James Rajotte

[Energy Costs Assistance Measures Act, October 26th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to address Bill C-66.

I want to read the bill into the record and what it is supposed to do, because it is important in terms of analyzing whether or not it actually fulfills the government's objectives in terms of addressing the increasing costs of home heating fuel and gasoline prices for Canadians. The full title of the bill is “an act to authorize payments to provide assistance in relation to energy costs, housing energy consumption and public transit infrastructure, and to make consequential amendments to certain acts”. The bill has three main parts.

Part 1 of the bill outlines who will receive a payment and how much. The payment is targeted to some low income Canadians and will be sent to three different groups: first, $250 to families entitled to receive the national child benefit supplement in January 2006; second, $250 to senior couples where both spouses are entitled to receive the guaranteed income supplement, the GIS, in January 2006; and third, $125 to single seniors entitled to receive the GIS, in January 2006. These are one time payments that will not be issued until the bill is passed.

Part 2 of the bill increases and expands financial assistance and incentive programs for houses and housing projects that make heating system upgrades, improve windows and engage in draft proofing, et cetera. All of this assistance will be delivered over a five year period.

Part 3 deals with public infrastructure. It states that $400 million previously provided for under Bill C-48 will be freed up by Bill C-66 in each of the next two fiscal years for municipalities to boost investments in urban transit infrastructure.

Parts 4 and 5 of the bill are housekeeping measures.

In addition to the measures laid out in the bill, the government has also announced two other measures with respect to energy prices. First, the office of petroleum price information will be created. Second, the government has indicated it will be introducing amendments to Bill C-19 which are intended to strengthen the role of the Competition Bureau in investigating allegations of price fixing in the oil and gas industry.

To begin, I would like to discuss the reasons for various increases in energy costs. Then I will address the issue of payments for low income Canadians and offer an alternative plan to the Liberal plan. Then I will discuss the secondary measures introduced to attempt to offset high energy prices which are outlined in the bill and those announced outside of the bill. Finally, I will discuss energy policy generally under the government.

I would like to briefly outline the current supply and demand issues facing Canadian consumers, Canadian businesses, and our market. There has in fact been a spike in energy prices. There have been a number of contributing factors to the reduction in supply that have caused this spike.

The first obviously is natural disasters. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have caused considerable disruption in the supply of oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico and across North America. As of October 11 three refineries were still shut down from hurricane Katrina and four were still shut down from hurricane Rita, obviously taking that supply off the market.

While Canada is in fact a net exporter of energy, we do import a great deal of our refined oil and gas, especially those provinces east of Manitoba.

International issues such as the political troubles in Iraq, Nigeria and Venezuela have created uncertainty in the supply chain. In addition, there have been production declines in the North Sea and Russia, while worldwide spare production capacity is at its lowest level in three decades. Only Saudi Arabia at this point has any spare crude oil production capacity available.

Despite the decrease in supply, demand has remained stable. The 2004 demand increased worldwide by approximately 3%. This growth will likely slow, but will continue to grow between 1.5% and 2% in 2005-06.

At a briefing this week by four of the industry associations involved in the energy sector, it was basically pointed out that over 40% of the increase in the demand for worldwide crude was as a result of the growing economy in China particularly.

This steady demand coupled with the decrease in supply has led to increased energy prices both at home and abroad in every sector.

I must point out, however, that most of the Canadian information on the projected increase in energy prices for the upcoming winter actually comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a statistical agency of the U.S. Department of Energy. It is a shame that similar information cannot be obtained from the federal government through the Department of Natural Resources.

MJ Ervin & Associates, the private sector forecaster and observer of oil and gas prices, has estimated that the average price of home heating fuel has jumped to its highest level on record, 93¢ a litre. The best guess is that homes heated with oil can expect to pay 32% more this year, while homes heated with natural gas can expect to pay 48% more. Electricity bills will also rise but not as dramatically.

In New Brunswick the cost of home heating oil is 5¢ higher than the national average. New Brunswick Power has announced it will request a 10% increase in its electricity rates next year. In Quebec where 70% of the homes are heated by electricity, the provincial energy board will review a request by Hydro-Québec to increase rates by 3%.

