Pat Martin

[Petitions, October 16th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am very grateful to present, under Standing Order 36, a large petition from residents in my riding who are very upset about the rising cost of energy, specifically gasoline, and the seemingly arbitrary way in which oil companies can change the price of gasoline.

These many thousands of citizens in my riding are calling upon the government to institute an energy price commission to oversee and regulate the price of gasoline, home heating fuel and diesel fuel so that they are not vulnerable to the shocks and fluctuations in energy prices.

[Supply, October 16th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, after listening to the speech by the hon. Secretary of State for the Status of Women, I could not help but notice how full it was of incredible contradictions.

The hon. secretary of state was saying that to eradicate poverty among women we would have to somehow reduce the capital gains tax for the wealthy; that to eliminate poverty among women we would have to give bankers another tax break; that to eliminate poverty among women we would have to change the EI system in a structure where still only 30% of unemployed women will qualify for EI.

I wonder if the hon. leader of the New Democratic Party could clarify some of the inherent contradictions in the attitudes held by the hon. secretary of state.

[Firefighters' Pensions, October 16th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I also wish to begin my remarks by complimenting the sponsor of this motion for bringing forward what I believe is a very topical and timely issue as it relates to the health, safety and well-being of working people.

I also want to compliment the International Association of Fire Fighters for being visible and very active in trying to promote this particular issue for many years, both in the general public and in the House of Commons.

During their annual lobby, every MP on the Hill has probably been visited by members of the IAFF as they have come to our offices to ask for recognition of the issues that they feel are most important and front and centre for the members that they represents. I do not believe any organization has run a more effective lobby in terms of making members of parliament aware of the issues that this particular organization is advocating. The association should be complimented for the long, hard road that it has followed to finally bring this issue to debate in the House of Commons.

It is generally agreed that firefighters enjoy a special status in the hearts and minds of Canadians. All Canadians recognize the inherent dangers of the job, the courage and the physical stress and duress that such an undertaking shows on working people. All of us recognize what a necessary and valuable position firefighters hold within our communities, whether they are rural or urban communities.

There is no other job in the world like firefighting. Every time the bell rings and every time someone is called out to their workplace they are faced with imminent danger. We can view many jobs as dangerous, whether it is logging, coal mining or the building trades that I come from, but no worker faces the day to day risk that firefighters face every day they go to work.

It is in recognition of that fact that we are sensing broad support in the House of Commons for this very reasonable amendment to the Income Tax Act. I regret that the motion was worded in such a soft way, as are most private member's motions. The motion does not particularly bind the government to leap into any particular action in the immediate future but it does give direction to the government to act in a certain way.

Specifically, the firefighters have come to us year after year in their annual lobby asking for just a few simple things. It is to their credit that they have rendered down the number of issues facing their members to a few achievable goals that they have been very persistent and consistent in putting across to us.

A number of those were itemized by previous speakers. One is the hazardous materials identification system firefighters are advocating that would go above and beyond the WHMI system that all other workers enjoy. WHMIS is the workplace hazardous materials identification system. It is based on the premise that all workers have the right both to know the chemical makeup of the materials they are handling and to refuse unsafe work.

Naturally, WHMIS fails firefighters. Firefighters do not have the right to refuse unsafe work. Everything they do would be categorized in any other conventional workplace as being inherently unsafe. Given the chemical soup that serves as a risk to workers these days in many manufacturing settings, firefighters are even more concerned. Unfortunately the ill effects of that chemical soup are even more obvious as manufacturing systems and processes become more elaborate and sophisticated.

One of the real and existing dangers pointed out by firefighters who have visited my office is that often it is not any one chemical that will harm them on exposure. It is the compounding effect of a variety of chemicals reacting with one another in a person's system. For instance, chemical A is ingested at one fire and chemical B is ingested a year later. Those two go on to form chemical C within the firefighter's internal organs.

This is a terrible problem. Firefighters we call the walking wounded are walking the streets today. They are really ticking time bombs in terms of showing the ill effects of exposure to hazardous things.

One of the paramount things firefighters want addressed is a more sophisticated hazardous materials tracking system, specifically on the rail lines. That way, when a rail car overturns and creates a toxic plume, firefighters would have some way of knowing what was in the tanker car prior to rushing to the scene. They would not have to read the card on the side of the overturned tanker that may be burning.

