Roy Cullen

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, December 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup for his questions and comments However, I do not agree with him when he says that at this time we do not have a choice and we must support this bill. In my opinion, it is wrong to think that way. As for our Liberal government, our support for the forestry industry is long-standing.

We supported the industry through every countervailing duty action, which took a tremendous amount of work by our embassy in Washington and the department and through consultations with the industries. We had worked up a package that would support the industry with respect to loan guarantees and with respect to other initiatives, such as the need for the industry to convert their energy sources and use their biomass to develop electricity, because one of the big problems with the forest industry today is its high cost of energy.

We also put a number of initiatives in our package to help the forest industry to diversify their markets because markets are developing quite aggressively in China and India. While they have different cultures and different building codes and standards, we can make progress in selling our forest products into those markets and relieve some of the reliance on the U.S. softwood lumber market.

My colleague from the Bloc is mistaken when he says that the Liberal government did not support the forest industry. The Conservative government certainly has not. It told the industry that it had to either sign and support the softwood lumber deal or the government would cut off all support. The government put a gun to the head of the forest industry in Canada, which is why some of the companies are now saying that they do not have much choice because they cannot carry on without the support of the federal government. It was the Conservative government, not the Liberal government, that let the industry down.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, December 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this debate on the softwood lumber products export charge act, 2006.

I appreciate the minister's forthright comments on my earlier questions. I must say that I was a big cheerleader when Canfor launched its chapter 11 claim under NAFTA to say that the assets of Canfor had been wrongly put at risk and jeopardized because of an unfair process in the United States to come up with the lumber tariff. The reality is, in a nutshell, that this is what a chapter 11 filing does. I appreciate the minister's remark that this was to keep pressure on the United States, but nonetheless I believe it is an illusion to think that this agreement is going to find us any sort of peace.

In 1996, for example, there was the softwood lumber III round of negotiations, in which we agreed on managed trade for a five year period. When that ended, the U.S. launched softwood lumber IV. I know the argument is that if we keep litigating they can keep launching a countervailing duty file, but frankly at some point it comes down to being on the right side, and it has been shown that the Canadian softwood lumber industry does not subsidize its softwood lumber.

If we go back to softwood lumber I, the U.S. may have had a case. Our lumber was not priced as well as it could have been in terms of the market, but governments caught on to that and made changes in their stumpage and royalties. We know that today it has nothing to do with subsidies and everything to do with market share. As soon as our market share gets beyond 30%, the U.S. launches another countervailing duty file.

In my judgment, the problem in this case is that while many in the forest industry have said they would rather accept this deal, I think they are doing it under duress because the Conservative government told them that if they did not agree to this deal it was not going to support them any longer. We know that the forest industry in Canada could not possibly continue the countervailing duty process and fight what has been proven time and time again to be a lie, the lie that our softwood lumber in Canada is subsidized.

The industry could not continue this fight without the support of the federal government. That is why our Liberal government had proposed a package to help the industry with bridge financing and a whole range of issues to get over this hurdle and to keep fighting. Why would we cut a deal when we are winning at every stage?

I beg to differ with the minister. This has set a terrible precedent. I do not think it positions us that well with respect to the U.S. market in other areas. If I were in the steel industry or any other industry in the United States, I would tell myself that if Canada had to cut a deal on softwood lumber when it was winning at every conceivable stage and when objective panels comprised of Americans and Canadians were saying that Canadian softwood lumber was not subsidized, then the Americans should have an easy time on other products. I do not think it positions us very well.

I am not suggesting that this is an easy file. This is a very difficult file, but on balance I believe very strongly that the government should not have negotiated a deal. I do not think it is going to work in our interests in the long run.

We even have had confirmed by the minister that the way softwood lumber pricing is going at $300 for 1,000 board feet, the effect today would be that Canadian softwood lumber producers would actually be paying more under this deal, so we are going to be voting on this deal, finally, to say that our industry should actually end up paying more in terms of an export tax than it is paying in U.S. tariffs. While I understand what the minister is saying in that there are other pressures to review the U.S. tariff, et cetera, it is not money in the bank where I come from. That is something that might have happened or could have happened. Right now we know the effect is that our Canadian lumber producers are going to be paying more.

The sliding scale, where the export tax goes up when the pricing comes down, works very advantageously for U.S. softwood lumber producers. When the pricing goes down, they want less competition in the market. I am not sure that helps the Canadian softwood lumber producers. When the pricing is tanked, they do not want to have to pay more in export taxes. They want to increase their market share.

