Jay Hill

[Petitions, June 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the next two petitions request that Parliament not amend the human rights code, the Canadian Human Rights Act or the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in any way which would tend to indicate societal approval of same sex relationships or to include sexual orientation explicitly in the prohibited grounds for discrimination.

[Petitions, June 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I am presenting six petitions on three subjects on behalf of the constituents from Cecil Lake, Tumbler Ridge, Fort St. John, Dawson Creek and other communities in the Prince George-Peace River riding.

The first two petitions call upon the House of Commons to act to extend protection to unborn children by amending the Criminal Code.

[Gun Control, June 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice. We have been told that law abiding firearms owners are the primary source of guns used in crime because their firearms can be stolen. Accurate information regarding the sources of guns for criminals is necessary to determine if further firearms controls will reduce gun related crime, yet the statistics are unavailable.

Will the minister undertake a comprehensive national study to determine the source of firearms for criminal activities and will he make the information readily available to all Canadians?

[Members Of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, June 8th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question.

Mid-July simply is not good enough. It has become public knowledge that the Leader of the Official Opposition, a man dedicated to the break-up of Canada, will become eligible for his pension on June 20.

Does the Deputy Prime Minister not agree that this alone constitutes a good enough reason to reform this extravagant MP pension plan?

[Members Of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, June 8th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister.

Canadians have been constantly demanding that the government abolish the current MP pension plan which allows members to collect benefits after only six years of service.

The Prime Minister has stated that his government is reviewing this overly generous plan but that we have four or five years to deal with it.

We do not need a commission to tell us what needs to be done. We have already suggested changes that can be implemented immediately.

Will the Deputy Prime Minister commit to bringing the MPs' retirement compensation package in line with the private sector?

[Dangerous Offenders, June 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his answer. I notice that once again we are hearing about reports and studies. The last thing Canadians want right now is another study into the causes of crime. This issue has been studied to death. People are demanding action from this minister.

With predators like Larry Fisher on the loose, how long does the minister plan to examine the alternatives he referred to in this House last week?

[Dangerous Offenders, June 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice.

Since the release of repeat sexual offender Larry Fisher, the RCMP has issued an internal memo stating that he will probably strike again. Over the weekend Fisher was reported sighted in my riding in the city of Dawson Creek. Local residents are deeply concerned about the sudden appearance of Fisher in their community.

Which laws need to be changed so that dangerous offenders like Larry Fisher are never turned loose again?

[Agriculture, May 10th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague on the other side of the House for his comments and question.

There are a number of programs. The two I specifically referred to were the gross revenue insurance program and the Net Income Stabilization Act. There is also the feed freight assistance program that we talked about. My colleague referred earlier to western grain transportation. There are a number of programs for livestock, feed development initiatives, and economic and regional development agreements. A wide range of programs are presently in place.

Rather than having all the specific programs that actually end up distorting one sector of agriculture to the detriment of another, Reform is suggesting that we should be looking at the whole farm approach to protect farmers regardless of whether they are producing chickens, grain, milk or whatnot. We have to protect all farmers in all sectors against unfair foreign practices. To do so we need to move toward all farm and all sector programs with both our trade adjustment distortion program and our new income stabilization program, which would be an enhanced NISA and applicable to all sectors instead of only the ones it currently covers.

[Agriculture, May 10th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise in the House today to address the subject of agriculture.

Because of my rather extensive experience and background in agriculture I have a bit of trouble when I read the motion as put forward. It talks about proactive work of the government and uses phrases and words such as co-operation, enhance, building the sector to be among the best in the world, and sustainable agriculture. Sustainable is a good catch phrase. It is one that we as farmers have heard and used ourselves for some time now. Farmers are not looking for fancy catch phrases or motions but some assurance of where we are headed from this point.

As I have said I was born and raised on a farm. As such I have had the enjoyment of learning firsthand about picking rocks on our land. I have been involved in farming virtually all my life. For many years I operated about a 3,000 acre grain farm with one of my brothers who continues our family farming tradition today.

