Ian McClelland

[Cn Commercialization Act, June 20th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Winnipeg has a good point and he is absolutely right. I cannot believe that I said that language was a sop to the Bloc. Obviously it is not a sop to the Bloc and my hon. colleague opposite is quite right.

It is a sop to Quebec perhaps in general terms but it is certainly not a sop to the Bloc. Whatever it might be to the Bloc, for sure it is not that.

The other point is about bilingualism and this needs to be absolutely clear. I did not say that CN should not be bilingual. I did not infer that it should not be bilingual. I said that it may be multilingual.

What I said was as CN is going to be privatized, take the shackles off and let the management of the company make the decision for themselves. That is a decision that rightfully belongs to the new owners of CN. It is a not a decision which should be made by the legislature of the country.

If we are going to sell it, then sell it with no strings attached. The first hit we take will be the worst hit, so let us take the it, get it off the books and get on with life. Good for the Liberals for bringing the legislation to the table in the first place.

[Cn Commercialization Act, June 20th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, the central point I was trying to make was that CN has had a record of losing money ever since its incorporation. The fact that it is losing money at a slower rate today is a blessing but it is like dying by inches, you are still going to die sooner or later.

If this deal is going to be palatable in a private market, if it is going to be saleable and if it can be privatized, it will only be privatized because those who will invest in it see the opportunity of making a dollar. That is the way our system works. That is the way it should work.

Concerning the restriction of 15 per cent, if a potential purchaser had the resources to take 20 per cent of the shares, it would ensure there would be a very strong hand at the helm. The other 80 per cent of CN would be widely dispersed in pension funds, in RRSPs, with people all over the country.

However, we had better make damn sure when we are doing something like this that this business is not being run by a committee. It had better be run by somebody who knows exactly what he or she is doing, exactly how he or she is going to do it and has one overriding ambition, to make a profit. There is no other reason for CN to be purchased by any potential investor anywhere.

That person must purchase it with the intent of making a profit. It has nothing to do with the Canadian identity. It has nothing to do with being a good Canadian. It has nothing to do with how much money has already been lost. It is strictly whether there will be a return on the investment when those shares are purchased.

That is the only consideration that anyone who buys a share in this should have. If Bobby Gimby decides he is going to be the head of Canadian National and this becomes part of the national dream then we are sunk. We will end up with another B.C. Resources Investment Corporation where thousands of widows and orphans are going to buy shares in this creature. They are going to see the share value plummet and be resentful beyond words.

It is our responsibility to ensure that whoever buys this baby has the opportunity to turn it into a profitable venture. Otherwise we are going to wear that can around our necks and we will deserve it.

[Cn Commercialization Act, June 20th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to participate in this debate. It is important for me, representing Edmonton Southwest, to ensure some views are put on the table that would reflect the views of Canadians with regard to the privatization of CN.

The Reform Party is generally speaking in support of the bill. We think the privatization of Canadian National makes a good

deal of sense. If we think it is such a good idea and if the government thinks it is such a good idea to privatize CN, perhaps the next bill to be discussed will be the establishment of another crown corporation, the Federal Business Development Bank, which will be continued and greatly enlarged to compete in the financial services sector.

The debate today concerns the privatization of Canadian National. Whenever the name of a railroad is invoked sooner or later taxpayers will have their hands in their pockets. That has been the case ever since day one in the railroad industry in Canada and nothing will likely change that.

Canadian National is the result of an amalgamation of a number of smaller money losing operations which about 30 or 40 years ago were combined into Canadian National. The wisdom of the day was a lot of small money losing operations could be combined into one big money losing operation, and that is exactly what happened.

Canadians have been throwing money at Canadian National hand over fist ever since it was put together to compete with Canadians Pacific. Canadian Pacific was established with a great deal of government largesse. It received copious quantities of land in return for building the railroad. It promptly sold off the land and came cap in hand to the people of Canada saying it needed subsidies or it will close this or that.

Thus is the story of big business in Canada. An hon. member from the New Democratic Party many years ago coined the phrase corporate welfare bums, and he is quite right. The larger the business in Canada, the closer the tentacles of that business are to the coffers of the country.

