A very good scientist.
Lost his last election, in 2000, with 42% of the vote.
Canadian Institutes Of Health Research Act March 28th, 2000
A very good scientist.
Supply March 22nd, 2000
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for that question as well. The fuel taxes in Saskatchewan on diesel fuel and gasoline are not the highest in the country. The hon. member from Calgary should know that Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec have higher taxes than Saskatchewan. Ontario and British Columbia have the same taxes. Alberta's tax is six cents a litre less because it charges nine cents per litre provincial tax on fuel whereas Saskatchewan charges 15 cents. There is a six cent difference. B.C. is about the same.
With respect to the British Columbia question, if the member looked at the cost of research and development into something like the fast ferry, it was probably a very high amount to spend. I do not know exactly what went wrong, whether the design was inappropriate, but I think he will remember that Premier Ujjal Dosanjh indicated that it was a mistake and apologized. That is all I really know about it. I know that in Saskatchewan we have never had any fast ferries or slow ferries. We have some ferries across the river here and there.
If we had a committed Liberal government that would commit some resources to developing a policy, whether it be with respect to the marine issue or air or rail or highways, Canadians would be happy because they would have some leadership from this government.
We are looking forward to having some leadership from the government on these issues. It keeps passing the buck. It keeps passing the buck on energy costs. It keeps passing the buck on highways. It should rename the party to passing the buck party because it does not seem to have any particular leadership on the issues I have mentioned.
Supply March 22nd, 2000
Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for that question. It does underline the importance of my letter to the Prime Minister in which I asked him to call for an energy summit and look at a number of options that he might have. One of them was conservation.
My party is the only party in the House of Commons that has been supporting and asking the government to develop a comprehensive energy conservation program for Canadians. We believe that the government should be providing leadership in this regard.
The Kyoto protocol, which is not particularly related to this matter of transportation infrastructure that we are talking about today, is not something that I am totally familiar with. I have not read it from cover to cover but I am familiar with it in general terms. However, I think all Canadians would stand by the objective of making sure that we preserve this planet for our children, our grandchildren and those who follow us.
The environment is a very important element in this world. If we do not have clean air, fresh water and soil that can grow crops we are all dead. We really are custodians of this planet for future generations. I would even suggest that the Reform Party supports that. I would be surprised if they did not. I think the Liberals and the Reform members talk about it but there is really no action.
In Saskatchewan, where I am a little more familiar with the environment, we have undertaken a number of initiatives which protect and enhance our environment. I would ask the Liberal government and the Reform Party to look at some of those initiatives. I know the Reform Party has looked at a lot of the initiatives of the Roy Romanow NDP government and the Allan Blakeney government before. In Saskatchewan the NDP and the CCF have governed for 37 of the last 55 years. Out of 37 years we have had 35 surplus budgets.
The only time the Reform supporters were in power, the Devine Reform-Liberal coalition ran 10 consecutive deficits. For a million people it put the province about $12 billion to $13 billion in the red in 10 years. It is unfortunate that the Reform policies of Mr. Devine will mean that Saskatchewan residents will be paying this mortgage for the next 60 years, whereas before we had no operations debt, none. We had no deficit and no debt either.
The member raises some good questions and I thank him for that. I would ask him to study perhaps again some of the very positive things that the NDP and CCF have undertaken in Saskatchewan so we can benefit our entire country more.
Supply March 22nd, 2000
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for the Reform Party does raise a very important issue regarding fuel taxes in Saskatchewan.
I can say that the Saskatchewan NDP government spends 85% of the taxes it collects in the province on fuel and transportation. If I compare that to Canada where $5 billion is raised by the federal government in excise tax and GST on fuel, does it spend 85% on transportation? It spends 4% not 85%. The NDP in Saskatchewan is doing a very fine job.
The Reform member who asked this question should have been at the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities convention where I was two weeks ago. It is not the province of Saskatchewan that charges these taxes on the railroads, it is the rural municipalities through which the railroads travel. They use that revenue to build and maintain some of the thousands and thousands of miles of roads.
If we also took the rail taxes that we charge the railroads, one would see that Saskatchewan spends more than 85% of its tax revenue on repairing, maintaining and building infrastructure in the province.
I am very pleased that the member asked me her question. I would hope that we would have some more wonderful questions like that from the Reform Party.