The second issue always raised with us when firefighters come on their annual lobby is what we are dealing with today, the fact that the Income Tax Act recognizes the hazardous nature of the work by allowing early retirement at age 60 and even an optional window for early retirement at age 55. This is in recognition of the hazardous nature of the work and the fact that there is wear and tear on the bodies of firefighters just by the nature of that work. However, it fails to recognize something else. A firefighter opting for early retirement at age 55 pays a penalty for every month prior to the age of 60 and is thus forced to retire with an often inadequate pension.

Firefighters seek to achieve by this motion a change in the Income Tax Act to allow for pension benefits to be accrued at a higher rate than that of the average worker. When firefighters opt for early retirement they would do so at full pension. We think this is a reasonable proposal, and I am glad to see that all parties in the House seem to agree.

We should point out to the public that this is not an additional cost to the government. There is no immediate cost associated with this recognition. In fact, this would allow firefighters to sit down at the bargaining table with their employer and negotiate a higher premium contribution to their pension plan above and beyond the 2% allowed by law today.

It really is not a cost to the general public. It is not a cost to the government. It is not a cost to the taxpayer. If at the bargaining table firefighters were able to achieve that increase in contribution rates from their employer, they then would enjoy a maximum of 2.33% pension accrual rate.

We should notify the public that by the passage of this motion and the implementation of the recommendations of the motion we are not voting for a cost to the taxpayer. We are not talking about any increased cost in CPP or any other tax relief for firefighters. We are simply giving them the ability to negotiate a higher rate of contribution to their pension plans.

We have many graphic examples of the unique nature of the day to day work and workplace of firefighters. A recent and horrifying example is the Plastimet fire in Hamilton, Ontario. It often comes to mind as a graphic illustration of the inherent hazards associated with this job. Given the number of fatal injuries from that fire and the many complications for the people working there, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Plastimet serves as the firefighter's Westray. On a per capita basis it was as severe and as extreme and it deserves our immediate attention.

This bill will give relief to one minor detail in terms of recognizing the special position that firefighters hold within our culture and communities, but it does not deal with many of the other issues often raised in this regard. I do not believe any job in the country should be considered a dangerous occupation. We have it within our means to make all workplaces safer if we address ourselves to that issue. No amount of compensation justifies a dangerous job.

We used to face that in my trade. They would give us danger pay for doing certain dangerous jobs. I do not really want another dollar an hour for putting my life at risk. I would rather we take that dollar an hour and put it toward research to make the job safer in the first place so that no one gets put into a dangerous situation.

Firefighters are unique in that when all other workers are running out of a burning building from a dangerous situation firefighters are running in. There is no easy solution to making the workplace safer for firefighters. There is more we can do with the co-operation of the union, their employers and government regulatory bodies.

The best we can do now for firefighters is to recognize the inherent danger of their workplace and to give them some satisfaction in terms of this issue and the other legitimate concerns they have brought before us, including the hazardous materials identification system for at least the rail system and the blood sample that was situation raised by other speakers.

[Employment Insurance Act, October 4th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I very much appreciate that comment. I think all parties are aware that the EI fund ceased to be an insurance program a long time ago. It is a misnomer. It is actually fraudulent to even call it an insurance program because it is anything but that. It is a cash cow for the Liberal Party to use for anything it chooses, anything other than income maintenance.

There was another point that came up. The hon. member over there mentioned the $500 million in savings. That $500 million per year in savings by eliminating the intensity rule and the change in the clawback provisions accounts for 1.5% of the $34 billion that the Liberals have taken out of the fund, with no excuse. Thirty-four billion dollars compared to $500 million is 1.5%, and the Liberals will pay a political price for it. I guarantee it.

[Employment Insurance Act, October 4th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, this is what is particularly cheesy about Bill C-44. It is frankly forcing groups like our own caucus to vote for Bill C-44. Nobody denies that for a long time we have wanted the intensity rule eradicated. Frankly some of the labour groups likewise have to acknowledge that they have wanted to get rid of the intensity rule for a long time as well. It was one of three or four irritants in the system.