It is Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, people struggling to get buy, who seem always to be dipping into their pockets to subsidize somebody else. At least with this legislation there is half a chance the subsidization to CN will come to an end, which begs the question of who in their right mind would buy anything that has been losing money since time began.

It was an amalgamation of money losing railroads turned into one big money losing railroad and now carries a debt of about $2.5 billion. Why would anyone in their right mind buy this railroad? Privatizing will not make it profitable. If one takes a historically unprofitable entity and privatizes it, that in itself will not make it profitable.

Canadian National will have to be privatized in a manner which will remove the shackles that have prevented it from being profitable. That means whoever will be buying this railroad, whether it is a zillion individuals or a half a dozen large organizations and a lot of other individuals, these people will need the ability to make the decisions necessary to turn this railroad which has historically lost money into a profit making venture.

That was the purpose and rationale behind some of the amendments we offered to the bill. The Reform Party is by and large in support of the bill. We think it is a good idea and we respect the government for taking this initiative. It has not been an easy chore over the last year or so for the Liberals to reverse direction, as they have in many of the bits of legislation which have come to the table. Who would have thought there would ever be in this day a Liberal government bringing in legislation to privatize a crown corporation? That has not been the Liberal way over the past 30 or 40 years.

When the prodigal son comes home we should welcome him and say: "Well done. We are glad you are seeing the light. What can we do to help?" To dump all over the government because there are some things about the bill we do not like would be counterproductive.

As my colleague from Calgary Centre mentioned, when a private corporation is looking at any venture, granted this is a big venture, business principles are business principles. It is really a question of adding a number of zeros once we get started; it is a question of how many zeros are behind the decimal point.

Canadian National in order to be palatable to future investors must reduce some of its debt load. The debt load is $2.5 billion and people have said it should be reduced to something in the order of $1.5 billion.

A truism in the business world is the first hit you take is always the easiest. Therefore if we are to sell this off we are far better off taking the hit by reducing the the debt CN carries the first time around rather than trying to drag it out. We are far better off getting the price and the debt to a level attractive to purchasers at one time than we are trying three or four different levels.

There are a couple of ways this could be achieved. One is to sell assets CN presently has. That is the way it should be done. CN should not come to the public coffers of Canada, individual taxpayers, and say: "Dip into your pockets and pull out $5 or $10. This is your contribution to getting this white elephant off our backs, this albatross of our necks. Your contribution is $100".

We should be saying CN is in the transportation business, the rail business, and had better sell off a whole lot of these assets. This is exactly what we would do in the private sector; get down to the bare bones, the core business. Once that is done and the assets are sold we could look at how much we have to write down on this debt in order to make it saleable.

CN is a national company. I believe I am accurate in saying that something in the region of 70 per cent of the revenues of CN are generated west of the lakehead. It is a national company but the majority of the revenues of Canadian National are generated

in the transport of raw materials such as coal, sulphur, grain and parts of the resource industry.

That is why this is a reasonable question to ask. If the bulk of the revenues are generated in western Canada and the company is to be privatized, does it not necessarily follow that the privatized Canadian National in order to become profitable will accelerate in closing parts of the operation which are losing money which would then inevitably be that part of the operation probably east of the golden triangle or golden horseshoe of central Canada? In order to be a viable entity CN must have access to the country's industrial heartland. It may not have the wherewithal to continue to operate money losing parts of its operation elsewhere in Canada.

This brings into the debate where the head office should be. We are not talking about where the various repair shops should be. Earlier a member mentioned that a high tech operation in Montreal keeps track of the locomotives and the trains. I always wondered how on earth railroads kept track of their rolling stock. That can stay in Montreal. We are talking about the head office. The head office could be wherever the majority owners of the new privatized Canadian National would want it to be.

There is quite a disparity in the number of employees working across the country. Today, 29,541 people work for Canadian National. Of those 29,541 individuals 2,526 live in British Columbia; 3,567 live in Alberta; Saskatchewan has 1,380; Manitoba has 4,498. Alberta has the western regional headquarters. In Manitoba there is a major repair facility. It is a major yard. Ontario has 7,165 employees and Quebec has 7,795 employees.