In Ontario the Ontario Energy Board approved a rate increase for Enbridge gas that will increase natural gas bills by about $123 a year. Union Gas also sought and received a rate increase. Sixty per cent of Ontario residents rely on natural gas for heating.

The British Columbia Utilities Commission just approved a 13.3% increase in natural gas. Even in Alberta, Direct Energy has asked the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board to approve a rate increase that will increase the average home heating bill by more than 20%. The average monthly bill for October in Calgary will be $162.

As we can see, the increase in the cost of heating one's home is affecting Canadians from coast to coast to coast. What has the government done to deal with this massive, broad problem facing Canadian citizens and businesses across the country?

At the heart of Bill C-66 is a payment for some of Canada's poorest citizens. Obviously we in the Conservative Party support measures that provide relief for low income families. We have an obligation to represent and support those who have so much less than the average Canadian.

The government estimates that 3.1 million low income families, or 10% of Canadians, will receive these so-called rebate cheques, although they are actually payment cheques. I am pleased that some effort is being made to try to assist low income Canadians. These Canadians should not simply be left on their own to try to deal with rising energy costs, particularly those on fixed incomes dealing with increases in home heating.

The problem is that the delivery method chosen by the government will miss too many Canadians who need help paying their heating bills and their gasoline bills for their cars to get them to and from work. Persons with disabilities who claim a disability benefit will not receive the payment. Seniors who qualify for the GIS but do not claim it will not receive a payment. A Statistics Canada study released on Friday, October 21, 2005 found that over 206,000 eligible individuals missed out because they did not in fact claim the GIS.

With respect to seniors, we also have a situation where someone whose pension makes them equivalent to someone on the GIS will not in fact receive any sort of assistance under the government's program. Students will not receive a payment.

This program will not help poor Canadians who do not have children. Research from Statistics Canada again indicates that nearly two million individuals under 65 who fall below the low income threshold have no children. Under this bill these individuals will receive no help.

It will miss most farmers who have been hit very hard by the energy price spike. They must not only heat their homes but their barns as well. It will also miss many Canadians who are poor, but not quite poor enough in the government's eyes to qualify for a payment. Of course, it must be noted that this plan does not in any way, shape or form offer relief at the pump nor compensate for the increase in fuel prices.

We in the Conservative Party have an alternative. We have an alternative because too many Canadians will not be assisted by this plan. We have a plan that will help all Canadians. The fact is the government should start by axing the tax on the tax at the pumps. This would give an immediate tax break to all Canadians. Two Liberal members spoke and basically gave the party line as to why the Liberal government does not want to do this.

The fact is it would be a very immediate measurable thing that would impact Canadians by reducing the tax at the pumps. It would obviously reduce it for people who drive their own vehicles but it would also reduce it, as the member mentioned, for public transit. It would also reduce it for municipalities and others who have to pay for school divisions, who have to pay for fuel, who have to ship students to and from school, municipalities that have to subsidize their public transit.

Further to that, if the government wants to help public transit, then it should adopt the plan put forward by our leader this summer in Toronto to allow people who have public transit passes to claim a certain percentage of the cost. It is not one or the other. We can do both at the same time and offer tax relief to more than just a few Canadians in this plan.

The fact is 42% of the cost of a litre of gasoline is federal, provincial and municipal taxes, including the GST. As a comparison, in the United States it is 27%. Currently the 7% GST and the HST are charged on gasoline after federal, provincial and in some cases municipal governments have added their excise taxes.

The fact is the Liberal government continues to overtax Canadians. The government should not profit when people are feeling the effects of these increased prices in their pocketbooks and at the dinner table.

For every 1¢ increase in gasoline prices, the federal government receives about $32 million in extra revenue. That money should be going back into the pockets of Canadians and not into the pockets of the government.

In addition, the Conservative Party will reduce personal taxes overall. That is the second way to immediately address this issue in a broad way. Instead of selectively picking some low income Canadians over other low income Canadians, we could reduce personal taxes overall.

A Conservative government's approach would provide immediate and long term broad based tax relief starting with reducing personal income tax rates and substantially raising both the basic personal exemption and the spousal exemption under the Income Tax Act. Reducing personal income taxes would hike the take home pay and raise the standard of living of all Canadians.

