Dan McTeague

[Supply, September 21st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the hon. member from Winnipeg, my hometown. I was just there ironically about a week and a half ago with the public policy forum. It is undertaking comprehensive reviews, compliments of the initiatives of the government along with the conference board, on the question of gasoline and other areas of competition.

The question of regulation is an interesting one. Many provinces have backed away from it because it always preserved the artificial prices that might otherwise be forced down. For many years Canadians have enjoyed gasoline prices that were far more competitive in the past. Regulation in my view is probably the end of the line. There may come a point where that is in fact what has to occur.

The hon. member knows that jurisdiction lies squarely within the ambit of the provincial governments. With that in mind the federal government and some provinces have obviously talked about it.

The member who asked that question has a number of representations in provinces. We can see it in this report. Provincial governments have looked at the idea of tackling predatory pricing, creating terminals which is exactly why I wrote a letter to the Competition Bureau chief two days ago to deal with the potential for closing these terminals.

Finally, we should not be relying on the oil industry's own people like M. J. Ervin and others to be the last word. We do not need the fox monitoring the chicken coop.

[Supply, September 21st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it is a double honour that the former leader of the Reform Party is asking the question. I am glad to see him in his place. One of the first times I had an opportunity to debate in the House was with him. We are coming full circle. I also hope it is a new beginning for both of us.

The hon. member knows full well that this was a big issue. He has had many days to argue this. He has had many opposition days to bring this issue forward. The reality is his party is only bringing it up today because of the high prices.

The context in which he is issuing the edict on the question of taxes confuses Canadians. Canadians are not fooled. Most of them know that taxes do not go up on long weekends but prices do. The hon. member is obviously and skilfully avoiding that. I can assure the hon. member I have had that question put to me many times on the national media. The hon. member knows my answer to that so I must wonder why the question was asked in the first place.

I am going to take the hon. member at his word. I think he believes quite frankly that anyone who questions the oil industry must be categorized as an ideologue. I come from a hardworking community of consumers. The hon. member was in my riding several times before I won it back with an even bigger majority than last time on the issue of gasoline. In our neck of the woods in Toronto we are facing 78 cents a litre gasoline. That is higher than what we see across the country.

I might be able to enlighten the hon. member that all of this began in 1992 while he was on the campaign trail. In fact the now very famous document, Bloomberg Oil Buyer's Guide, pointed out that the independent gasoline sector was going to be the target of the oil companies and that there was going to be a disciplining by the major oil companies targeted at the profits of the independents which were too good for their own good.

I am asking for one thing. Let retail mom and pop efficient competitors compete against their own supplier and not be outdone by weak laws and irrelevant comments and questions like the one I just received from the hon. former leader.

[Supply, September 21st, 2000]

It would appear that the hon. member believes it is rather cute to deal with taxes. Let us talk about taxes. Let us talk about the fact that his friends in the oil industry keep taxes for 45 and up to 90 days that could otherwise be remitted to the government. Let us talk to this member about the devastation that taxes have wrought on independent mom and pop efficient retailers.

This is not just happening in my riding or the ridings of those members, it is even happening in the riding of the hon. Leader of the Opposition where he goes jet boating on a little water ski. Does he not understand that last year and the year before ARCO came in with predatory prices below the cost of wholesale and knocked out a number of independents? The people of British Columbia, many of them supporters of the Alliance Party I am sure, have now found out the real effect of predatory pricing. What happened? Prices went from 30 cents to 80 cents a litre to the great shock of the good people of British Columbia, and of course the hon. member is correct in pointing out the tax component.

We have addressed this and the province of British Columbia has addressed the reasons why this should be examined. Unfortunately those hon. members never thought this was a problem. Their single track, uni-minded view of always focusing on taxes allows them to look at something that is totally irrelevant to the actual problem.

I and every member of the House knows about the record profits being made by oil companies. I have no difficulty with people making money. In the free market that is exactly how business works. However, if one is able to do it based on a vertical integration and a near monopoly, and one is able to take advantage of weaknesses in our laws, lack of oversight or apologists in the Alliance Party, is it any wonder that Canadians today from coast to coast are being hurt by high fuel prices that have nothing to do with taxes?

I believe we have an opportunity here. If the Alliance is serious about dealing with this issue it will join with the government in not only reading a little more than four sentences out of a 69 page document, which I believe colleagues on my side of the House will know is very well written, but it will look at the other aspects of taxation.

The Alliance has accused the finance minister of saying that there should not be any co-operation. I know why it does not like that. It is because the finance minister listens to backbenchers, unlike certain leaderships in other parties who ignore or perhaps chastise backbenchers.