The industry is under duress and needs the support of the federal government. It did that this might be a good deal, but when the alternative was they would not get any support from the federal government, I think they knew it was all over. They had to cave in like the government caved in and support the agreement, although not all companies or all associations in Canada have said that. I believe they see the longer term implications of this deal.

We need to understand that the U.S. lumber producers are essentially saying this. Because they have a different system in the United States where the vast majority of their forest land is privately held, where in Canada it is just the reverse and most of our forest land is owned by the Crown, and because they auction a lot of their timber and we auction only a small percentage, their system is right and our system is wrong. I dispute that. We do have a different system. Our system of pricing timber has evolved over many decades in Canada.

I would like to know this from the minister. What happens if we move to this softwood lumber deal and many of the provinces move more aggressively to auctioning timber and the price becomes lower than the Crown pricing? That is a possibility. I have talked to many companies. I have also seen companies in the Prince George region where they have a mix of private timber and Crown timber. The private timber they get through the small business auctions is priced lower than the stumpage that is charged by the British Columbia government.

Therefore, there is no guarantee whatsoever that if we move to more of an auction based system, the delivered cost of wood will be lower. In fact, the pricing could increase and go the other way.

What will the U.S. lumber producers do then when they find that the delivered wood costs in Canada are declining because of more auctioned timber? Will that be the panacea they look for then?

A study was done a few years ago by an independent consulting group. It came to the conclusion that Canada's forest industry was 40% more productive than the U.S. forest industry. That was on the basis of total factor productivity. Admittedly that cuts across different parts of the forest industry, pulp and paper, lumber, panels, et cetera. In fairness the lumber sector was not quite as productive as the rest, but on average it still did very well. It was more productive than the U.S. sawmilling industry. On a total factor productivity basis, the Canadian forest industry is 40% more productive than the United States. That total factor productivity is a way of looking at how the industry applies labour, technology, person power, et cetera.

All one has to do is go to Prince George, British Columbia and see some of the sawmills there. They are some of the most efficient sawmills in the world. In fact, U.S. sawmill owners and operators come to Canada and they are given tours of these sawmills in the Prince George area. They are some of the best and most productive sawmills in the world. Therefore, it is not surprising that we can sell a lot of softwood lumber into the United States.

We also have a great resource. We have a colder climate that produces a better product. There are more rings. The wood does not warp or wane as much as on some of these southern plantations in the United States. If one goes to the southern United States to a construction site and asks a carpenter or building contractor what he prefers, U.S. southern yellow pine or spruce pine fir from British Columbia, he will say that he prefers the SPF from B.C. because it is a better quality product.

We know we have a comparative advantage in softwood lumber, yet we are caving in and making a deal. We are acknowledging the lie that softwood lumber in Canada is subsidized. That was the term used by the Free Trade Lumber Council, and it is an absolute truth. We have a very productive industry.

If senators or congressmen or congresswomen in Montana, or Washington state, or Oregon state or Wyoming have sawmills in their areas that might go bankrupt, what do they do? They will pull out all the stops. They will not allow the sawmills to go down because the market is being penetrated by Canadian softwood lumber, which is a better quality product and is priced the same because it is a commodity market. If the margins are good in Canada, more lumber will go there. That just makes economic sense.

This is not a matter for the Canadian government or Canadian producers. Something else should be found for those sawmills that are not as competitive as Canada's sawmills. Pittsburgh was converted into a high tech centre because its commodity based steel mills could not compete on the same scale with the Japanese and the Taiwanese. It became a niche player in the steel industry. That may not be possible with the few sawmills scattered around Montana, or Washington state or Oregon.

Why push the problems up to us? Can we not acknowledge that Canada has a comparative advantage in softwood lumber? I am prepared to concede that perhaps the U.S. has a comparative advantage over us in high tech and some other sectors. Can the U.S. not accept the fact that we have a comparative advantage in softwood lumber? The U.S. industry either cannot or will not accept this fact because U.S. senators and congressmen and congresswomen are trying to prop up inefficient mills. They have the power through Congress and through the Senate to start these protectionist movements. We need a better way to resolve disputes.