The farm was started by my father with the help of the Veterans Land Act shortly after the second world war. My family has quite a tradition of being on the land. Something I have witnessed and something I have personally felt is what I call the farmer's love of the land. The enjoyment of actually producing from one's own efforts is the very reason so many farmers today continue to struggle against all odds every year

when the economics of their business would dictate that in reality they should just give up and do something else, do something more profitable.

This love of the land could be equated to the similar feelings I am sure aboriginal peoples have for their traditional lands, or that foresters feel for forests, or pilots for the skies. In short, farmers are happiest when they are working on their land or working with their livestock.

Back home right now I know they have started preparing the soil and planting the 1994 crop. As I said earlier, they desperately need some assurance from the government that it intends to support those efforts with more than simply more empty rhetoric.

Over the years I have been involved in many farm organizations working on behalf of my fellow farmers. For a while I was president of the B.C. Grain Producers Association. As such I served as the director responsible for grain with the B.C. Federation of Agriculture. I have had the opportunity to witness firsthand farm programs that I would say were designed by bureaucrats for bureaucrats. By that I mean programs that have been unnecessarily cumbersome and heavy in administration, programs designed more to justify an ongoing need for government jobs than for sustaining agriculture.

The reality is that farmers are not asking for a handout. They never have and they never will. They just want to be able to earn a decent return on their investment and labour. In short they need to know if their industry will be protected from circumstances completely beyond their control.

Because farmers sell their products on the world market they are price takers, not price setters. When our competitors, namely the EEC and the U.S., choose to continue the seemingly never-ending trade war, it is our farmers who are caught in the middle.

City dwellers simply do not understand some of the sacrifices their rural cousins are called upon to make. I am speaking about the need for off-farm income. It has been well documented that in order to sustain farm operations farmers' wives are working off farm. Farmers may spend many days themselves in the wintertime away from their families just to sustain their farming operations. Also they have to make do with much lower standards of living in some cases than those of their urban neighbours.

I am concerned that when urban people drive by and see a farmer working his fields they relate his efforts to a small businessman rather than to an industry. They should be better educated about the situation. When they see a farmer and consider the need to sustain agriculture and to assist farmers, they must look at it as a primary industry similar to forestry, oil and gas or mining rather than a small business. It is not fair to equate farming with small business because like forestry, it is renewable.

I have always been somewhat upset when I pick up a newspaper and read about another subsidy to farmers. We have to recognize that all industries at different times, especially our natural resource industries, call upon both levels of government to support them. At different times both levels of government provide tax incentives or royalty holidays or initiate specific programs to assist major industries. As I have said, agriculture should not be viewed any differently.

Over the years there has virtually been a flood of farm programs supposedly designed to assist farms to remain sustainable. As has already been outlined, some programs have taken the form of transportation subsidies, the Crows Nest Pass rate which eventually became the Western Grain Transportation Act. There are various feed freight assistance programs and those types of things. Some have been designed to protect farmers from natural disasters, natural elements. Crop insurance is a program put in place to provide that type of protection.

There have been many others implemented to protect farmers from price fluctuations in the marketplace. The western grain stabilization program was such a program. It was proclaimed in 1976 and was eventually dissolved 15 years later in 1991. I know from personal experience on our farm that in consultations among my father, my brother and I, we chose not to participate in that program because we could see that it was not sustainable. By the way it was initially set up, it was not a good program for farmers.

As president of the B.C. grain producers I was personally involved with the special Canadian grains program that came about because of the trade war. In 1985-86 it was recognized that the WGSA was simply not addressing needs because it did not foresee how badly prices would drop.

We have moved through myriad programs over the years, and now we have come to GRIP and NISA. I am sure I could spend a lot more time than I have available today talking about all the problems that have developed with GRIP and NISA. Actually NISA is the one program that has been a relatively bright light in the darkness of government programs.