The fact is we have driven the tax agenda in this country for years and we will continue to do so because it is fair. It is fair that Canadians keep more of their own life energy in their own pockets to spend as they best see fit.

I want to move on to the second part of the bill. I want to point out that while part 1 books the expenditures on payments to low income Canadians in the current fiscal year, the expenditures in part 2 are over five years. This is very odd accounting, but as we are finding out more and more with the way the government deals with budgets and finances, it is simply a classic example of Liberal accounting.

What I believe the Liberals are trying to do is to force us to accept spending on the EnerGuide program, spending that could have been announced in past budgets or in the next budget. They want us to accept this by tying it to the energy payment for low income Canadians. There is no reason to put it in this bill.

In fact Bill C-66 includes $205 million from already announced energy efficiency programs, and $100 million which is being moved out of Bill C-48 and into Bill C-66 under the guise of energy efficiency. This is simply ridiculous. This clause of the bill is completely unnecessary. A whopping 43% of the funds set aside for the bill will go to the administration of the EnerGuide program, not toward tax cuts or rebates.

In theory, the EnerGuide program provides financial assistance to homeowners and landlords to help improve energy efficiency. I encourage members to talk to constituents who have actually utilized this program, because I have. The fact is it is an extremely complicated program. It requires a homeowner or landlord to pay for an inspection of their home both before and after renovations to see if they can receive a loan or rebate for the changes they have made to improve the energy efficiency of their own home. Some funding will flow through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, but will benefit only 130,000 low income Canadians. The same number, only 130,000 Canadians, have used this program since October 2003.

We are spending more than $1 billion on an EnerGuide program that may be only used by 260,000 Canadians. This is yet another example of misguided Liberal priorities.

I would like to move on to part 3 of the bill, which deals with infrastructure. Again, this section of the bill is not necessary. This spending was announced under Bill C-48, the second budget bill, but has been moved to Bill C-66, which is a bad example of tricky Liberal accounting. This is certainly a question that the government should have to answer.

First of all, how can the Liberals introduce a budget by Bill C-43 and, second, declare non-confidence in their own budget, introduce a second budget, say that the funding would proceed once they knew the fiscal figures for 2004-05 and say that spending would commence as of August 2006? I believe that is what the parliamentary secretary told the Senate committee. Then, somehow, the government moved spending from that bill, Bill C-48, to this bill, Bill C-66.

This money does not help rural Canadians, who pay some of the highest energy costs. In addition, it does not provide the stable funding that municipalities are looking for. The money is actually being allocated without any thought as to what it actually might be used for.

The Conservative Party, on the other hand, is committed to developing an infrastructure plan that would not only provide money to municipalities to meet infrastructure needs, but would also provide benchmarks to allow local governments the ability to plan in the long term for their own infrastructure needs.

We have also committed to meeting and even possibly exceeding the amount of money spent on infrastructure by the federal government through the so-called gasoline tax transfer. Such commitments are very much in line with the infrastructure goals of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

Moving to the last two sections of the bill, I note that they deal with measures that are rather small measures in terms of costs but large in terms of the federal government.

First, Industry Canada is finally giving more money to the Competition Bureau to allow it to conduct investigations into collusion. The Conservative Party and members of the Standing Committee on Industry, Natural Resources, Science and Technology have been requesting the government to increase funding to the bureau since April 2002. The bureau has indicated for years that it does not have the resources needed to carry out the investigations.

However, we have not seen the amendments to Bill C-19 that would make changes to the Competition Act and allow the bureau more flexibility in its investigations. I am certainly looking forward to those amendments, although I have a bit of a digression here. At committee we have heard witnesses on Bill C-19, which the government is sort of presenting as the answer to increased gasoline prices by saying that if there is any evidence of collusion it will be dealt with by increasing the powers of the competition commissioner.

I can accept the argument that perhaps more resources are needed for the bureau, but the fact is that any six Canadians can write to the competition commissioner and ask her to investigate any sort of a discrepancy they feel is in the oil and gasoline industry. The government's argument that in fact the bureau needs more powers to conduct investigations is actually ridiculous.

The fact is that Bill C-19, according to some very able lawyers across this country, is simply an incredibly flawed piece of legislation. It is in no way an answer to what the government is saying it is in terms of dealing with gasoline prices. Frankly, the government should even withdraw the bill. It should send this back to the justice department and rewrite a proper bill.