Perhaps the head office should be somewhere in Ontario. There are the same number of employees. Perhaps the head office should be in Prince Edward Island. There are five employees in Prince Edward Island; Newfoundland, 167; Nova Scotia, 393; New Brunswick, 1,903; and I mentioned that Quebec has 7,795. With the exception of the maritimes where there is not much of a presence of Canadian National, outside of New Brunswick which did have a repair facility, most of the employees of Canadian National are spread out pretty evenly across the country.

The Liberals dictate that the head office should be permanently in Montreal is because of the delicate nature of the relationship between some people who live in Quebec and the rest of Canada. The government just does not want to ruffle any feathers right now. It does not want to add another ingredient that could possibly be disturbing. It does not want to risk the enmity and the ire of the Bloc Quebecois by saying that the head office can be wherever the owners want it to be.

There are issues of principle that go beyond whether or not members of the Bloc Quebecois get upset. Let them get upset. Who cares? We are running a business here. We make business decisions for business decisions. We could have the Holy Mother here and the Bloc would find some reason for getting upset. Let us just assume that the Bloc is going to be upset no matter what we do.

The next thing then, when we are looking at some of the suggestions that we have made, is the restriction of 15 per cent. Earlier someone said it is not a big deal because the maximum number of shares that anyone has of CP is 11 per cent. What difference does that make? Who cares what the share structure of CP is? What we are trying to do is sell CN provided that the debt reduction on CN is not so much that it makes it an unfair competitor to CP, which is, of course, the private entity enterprise. We do not want to repeat the mistake we made with Air Canada, which was to write off all the debt, throw a competitor that has lots of cash into the marketplace to compete with the private sector, which at the time was Canadian Airlines or whatever its precursor was, and start a price war. That almost put both of them out of business.

In any event the situation is that no one owner may own more than 15 per cent of the shares of the privatized CN. People representing the government have said that it is a non-issue because the maximum share ownership of CP is 11 per cent. Surely it would not be a problem to take this restriction out of the legislation. The government has said it is not a problem, so why have it there?

It is important with Canadian National that if a group comes to the table and is prepared to invest enough money to own more than 15 per cent, then why on earth should it not? It may need to have that control in order to make Canadian National a competitive, profitable enterprise.

I have no reason to believe that this is the case but I am thinking aloud that it could be because so much of the Canadian National business is resource based, it is possible that a number of resource based companies will come to the table in a consortium wanting to buy Canadian National. Perhaps that consortium will want to have more than 15 per cent. The restriction of 15 per cent is artificial. It is not necessary and it does nothing to move the legislation ahead.

Another sop to Canadianism in the legislation is the requirement that Canadian National must remain bilingual just as it is as a crown corporation or as a federal government entity. There are institutions in Canada that are rightfully bilingual, such as the House of Commons and law. Many of the institutions across Canada that are bilingual should be bilingual because we are a bilingual country. When those of us who have lived most of our lives in other parts of Canada come to central Canada we see just how bilingual the country is. Being bilingual, trilingual or multilingual is to our benefit.

What we are talking about now is privatizing an operation that has been losing money for many years. There should be as few strings attached as humanly possible. If the corporation is to become a private corporation, then let it become a private corporation without the strings attached. If it is in the interests of the corporation to be bilingual or multilingual, we can be sure it will remain so, as it should. It may well become multilingual because there are parts of this country where the second language is not English or French, but may well be Mandarin.

Another point I raise is if we are going to privatize CN, let us honestly privatize it without all the strings attached in order to make it more palatable to the people. I do not want ascribe motive here, but it would seem to me that one aspect of the bill is nothing more or less than a sop to the Bloc Quebecois so that it will not get upset about it. If we are going to privatize it, let us do it.

Another point has to do with the marine strategy, the railroads in Canada and the fact that everything in Canada is interconnected. There is not much point developing a port in Halifax if there is no facility to move products from that port to the rest of the country. To do that we will require rail lines.

As this is privatized it is wholly appropriate there be certain restrictions on the new ownership to ensure that any transition is done carefully and in the public interest.

