John Duncan

[Natural Gas, May 12th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Motion No. 298 today which states that the government should provide initiatives to deliver natural gas to unserviced regions.

I believe that, although governments can participate in the delivery of natural gas or any other product, they cannot and should not try to avoid basic and natural market forces. If a government tries to ignore the marketplace it is asking for trouble.

In my community of 30,000 people in Campbell River, one of the justifications for bringing in natural gas over a significant geographical hurdle was the considerable demand for the commodity. This took much more than the normal business activity and the normal residential sector would ordinarily demand.

There had been a proposal to build a natural gas/wood waste electrical cogeneration plant. In addition to the usual residential and commercial demands, this would be a potential major consumer which would have a greater demand than the rest of the demand combined.

In our case the provincial government played a pivotal and essential role in ensuring that these two things happened in tandem. Without its involvement and concurrence our community would still be without natural gas service. Essentially it had to guarantee, in one form or another, that the cogeneration plant would receive approval and would be economic. That was enough of an incentive to ensure that natural gas would come to the community. That is what we could call a win-win situation for all parties, and there is always room for a win-win situation.

There is also room for governments to regulate rates so that averaging would make services and commodities more affordable and increase total demand by making them more attractive for more consumers. The provinces and the territories have a very important regulatory role to play in these activities.

All of these things are already happening where they are needed, where demand is sufficient and where they are not a burden on the taxpayer. They are market sensitive, regionally sensitive and they properly allocate our energy resources.

There is opportunity in the north and other remote areas for natural gas exploration incentives that would place the source close to unserviced communities. This would create a whole new affordability index in terms of servicing remote communities. In these situations there is opportunity for provincial or territorial governments to put incentives in place to try to expand the servicing area of natural gas distribution.

The Northwest Territories, as an example, has done that very thing. The Inuvik natural gas project came about because in 1998 the Inuvialuit Petroleum Corporation, AltaGas Services Inc. and Enbridge Inc. formed a partnership to bring natural gas from the Ikhil field to supply the energy needs of the town of Inuvik.

The territorial Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development funded a portion of the initial research for the project. The department provided funding to assist residential customers to convert to natural gas heating, with Inuvik Gas Ltd. providing matching grants.

This is all fairly recent. Last September the hon. Stephen Kakfwi stated in the legislative assembly of the Northwest Territories:

This program will result in the reduction of residential energy costs in Inuvik. It also allows the Northwest Territories to demonstrate its commitment to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

There are some pretty good things to say on this subject.

However, this is an entirely different matter from what this private member's motion contemplates today. This motion contemplates federal spending when the jurisdiction is almost exclusively provincial or territorial. In other words, the motion contemplates a massive intrusion of federal government into provincial and territorial affairs.

Canada is a major global natural gas producer and a major exporter to the United States. Canadian companies are at the forefront in developing natural gas alternatives to traditional engine fuels. There are many people aware of this, as there has been much attention paid to the stock market and publicly traded companies recently.

Westport Innovations Inc. is a Vancouver based company which is traded on the TSE. There is Calgary based Alternative Fuel Systems Inc., which is also publicly traded. These are two companies with which I am somewhat familiar, but I am sure there are likely to be other Canadian based companies doing similar things. These companies are working hard to use natural gas as a primary fuel, with good results, all of which has a positive impact on greenhouse gas emissions.

Westport Innovations utilized technology developed at the University of British Columbia. It recently bought the rights. This is a good example of a public-private partnership doing research and development which has worked out very well for all parties.

Environment Canada has publicly recognized the efforts of Calgary based Alternative Fuel Systems. It has developed products to convert diesel and gasoline engines to operate on cleaner burning natural gas as well. AFS has received contracts to sell its products and technology to Mexico and India, enabling fleets of vehicles in those countries to be converted to run on natural gas. This is all very good.

The major environmental benefit, of course, is that this reduces vehicular pollutants. The economic benefits come from the reduced fuel cost, as well as reduced maintenance costs and increased engine life.