The minister has had a long history and a distinguished career in the forest products industry. He knows if someone wants to put up a sawmill, or an OSB mill, or an MDF mill, or a plywood plant, or a pulp mill or a newsprint operation in the U.S. south, that the individual will be offered just about everything to make the deal come true. State and local governments will offer sales tax abatements, tax holidays, property tax abatements and deals on energy. The capital costs of putting up a mill in the United States are about 20% less than the cost of putting up a comparable mill in Canada. Why? I have listed some of the incentives or subsidies, but there are others such as tax free bonds, cheap industrial land, cogeneration agreements, et cetera.

These deals are not limited to the forest products sector. The minister would know full well from his days in the industry portfolio that U.S. state and local governments offered somewhere in the range of 40% to 50% in subsidies for the capital costs of starting up or expanding an auto plant.

I am talking now about the hypocrisy of the United States producers and government supporting those producers when it comes to dealing with subsidies. As I said, people can get almost any kind of subsidy they want if they want to put a new mill in the United States, if they wanted to put up an auto plant or expand.

What about agricultural subsidies? My colleagues in rural sectors will know all about that. The Americans are probably one of the champions of agricultural subsidies, maybe a close second to Europe. They even call them subsidies.

The USDA Forest Service auctions off land and forestry resources. In the past some of those sales were done through auction. In some cases companies bid on that timber and years later they were unable to complete the deal because the price of 2x4 lumber had gone down. If they harvested the wood at that price, it would have been a very difficult economic situation for them. I think they have to go the White House to get this rescinded, and it has been done. The U.S. government notes that the price was bid 10 years ago, but since the economics have changed, it lets them off the hook. That is not an auction system when someone is let off the hook.

We know in the United States, particularly the Pacific northwest, that a lot of the pricing is speculative in nature. We read about the issues around the spotted owl. We read about many of the trends that were causing huge amounts of commercial forestry land to be taken out of production, and it may have been for very legitimate reasons. I am not arguing about the spotted owl. Maybe it needs to be protected. Maybe huge swaths of commercial timberland need to be taken out of production to protect it, but we know there is a scarcity.

In other words, the demand for timber in the U.S. Pacific northwest exceeds the supply. Therefore, if companies are in an auction system, they bid the price up because they want to have access to those timber resources in 15 years to feed their sawmills. We have never heard anyone argue that maybe the price of timber is too high in the United States. Maybe it is pricing itself out of the market. Maybe our pricing is the right.

However, the countervailing duty process does not allow us to get into questions like that. We cannot ask why in some cases the USDA Forest Service, which is a public agency, sells the rights to harvest timber at prices that are less than its costs. Under the countervailing duty process, all we can do is defend our system.

We cannot ask the U.S. government about all the subsidies it throws at U.S. producers because quite conveniently the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Congress have defined the countervailing duty process in a different way. They allege that we are subsidizing timber. It is up to us to show that we do not. We cannot tell them that they are subsidizing their softwood lumber and forest products. They do not talk about things like that. The process is quite flawed.

All of that really upsets me, but look at the anti-circumvention clause in the softwood lumber agreement. If the House supports this, then we agree that this clause is just fine. The clause says that if the U.S. feels actions are being taken, actions that might run counter to the agreement, by the Government of Canada, or the provincial or territorial governments, it can say that it is against the agreement and call for action. That could cover the whole range of forest policy initiatives of the federal and provincial and territorial governments. That is a very dangerous precedent.

The producers are being told they have to drop their lawsuits. If they drop them, in two or three years the U.S. producers can say that they do not think the softwood lumber deal works for them and that they want to scrap it. What do the companies that have dropped their lawsuits do then?

I know there is a lot of pressure from local companies in some cases to sign this deal but it is a terrible precedent. It really does not work for Canada and it does not work for our forest industry. I urge members in this House to study this carefully and defeat this bill when it comes forward.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, December 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I have three questions which I will put to the minister and I will try to make them succinct.

Canfor was one of the first companies, and maybe the only company, that felt that the chapter 11 claim, in the context of the softwood lumber tariffs and the anti-dumping framework, essentially stated that its assets were unduly attacked with an unfair process. The minister may not be able to comment on this, but I am wondering how the minister can reconcile that with his position here today.

Second, at what price per thousand board feet do companies break even in terms of what companies would have been paying under the current tariff versus the new export tax where the companies could end up paying more export tax than they would have paid in terms of the U.S. tariff? What price is that? Are we there today or are we expected to be there at some point?