[Code Of Conduct, June 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the debate unfold this afternoon and have seen five or six inches of various reports the House has done on ethics over the last few years.

I have been very blessed in my life to have more than one mother. One of my mothers is my Jewish mother. She comes up with little pearls of wisdom we refer to as chicken soup for the mind.

Once when we were talking about ethics specifically in business she said ethics is simply doing the right thing even when you know no one is looking.

[Members Of Parliament Retiringallowances Act, June 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I stand to speak to Bill C-85, the great pension debate; with a little trepidation. I confess some varied emotions.

I do not think anyone in the House would say this debate necessarily brings out the best in people on both sides of the table. We are talking about something which is visceral and deeply personal. As members know, we are talking about how much money eventually winds up in our pockets. When people's pockets are threatened directly, it tends to bring out very visceral feelings. We have seen evidence of that over recent days.

As colleagues know, as a member of the Reform Party and caucus, I have decided to opt out of the pension plan. Before anybody puts angel wings on me, it is important for people to know that it is not that big a deal for me because if I did not opt out, I could not get elected dog catcher in my constituency. This is a fairly important issue in the ridings.

If I may, I would like to quote from an article in the Edmonton Journal written by Barbara Yaffe, June 3 of this year. She puts it very succinctly and very well:

Because beyond the cosy bounds of Parliament Hill there's quite a bit of pension passion. The consensus is that Bill C-85 stinks. If the bill passes, taxpayers, who might not mind a system of matching contributions, will pay $3.88 for every $1 an MP contributes. (Formerly taxpayers paid $5.75.)

She goes on to say that the most cynical feature of the pension plan, and this is the feature of this bill which I personally find most offensive, is its mean spirited nature. I can understand the Liberal government's motivation in making this mean spirited because it wants to break the Reform ranks and have its

members not opt out of the pension. Then at the next election they would be able to go door to door and say, "Wait a minute. We are not so bad. Look at those sanctimonious Reformers. Some of them stayed in the plan as well."

The fly in the ointment is that all Reformers have opted out or have indicated they will opt out of the pension. It is going to make it very difficult for our Liberal colleagues to be knocking on doors in the next election and explaining why they voted themselves a pension that was disproportionate to those held by anyone else and at the same time were so mean spirited in trying to get us to reverse our position.

That is politics. I can understand that. Most Canadians are fair minded. Most Canadians would be very happy if members of Parliament had matching contributions. It would be so simple to say, just like in the private sector, that members of Parliament will pay this much of the pension and the government, the employer, will pay this much, put it into RRSPs and forget about it.

This pension plan really strikes the note of dissonance between elected politicians and the people. One of the reasons I became involved in politics was to try to restore the bonds of trust between the elected and the electors. I thought that the 35th Parliament with 200 rookies would be a prime mover in this.

The best way to do that is to provide leadership by example. Leadership starts at the top. We cannot have two sets of rules, one set for everybody else and one set for us. It is not just the pension thing. It is in the way we treat our salaries in general.

Canadians do not mind that we be paid reasonably or even that we be paid well. What Canadians do not understand is why we should have tax free allowances, why we should have that bonus. Before I came to the House I ran my own business. I supplied receipts for everything I did. As members of Parliament why do we not provide receipts for everything that we do? Why is it that when government employees take a plane anywhere they get $25 taxis on both ends of the trip without having to provide receipts?

This pension issue really is a flashpoint for Canadians who, as reported by Statistics Canada, have not had an increase in real income for 10 years. Most Canadians feel like they are on a treadmill. No matter how hard they walk and no matter how fast they run, they do not get anywhere.

The reason they do not get anywhere is because of the incredible burden of taxation required by the federal, provincial and municipal governments which have spent so much more than they have earned over recent years. Over 30 per cent of every dollar that comes in goes to pay the debt on money already spent.

It is like buying groceries on a credit card, consuming them and then having to pay the bill. Canadians in general feel like they are on a treadmill and those who were elected in a role of leadership do not lead by example. That breaks the bond of trust between the elected and the electors.

This is a sacred fiduciary duty which we have been given by the people who sent us here. I would ask my colleagues opposite to please reconsider.