Supply March 22nd, 2000
Mr. Speaker, I am happy to continue my remarks on this very important motion which condemns the Liberal government for its terrible transportation policies. I want to provide evidence to the effect that my statement is well supported by facts in the country.
Transportation infrastructure is vital to Canada's future economic development. We need an efficient, high quality and safe network of highways, railways, ports and airports to move Canadians and the goods we produce.
Our transportation infrastructure is degrading rapidly under the Liberal government. The problem is that the Liberal government lacks the vision and will to plan and develop a transportation infrastructure for this century.
In my view the Reform Party tends to be hypocritical in criticizing the Liberal government's mismanagement of transportation policy since the Reform Party has supported most of the Liberal government initiatives to deregulate and privatize our transportation infrastructure. Now that we are beginning to feel the disastrous effects of these policies, the Reform Party is flip-flopping. It is saying that it is not true, it did it once but it is okay now.
I contend that only the NDP has consistently fought for an efficient and safe transportation infrastructure to promote jobs and economic development for Canadians.
I want to talk about three important issues of transportation. The first one relates to the failure of the Liberal government to provide an adequate highway system for our country.
Our highways are in rapid decline, particularly in western Canada where the government has eliminated railway transportation subsidies for western grain farmers. We are the only country in the 28 countries in the OECD which does not have a national transportation policy and a national program to support our highways.
What has happened in the degradation of the highways particularly in western Canada where I am from, is that the government has taken away the subsidies for grain from the railroads and the farmers. We are the only country in the world to do that.
The European countries provide about 56 cents on the dollar to farmers in terms of their agriculture subsidies. The United States provides about 36 to 37 cents on the dollar in subsidies. We provide our farmers in western Canada about six cents on the dollar. We have the farthest distance to travel to haul our products from the farm to the port and we are the only country that does not have a decent aid program for our farmers.
Since the subsidies were taken away, there has been more pressure on the highway system in western Canada because it has now become more efficient in many ways to transport grain and other agricultural crops by truck. The highways and byways of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and parts of Alberta were never built for the huge grain trucks that are now travelling on them. The highways and the road system are being destroyed.
The rail system would be the most efficient way to transport these goods but it is now being saved for other reasons. It is being abandoned in many ways by the Liberal policies that recommend, encourage and advocate that CNR and CPR abandon the rail lines. There is a very severe attack of heavy equipment on the roads.
We go to the next phase. The highways are falling apart because they have not been built for the heavy vehicles and what does the Government of Canada do? It charges excise taxes on diesel fuel and gasoline which brings in about $5 billion a year. What does it put back into the highways that it has been very instrumental in destroying?
From the money it is taking out of Saskatchewan and the rest of the country, $5 billion a year approximately, what is it putting back into Saskatchewan? Let me put it this way. If we were to stop on a dime on a Saskatchewan highway, we can bet that dime was not a federal dime because not one dime is spent on highways in Saskatchewan. The government takes $200 million out in fuel taxes alone but not one dime goes back to the highway system in the province of Saskatchewan.
The Liberals do not know this but Saskatchewan has more miles of roads than any other province in Canada. Saskatchewan has one million people yet it has more miles of roads than Ontario which has 11 million people.
What did the federal government do in terms of helping our farmers? It took away their transportation subsidies. It forced the farmers to use the roads and therefore to weaken the roads with heavy duty trucks. What does it put back to support the transportation system? Zero. Nada. Nothing. Zippo. It is a shame.
Farmers in that province look at this. Members of the Reform Party sit there cheering the Liberals on saying no more money for the highway system in Saskatchewan or Manitoba because they do not believe in those kinds of what they call subsidies. We feel it is an investment in the economy of western Canada.
The Liberal government is responsible for interprovincial highways. It needs to work in partnership with the provinces to re-establish a national highways program and to rebuild and maintain these crucial links.
The government's neglect of the highways has caused a proliferation of private toll roads in some provinces. Toll roads are a deterrent to trade and economic development. They also burden the taxpayers because the tolls are passed on to the taxpayers whether they use the roads or not.