I spoke to the carpenters union today. I spoke to the International Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades. I spoke to the IBEW and members of the building trades council who are terribly disappointed that nobody touched the divisor rule. Nobody touched the eligibility requirements of 920 hours to qualify and 700 hours to requalify. That is almost double the requirement there used to be to be eligible for benefits.

The proof will be in the pudding on election day because these groups will remember who the advocates for EI were and what party tore the guts out of the EI program to the point where it is dysfunctional and nothing but a cash cow for that party to spend.

[Employment Insurance Act, October 4th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member on the Liberal side is saying that the speech I just gave is nonsense. It is unparliamentary—

[Employment Insurance Act, October 4th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-44 calls itself an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act. I think the Liberals should be honest. They should call it what it is. It is an act that is intended to tinker with the EI system so that they can buy back some of the votes of the millions of Atlantic Canadians who abandoned the Liberal Party out of rage and fury for the Liberal Party abandoning them. Pre-election cynicism is what it really is. It is no wonder that Canadian voters get cynical about the electoral process. They can surely see right through this.

Bill C-44 is an insult to Canadian workers. It is an insult to building trades workers, Atlantic fisheries workers and forestry workers all across the country. Workers should be offended. They are calling my office and telling me that they are offended because the Liberal Party did not listen to the experts on this issue. The experts are there. The experts have done the research. They have made that research available and the Liberals have chosen to ignore it.

Nobody in the country knows more about EI than the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst who did a cross-country national tour consulting with Canadians. The Liberals chose to ignore that. The national building trades council has studied every aspect of unemployment insurance and made reasonable, balanced recommendations and the Liberals ignored that. The Canadian Labour Congress, the Canadian Manufacturers Association, industry representatives from labour and management have told the government that the EI system is broken, the wheels have fallen off and it does not work anymore and the Liberals still have chosen not to fix it.

If the Liberals were honest they would change the name of the employment insurance fund because to use the word insurance is fraudulent in itself. The word is misleading and deceptive. It should really be called the Liberals' big cash cow because that is what it has been in the years since they made the devastating changes to it. What were the changes?

In my riding alone, $20.8 million a year has been sucked out. Already it is the third poorest riding in the country just because of these EI changes. What happens to these people? They get pushed on to provincial welfare. It is a way for the federal government to offload its responsibilities to provide income maintenance and insurance on to the provinces which then have to pay city welfare. It is no wonder people are furious.

The bill tinkers with the EI problems. It does two things. It eliminates the intensity rule. Big deal. The member for Acadie—Bathurst pointed out how insignificant and trivial that is. The bill changes the clawback provision back to where it used to be, not to improve it, not even all the way back. It used to be that EI did not get clawed back unless a person made $63,000 a year. Then it went down to $48,000. Then it went down to $39,000. Now it is being put back up to $48,000 and the government expects us to celebrate.

Two things that really cost Canadian workers are the divisor rule and the eligibility rule. They have been structured so nobody qualifies for EI anymore, but everybody has to pay into it. It is no wonder there is a surplus, a $750 million a month surplus. No, I was not heard incorrectly; that is per month, not per year. The amount of $750 million per month is being taken out of the system by the Liberals and it is not being put back into income maintenance where it belongs. What kind of insurance policy is that?

What if someone were forced to pay insurance on a house year after year and when the house burned down the person had a less than 35% chance of ever collecting any insurance benefit on it? That is no longer an insurance policy.

To deduct something from a person's paycheque for a specific purpose and to use it for something entirely different in the best case scenario is a breach of trust and in the worst case scenario is out and out fraud. The Liberals have been perpetrating this fraud on Canadian people all these years and milking it for every cent it is worth. Thirty-four billion dollars that should have gone into income maintenance for the people who arguably need it the most, the unemployed workers, have gone to pay down the deficit. This is a misuse of funds and a breach of trust. It is dishonest and I say it is out and out fraud.

I do not think I have to explain the divisor rule. Every working person in this country knows the EI system and knows what the divisor rule is. That is what has really cost workers. The dead weeks are factored in when averaging out the benefit. It used to be the benefit would be calculated by averaging out the weeks worked. Now it is averaging out all of the weeks in the previous 26 weeks even if the person did not work in those weeks.