[Questions On The Order Paper, June 14th, 1995]

With respect to the October 24, 1994 signing of a treaty between the Government of Canada and the Government of the Republic of India on mutual assistance in criminal matters, ( a ) when the treaty was signed, was the government aware that India has in place a law known as TADA (Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act) and ( b ) can Canadians of Indian origin be threatened or prosecuted by Indian law as a result of TADA legislation?

[Criminal Code, June 13th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I want to compliment my colleagues from Scarborough West and Hochelaga who have been speaking in this debate for the tenor, the tone and the wisdom of their speeches and the way they have conducted themselves. It is interesting that two people coming from such polar opposites in this debate can both put their points well, succinctly and make their arguments.

Madam Speaker, I am absolutely fed up with being discriminated against. It is really starting to get to me. After studying the legislation, I see no mention of white, middle aged, sort of Catholic males.

If I am lying in a ditch somewhere with my head kicked in, why is it any less of an offence, albeit I am a member of the Reform Party? Why is it any less of an offence for me to be lying in a ditch with my head kicked in than someone else who may be black, may be gay or some other human characteristic? That is the reason I have a problem with the legislation. The whole notion of sexual orientation in the bill is a red herring.

If the government had the guts and courage of its convictions on sexual orientation it would come in the front door and amend the human rights act upfront instead of trying to slide this amendment in through the back door. As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice so aptly put it, why does this one teeny-weeny, itsy-bitsy two-word phrase in a 30-page bill have people up in arms?

It has people up in arms because it does not come to this question honestly. We have to be very careful to address the whole notion of sexual orientation honestly. Most Canadians, myself included, are absolutely 100 per cent against the notion of discrimination against anybody for any reason, including people who are gay. We are equally opposed to affirmative action based on any human characteristic.

The whole notion of rights came up in the 16th century and has come up through western Liberal democracies. It is a big part of the American Declaration of Independence. Now that we have sort of been messing around with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms the whole notion of rights has become confused.

As human beings we have two rights that are inalienable: the right to life and the right to liberty. Beyond those every other so-called right is a privilege given to us by other members of society for one reason or another.

When people came together under an apple tree and decided on some sort of governance, they were willing to give up some of our individual freedoms and liberties for the greater good, so that those that remained would be enhanced. We gave the responsibility to government to provide for these freedoms, security of the person and policing. We did so voluntarily but we did so as human beings.

We did not come together under a tree as white males, gay males, lesbian females, black females, males and females. We came together under a tree and said that for the common good we would have rules and order in society. We did not vest any one of us with rights or privileges superior to anyone else. When we came together and decided to have governance we said we wanted it for the common good.

Down the road things do not always work out the way they should. We know there are certain people in society who have been discriminated against. We know intuitively it is right to prevent discrimination. We have enacted laws over the years to prevent it. If we have to enact laws in the future to prevent discrimination against people because they are gay, homosexual, bisexual or lesbian, we should do so. However let us not be afraid of addressing it head on.

As my hon. colleague from Scarborough West said, statute laws that are ambiguous in nature in not defining the term sexual orientation do not bring credit to the law making process.

I wish to conclude my comments with a plea to all hon. members and to Canadians in general. We must make a clear distinction between the prevention of discrimination, which is laudable and which we all want, and affirmative action or giving benefit by reason of specific characteristics including sexual orientation. These are two very different ideas which have been combined and mixed up in the bill to the discredit of the bill.

If it is the government's intention to have sexual orientation as a defined part of the human rights act, the government should bring forth legislation as it promised to do in the election campaign and in its red book. It should show the courage of its convictions and do it through the front door honestly and honourably, not try to slide it in the back door through this legislation.

[Criminal Code, June 13th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I should like to put one observation on the record about Group No. 1 that has to do with sentencing circles for aboriginal Canadians.

I do not really have a problem with the whole notion of sentencing circles, but there seems to be a grave anomaly between how we handle and treat young offenders in the system in an aboriginal sentencing circle and young Canadians who are not aboriginal in a similar circumstance.