Bad roads cost lives. I am not sure if the member for Thunder Bay—Atikokan has driven through Ontario on Highway 17 from Ottawa to North Way to Sudbury to Sault Ste. Marie and over to Wawa, Thunder Bay and Kenora. It is part of the Trans-Canada Highway, the number one highway in the country and I am ashamed to travel on it. The Trans-Canada Highway across northern Ontario is a death trap, not to mention a speed trap. It has to be maintained and improved.
I would like to see the Liberal government put its money where its mouth is and unite our country from coast to coast by building a capable, first class 21st century highway linking the east and west coasts. That would be similar to the big project of Sir John A. Macdonald when he united the country with the railroads. But instead the government starves the provinces in terms of providing any kind of highway subsidies.
The government has totally decimated the rail system. It talks about giving a few subsidies for the railways. If the Liberals had sunk some money into passenger rail service and provided access for Canadians to travel the passenger trains in a reasonable and efficient manner, that would not be so bad. What have they done? They have continued to reduce subsidies to railroads.
As a matter of fact, in the city I come from, Regina, we cannot travel by passenger out of Regina. If Regina was a small community like La Ronge, Preeceville or Sturgis that is one thing, but Regina is the capital city of the province. We have the mainline CPR track running through there but we cannot ride the trains unless we hop a freight, which is illegal and dangerous. I can tell members that it is dangerous because I used to be a railway brakeman for the CNR in one of my previous movies, in one of my previous lives. It was a great job. I loved the railway dearly.
It hurts me and it breaks my heart when I see the Liberal government continuing to abandon the railroads and maintaining an infrastructure which could be very important and helpful in offsetting some of these higher energy costs. We are now faced with record energy costs in the country. Gas prices right now in some places in northern Ontario are 80.9 cents a litre. In Saskatchewan it is 74.9 cents. Oil only hit a record of about $34 a barrel. Now it is down to $28 or $29 a barrel.
In 1991, when the Iraq crisis happened, the price of gasoline was not 80 cents or 74.9 cents or 62 cents. The record price in 1991 was 61.9 cents. We have only had a 1 cent or 2 cent tax increase since that time. We have the oil companies gouging consumers and the economy with the full support of the Liberals opposite.
I would like the Liberals to undertake to have an energy summit. They do not want a summit because they would actually have to come up with some solutions. Liberals do not want to talk about solutions, they just want to talk.
I happen to have a copy of a letter that I wrote to the Prime Minister. I called on the Prime Minister to put together and chair an energy summit to include the provinces and the major stakeholders in the oil business, particularly the refineries, to come up with some kind of action plan to defend our economy from the OPEC oil cartel. I sent this letter on March 8, and I will quote from it. It says:
Dear Prime Minister,
I am writing to request that you and your government take immediate action to protect Canadian consumers from the OPEC oil cartel. Rising oil prices are having a serious impact on the lives of all Canadians and threaten to endanger the gains Canadians have made in our economy.
Gas prices are at record levels. According to Stats Canada, domestic oil companies are holding back on production in spite of record fuel prices. In fact, excluding taxes, gas prices are lower in the U.S. than in Canada.
It has always been maintained by the oil companies that the prices were the same but, in fact, CBC Marketplace found in November that the price of gasoline in Atlanta, Georgia was 18.4 cents a litre. When we take out all the taxes, 18.4 cents Canadian a litre versus the best price in Canada, which is in Calgary at 33.3 cents, it is almost 12 cents a litre or two-thirds less expensive in the Unites States than it is in Canada. Although the oil companies and the government maintain that our prices are the same as the U.S., when we cross out the taxes and the exchange that is not the truth.
I went on to say:
Confronted with these realities, the U.S. government has taken action to protect and defend its economy and U.S. consumers from the OPEC oil cartel by adopting a 17 point plan.
Sir, Canada needs a Canadian action plan to defend the Canadian economy and Canadian consumers. I urge you to consider developing such a plan to include at least some of the following actions:
Call the provinces and the major oil companies and other stakeholders together as soon as possible for an energy summit to develop such a strategy.
Have your officials examine the taxes on fuel, in particular the GST, to suspend the GST until the prices are more affordable.
Introduce an emergency fund for low income families to ensure that they have affordable home heating fuel to heat their homes.
Consider low interest loans to businesses, such as trucking companies that are especially hard hit by these rising prices and many are now going bankrupt.