My third question is with respect to the concept of zeroing within the framework of anti-dumping. It is a complicated arrangement. I know the Minister of International Trade is very well versed in this. I wonder if he would comment on the concept of zeroing and whether he thinks it is a fair practice.

[Canada's Clean Air Act, December 4th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, what puzzles me in the clear air act is that we are mixing up clean air with CO₂ and greenhouse gases. There is some linkage, but I am sure this is a deliberate attempt by the Conservatives to fuzzy the air, or the water, if I can say that.

What I feel very disappointed about is, for example, when we moved to intensity based reductions, if we look at the oil sands, for example, with the quadrupling of production to 2015, that will still mean there will be an absolute increase, in fact a huge increase, in the production of CO₂ out of the oil sands.

We hear a lot about ethanol. It might be good agricultural policy and it might help with cleaner air, but it certainly does not do anything for CO₂ because it takes a high level of energy to convert the corn or the switchgrass to ethanol.

Does the parliamentary secretary have any insights as to why the Conservative government switched from CO₂ to clean air? The two are not the same thing.

[Main Estimates, 2006-07, November 28th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I will take whatever credit is coming my way, but the member for Yukon is right when he points out a number of the very important initiatives our government put into play, which the new government has put on ice.

Coming from the private sector, my focus is on results. The bottom line question for me is this. Notwithstanding those good initiatives, and some of them were starting to take hold and bear some fruit, and there is a lag and a lead time, ultimately we ended up not doing as much about reducing greenhouse gases as I would have liked.

However, as I said in my remarks, in the last two or three years of our mandate, we were starting to see some of those initiatives take hold. I now challenge the Conservatives to act like mature individuals and take us to the next phase.

[Main Estimates, 2006-07, November 28th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I and the member for Western Arctic work together on the natural resources committee. He has a lot of experience and knowledge around energy and energy challenges. I would not take too seriously what the minister said about his not supporting the main estimates of natural resources. As my colleague knows, that was not what was under debate. The debate was about $250,000 reduction in vote 10.

We know from experience that the minister does not read his notes. He does not read the order paper. I think he was just confused. Most people in the House would acknowledge the good work of the member for Western Arctic.

In terms of carbon capture and sequestration, we need a new model moving forward. We need the federal government to take some leadership on this issue. It needs to pull the various stakeholders together, the province of Alberta, the oil and gas industry, the aboriginal peoples, the municipal politicians from Fort McMurray and the people who have been interested in the water dilemma we face there. The government needs to sit these people at a table and tell them we cannot realistically proceed with further development of the oil sands unless we have a plan to deal with carbon capture, water recycling, the highest and best use of natural gas, the social and infrastructure problems at Fort McMurray and a host of other things. They have to sit down and work out a plan.

I submit that the $50 oil will be with us for some time to come. The bitumen will always be there. Why can we not work as intelligent, responsible, mature human beings instead of being concerned about walking on eggshells, that this would be seen as anti-Alberta or anti-the west?

I lived in western Canada for 12 years. I know what it is like living there. I have the greatest respect for what has been done so far in Fort McMurray, but we need to be responsible parliamentarians and responsible Canadians. We need a plan that will put money in the right hands, maybe the industry and the scientists, to accelerate the development and the deployment of these technologies, which are so urgently needed in that area.

[Main Estimates, 2006-07, November 28th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I worked with the member for Langley on the public safety committee. He always struck me as a reasonable person, but he seems to have strayed from that roost, sadly.

I thought it was quite important for our prime minister to sign on to Kyoto because Kyoto was in serious trouble. My issue was that if we sign on to Kyoto, let us set goals that are realistic and achievable. Let us put in the economic instruments, the market signals, and the economic incentives so that we can reach the goal. That is the only flag that I had put up.

I thought the goals were stretched targets. Obviously, they were. It is one thing to sign a protocol; it is another thing to honour it. I think that we could have done a better job, frankly. That is my own personal view. I think it is probably shared by many on this side. However, to bring about these changes in behaviour takes a lot of time, and we were starting to make some progress in the latter part of our mandate. Could we have made more progress? Probably.

However, right now, you folks on the other side have formed the government. You have to take responsibility now. Frankly, I was very embarrassed by your minister when she was in Nairobi and started to make a partisan attack in front of an audience that did not--

[Main Estimates, 2006-07, November 28th, 2006]

Yes, perhaps he has written an article somewhere. I would like to see him sit down with the stakeholders, with the members of the House of Commons and lay out a plan.