Natural gas is an excellent fuel source and Canada is blessed with large reserves. It is very important that we do it right in terms of how we develop, distribute, market and creatively manage this legacy. I cannot support this private member's motion, which is without vision and does not respect federal, provincial and territorial—

[Income Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 1999, May 12th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, Bill S-3, an act to implement an agreement, conventions and protocols between Canada and Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Algeria, Bulgaria, Portugal, Uzbekistan, Jordan, Japan and Luxembourg, is a good bill in many respects.

It leads to some of the things to which the parliamentary secretary made reference. I have a bit of a problem with the bill. Once again we have a bill before the House which originated in the Senate, that unelected, unaccountable body. I find that quite problematic.

The Canadian Alliance has always supported measures that might in some way lower the tax burden for Canadians. Avoidance of double taxation would be a very significant result in lowering taxes. The government needs to remove impediments that discourage trade and to foreigners coming to Canada for fear of double taxation. The legislation also has the benefit of reducing tax avoidance concerns.

One point is very clear. Canada is very good at collecting taxes. We have almost as many tax collectors, somewhere around 45,000, as members of our armed forces. Our armed forces are poorly equipped and overtasked. Our tax collectors can be assured that this deterioration will not be allowed to occur in their bailiwick.

The irony of the legislation is that we had a harmonization of taxes in Canada that was almost complete. The GST and PST were rolled into a harmonized sales tax in some jurisdictions but not in others. Other phenomena happened with respect to income tax. Quebec has had a separate collection of personal income tax for some time. Other provinces are now moving in that direction. A lot of this is occurring because we cannot lessen Liberal dependence on a high appetite for taxation.

We were not reassured when the Prime Minister said recently at a Liberal convention that the era of tax cuts was over. Most of us had not realized that it had started. Was he talking about Alberta or Ontario? He surely was not talking about the federal arena.

It is sad to say that total personal income tax revenues in Canada go toward paying the rough equivalent of interest payments on the debt. We have no schedule to pay down that debt and we need that discipline.

Another point I would like to make is that income tax treaties such as the one we are discussing today contain rules that are different from the Income Tax Act. As such, these treaties need enabling legislation. They need an act of parliament to give the treaty precedence over the legislation. That is ironic when most of the treaties our federal government signs require no ratification in this place whatsoever.

Some treaties are much more binding and much more consequential to the nation as a whole. The first example that comes to mind would be the commitments we made on greenhouse gas emissions at Kyoto. That treaty requires ratification in our neighbour's congress and that brings a different discipline to the exercise. We do not have that in Canada but we need it. That will bring a whole new discipline to our negotiators and their political masters. We can be sure that when it comes to tax collection, however, the Liberals will smooth the path in whatever way is required to ensure it happens.

Despite my comments, this bill has merit. The Canadian Alliance will be supporting the legislation.

[Petitions, May 12th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I hardly think it is appropriate to deliver a petition and then talk about how the government addressed the whole issue in a piece of legislation. I do not think that kind of comment goes with delivering a petition.

[Forestry, May 12th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the federal government sponsored the film l'Erreur boréale which is a one-sided anti-industry diatribe against Quebec forest management designed for an international audience. At the same time the Minister of Natural Resources professes to support forest practices in Canada but funding seems to be a problem. Why is the government so reluctant to fund promotion of our world class forestry standards internationally?

[Scott Islands, May 12th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, Cape Scott is a large provincial park at the north end of Vancouver Island. The park includes five islands at the northwest tip of Vancouver Island. These are Cox, Lanz, Beresford, Triangle and Sartine. So known as the Scott Islands, they contain the most important breeding colonies of seabirds on our west coast and it is ranked as a globally significant important bird area with over two million breeding birds. Over one half of the global population of Cassin's Auklet and significant percentages of the world's populations of some other seabirds reside there.

The Canadian Nature Federation is launching an important Simon Fraser University biological research project to study feeding patterns around the Scott Islands. This launch will coincide with International Migratory Bird Day, which is tomorrow, May 13.

This is an important project, in a special place, for a very good purpose.