I continued on by asking him to examine the regulation of the pricing of fuel costs in this country. Regulation is not a dirty word. The government is obligated in times of tough economy and in times of these kinds of things happening to look at these kinds of actions and these kinds of consequences and responses to potentially and irresponsibly position the marketplace.
I think it is very important that we look at this particular aspect of energy prices. We are not talking about chocolate bars here. If the price of chocolate bars goes up we can buy another chocolate bar or we can choose another dessert. We can buy a piece of pie, a piece of cake, some ice cream or we can choose not to have dessert at all.
However, energy is the linchpin of our economy. Energy impacts on everything we do in this country, whether we transport goods, go to work, come from work, purchase goods that have been transported or heat our buildings and our homes. Energy is the key underpinning of our economy.
That is why I and the NDP are asking for this action. It is not about chocolate bars or other things like that.
I have also asked that any national strategy must, by necessity, include a conservation component. Why can we not have a conservation program in this country that is supported by the government, that is facilitated by the government and that allows Canadians to participate in it so they do not have to continue paying high prices.
Finally, I suggest another option the Prime Minister might have is to review the relevance of the Competition Act. I think the Competition Act has to be toughened if we are going to allow competition.
The reason I sent this letter is not because I think it is something I should do, which I do, but because the president of the the United States of America, the land of capitalism, the birthplace of free enterprise, has undertaken to implement a 17 point program to defend his country from the OPEC cartel. It may not be the greatest plan but at least he has taken some action. The United States, the great land of free enterprise and capitalism, also has the toughest competition laws in the world which forces competition in the economy.
With the competition laws in Canada, we just bend over or get on our knees and that is all we do. We do not worry about ripping people off. I think governments, politicians and parliamentarians must take a role in ensuring that our consumers and our business communities are treated fairly.
I am a former business person. I have been in business for many years in different businesses. I believe that profit is very important. However, there is a fairness in terms of profit making and in terms of the bottom line. With respect to energy, we have to make sure that we have an energy program, an energy policy that makes our economy work well and that helps our consumers to feel like they are part of a country that has a government that is concerned about their needs and their lives. That is why I did this.
I raised a question with the Prime Minister in the House of Commons today to find out what the status was of the action plan. He had his Minister of Natural Resources give a nice flowery quote praising me, the member for Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, in the Leader Post for all the great work that I was doing on this issue. I was hoping that he would have another answer which would say, “yes, we are going to do a little more than just conduct a study for six, seven or eight months”.
The NDP is very concerned about these issues: rail, energy and highways. We are also very concerned about the marine issue and what is happening at the ports. The government seems to be abandoning the port of Halifax in many ways. We are also very concerned about the air transportation situation and the deregulation of that industry.
Supply March 22nd, 2000
Thank you very much for your generosity, Mr. Speaker.
The NDP supports the motion's call for collaboration between all levels of government and the private sector. These groups must work together to make sure our national transportation infrastructure serves the public interest and meets the needs of the private sector for economic development and job creation.
The federal government must in partnership with provincial governments invest in highways to facilitate the movement of people and goods. If the government allows the deterioration of our highways to continue, the human and economic costs will continue to rise at record levels.
Energy prices have been soaring to record levels day after day. The Liberals have refused to put together an action plan to defend the Canadian economy from the OPEC oil cartel. I have asked repeatedly in the House of Commons for an action plan by the Prime Minister to deal with the issue, to defend our economy. The American president, the president of the land of free enterprise and capitalism, has struck a 17 point plan to defend his country and the Liberal goons across the way have refused to do that with respect to defending the Canadian economy.
We are looking for a conservation plan. We are looking for a regulation plan for energy prices. We are looking for a plan to help truckers, small business people, and to help low income people pay for home heating fuel.
What we have seen is a lack of action, a lack of backbone and a lack of will because the Liberal Party is supported by the energy companies in terms of their political contributions. What they are doing is sucking up to the oil companies and continuing to support their policies of gouging Canadian consumers and businesses.
Supply March 22nd, 2000
Mr. Speaker, I have not had a chance to speak.
Supply March 22nd, 2000
Out of how much, Mr. Speaker?
Supply March 22nd, 2000
Mr. Speaker, I would like to know how much time I have left.
Supply March 22nd, 2000
Mr. Speaker, the transportation system in the country has collapsed because of Liberal policies.