There is another point. The Minister of Natural Resources said that he would announce an energy strategy, energy framework, call it what he will, that would lay out the federal position. At least we could have a dialogue within Canada about the energy challenges and the energy opportunities that we are facing in the future.

He told us at committee that this would be available in the fall. He would have done it sooner, but he wanted a quality product. I am sure the minister would know, maybe not by walking around here in Ottawa, but in Victoria, where he comes from, in Saanich, that fall is probably over and we are still waiting for this energy strategy.

At the same time, the minister talks about the need to conserve energy and to become more energy efficient, and I am with him 100% on that. We all understand that there are so many ways that we could become more energy efficient. At the same time as he says that, he scraps programs that are working like the EnerGuide retrofit program for houses, which was producing energy efficiencies of about 30% per home.

He also puts on hold, freezes, cuts, whatever, and the language he uses sometimes is totally vague, but the wind power production incentive program is a program that was helping many producers to put in wind power. Wind power, while not a panacea, has some great potential, especially in provinces like Quebec. My colleagues down the way will understand that very well. Wind power fits very well with hydro-electric power because it is able to work off the peaks and valleys of the production. What does that minister do? He says no to wind power production incentive programs and that he will revisit that. He has been revisiting these programs for 9 or 10 months and we are still waiting.

I could go on and on and I will go on and on. I had an opportunity in my previous life to visit Thetford Mines. I had a client there, actually, a company that had automotive interests, metallurgy and also an engineering capability. It is a quaint little town. I think that while we cannot justify the production and sale of asbestos, if it is hazardous to health, we also need to think very carefully about the people whose lives and livelihood depend on it.

We should be very careful when we say that something is carcinogenic. There are a lot of things, unfortunately, in our society that are carcinogenic. While car fumes have been improved, they are surely carcinogenic. We are taking a lot of measures to reduce the incidence of smoking and secondhand smoke but that too is carcinogenic. Do we ban smoking? Do we ban Bavarian sausages. They are probably carcinogenic as well. I am not trying to trivialize this because I know the member for Winnipeg Centre feels very deeply about it, but we need to be very careful in this particular area.

The member for Winnipeg Centre wants to cut the $250,000 that go to the Chrysotile Institute. There are $250,000 annually that come from the province of Quebec and $250,000 come from the industry. That money is used for research and ensuring that the industry communicates very clearly to countries and the domestic market what some of the risks are of chrysotile asbestos.

There are risks, there is no denying that, but I would contend that with the proper application and controlled environment, chrysotile asbestos can be and is being used in a safe way. Does that mean that we sell it abroad without any sort of information? Of course not. That is why cutting the $250,000 would be a mistake. It would be a very big mistake.

Coming back to the minister, how did he defend forestry communities on softwood lumber? We know the position of the Minister of International Trade. He got his instructions from the Prime Minister when he returned from Cancun. The deal was that the government was going to work something out on the passport issue, which, by the way, we are still waiting for, and negotiate a deal on softwood lumber.

Why would Canada negotiate on softwood lumber when it has been winning every single appeal through the NAFTA and all the objective panels? If we have to cave in on softwood lumber, what are we going to do later with steel or any other product? We have set a horrible precedent with this bill. That is why the minister should have spoken to the motion before the House.

How did the Minister of Natural Resources defend forestry communities in Canada because this has huge consequences? The reality is that the Minister of Natural Resources, who I think was probably like the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and out of the loop on this one, should have been asserting the interests of forestry communities across Canada saying that he could not tell them in good conscience that the government was going to pull the rug out from under them and give them no financial support if they did not agree to the softwood lumber deal. That is essentially what happened. The government put a gun to their heads and said that if they did not sign off on the softwood lumber agreement, it would not be supporting them any more.

The reality is that the Liberal government supported the forestry industry through thick and thin on all the countervailing duty actions. The industry in real terms cannot fight that big U.S. machine without the support of the federal government.

What were the forest products companies supposed to do? They had a gun to their heads. They said they believed they had a case to fight it through the NAFTA and won every single independent panel, but the Conservative government was saying it was going to pull the rug out from underneath them and they were on their own if they did not sign off on this deal.