The committee made recommendations on a couple of issues. We have already dealt with the question of tax on tax. Let me deal now with the six other recommendations with respect to taxes. Given the first speaker's view on this issue of transportation, he might be interested to read—although I have not heard him phrase this the right way—that provincial governments should refrain from using revenues generated by gasoline consumption taxes and vehicle fees for projects other than road repair and transportation infrastructure. I do not see that recommendation on the floor today.

The joint action between the federal and provincial governments aimed at restoring Canada's national highway system should be given a priority and an appropriate cost sharing formula in public-private partnerships should be established to undertake repairs at the earliest opportunity.

The federal government should remove the requirement for a tax bond to be posted by independents who have sales indicating reasonable financial stability and extend the same tax collection authority that is granted and enjoyed by refiner marketers. Alternatively, wholesalers can be required to pay taxes on balances until they are remitted.

Has it not dawned on the Alliance that if it wants to make inroads in Ontario it might follow the leadership of the Ontario provincial government which, ironically, last evening pretty well endorsed the very findings of the Liberal committee on gasoline pricing?

I have heard from Ontario's minister of transport, the finance minister and the premier who have gone out of their way to compliment the work that we have done and to establish the single most important issue of taxation with respect to decline, which is that a mechanism needs to be put in place to ensure that the consumer receives the benefit, not the oil companies.

Are the Alliance members talking through their hats? Obviously they have forgotten the maritimes. The motion does not say anything about rising home fuel, natural gas or the relevance of using diesel on which there is very little federal tax that cannot be remitted to the individual.

I know the Alliance Party has problems with people in the maritimes from time to time, certainly some of its members do, but let me read from the New Brunswick select committee on gasoline pricing. The committee noted that reducing taxes did not necessarily translate into lower prices at the pumps.

Members know that New Brunswick has the second lowest tax regime for gas in Canada next to Alberta but it probably has the highest prices in Canada. Why is this a phenomenon? It is not because of me. It is not because we are trying to play some kind of game over the question of taxation. It is because the New Brunswick government was the first government in 1992 to implement a 2 cent a litre tax reduction. According to it, as crude costs were comparable it was assumed that the refiner and retailer margins were also comparable to other Canadian cities.

The select committee found that during the first six months of the tax decrease refiner and retailer margins were 3.7% higher in Saint John than the national average of other major cities. This led the committee to conclude that over time the tax reduction was captured in large measure by the oil markets and that consumers had not received the full benefits. In the committee's opinion, lowering the gas tax in that province did not produce corresponding lower gasoline prices to consumers.

The motion proposed by the hon. member's party and the silly subamendment that prevents common sense to be put into this motion ignores the fact that consumers could be badly hurt and that the companies, unless we understand the market we are dealing with, will never see the benefit of a tax reduction.

I want to compliment the finance minister, the Prime Minister and our colleagues for having the wisdom and the foresight two years ago to say that when the country could afford these kinds of tax reductions they would be given directly to Canadians.

We know the market functions in a supply and demand free market system. Where it does not work there is danger, especially when governments simply co-operate with an industry that can arbitrarily pad the increase or the decrease to consumers to its bottom line.

On that point let me make something very clear. Right now we are dealing with an international situation, and particularly in the United States of America there are inventory shortages. Almost any disruption is used as an excuse in the marketplace to drive prices up. The tragedy for Canadians is that we accept these things as inevitable.

No one here on this side is arguing for a world price. No one here is looking to revisit 1980 with the national energy program. Rather, we want to make sure that competition is free and abundant in this industry. To that end one has to ask the question, if there is a shortage in the United States and average refiner margins in that country posted in New York harbour are about six cents a litre in response to this tightening of supply, why is it that refiners in Canada in my area of Toronto can charge 11.5 cents a litre?

It is because that six, seven or eight mystery cents that are being tacked onto the price are the result of a lack of competition which the Alliance members have consistently and from a determined point of view decided to ignore. Not only have they ignored the wisdom of what is in this document, and they have thought enough of picking at least one of 29 recommendations, but they are ignoring the impact it is having on ordinary Canadians from coast to coast.

I plead with them to get off their hobby horses if they want to deal with this industry. I understand that the oil patch is in the background. There are refiners in Toronto; there is a nuclear reactor that leaks from time to time in my riding. That does not prevent me from speaking out on those issues.

This is a place where for generations we have enjoyed the freedom to speak out on things we know are true. We should not be confined to looking at only one issue that is totally irrelevant to the problem. That is exactly what this resolution is. It is irrelevant. It is dangerous. It is politically loaded. It will harm consumers because not only will consumers not see the benefit of the redistributive effect of governments being able to pay for the very things the provinces are calling for, it will also mean that consumers will never see any relief.

More important, if the Alliance members claim to be the great knowledgeable marketeers that they are, would it not make sense for them to at least consider that given the distortions in the marketplace they would have an opportunity to see the price, or any decrease that is contemplated, passed on through the tax system? I too would like to see taxes passed on.