Second, to return to Bill C-66, it would create the petroleum price monitoring agency. It is rather ironic that the government is presenting this as an answer, because lo and behold, the current Prime Minister eliminated this in the 1995 budget. I find it a little strange that something that the then finance minister and current Prime Minister eliminated in 1995 is now being presented by him as an answer in 2005.

The fact is that if the natural resources department would act in a practical manner and provide this information we could easily have this information available. The natural resources department and this entire government have languished in developing a long term energy framework and have actually contributed to the high heating costs we will experience this winter.

The Conservative Party has been focusing for a long time on a long term energy framework which would focus on renewable and non-renewable energy sources, take into account outstanding obligations and meet our long term requirements for domestic consumption and export.

We believe that strengthening energy market integration will ensure greater reliability of energy supplies across the country. We will explore ways to reduce barriers to the movement of energy products across provincial and other borders. The fact is that the Liberals have not addressed any of these issues. The Liberals have not had the time to monitor or publish an energy policy or reports on gas prices, which was promised this fall. Private companies such as MJ Ervin and Associates have stepped in to fill the void.

We find that the bill is severely lacking and way too limited in scope in terms of who it helps and that it is misguided in its approach. We will begrudgingly support the bill, as it does help some low income Canadians, but we certainly hope that the government will bring forward another bill. We will certainly be looking forward to committee, where we can actually try to expand this to help all low income Canadians and in fact all Canadians who are dealing with higher energy costs.

[Energy Costs Assistance Measures Act, October 26th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, the biggest problem we see with the bill is that it is very limited in scope. It would not help all low income Canadians or low income seniors who have to face the rising costs of gasoline and home heating fuel. Frankly, it would do absolutely nothing to reduce the taxes on gasoline. However it is very specific on who it helps.

It does not help, for instance, poor Canadians who are without children. Statistics Canada indicates that nearly two million individuals under 65 years of age with no children fall below the low income threshold. Why is the government doing nothing for these people?

Why is this linked to GIS such that a senior who has a pension and makes the same as a senior on GIS, the senior on GIS would be eligible for it? The senior who would be eligible for GIS but does not apply and get it would not get this payment. The senior who is equivalent to the senior on GIS does not get the payment either.

The biggest fault with the bill is that it is too limited in scope and does not help Canadians overall deal with the costs of home heating fuel or increased gasoline prices.

[Technology Partnerships Canada, October 20th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the industry minister did not even try to answer the question. The facts are these. David Dingwall registered to lobby TPC for Bioniche. He openly declared that he would be receiving a contingency fee which is prohibited under the program's guidelines. The company in question was forced by the government to pay back the contingency fee but yesterday Dingwall insisted that he did not receive a contingency fee.

There is a direct contradiction here. Either the government has wrongly forced a company to repay over $460,000 or Dingwall did not tell the truth to a standing committee of the House. Which is it?

[Technology Partnerships Canada, October 20th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday David Dingwall denied he was paid any contingency fee to secure a grant from the federal government. However we know that Technology Partnerships Canada threatened to stop all payments to Bioniche if it did not repay the money paid to Dingwall. Dingwall says that he is not guilty but TPC says that he is.

I ask the Minister of Industry, who is right here? Why was Bioniche forced to pay back Dingwall's $350,000 success fee if in fact he did nothing wrong?

[Telecommunications Act, October 20th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I know the member takes debates in the House very seriously. I appreciate that and his intervention.

We debated for three hours to refer the bill to committee before second reading. However, the bill in its initial form was very vague and did not have enough details. I compliment all members from all parties who sat on the committee and who debated it very strongly. They added in a number of parameters for the legislation.

I want to let the member know that committee and members from all parties did the work at committee and did improve the bill substantively, which is why the Conservative Party now supports it.

[Telecommunications Act, October 20th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I want to clarify for members who perhaps were not at the committee to hear the testimony of Richard French, the vice-chair of the CRTC. He said that he wanted Parliament to set some guidelines and parameters for what this list would do.

It is true that the government will contract this out to the CRTC and it may very well contract it out to the Canadian Marketing Association. However, the CRTC and many other groups that appeared before the committee asked that there be some parameters and that Parliament do its job and set some legislation, not just set up a framework piece of legislation and then pass the buck to the CRTC so it would have to deal with all these groups.