I used to represent the carpenters union. A couple of years ago members of the carpenters union would make $400 or $450 a week as their EI benefit, 55% of their gross earnings. Now with the divisor rule which factors in the dead weeks, the amount is $180 or $220 week, almost 50% less.

With the tinkering that goes on, the Liberals chose very selectively the two things that are not going to cost them squat. The government will still have a gross surplus of funds that will not go into an EI fund because that is a misnomer, but into general revenues for the government to use for whatever it wants. That is where the breach of trust comes in.

My party did a comprehensive brief on this issue. I see it on the desk of the member for Acadie—Bathurst. It is a well developed, comprehensive document that was the result of a national cross-country tour. We received input from concerned citizens from all walks of life, not just labour, but management as well who are very concerned about our dysfunctional, completely broken EI system. The government chose to ignore those meaningful recommendations.

The building trades council arguably has the most knowledgeable people on the EI issue in the labour movement because it directly affects so many of its 400,000 members. It had a good seven point plan with realistic proposals that would have made the system work. In other words, the money taken off paycheques would go toward income maintenance or training, one or the other. None of these things were picked up.

Even the detail about apprenticeship has been ignored by the government. When I was going through my apprenticeship the first two weeks of an EI claim were paid. It was not treated like an unemployment insurance claim; it was a training benefit. That aspect of the EI fund was very beneficial. Using EI money, seats were purchased at the community college. Now apprentices are charged tuition at community colleges as if they were going to university or something.

Again in a situation where the fund is showing a surplus of $750 million a month, how does the government justify squeezing that last little bit out of something like the apprenticeship system? It is unconscionable. I am really horrified by the whole thing.

People thought with some optimism that leading up to an election they could expect some improvement, that the Liberals would make it right again. They thought they could expect the Liberals to use the money that is deducted from their paycheques honestly. What do we get? Instead of real improvements, we get this little package, Bill C-44, with tiny tinkering steps that will not benefit very many workers.

Thirty-five per cent of unemployed people quality for benefits, 25% of women. There is a huge gender bias in the current EI system which the Liberals have failed to address as well.

Less than 15% of unemployed youth qualify for EI, even though under the new hours bank system contributions are credited by hours. Youth working part time have to pay in. They never had to pay in before if they worked under a certain number of hours per week. Now everybody has to pay in but there is a less than 15% chance of ever collecting any benefit.

It ceased to be an insurance program a long time ago. It is dishonest and disingenuous to call it such any longer. Let us call it what it is. It is a cash cow. It is a transparent attempt to buy back some of the votes of the good people of Atlantic Canada who so resoundingly rejected the Liberal Party for being so callous and indifferent to them in the first place.

The Liberals take money off a worker's cheque for heaven's sake and use it to pay down the deficit or to give tax breaks to the wealthy. As I have said before, it is like some perverted form of Robin Hood, to rob from the poor and give to the rich. That is what we are witnessing here. Incredibly that is what we are watching the Liberals do but we will not stand by idly. Fortunately I think we are going into an election and that will give us a platform to expose those guys, to expose this travesty, to expose what they have done to Atlantic Canada and what they seek to do again by buying these votes back. The electorate is very knowledgeable these days. People read the newspapers and watch television. People pay attention to their paycheques first and foremost. They know what is going on.

When I was a practising carpenter I paid $45 every paycheque to EI and my employer paid 1.4 times that amount. That is a lot of money. Of every paycheque, $80 or $90 was being paid into the fund on my behalf in case of the unfortunate situation that I would become unemployed and would require income maintenance.

Where is all that money going? The Minister of Finance stands and crows about paying down the deficit. He is paying down the deficit on the backs of unemployed workers. Are the Liberals proud of that? They will not be for long. As soon as we get on the doorsteps in the coming election they will not be proud of that. We will ram it down the Liberals' throats, especially in Atlantic Canada. I almost wish I were running in Atlantic Canada. It would be a cakewalk. It would be fun to remind people of what those guys have done to them over and over again. People will not need much reminding. It is a top of the mind issue. It is first and foremost. The Liberals will pay a political price, mark my words.

[Pharmaceuticals, September 25th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, drug prices are the fastest growing costs in our health care system. We now spend more on drugs than we do on the salaries of doctor.

In 1993 the Liberals promised to reduce drug prices. Instead they broke those promises and left the pharmaceutical companies with a 20 year patent protection on their products even though a generic company can often produce the same product for a fraction of the cost.