I could go on at great length, but I want to move my motion. It is absolutely important that we put some balance in what is otherwise I am sure a well-intentioned idea to deal with high fuel prices, notwithstanding the fact that it does not deal with fuel prices but deals with taxation.

Mr. Speaker, with your indulgence I will read once again the motion I wish to put before this House today. The motion by the opposition initially reads “That given the record increases in the price of gasoline and home and diesel fuel, severely hurting Canadian consumers”. The amendment would be to replace the text after the word “consumers” with the following “, especially those with lower incomes, this House calls upon the government to assist Canadians in coping with the rising financial burden and that this House strongly urges provincial and territorial governments to consider providing similar assistance”.

I want to ask a few simple questions of my colleagues across the way before they ask me some. I am sure they will know that after some four or five years I have not been a dilettante on this issue. I have done many interviews in their ridings and I think there is some common ground that we can deal with.

The motion the Alliance has provided does nothing to ameliorate or improve the condition or the misfortune of Canadians to deal with the underlying uncompetitiveness of an industry that is dominated by three or four players that control most of the 18 refineries in this country and which cannot, for whatever reason and like any other industry, operate at the retail level without being a vertically integrated supplier.

That is a fairly serious indictment about the state of oil and the cost of oil in this country. It explains why 10 cents or 12 cents a litre, not even dealing with the upstream, at the downstream, is consistently and routinely passed on to consumers without even the opportunity of oversight.

When hon. members quote they do so shamelessly by quoting from only one part of the document written by Liberal members. They should deal with the issues of temperature compensation; deal with the fact that independence has been wiped out of this industry; try to reconcile the idea of environmental standards that are necessary for some people who cannot exit the industry; deal with the Come By Chance refinery which has had a restrictive covenant placed upon it; do not battle us when we are in the industry committee trying to propose new changes; and come one, two, three against good bills that might otherwise prove that parliament and backbenchers have a role.

Finally I urge hon. members not only to consider the ideology which underpins their views on taxation. Think of the people who are going to have to put away what little money they have because of a marketplace somewhere else outside Canada, a country blessed with an abundance of energies, in which taxes have built the infrastructure to ensure that our oil companies are profitable and competitive, and now find themselves at mercy's end and may not be able to get sufficient fuel or sufficient resources to meet the basic necessities. This has nothing to do with taxes and everything to do with the price of this commodity.

I call upon all members of the House to not just accept the amendment to the motion which would make the motion relevant and appropriate, but to have some compassion and put aside their tax battle until the election. Let us fight for Canadians.

[Supply, September 21st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I intend to give notice, and it is my sincere hope, that I, seconded by the member for Middlesex, would make the following amendment to the motion subject to further discussion with the Chair.

The current motion reads:

That given the record increases in the price of gasoline and home and diesel fuel, severely hurting Canadian consumers—

With my amendment, the motion would then read “—especially for those with lower incomes, this House calls upon the government to assist Canadians in coping with the rising financial burden, and that this House strongly urges provincial and territorial governments to consider providing similar assistance”.

Mr. Speaker, that is the amendment I wanted to provide to the House, and I may in fact have that opportunity. However, it is clear that the new boss and the tactics of the Alliance are the same as the old boss and the old Reform Party. On an issue so fundamental and important to the misfortune of Canadians, that party over there has decided to play politics, where this party, years in advance, decided to try to do something about it.

I can tell the hon. member for Calgary Southeast that the reason the price of gasoline is what it is today has absolutely nothing to do with taxes and everything to do with distortions in the marketplace.

The Alliance is very quick to point out a recommendation made by a Liberal committee on gasoline pricing two and a half years ago. I am really pleased that the hon. members across the way have finally discovered that fuel and high prices are an issue. It must be close to an election. Let me warn the hon. members that this is an issue on which this side of the House did its homework years ago, specifically with respect to this particular recommendation where it does indeed deal with a half recommendation of the Liberal committee on gasoline pricing.

For the purposes of enlightening the Chair, let me say what hon. members on the other side who proposed this motion are not prepared to say about the recommendations. The recommendation says that if the GST is removed from other taxes, the federal government should undertake measures to ensure that the resulting savings are passed on to consumers and not merely absorbed by the oil industry.

I know that some members of the Conservative Party would prefer to jump on this because they think it is a new issue. As I have already indicated, the report speaks for itself. It was published some two and a half years ago and the hon. members across the way have never bothered to look at its implications, even now.

I will begin my speech by saying that imitation is the greatest form of flattery but the way in which they have dissected this document and narrowly picked up on only one issue leads the consumers in Canada to conclude that they are very narrow in their focus on the issue of fuel prices. The public is not bought off and does not find very amusing the idea of these johnnies-come-lately suddenly picking up this issue that the Liberal Party has known about for years and is acting upon.