As the House well knows, in a sentencing circle one of the primary motivators to change behaviour is identification of the perpetrator by his or her peers, aunts, uncles and other people who live in the community. In a sentencing circle the perpetrator is expected to make good to the community at large because he or she may have broken trust with the community. It is his or her obligation to make good to the community.

Why is it an important part of rehabilitation in the aboriginal community to identify young offenders to the community when in the non-aboriginal community anonymity is the very foundation of the Young Offenders Act? It just does not make sense to me that in the aboriginal community identification is a large part of the rehabilitation process and on the other side of the same coin in non-aboriginal communities which do not have the benefit of sentencing circles anonymity is a large part of it. In my estimation it makes no sense whatsoever to have anonymity as a part of the Young Offenders Act.

[Alternative Fuels Act, June 9th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I join in the debate today with a mixed message. Very few things we encounter in Parliament and in life are entirely black or entirely white. They are usually a shade of grey, with the notable exception of the ongoing pension debate which is fairly direct in black and white. One is either on the side of the angels on that one or not. Today we are talking about Bill S-7, the alternative fuels act. In my opinion it is not quite so cut and dried.

Our party is basically a free enterprise party. Our position is that if it can be done in the marketplace by the marketplace that is probably where the motivation and the determination for what happens in life should be made, primarily if we are talking about things commercial.

The legislation is typical of government's desire to somehow manipulate the market or determine what is best for Canadians rather than let the marketplace decide what is best for Canadians.

On the other side of the coin is the fact that most people are very much aware that some alternative fuels, specifically propane and natural gas, are far less polluting to the atmosphere. They are in great supply in Canada and are relatively cheap.

If we could induce the marketplace to convert to propane or to natural gas, we would definitely be in a win-win situation, especially if the inducement for the marketplace to convert was of a moral suasion nature rather than an inducement by having to spend taxpayers' money to do it.

Other aspects of the bill on alternative fuels are not so benign. My colleague who spoke before me raised the point about electric cars. There is a possibility that electric cars put more lead into the atmosphere than people had anticipated. When we talk about converting to ethanol we have to look beyond the immediate where it makes sense to use ethanol as a replaceable product. We can grow it. We can get it from the farms. It is not a depleting resource. It makes sense, especially if it is mixed with gas. However, as we dig into the ethanol situation we discover the cost to the environment to produce ethanol is not so benign. It has to be fertilized. It costs a fair amount to grow the crop. Then resources have to be put into the refining of ethanol. The cost relative to gasoline is substantially higher.

The bill is not quite so easy. While part of it deals with alternative fuels which are readily changeable to and are very good for the environment, part of it also deals with other alternative fuels that may not be.

I should like to put on record a few thoughts about what happened in Brazil's mandate to move to ethanol:

Brazil's ethanol program is the world's largest and most ambitious government initiative supporting alternative motor fuels. In 1979, Brazil's passenger car fleet was comprised almost exclusively of gasoline vehicles; a decade later, about 30 per cent of its vehicles were built to run on ethanol. In the period 1975 to 1979, ethanol was blended with gasoline as a fuel extender in a 20 per cent ethanol-80 per cent gasoline blend.

In 1979, as a result of large oil price increases, the government decided that a new fuel-96 per cent ethanol-was needed to replace gasoline at the fastest possible rate. This decision meant that new fuel and automotive infrastructures were required. A large expansion of ethanol production capacity was needed to meet the government's new target of 10.7 billion litres by 1985. This changed the cost and character of the program: until 1979, ethanol production had been increased by using existing distilleries at sugar refineries; the 1985 ethanol production target could only be met by building new free-standing distilleries dedicated to producing ethanol. There were also new demands placed on the fuel distribution system. For example, local fuel stations needed to add pumps dedicated exclusively to dispensing ethanol fuel.

Consumers who had converted vehicles to take advantage of ethanol prices encountered problems with poor quality conversions. Also, after 1980, consumers faced higher fuel prices when the government increased ethanol prices [previously as low as 40 per cent of the price of gasoline].

This begs a question. We were going through the effort then to convert to alternative fuels that are cheaper today. What will happen when the market supply is such that suddenly there is enough demand? The price is likely to go up and we will not have a price advantage. That is the way the marketplace tends to work.