This situation has turned into the greatest corporate rip-off in Canadian history worth billions per year in unnecessary costs to our health care system and putting billions into the pockets of drug companies, the Liberal Party's corporate friends and sponsors.

What was a problem in 1993 is now an emergency. We hear of seniors who must choose between paying their rent and paying for their drugs. We hear of seniors who cut their daily medication in half to make their prescription last longer.

Incredibly we are now hearing of people being forced to move from province to province, shopping for the best deal, the best coverage to meet their health care costs. So much for national standards and so much for a national pharmacare plan. It is another Liberal broken promise, this time one that costs more than just money. It costs—

[Apprenticeship National Standards Act, September 21st, 2000]

Madam Speaker, there is not much in this world that I know a lot about, frankly, but this is one subject on which I actually do have great personal knowledge.

I am a journeyman carpenter myself and for many years I represented carpenters as a union leader and I did get to deal with the issue of labour market training a great deal. I can honestly say that the very worthwhile bill put forward by the member for Mississauga West absolutely meets a need in industry that was plain and obvious to me, and to anyone who has ever actually had experience in the industry that I represented.

One of the members from the Alliance said that apprenticeship was an ancient tradition, and he is right, but it goes back even farther than he said. It can be traced back to the ancient Babylonian code of Hanurabi, which was the first written reference of a need or an obligation for skilled workers to pass on their skills to the next generation.

I do not think anybody who I have heard speak so far has any problem with the model of apprenticeship. In fact, most people spoke glowingly about what a suitable method it was for the communication of craft trade skills and what a necessary aspect it was of any human resources or labour market strategy.

Where we find faults and what the industry has been telling us for years is that labour market training and the apprenticeship systems in this country are like a patchwork quilt. Virtually every province has its own way of doing things, its own curriculum, its own entrance requirements and its own certification methodology. As a result, as the member for Mississauga pointed out, mobility has really been threatened.

A carpenter who took his or her apprenticeship training in Nova Scotia cannot just move to Alberta when there is a boom and work there because it is a different set of skills. The employers do not know what they are getting as there is no standardized curriculum. Even more important, the customers of the construction industry service do not know what kind of a quality job they will get because there is no standardization.

For years now within the building trade but also beyond, for instance, in the auto industry, the piping trades, any place that has apprenticeship training as an aspect of the work environment, there has been a call for national standards, to somehow pull all these diverse groups working in isolation across the country together under one kind of central committee, a central umbrella. We can call it what we want. I see that the hon. member, in his bill, calls it NATO, national apprenticeship and training organization. We used to throw around the term NATAC, national apprenticeship and training advisory committee. Whatever we want to call it, it should be a forum where business, labour and government could sit down, compare notes, develop standardized curricula and a standardized set of rules for the delivery of training without interfering in the provincial jurisdiction.

We have been aware that this would be a sore point, especially with the province of Quebec. We knew that we would meet resistance there, but no one is talking about the federal government or any national agency interfering with the delivery of the service. All we are asking for is a consultation forum where a group in the province of Quebec, for instance the CCQ, the Commission de la construction de Québec, would be represented on this national organization. They would say “In our province, our entrance requirement is that one has to have grade 10. It is a four year program and the curriculum looks like this. How does that compare with your program in Manitoba?”. If there are any problems then those two would have to be aligned to guarantee the ease of mobility so that Canadian workers could work anywhere in Canada and Canadian industry could be assured that they were getting a known commodity when they hire, and I will use the example of a carpenter because that is my trade.

Apprenticeship as an education model is so well-suited for even today's new industries, even the high tech field, because the people who are involved are not really students. They have an attachment to the workforce. They actually have a job so they are earning while they learn. It is a model that we believe should be expanded far beyond the 44 current trades in Canada.

One hon. member mentioned Germany. The country of Germany has 440 apprenticeable trades. People can apprentice in almost any discipline they can think of. The regimen is outlined in a clear way. They would get a certification so that they could actually call themselves a skilled x , y , or z , whatever occupation they happen to apprentice in.