The other thing is that the softwood lumber deal calls for the companies to drop their lawsuits and then sign on to this agreement, but the other hook is that the U.S. producers in two or three years time can argue in front of the U.S. administration that they do not like the deal any longer and can renege on the deal. In the meantime, the forest products companies have signed off on their rights with their lawsuits.

I would have liked to have seen the Minister of Natural Resources stand up for forestry communities. I would have liked to have seen the Minister of Natural Resources come out with a package that we, as a Liberal government, had committed to, a $1.5 billion package. In today's terms it would probably be more. It would have helped them with bridge financing. It would have helped the industry with the labour adjustment. It would have helped the industry in terms of innovation and would have helped the industry in converting energy.

Energy is a big problem for the forest industries. We would have helped them convert their biomass into electricity to feed their mills and maybe even feed the grid, and deal with this very significant problem.

We have seen pulp mills and saw mills across Canada close with regularity. Where has the Minister of Minister of Natural Resources been? I have not seen him defending forestry communities and it seems to me that this is his job.

We have seen the mining industry and the forest industry tell the government, tell people like myself, tell other colleagues in this House, that they are facing huge labour shortages. We are not talking about a few people here and there. We are talking about thousands of labour shortages in these industries. I suppose young people are deciding to go into other careers; I am not exactly sure. I know that one part of it is an aging workforce, coupled with maybe some lesser interest by young people to go into the forestry and mining industries.

We need a plan. What does the Minister of Natural Resources do? He goes to China and tries to sell uranium. I am not sure what he is doing, but he is not here. He is not defending the interests of forestry communities and he is not defending natural resource communities across Canada, maybe 400 communities across Canada whose livelihood depends on the natural resource economy.

We tend to think of our economy as high tech. Actually, a lot of the high tech is in the natural resource economy. This minister should stay on subject. When he comes into the House, he should deal with the issue on the floor, however uncomfortable that is, and he should deal with the issues facing Canadians in the natural resource sector.

[Main Estimates, 2006-07, November 28th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, this has been a fairly wide-reaching debate about the estimates of the Treasury Board, the Senate, and the complete estimates of the Department of Natural Resources, so it really has not focused much on the emotion of the member for Winnipeg Centre.

First let me say that the member for Winnipeg Centre made a very disparaging remark about Mr. Gary Nash. I know Mr. Nash personally. He is a very well respected leader within the mining industry in Canada. I know that the Speaker is going to be looking at the blues and I would hope that the member for Winnipeg Centre will retract those remarks.

However, what I find most disappointing is that when the Minister of Natural Resources came in to debate this motion, he tried to indicate that what we were debating was the full estimates of the Department of Natural Resources of $256 million and some. He knows that is not what we are debating here today.

I think the line that he took was somewhat disingenuous, because he did not want to debate the question around chrysotile asbestos. That is what the motion from the member for Winnipeg Centre calls for: a reduction in vote 10 in the amount of $250,000. That $250,000 is a far cry from $250 million. Some members seem to be mixing up the zeros, but that is what the member is really talking about.

The reason I said the line the minister took was disingenuous is that we know he did not want to debate the topic of chrysotile asbestos. It is a very sensitive issue.

I believe this is a very serious and important issue. The minister should have said that chrysotile asbestos is neither prohibited nor strictly regulated in Canada. It is used under controlled conditions.

He should have said that domestic regulations are applied to strictly control chrysotile exposure and to ensure safe handling of the product. This approach based on controlled use guarantees the safe use of chrysotile in Canada.

He should also have said that Canada provides importing countries with information about the safe use of chrysotile and supports the work of the Asbestos Institute, which promotes the use of asbestos around the world.

This is a serious question that has been posed by the member for Winnipeg Centre. He obviously has some personal experience working in an asbestos mine. It is a very serious and important question, but the minister did not want to deal with it. He wanted to deal with the full body of his estimates.

There I must say that the minister was again very disappointing. If he had read the order paper he would have seen that what we were debating was the chrysotile asbestos motion, not the full estimates of the department. If he had read it, he would have seen that the $256 million under Natural Resources “in the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2007 be concurred in”. That amount is not in question. It is the motion of the $250,000 that is in question. The minister knows full well that this is what is at issue here.

I had an experience the other day with the minister. He came to the Standing Committee on Natural Resources to do his estimates. He talked about the future of carbon capture and sequestration. He talked about all the work that was going to be done with energy efficiency in the industrial sector.