The industry committee did its job. It set some parameters and now it is a good bill. What the House and those members need to understand is the CRTC requested that.

[Telecommunications Act, October 19th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am seeking clarification from the Chair on this matter.

The government introduced the motion. It is a government motion. It was ruled out of order by the Speaker. His reasoning was it could have been introduced at committee. This issue was not raised at committee because the committee did not have time to hear it. I would just ask for a ruling from the Chair, Mr. Speaker, that we could have unanimous consent to adopt this motion, debate it here and vote on it . I would just like clarification from the Chair on that issue.

[Telecommunications Act, October 19th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I recognize the work that my colleague did. I also recognize the vice-chair of the industry committee, the member for Kelowna, who carried an issue for us at committee. In fact, there was an issue on which we found a lot of common ground in committee, even if we did not always agree. I know members of the Bloc and the NDP wanted to expand the exemption for charities to all non-profit organizations. Even though there was some disagreement, I thought there was a very good spirit in the committee in general.

With respect to the member's specific question about registered charities and the effect the bill might have on them, that is one of the reasons why I think the committee decided to put in a three year review. It wanted to see the effect of the bill not only in terms of how it works but also its effect on charities. The quote I read from the two groups that appeared before committee illustrates the serious impact it may have on these charities and we obviously want to mitigate that.

I have a lot of sympathy for expanding or increasing the charitable tax credit. How much, I do not have that specific information. It is interesting that our political tax credit is more generous than a charitable tax credit. For many years I have thought that should be equalized. A charitable tax credit should be as much as a political tax credit.

[Telecommunications Act, October 19th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is a very hard-working member of the industry committee and I commend him on his work. All members of that committee worked quite diligently to amend this bill for the better.

He is very correct in that the bill was really inspired by concern about the calls that we and our constituents receive, which we perhaps find to be increasingly annoying or come at times of the day or evening when we would not like to receive them. It is a desire for Canadians to have a registry on which they could put their name to not receive those types of calls. As my colleague pointed out, there were reasons to provide exemptions to charities or other organizations and businesses with which there is an existing relationship.

In response to his specific concern about the newspapers, we did agree to a motion and the government put it forward, to its credit. My understanding is the Speaker felt that the amendment could have been moved at committee. I would take the liberty of saying to the Chair that this is in fact true, but one of the issues was that the people who wanted the amendment put forward for one reason or another were not able to put it forward at committee. Therefore, the government has moved Motion No. 7, which reads:

That Bill C-37, in Clause 1, be amended by replacing lines 23 to 26 on page 3 with the following:

“(c) for an electoral district;

(f) made for the sole purpose of collecting information for a survey of members of the public; or

(g) made for the sole purpose of soliciting a subscription for a newspaper of general circulation”.

In response to my colleague's question, if we could seek unanimous consent to allow this motion to be debated, I think there would be unanimous consent to debate it and then to pass it. I would certainly support the motion. I think all members of the House would support it. If that is the proper course, I would seek unanimous consent to debate and pass this amendment and thus improve the bill even more.

[Telecommunications Act, October 19th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak today to Bill C-37, an act to amend the Telecommunications Act. The debate centres around the government's latest set of amendments in an effort to establish a national do not call registry and whether or not the registry will be workable and fair.

I want to discuss several of the amendments that are before us today but first I would like to reiterate the position of the Conservative Party on the bill and on the establishment of a do not call registry in general.

As I have said before, the Conservative Party does support the establishment of a national do not call registry within parameters that are clearly defined by Parliament and with reasonable exemptions provided for charities, political parties, polling firms and companies that wish to contact their current customers. That was our position at second reading on the bill and that has been our consistent position throughout the debate on the bill.

When we first debated the bill in December 2004 there were no exemptions at that time laid out by the government. In fact, many would say that the bill, as it was first introduced, would have created quite a mess. Even witnesses from the CRTC stated that they wanted some exemptions clearly defined by Parliament. It was also evident that the bill would be facing stiff opposition from a number of sectors for being too rigid.