The hon. member and his leader have for some time talked about the interests and concerns of truckers. Indeed, myself and the hon. member for Oshawa were the only government members who took the time to actually be there back in February when the crisis arose.

Unlike the hon. Leader of the Opposition and his cohorts beside him, trucking and the issue of fuel taxes is totally irrelevant to the problem. That may stun members of the Alliance because, of course, they do not understand that the excise tax of 1.5% was not raised on diesel. Moreover, the GST is remittable through the input tax credit. More importantly, and I think this will come as something as a shock to Alliance members, if the provincial governments, such as the government of Ontario which charges 14.7% on its side of the excise road allowance tax consumption, or the government of Alberta at 9%, were so interested in helping truckers, they would have acted.

It is clear that the opposition in proposing this motion will not allow the facts to get in the way of a political opinion. It is with that in mind that I would like to speak at some length about what this side of the House has done with respect to the issue of gasoline.

[Supply, September 21st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, with your indulgence, I believe that you did say “On a point of order, the hon. member for Calgary Southeast”. On that basis I think that the record will also clearly show that that amendment is clearly out of order. I would propose an alternative amendment.

[Supply, September 21st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think you will find in keeping with the standing orders of the House that an amendment to a motion cannot be entertained on a point of order. I would ask the Chair to rule on that.

[Business Of The House, June 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I want refer to a matter of privilege that was raised on Monday of this week by the Chair and, more important, by the Canadian Alliance member for Fraser Valley.

I was about to head over to the doctor to have my foot looked at as a result of a very good game of soccer last night with the pages. They were a little zealous in their duty and I believe their aim was to reduce the number of members who played in that event.

I am here because I want to give some clarification on Bill C-201. To understand this, Bill C-201 is at the report stage. It was, however, sent back from committee as a blank piece of paper. This is the first time the House has ever dealt with a situation wherein a committee has deemed, in its wisdom, to do what the wider parliament did not do and to return a blank piece of paper.

In the meantime, for a variety of dates, circumstances and other reasons, we have been trying to find an amenable way to restore through amendments the effect of Bill C-201.

I am concerned that those who raised this issue are somewhat incognizant of the fact that their own party, the Canadian Alliance, stood four square behind the destruction of Bill C-201, a bill that ironically deals with changes in the Competition Act for predatory pricing, the very thing that Microsoft will be facing in the United States in the next little while. The subtle differences between our two jurisdictions are important.

We as a parliament are dealing with rather new territory. We are really creating a new path as far as Private Members' Business is concerned. I believe this is an important bill and a good bill. We have taken measures, on a number of occasions in the past, to ensure that notice was given so that Private Members' Business could be substituted with other more ready bills. I remember one instance when there was an illness. I hope to have a resolution in the near future on this matter.

I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that we are dealing with a situation that we have never seen before wherein we have those who are concerned about debating this bill actually having had a hand in gutting the bill in the first instance through the industry committee.

I hope that is satisfactory, and I would hope that those who have any questions about Bill C-201 in the first instance will explain why they want to bring up the issue of Bill C-201 beyond the question of simple privilege.

[Competition Act, April 6th, 2000]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-472, an act to amend the Competition Act (conspiracy agreements and the right to make private applications), the Competition Tribunal Act (costs and summary dispositions) and the Criminal Code as a consequence.

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a bill to amend the Competition Act, the Competition Tribunal Act and the Criminal Code as a consequence thereof. This enactment strengthens the Competition Act and the Competition Tribunal Act to respond to a changing business and enforcement environment in Canada's marketplace and to enhance protection for business and consumers from anti-competitive activities.

The bill adopts a new approach to agreements between competitors. It broadens access to the Competition Tribunal and provides it, fortunately, with new powers.

Specifically, the bill will modernize current provisions on conspiracy to avoid discouraging strategic alliances, enable individuals to apply to the Competition Tribunal in cases of refusal to deal, exclusive dealing, tied selling and market restrictions, provide a new power to make temporary orders halting anti-competitive acts and broaden the powers to the tribunal to include cost awards and summary dispositions.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Petitions, April 5th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I have another petition which calls on parliament to repeal subsection 13(5) of the Canada Post Corporation Act, prohibiting rural route mail couriers from having collective bargaining rights.

The petitioners draw to the attention of parliament that due to this subsection rural route couriers are prohibited from bargaining collectively to improve their wages and working conditions.

[Petitions, April 5th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I have the honour to present a petition that has been signed by 67 of my constituents from Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge, which calls on parliament to enact an immediate moratorium on the cosmetic use of chemical pesticides until such time as their safe use has been scientifically proven and the long term consequences of their application is known.