We believe that having these national apprenticeship and training advisory committees, or NATO committees, in each of the apprenticeable trades would not only serve the needs of industry in providing highly skilled workers of a predictable known quantifiable level of training, but it would also help to promote and expand the whole concept of apprenticeship in a much wider way than currently is enjoyed.

I am terribly disappointed that the government has not seen fit to adopt this idea. We have a minister of human resources but we really do not have a national human resources strategy because we have offloaded that to the provinces. Some people say that is a good thing and some people are not as pleased with that, but at least the federal government should still see that it has a role in ensuring that the delivery of training, which has been signed over to the provinces through various labour training agreements, is at least being taught with a certain set of standards so that they would know they are getting proper value for their investment into labour market training if for no other reason.

I believe the government has missed the boat. I believe it is not only not listening to the member who put the bill forward, it is not listening to industry. It is not listening to key industrial sectors that very much want this. This idea did not just come out the blue. The member did not just wake up one morning and say “I think we should do this”. We are making an effort to meet a demand by the building trades industry, which is the largest single employer in the country. The construction industry and certainly the auto industry, any of the industries that have sectoral councils or are dealing with labour market training other than post-secondary education, are very interested in this model.

When I raise the sectoral council, I believe there is a precedent for the federal government to have a role in setting national standards and that is the model right there. In the auto industry, for instance, there is CARS, which is a tripartite group made up of labour, business and management. They get together and not only set curriculum, they can talk about other things. They can talk about forecasting the labour market needs in that sector and what the intake should be of new people into those skilled trades to meet their anticipated needs. It brings together the actual stakeholders in the training around one central table.

It would not be a costly factor either. In our dialogue with industry most industries have pretty much accepted that they will have to dig into their pockets to fund this sort of thing sooner or later. There was not much opposition to some kind of a training levy being put forward to actually run the nuts and bolts.

All the federal government would really have to do is create the environment. The funding source could be some kind of a joint labour-management contribution in some models. That is what we did in our union. Every hour that a carpenter worked he paid 10 cents into a labour market training fund which was matched by the employer. We would then use that money for the training of our members.

In the province of Quebec they have things figured out in a better way with their 1 per cent training levy which employers willingly pay so that they can count on a high level of labour market training for the workers they very much need.

There is a precedent for this type of thing with the sectoral council. There is a need and a demand, as clearly articulated by industry sectors. The government has missed the boat in choosing not to support this very worthwhile bill.

If we did have the type of national standards that we are talking about, perhaps more young people would be motivated to go into the skilled trades, the apprenticeship trades. As was pointed out, there can be very high paying, satisfying careers in the skilled trades.

We often get this blue collar stigma where people are not willing or this kind of a feeling that one only goes into the trades if one drops out of mainstream education. There are satisfying careers, highly skilled workers in these fields and great entrepreneurial opportunities that come out of the skilled trades. Once one achieves a certain level of proficiency as a bricklayer or as a carpenter one can hang out a shingle and hire two or three friends, and all of a sudden we have another small business starting.

For these and all the other good reasons this bill should have been deemed votable. It should have been passed and in fact it should have been picked up by the government and introduced as a government side bill. My compliments to the member for Mississauga West for bringing forth this important issue for debate, if for nothing else.

[Supply, September 21st, 2000]

Madam Speaker, the member spent most of his speech shamelessly shilling for the corporations. He tried to convince Canadians that the corporations get by on a razor thin profit margin and struggle along with their oil and gas industry. I guess if one is trying to sell tickets to dinners at $25,000 per table one would pretty well have to butter up the executives of the oil companies. Who else would spend $25,000 to attend a Reform Party dinner?

Let us look at the actual facts. Let us look at some of the profits of these major oil companies, many of which I am sure are in the riding the member represents. Husky Energy in the last quarter made profits of $198 million, an increase of 2,302% over the previous year, and the hon. member is telling us they are not making a profit.

Let us look at Petro-Canada with $439 million in the last quarter with an increase over the previous year of 314%. Suncor Energy made a $619 million profit in a quarter, not per year, which is an increase of 156% over one year previously.

The hon. member is telling us that they are not gouging us at the pumps with profit margins like that. It is beyond credibility. Canadians do not believe it. Nobody buys it except for the guy wearing rose coloured glasses who is speaking for the corporations and trying to be a champion and an apologist to the oil companies. It is really grating for me to sit here and listen.