The quotation continues:

Consumers reacted rapidly, and ethanol vehicle sales fell to less than 10 per cent of total vehicle sales by July 1981.

The government then renewed its support for the program by holding ethanol prices at 59 per cent of gasoline prices for two years and extending ethanol vehicle purchase incentives. Auto makers improved ethanol vehicles by using corrosion resistant materials, adding a small pump to inject gasoline to reduce cold starting problems and improving ethanol vehicle warranties. Public confidence in ethanol vehicles steadily recovered, with purchases peaking in 1985 at about 95 per cent of the vehicle sales.

Ethanol demand began to outstrip production as early as 1986. From late 1989 to early 1990, there was an acute shortage of ethanol, and consumers with dedicated ethanol vehicles waited in long fuel lines. Ethanol vehicle sales dropped from over 50 per cent of the 1988 market to less than 4 per cent of vehicle sales in

mid-1990. Most cars made in Brazil now are designed for ethanol/gasoline blends rather than neat ethanol.

That was a long quote, but I thought it important to refer to the fact that once the government gets into the marketplace by regulating either the gasoline that can be sold, or the types of vehicles that should be sold, or in one way or another artificially changing the cost of a particular fuel, it sets up an intrinsic, automatic adjustment in the marketplace. The marketplace will be its own master. No matter how beneficial or how benign the intent behind a government motion might be, we cannot automatically assume that the result in the marketplace will have the same benign reaction.

As I said earlier, there are conversions which on the face of them make great sense: the conversion to propane or to liquefied natural gas, particularly the conversion to propane in Canada. I believe there are over 3,000 stations in existence today in Canada that will allow people to fill up their vehicles with propane. Propane is significantly lower in price than gasoline. It has wide acceptance in fleets of taxis. It has wide acceptance in other industrial fleets. It is a consumer recognized good product.

There is really no need for the government to provide any particular incentive for people to use common sense. We as a nation do not have the money any longer to be inducing consumers or changing the marketplace at our whim.

[Criminal Code, June 8th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of those viewers tuning in who thought they had somehow switched into the O.J. trial, we are talking about a private member's bill that would have the effect of saying that for serious violent crimes perpetrators would have three strikes and they are out.

Again for the benefit of those just viewing, it is interesting to see how confrontations brew and exist and happen in life. They can happen right here. They can happen everywhere in life, some more violent than others.

Here we have a situation of three strikes and you are out. In my view this started in California where people said one day: "We have to do something about this crime situation we have. Perpetrators do not seem to get punished for it. We have to somehow set the stage so that people know there is an ultimate sanction for doing wrong".

People who have spoken against the notion of three strikes say wait a minute, what is wrong with one strike and you are out? Why should we allow three strikes? Why should it not be one strike and you are out?

There is a good deal of validity to this because when I agreed to speak to this bill, I refreshed my memory on some of the articles I read about, three strikes and you are out.

One of the things I read was with the three strikes and you are out law in place, very often a perpetrator would have absolutely nothing to lose when making that third offence because the third strike was life.

While I am speaking in support of the bill and in support of my colleague, I do so in the full understanding there is a good deal of reservation among those who support the bill and who do not support the bill but for very different reasons.

The one thing people have in common when they are talking about this is the motivation to get us into a three strikes and you are out bill in the first place. There seems to be a sense of frustration with the criminal justice system in that there does not seem to be the kind of sanctions against wrongdoing which would prevent more wrongdoing.

It is almost as though society has become inured to the fact that there are people who are not good citizens, that we are prepared to accept antisocial behaviour and violent behaviour and say this is a fact of life and we have to accept it.

If we society take that view then the member is right, we will have to accept it because we will get a lot more of it. This bill speaks to that motivation in society at large saying do something about it.

An earlier speaker suggested perhaps incarceration was not the answer but then, what is? If incarceration does not make the perpetrator better, at least it protects citizens.

Our responsibility as legislators is to put the rights of the victims ahead of the rights of the criminals. The balance of doubt has to lie in favour of the innocent victim. The balance of doubt should no longer lie in favour of the perpetrator.