I was sitting there with the plans and priorities book that was prepared by the department. I looked at those two particular line items, industrial energy efficiency and CO₂ carbon capture and sequestration, and lo and behold, to my complete surprise and shock, those items were being cut from his plans and priorities. My only feeling, which I expressed to the minister at the time, was that perhaps he missed that meeting when the departmental officials put together the book and sought his approval. Presumably and hopefully they sought his approval, but the other point is that maybe he does not really know what his department is doing. This certainly was an indication of that.

In terms of the debate this evening, I am sure his departmental officials tried to brief him, but maybe he had other engagements. Maybe he had other commitments and he could not be briefed on what we are actually debating here in the House today.

The minister talks about being an energy superpower. We have heard this from the Prime Minister. Does it not have a nice ring to it? As a proud Canadian, I would like us to be an energy superpower. But, and this is the big but, it has to be sustainably driven and it has to be environmentally responsible. What do we hear from the minister on those points? We do not hear one iota. We do not hear a peep.

He talks about how we are going capture all the carbon and sequester all the carbon in the oil sands of Alberta. Is that not a nice thing to say? It sort of rolls off the tongue. It is actually what we should be doing, but we went to the budget and his plans and priorities and he has been cutting those programs.

He talked about how we are going to recycle all the water. Is that not a nice notion? That is what we should be doing, but what is he doing about it? Nothing. He is doing absolutely nothing. Our committee has been hearing witness upon witness and they all say no, we do not have the power and we are heading into a very difficult situation but no one is really providing any guidance.

Where is the federal government? Where is the Minister of Natural Resources in providing leadership on this file? Why could the Minister of Natural Resources of Canada not call the ministers in Alberta? Why could he not call the oil and gas industry together with the stakeholder groups, the aboriginal peoples, the energy industry and the town of Fort McMurray and sit down and say, “Look, we have a problem here in Fort McMurray with the oil sands. We should really put things on hold until we have these technologies in place where we can recycle the water so that we are not draining the Athabasca River basin”.

The minister talks about how we are recycling 90% of the water. That is not the case. Ninety per cent of the water might be going into tailings ponds, but the tailings ponds have to settle, and while the oil sands are being grown, with production supposed to quadruple by 2015, the new starters, the new entrants, will have to create their own tailings ponds. Besides that, there are some difficulties in the settling out of the tailings ponds so that this money can be recycled back into the river.

It just makes sense. If we were to pick up a newspaper or talk to anybody out there, they would tell us that the Athabasca River basin is being sadly and terribly depleted. We do not have to be rocket scientists in this Parliament. I do not think the Prime Minister would ask his minister to be a rocket scientist. He would just ask him to use a bit of common sense, show a bit of leadership, and bring the parties together. The bitumen will be there forever.

I was just up there with some colleagues from the House. If one travels around to see it, it is quite an astounding engineering and management feat and I take my hat off to those people. We should be proud of it, except that moving forward, we should have the maturity and common sense to say that we have to sit down and talk about further expansion because there are some severe issues at stake. I did not even mention the infrastructure and the social problems that are occurring in Fort McMurray, which I am sure the minister knows all about.

We should try to appeal to the oil and gas industry. What about the cost pressures that they are facing? Maybe it would make sense to sort of cool this down a bit while we get our act together. Maybe the federal government could help with the acceleration, the development, and the deployment of these CO₂ carbon capture and sequestration technologies and the water recycling technologies. What about the use of our natural gas?

Here is the Minister of Natural Resources, from whom I have not heard a peep. Maybe he has written an article in the Energy Times or something, but I have not seen anything that talks about whether the way we are using natural gas in Fort McMurray is the best use of our natural gas resources in Canada. Everybody seems to know that it is a very inefficient use of our natural gas. We have very volatile natural gas markets. We know that people all across Canada are having to pay excessive prices for natural gas and there is a very volatile market.

There have been discussions up in Fort McMurray, perhaps none in the halls of the Department of Natural Resources or the minister's office, about maybe replacing natural gas with nuclear plants. Where is the minister on that? I have not heard a thing.

[Main Estimates, 2006-07, November 28th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I wonder if I could get a ruling from the Speaker as to whether the reference the member for Winnipeg Centre has made about the assistant deputy minister of the Department of Natural Resources, Mr. Gary Nash, is unparliamentary.