John Solomon

[Criminal Records Act, September 29th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, on June 2 I urged the transport minister to ask CN for a standstill on rail line abandonments until Justice Estey's report is received at year end. This question was precipitated by CN's announced closing of the Imperial subdivision in my riding.

The transport minister said he was counting on the goodwill of the railways not to abandon lines until the grain transportation review by Justice Willard Estey was complete. So much for goodwill. Both CN and now the CPR have announced their intention to close branch lines under the new process implemented with changes to the Canadian Transportation Act.

This request seemed reasonable because every day in question period the government told us it was waiting for the MacKay report on the bank mergers. Well why wait for MacKay but not Estey? That is what I want to know and so do the farmers in Saskatchewan.

For the record, the mandate of Justice Estey's review includes “ensuring that Canada has the world's most efficient, viable, and competitive grain handling and transportation system to meet the ongoing and long term expectations and demands of all customers”.

I guess there are a number of ways to do that but the way the Liberal government has approached the entire grain transportation system is not one of them. Here is what the Liberals did instead: They spent millions of taxpayers' dollars to upgrade CN's rail lines. Then they privatized the CN. Then CN announced it would abandon those lines for a salvage value of between $25,000 and $80,000 per mile, lines that will cost $1 million per mile to rebuild.

The Liberal government also changed the Canadian Transportation Act to remove the federal transport minister's ability to say no to rail line abandonments. Now when asked to support a standstill he can say “my hands are tied”. It is a great trick. Houdini ties his own hands. Just like Houdini, maybe the minister could untie them again by making amendments to the CTA, like the ones suggested by the Government of Saskatchewan.

I do not have time to go into the list today of what the government has proposed, but if there is no action from the Liberal side of the House, I will introduce a private members' bill to deal with those amendments myself.

A major cost associated with this policy of rail line abandonments is the increased wear and tear on Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba highways. Justice Estey during public consultation meetings in Saskatchewan said that roads are the biggest single issue facing this review.

The provincial transportation ministers agreed at their May meeting on a proposal for federal participation in a national highways program. Canada is the only OECD country without one. They suggested that the federal government take the $300 million it already spends on various highway programs, add $500 million more from the debt reduction fuel tax, for a total of $800 million which the provinces would then match. This proposal was endorsed by the premiers. As yet we do not know what happened to it from the federal government.

A number of new developments have occurred. A number of recent developments on the rail issue should be brought to the attention of the House today. It concerns me because it makes it seem like the tail is wagging the dog a bit.

The Sask wheat pool announced the closure of 235 elevators in 170 locations on September 15. Then the CPR announced six branch line closures on September 17. Then the transport minister told his provincial counterparts on September 25 that there can be no official moratorium on rail line abandonments. But CN officials told me months ago which elevators the wheat pool would be closing. The wheat pool told CN that it would not tell me as a member of parliament and it did not announce it for another four months publicly. I wonder, did they tell the transport minister? Did they tell Justice Estey?

To conclude, I believe that most participants in the grain transportation system have confidence in Justice Estey's work. That is why we should wait for the report. I worry that the federal government is undermining his work though by letting the railways get away with announcing closures now and that the wheat pool is doing more or less the same thing.

I encourage the Minister of Transport to step up his efforts with the railways, consider amendments to the transportation act to give himself back some clout in this regard, and to keep fighting the Minister of Finance so that we can get a national highways program in our country.

[Canada Small Business Financing Act, September 29th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, members of the NDP vote no on this motion.

[Competition Act, September 22nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have an opportunity to discuss the gas pricing issue in the House yet one more time.

I am pleased to stand and support the referral to committee of Bill C-235 sponsored by the member for Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge. It is a bill which has merit. It is a bill which will provide some competition seriously lacking now in the gasoline pricing industry.

The purpose of the bill is to provide a much needed first step to implementing a predatory pricing definition in the Competition Act.

This is a definition that makes sense to non-integrated or what we like to call independent gasoline retailers who compete against the vertically integrated or the large corporate marketers. It is the first step in re-establishing some retail competition which, at this moment, is on the verge of breakdown.

The Competition Act was watered down significantly by the Conservative government of Mr. Brian Mulroney. We used to have a bill called the Combines Investigation Act. That bill gave regulators the power to investigate if they suspected predatory pricing or price fixing in the marketplace in gasoline or other commodities. They had the power to go into a company suspected of price fixing or predatory pricing and take the files for investigative purposes.

What happened was that Mr. Mulroney wanted to change that because the large corporations made huge contributions to his party. In response he said “I am going to let you fix prices, so I will repeal the Combines Investigation Act and set up what we will call the Competition Act”. I call it, and many of my constituents call it, the “lack of competition act”.

It is really a monopoly act. It provides large corporations with the unfettered ability to do whatever they want in terms of pricing goods and services in this country. The reason I say that is because I have worked with the oil industry for a number of years, in particular on the issue of gas pricing.

The bill which is before the House is a very important. It tries to change the lack of competition in the current act to make it a more competitive act by providing a definition of predatory pricing.

In the act there is a very small section outlining predatory pricing. None of the people who have been charged under this clause have been found guilty by the courts. The reason is that the definition is so narrow and so precise that it really does not provide any flexibility to gather evidence to prove the charges laid.

Compare that to the United States of America, the most capitalistic society and economy in our world. They have pages and pages in their legislation on predatory pricing and other anti-competitive acts.

Twenty-eight states in the United States of America have predatory pricing practice protection for their consumers. What do we have in Canada? Zippo. We have nothing here for our consumers. That is a very worrisome development.