Despite all the problems with the programs that have been created in the past, we still talk about being proactive and co-operating with farm groups and farmers. The discussion seems to centre around which commodities to include in new programs on the horizon to replace GRIP and NISA.

As mentioned by my colleague earlier, Reform suggests a different route. It suggests elimination of the present farm support programs and instead the diverting of funds into basically three separate programs. The trade distortion adjustment program is an all-sector program, an all-inclusive program designed to address some of the concerns of my hon. colleague

across the way and what is going to be facing the supply management sector and other sectors.

We talk about a program specifically designed to offset foreign intervention and foreign competition through unfair subsidies our foreign competitors might be granted that we in this country do not have. We talk about other areas. As I have said, NISA has been a relatively successful program. We talk about making it more inclusive and making it applicable to all sectors of agriculture rather than just the grain sector.

We would continue to require crop insurance to offset the elements, the natural disasters that always occur and that farmers must be protected against. That briefly outlines my past history and what I say our government must move toward in relation to farm safety net programs.

[Canada Petroleum Resources Act, May 9th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on the bill before us today. Some consider Bill C-25 a minor amendment to the Canadian Petroleum Resources Act, but I would like to think it can be viewed as an important message to industry.

Thousands of jobs in my riding are directly or indirectly dependent on the current boom in the petroleum sector. But if industry's confidence in government intentions were to be eroded many of those jobs could be lost.

Although this amendment only directly affects one oil company and community, I hope it is an indication this government realizes the importance of providing our resource based industries with predictability and stability in the policy environment. If this government starts sending signals to the private sector that it is safe to make long term investment plans, it will lead to economic growth and the creation of far more permanent jobs than government can hope to achieve through any temporary make work projects.

There is a long history leading up to this current amendment. The first oil well was drilled at Norman Wells in 1920. Since then it has grown to be the fourth largest producing field in the country. In 1944 Imperial Oil and Canada signed the Norman Wells proven area agreement which included just under 3,300 hectares within its boundaries. When the Canadian Petroleum Resources Act came into force the Norman Wells proven area was exempted from the new act. Just as the bill before us does

today, subsequent renewals and agreements have been similarly exempted.

This amendment does two things. It extends the timeframe past the current expiration date of 2008 which allows Imperial to plan for long term recovery. The amendment also changes the 1944 boundaries to incorporate the entire field. Changing the boundaries to exclude non-productive portions and include new fringe areas results in an addition of 350 hectares to the old proven area.

Canada and Imperial will not have to determine whether oil comes from pockets inside or outside the former boundaries. This will solve potential administrative problems for royalty and share calculations.

The government undertook numerous consultations when arriving at this agreement. Pursuant to the spirit and intent of the land claim agreement under negotiation with the Sahtu Dene and Metis during the same period, the government initiated discussions with them to ensure that the views of the long term stakeholders would be taken into consideration when contemplating any prospective changes to the proven area agreement.

Most other people living in Norman Wells are in some way directly dependent on the oil and gas extractive industries. Many will leave once oil production ceases, however the vast majority of the Sahtu peoples will remain.

The Sahtu agreed to this amendment at the end of March. It became apparent that Imperial's planned investment of $30 million for this fiscal year might be jeopardized if concurrence from the Sahtu was not forthcoming. Although it is probably not binding, the Sahtu made their acceptance contingent upon the enactment of Bill C-16, the Sahtu Dene and Metis Land Claims Settlement Act.

I am not generally a cynic, but I cannot help wondering about the timing of these two respective bills in the House. What would happen if Bill C-16 were held up indefinitely or even defeated? Would the government also have to repeal this bill?

I fully appreciate that this represents a significant opportunity for the Sahtu peoples to apply some indirect pressure on the government to proclaim an agreement they have anticipated for decades. But is it responsible of the government to enter into verbal agreements of this nature linking any two pieces of legislation?

The government also consulted with the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers to seek its views on the principles of the amendment. The government assured CAPP this agreement would not set a precedent for the issuance of rights anywhere else in Canada.