The government did realize that it would face opposition to the bill from various sectors and various parties. Early on there was talk of a dual registration type system where the government considered allowing individuals to either receive calls from charities or register to receive absolutely no calls from anyone else. We, in our party, did not see that as an efficient way to handle the registry and the list. The creation of two lists, in our view, would have been an inefficient way to do that.

As the bill progressed through the House and into the Standing Committee on Industry, Natural Resources, Science and Technology, there were some problems with regard to the length and breadth of hearings. Many groups complained that hearings were cut short or that they were not heard at all. The only witness from the private sector who was called as a witness was a representative from the Canadian Marketing Association, which our party certainly regretted. We felt that any interested parties who wanted to come before the committee should certainly have been allowed to do so.

As members can tell, there is a lot to discuss in the debate when it comes to the creation of a do not call registry.

I would now like to address charities. For those witnesses who did appear at committee it became very clear that a number of exemptions would have to be in order to allow charities to continue to use telemarketing to ensure their survival. The first amendment that was passed in committee allows registered charities within the meaning of the Income Tax Act to be exempt from the national do not call list.

Dr. Gordon Hope, member and program coordinator for the Canadian Council of the Blind appeared at committee on May 4, 2005 and stated:

Because of the nature of the impairment of our members, communication with them and by them for public awareness, membership recruitment, and fundraising is best done through the auditory medium of the telephone, as verbal communication, better than any other form, meets the standard of accessible exchange of information, something that many would argue is a human right. It is conceivable that Bill C-37 could cause the Canadian Council of the Blind to cease to exist as we know it if alternatives to make up for the effects of this bill cannot be found.

We also heard from Ms. Dawn Regan, the director of finance and fundraising for Mothers Against Drunk Driving. She said:

Not only would Bill C-37 have a devastating financial impact on MADD Canada, it would cripple our ability to effectively serve Canadians. We have public awareness campaigns, educational programs, victims services, youth outreach, and legal education, as well as fundraising efforts. The vast majority of these activities occur by using the telephone as our primary communication tool.

As we can tell from the testimony, it is very important to continue to allow charities to use telemarketers.

Another issue that has received a lot of attention is that of existing business relationships. The do not call registry in the United States allows telemarketers to call a consumer with whom it has a voluntary established business relationship for up to 18 months after the consumer's last purchase.

Both small and large businesses argued in submissions to the committee that they needed to communicate with their existing customers. Thus, an exception was made to do so.

The committee also felt that calls made for the sole purpose of collecting information for a survey of members of the public should be allowed. This amendment, along with amendments to allow political parties or candidates for electoral district associations, allows for freedom of speech and for get out the vote campaigns.

The example here is to allow a candidate from any party, or even an independent for that matter, to actually phone people, offer what they offer in terms of service to the country and, after they have identified some supporters, be able to phone those persons to get them out to vote on election day. It is a very important part of our political process.

Part of my speech addresses a motion which unfortunately, I think has a bit of a technical problem. I hope we can get unanimous consent after my speech to introduce the motion because I think it is an important one. Motion No. 7 allows for an exemption for calls made for the sole purpose of soliciting a subscription for a newspaper of general circulation. I support this amendment. It is about literacy and freedom of speech. Newspapers contribute to the democratic dialogue in Canada. In fact, section 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including the freedom of the press.

We would consider the bulk of the remaining amendments before us to be administrative. Because of the number of changes made in committee, changes had to be made to correct the bill. In addition, there are a number of corrections that must be made to the French version of Bill C-37.

Motion No. 10 is perhaps the most complicated amendment we are dealing with today. There are now a number of practical exemptions to the national do not call registry. However, Conservative members of the Standing Committee on Industry want to make sure that those organizations that have received an exemption do not prove to be a burden on Canadian consumers. The Conservative Party member of the standing committee made motions to require exempt organizations to do two things.

First, charities, political parties, businesses, et cetera, at the beginning of the phone call must identify the purpose of the call and the organization on whose behalf the call is being made. Canadians would know immediately who is calling and why.

Second, even though they are exempt from the national registry, charities, political parties and businesses must keep their own do not call registry. If people do not want their bank to call to remind them that their mortgage is up for renewal, even though they have an existing business relationship with that bank, they can be asked to be placed on the do not call list. This responds to some of the concerns of many consumers. Even though there would be an exemption, and they agree that some exemptions are reasonable, for certain exemptions they could still be asked to be put on a do not call registry for that specific company, charity or whatever.

