourth largest producing field in the country. In 1944 Imperial Oil and Canada signed the Norman Wells proven area agreement which included just under 3,300 hectares within its boundaries.

When the Canadian Petroleum Resources Act came into force the Norman Wells proven area already covered by legislation was exempted from the new act. Because of this bill before us today subsequent renewals and expansions will be similarly exempted.

Since the boundaries of the Norman Wells field will be changing to include areas of new production some exemption from the Canadian Petroleum Resources Act is necessary.

It is important to note that the original Norman Wells agreement was signed before the Canadian Petroleum Resources Act came into effect. The new land that will be included in the boundary change to the Norman Wells field is the land that would normally come under the Canadian Petroleum Resources Act. This means that without an amendment exploration and production licences on these new lands would have to go to an open bidding process. This amendment is necessary to provide security of tenure for Imperial Oil and allow for the renewed investment and enhanced recovery techniques in this production field.

This amendment will also provide for one-third ownership in the production of these new areas for Canada.

In addition to the expansion of the field this amendment allows for another initiative to take place to extend the life of this field. This is the decision by the governor in council to extend the licence of Imperial Oil on the Norman Wells field to the year 2020.

There have been advances in industry extraction techniques. Imperial Oil in the Norman Wells field has pioneered and perfected much of this new technology. It was here at Norman Wells, because much of these reserves lay below the Mackenzie River, that directional and later horizontal drilling have been developed and are now used all over the world. The technology of building islands in a water body that freezes and thaws in the spring when the ice goes out was also developed here and later used in the Mackenzie Delta and the Beaufort Sea.

Other techniques of well workover for production enhancement such as water and gas flooding, formation fracturing and acidization have also been developed in good measure in this field. They have made Canada a world exporter of petroleum production technology. They have allowed us over the last 20 or 25 years to increase the recoverable reserves in Canada's conventional oil fields by up to 15 per cent, preventing the long predicted decline in conventional crude oil production.

Because of these advancements in technology they now believe that the Norman Wells field will be productive well beyond the original date. Therefore it is important that the governor in council proceed with extending this licence so that as much oil as possible can be extracted in a realistic timeframe.

With this bill allowing for the Norman Wells boundaries to be extended and the order in council decision to extend Imperial Oil's licence, Imperial Oil will be given the security of tenure it needs for long term planning and control of overhead costs. This will make this field economically viable for a much longer period.

It has been assured that there is time to realize a return on major investments in new technology. These investments are essential to maximizing the production from this field.

With the extension of the boundaries and licences, Imperial Oil will commence a $30 million drilling program. This drilling program will be undertaken mostly in the expanded proven area; more specifically, 12 new wells, four for water injection and eight for production, drilled along the field limits of the new boundaries. About one-third of the money, $10 million, will be spent directly in the north. Most of the remaining $20 million will be spent in my home province of Alberta.

I would hope this is an indication that this government realizes the importance of providing our resource based industries with predictability and stability in policy environment. If this government starts sending signals to the private sector that it is safe to make long term investment plans, it will lead to economic growth and the creation of far more permanent jobs than government can hope to achieve through any temporary government initiated make work projects.

This amendment is good for Imperial Oil because it provides a stable planning environment. It is good the Sahtu Dene and other local residents because they can rely on employment opportunities and a cash infusion into the local economy for many more years. It is good for the Canadian people because it will generate additional oil revenues and royalties.

From my perspective the only thing objectionable about this bill is that in spite of the fact that no party could or did object to this initiative, it has taken over two years to get this simple initiative through this cumbersome, unresponsive process.

Let me and my party affirm our support for this bill and encourage all other members of this House to do so as well.

[Petitions, September 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, in accordance with Standing Order 36 I would like to present four petitions from various districts of my constituency. All are of similar content.

The petitioners request that Parliament not amend the human rights code, the Canadian Human Rights Act or the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in any way which would tend to indicate societal approval of same sex relationships or of homosexuality, including amending the human rights code to include in the prohibitive grounds of discrimination the undefined phrase sexual orientation.

I concur and support these petitioners and would like to present these petitions.