Again the government gave assurances it cannot guarantee, this time promising this agreement would not be linked to decisions in the future. As we all know it is the job of lawyers to find precedents they can use to the advantage of their clients. Governments have also been known to fall. How can this government give a guarantee to other petroleum producers that this agreement does not set a precedent down the road?

Over the past decades the resource based industries have struggled against global recession, depressed prices, unpredictable policy and investment climates and increasing taxation from all levels of government.

Although the Ministry of Natural Resources has just released a report stating that Canada falls somewhere in the middle of the international competitive range with respect to taxation rates in mining, that is not the perception of the industry. The mining industry looks at the high marginal tax rates. Those have driven Canadian exploration and investment dollars overseas to South America. This government has the opportunity to reverse that trend by developing policies to encourage domestic investment.

In the petroleum sector depressed oil prices have resulted in massive layoffs and extensive restructuring of the industry. In the last couple of years we have seen a surge in natural gas prices leading to the current boom, but oil prices remain low and the future uncertain.

The cost overruns at Hibernia would not have been debated so strenuously if oil prices were stable at $50 U.S. a barrel, but they are not. Oil prices have just barely hit $17 on the heels of a five year low, dipping below $14.

In this erratic global market, oil companies must make significant investment decisions based on many factors, not just the price of oil. Confidence in government policy is a critical component in those decisions.

This amendment in giving force to the Norman Wells amending agreement signed in April provides Imperial Oil with the security of tenure it needs for long term planning. It has been assured there is time to realize a return on major investments in new technology. These investments are essential to maximizing production from this field.

This amendment is good for Imperial because it provides a stable planning environment. It is good for the Sahtu Dene and other local residents because they can rely on employment opportunities and a cash infusion into the local economy for

several more years. It is good for the Canadian people because it will generate additional oil revenues and royalties.

I hope this amendment means that the government now recognizes it cannot cripple our natural resource industries through unfair taxation or short-sighted policy initiatives.

Canada is very dependent on revenues generated by the petroleum sector. The imposition of additional taxes such as the rumoured carbon tax could dramatically curtail growth in this sector, throwing many thousands of people out of work. There must be a balance between environmental concerns and jobs for young Canadians.

According to the Ministry of Natural Resources, Canada is expected to remain a net oil exporter until 2008. Within 25 years we will still export 75 per cent of our heavy oil production but we will import almost twice as much light oil. To offset these effects government must encourage domestic exploration for more reserves.

The decline in northern exploration has been so dramatic that even the National Energy Board was scheduled to permanently close its office in Yellowknife in March.

To date, aside from Bent Horn in the eastern Arctic offshore, no new major oil or gas prospects have been found in the Northwest Territories, indicating there are not enough reserves to warrant field development or pipeline construction.

With exploration levels falling off, industry must invest in technology to improve recovery from known reserves.

Since 1981 new technology has increased the yield from the Norman Wells field from 17 per cent to 40 per cent. This is attributable to horizontal drilling, water injection and other improvements in recovery techniques.

More recently, in February approval was granted for a propane injection pilot project in the proven area. It will assess the technical merits of a propane miscible flood for achieving increased levels of recovery over a three year period. At the end of that time Imperial should have a pretty good idea how much more oil is recoverable from the field.

As of December 1992 a little over half of the recoverable reserves remained in the ground, approximately 125 million barrels, but this may improve substantially if the propane injection proves feasible. It could ensure that the field produces far more oil than previously thought possible thus ensuring stability in the regional economy for another 20 to 25 years.

Major investment in this technology is practical in light of the security that this amendment offers.

In summary, I would like to voice my support for this bill because it provides predictability for Imperial's planning horizon and is profitable for the regional economy. It will give Imperial the confidence and security of tenure necessary for it to invest in new technology to maximize recovery from this field. This amendment will also provide economic stability and long term employment opportunities in the Norman Wells region.

Finally, it is my hope that the royalties and revenues which accrue to Canada from maximizing the productive capacity of this field will contribute to the reduction of our national deficit.