[Petitions, April 14th, 2000]

When it reaches a certain threshold.

[Foreign Affairs, April 14th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, if it is going well, I would hate to see bad. Today is day five of the Prime Minister's Middle East travel. After four major gaffs in four days, saying what he is not supposed to say, now he says “listen, I do not have to discuss the situation between those two countries”.

We might ask what two countries. For the Prime Minister, it could be any two countries in the region. Why will not the Prime Minister just come home?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2000, April 13th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked quite a bit about national parks and the national parks scheme.

It was very clear in the past that our national parks were designed for people and families to have general access. However, the mandate for the parks has changed and many of the practices have changed so that now our national parks system is much less available to the general public and families. At times some of the existing available parks have implemented a user fee schedule, to which the member made reference.

My analysis of those parks, which have put in a user fee schedule, is that the national budget is still the same as what it was before the implementation of user fees. There is a lot more spending going on but no more facilities really present. The user fee schedule has not really given the general taxpayer relief.

I wonder if the hon. member could comment on those two things.

The member also talked about rural infrastructure. We are very concerned about what is happening in our rural communities. On things like the universality and availability of health care, if individuals cannot get to where health care is available it is hardly universal. If the member would like to comment on that as well it would be most welcome.

[1911 Census Records, April 10th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to speak to Motion No. 160. I congratulate my colleague for bringing the motion forward.

A very interesting thing is happening in current society. In the field of genealogy today people are currently looking at the past.

I recently heard a lecture given by Steve Dotto. I believe he has a regular program on CBC where he talks about the Internet, computers and so on. He said that there has been a tremendous growth in the interest in genealogy in the country and one reason is that the Internet is such a good tool. He said if we want to learn all of the various activities, the best training device and lesson plan we could come up with particularly if we had a natural interest in the subject would be to pursue the genealogy of our own families. All the lessons we need in order to learn how to effectively use the Internet would come through that field of endeavour and study.

It is interesting that at the very time there is this burgeoning field in society current day families are looking more and more at their roots and their past. We are looking at our institutions with renewed enthusiasm. Whether it is the military, the RCMP, the church or other important institutions in society, there is a renewed interest in all of them. We see it on November 11 with the increasing turnout of people at Remembrance Day ceremonies.

At the very time when all this renewed interest is happening we have run into a brick wall potentially on the release of census data. This data is from the 1911 census. The 1901 census data was available in 1993. The major period of migration to Canada was between the start of the 20th century and the beginning of World War I in 1914. There are millions of Canadians whose first ancestors arrived in Canada during that period. We must take that into account.

There was an expectation on the part of virtually everyone that the data was going to be available in 2003. Some minds figured out that is not going to happen. It all changed because of a regulation in 1906. Although it is largely speculative, we know that they were not thinking about what the circumstances would be 90 or 100 years down the road. Logic dictates that the reason the release of census data collected was pre-empted at that time had to do with everyday concerns about conscription, what the military or the taxman might do with the data for people who completed the information.

That is the way the regulations read at the time. Looking back on it we know in current terms if we use the natural lifespan of people that a 90 or a 100 year release of census data addresses privacy concerns.

What do some other western democracies do with their census data? It is important to make a comparison. The U.S. releases its data after 72 years; Australia, 100; France, 100; Denmark, 65; and in the U.K. efforts are under way to release the information after 100 years. There has been some concern about retroactive alteration of confidentiality requirements and the whole subject of a privacy guarantee that was made when the data was collected.

I cannot think of a single way individuals will be negatively impacted by releasing data 90 or 100 years later. Therefore I cannot think of a single way this will negatively impact participation by the population at large in current census collection. It will put us in step with other western democracies.

The major point I am trying to make is that the motion is very worthy of our support to ensure that the 1911 census data is released in 2003. For the 1921 census and others in the future there is lots of time to come up with a very structured response to how the data will be released. In the meantime it is important to address the very specific issue on the 1911 census.

[Supply, March 22nd, 2000]

Madam Speaker, the comment from my colleague was a good one.