However, one of the amendments we are considering today grants an exemption to the exemption, if I could put it that way. Motion No. 10 allows polling companies to make calls without identifying their clients or the purpose of their call and does not require them to keep their own do not call list. The question here is, why? Why would we allow telemarketers who conduct surveys to do so anonymously? There are two reasons in this case.

First, it is believed that if people know the polling firm is calling on behalf of a particular political party, their answers may be influenced by that and therefore skew the results. Second, the government believes that polling firms should not be restricted as to whom they call, otherwise the sample or the results could be skewed.

I would like to address the whole administration of the system.

We have reviewed the amendments to Bill C-37, both the amendments passed in committee and the amendments on the order paper which are before us today. The package of amendments taken as a whole is a good start in the creation of a national do not call registry. I am pleased that the registry would be reviewed by Parliament after three years. This is one of the changes which was asked for at committee and was granted. It will be very important to evaluate how the exemptions are working, if anyone is violating the law and the effect it will have on the Canadian economy.

Like it or not, the telemarketing industry has been Canada's number one job creation industry for nearly 20 years. Statistics Canada reported in May 2005 that employment in this industry grew by 447% between 1987 and 2004. The average growth for all service industries during the same period was a comparative 37%, which is obviously a big difference.

For the Conservative Party the next big challenge is the administration of the do not call registry.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the CRTC, is empowered to deal with telemarketing in Canada. However, it has complained for a long time that its powers were restricted and thus it could not regulate and monitor telemarketing effectively. In May 2004 the CRTC stated in a National Post article that it was not equipped to administer a national do not call list. However, the CRTC is now charged with making this registry work.

A government press release on December 13, 2004 stated:

Once the legislation is in place, it is expected that the CRTC will undertake consultations to find an administrator, to determine how the list will operate and how much it will cost, and to consider whether any types of calls should be exempt from the Do Not Call List. The implementation of the list by the CRTC will follow these deliberations in due course.

Mr. Richard French, vice-chairperson of the CRTC, appeared in front of the standing committee to discuss, among other issues, the future administration of the registry. He said:

—at the moment there is no clear indication of what the government's intentions might be with respect to recovering the costs of just under $2 million, which we estimate would be one-time start-up costs. Furthermore, our best efforts to plan a rapid calendar for implementation indicate to us that it will take some 19 months, at the fastest, between the time Parliament passes the law and the time we could begin to operate a national do not call list.

It is my understanding that a third party will be contracted by the CRTC to maintain and operate the list. I hesitate to remind the House that anytime we set up a registry in this country, we have to keep in mind another registry implemented by the Liberal Party of Canada which turned into an absolute fiscal disaster. I am talking about the firearms registry which in 1994 the then justice minister said would cost $2 million, but I think he meant to say $2 billion because that is what it is approaching right now, sadly to the detriment of all taxpayers in this country.

When I spoke to this bill at second reading, I outlined some of our concerns with respect to the administration of this database. Parliament must continue to seek out details as to how the registry will be run. For instance, how will the list be maintained? How will the list be accessed? Who will maintain the list? What will be required of telemarketers? How often must they check the list? Will there be a maintenance fee for telemarketers? These are all questions that must be asked and must be answered in my view to Parliament itself.

I have spoken with the CRTC and have outlined my concerns and I appreciate its attendance to them. Some of the amendments that were made in committee will allow Parliament and Canadians to keep abreast of the administrative workings of the registry.

In conclusion, the Conservative Party does support the establishment of a do not call registry within parameters clearly defined by Parliament and with reasonable exemptions provided for charities, political parties and companies that wish to contact their current customers.

I am looking forward to the public hearings and the public tender of the contract to administer the database from the CRTC. It is my hope we can create a workable list that will strike a balance between the interests of Canadian consumers first and the contribution telemarketing makes to our economy, as well as the interests of groups such as charities and political parties to continue to contact those people they need to in order to survive, especially with those who have an existing business relationship or voluntary business relationship.

I look forward to the creation and the operation of this list. I hope that all my colleagues in Parliament will support not only the amended bill that was done with a lot of work at committee, but the motions before us today.