I see that the member for Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge has recognized this and has gathered some support in terms of having the committee review it.

I want to point out a few things about the independent retail gasoline marketers who are shrinking in numbers. They are the people who market gasoline or heating oil. They retail under their own brand and do not own a refinery. They operate under a type of joint venture agreement with a refiner marketer who is a vertically integrated company, such as Imperial Oil, Irving Oil or Shell.

Defined in this way, independents refer to the group that includes large retailers, such as Canadian Tire or the Olco Petroleum Group, Sunny's Petroleum, as well as a number of smaller businesses that operate only one or a few gasoline outlets.

The past eight years have seen increasingly difficult times for independent marketers who are attempting to remain viable in a market controlled by the major refiner marketers, the companies I referred to earlier.

As a result, several retailers have either sold all or parts of their chains, or they have entered into partnerships with a major oil company, for example, Pioneer or United Cooperative Ontario, or they have left the business voluntarily or through bankruptcy. Some examples are Safeway, Payrite, Gas Rite and Mohawk.

As a result, the non-affiliated independents' market share has dropped dramatically in most provinces across Canada. During this time all major refiner marketers have increased direct market share and control over the market.

I want to use some statistics which are quite illustrative of what I have just said.

In 1992, in the province of Alberta, the independent market share was 27.8%. In 1997 it was 20.1%, a decline of 25% in five years.

Indeed, with the recent sale of Mohawk to Husky Oil, Alberta will see a further decline of 6.3%, down to 13.8%, which from 1992 to 1999 will mean a 55% drop in market share of independents in Alberta. In those five years alone this lack of competition has cost Alberta consumers about $80 million.

In Saskatchewan, in 1992, the independent market share was 20.6%. That is now down to 15.1% of the market, or a decline of 25% in five years. Where has the market share gone? To the major multinational corporations.

That is very alarming because once that market share gets to a point where it is not relevant, these independent retailers will cease to exist.

I am a small business person by profession. I see these people as small or medium enterprises trying to make a living, but also providing competition and some price options for consumers and businesses. But as the market share declines with respect to the independents, we no longer have competition. We have monopoly pricing. It is pretty much the same in Manitoba in terms of the decline.

What we are seeing are independents who have to buy wholesale price gasoline at the pumps. Of course when there is a bit of a war on, when the major retailers want to get rid of the independents, they drop the price below what the independents purchase at the pumps. The independents carry on for as long as they can, but eventually they go bankrupt or they sell out to larger companies in the marketplace.

I want to say to the people who are listening that what we have here is a bill which is very supportable. It is something that will enhance and improve the Competition Act as we know it. It will indeed provide some competition. But why has the Liberal Party or the Conservative Party not supported this kind of initiative? Many Liberal members support it, but the majority will vote it down. I hope I am wrong, but that is my suspicion. I think it is because the major oil companies provide huge, substantial political contributions to the Liberal Party and to the Conservative Party. One can only conclude that if those parties are getting huge contributions they will allow the oil companies to do as they see fit.

The issue of gasoline pricing is quite phenomenal. I want to make one reference to my home province, Saskatchewan. We have seen the price of oil at the wellhead decline by approximately 50% year over year. It has been sustained for six or seven months now in this country. It is down to $11 to $13 a barrel, depending on which day you are looking at. It used to be $25 about a year ago.

What we have seen in this country is that in some areas the price of gasoline does not go down. The refiners keep the price high. They are making huge margins on their sales and everybody else pays the fare. What we have seen is that in Saskatchewan the price of gasoline has been inordinately high throughout the last six months of this low oil price.

I have travelled across the country and I have talked to people across this country. Saskatchewan has the same provincial sales tax as British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario and the Maritimes. We pay between 3 cents and 9 cents a litre more in Saskatchewan.

I have been raising this issue in my province. I had a visit from Petro-Canada, my good friends, and they showed me all these graphs and told me how they are hard done by. They said “The reason it is lower in other provinces is because of volume”. I said “Why do the prices go up in the springtime in Saskatchewan when the farmers need the fuel for seeding? That is more volume and the prices go up. Why does that happen?” They cannot answer that. It is the same in the fall with the harvest. It is just pure price gouging.

It is my sense that we need some competition in this country. It is my sense that we need this amendment to the Competition Act. It is my sense as well that we need support for my private member's bill, to be coming before this House hopefully before long, which calls for the establishment of an energy price review commission. That will assist the member for Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge in his efforts to make sure that oil companies are charging consumers fair prices.

[Division No. 227, September 22nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, NDP members present vote no on this motion.

[Competition Act, September 22nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, NDP members present this evening vote no on this motion.

[Petitions, June 12th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition today from a number of people across the country with respect to the multilateral agreement on investment.

These people are very concerned about the fact the negotiations that happened in the past were secret. They are very much opposed to the fact that the Government of Canada is encouraging one Don Johnston in charge of the OECD to continue to negotiate this sort of agreement in secret without any authority.

They ask parliament to reject the current framework of the MAI negotiations. They instruct governments to seek an entirely different agreement by which other people can be included with respect to drawing up this agreement, not just Don Johnston and the Government of Canada.

[Division No. 222, June 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, members of the New Democratic Party will vote no to this motion.

[Canadian Wheat Board, June 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, NDP members present vote no on this motion.

[Mi'Kmaq Education Act, June 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, members of the NDP present will vote yes on this motion.

[National Defence Act, June 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, members of the NDP present vote no on this motion.