Mr. Speaker:

The question now is on motion No. 5 in the name of the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Symes).

Hon. Alastair Gillespie (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and Minister of State for Science and Technology) moved:

That Bill C-42 to provide a means to conserve the supplies of energy within Canada during periods of national emergency caused by shortages or market disturbances affecting the national security and welfare and the economic stability of Canada, as reported (with amendments) from the Standing Committee on National Resources and Public Works, be concurred in.

Mr. Speaker:

When shall the bill be read the third time?

Now, by order.

Mr. Speaker:

By order, now?

Agreed.

Mr. Gillespie moved

that the bill be read the third time and do pass.

He said: Mr. Speaker, in rising to take part in the third reading debate on this important bill I want to deal with a number of points that were raised by members of the opposition at report stage.

A number of major issues are involved. The first is whether Canada may be faced with an emergency and whether Canada should take action now to deal with that emergency. It was quite clear when listening to hon. members opposite that they have a very relaxed attitude to this question of a possible emergency, and I think we have seen evidence of that relaxed attitude throughout this debate. Yesterday we had a chance to bring this debate to a conclusion through agreement.

Mr. Lawrence:

A week ago today.

Mr. Gillespie:

The hon. member says it was a week ago today but he and his party filibustered this bill for five days. The Tory party took five days of precious House time at report stage. They took five days to go over a lot of ground that we went over in committee. I think that is scandalous and I think it is irresponsible.

When the House leaders met yesterday it would have been possible to come to the agreement which we were subsequently able to do in the House this afternoon. It would have been possible to do that yesterday and there would have been no necessity to move closure. I have no regrets that we moved closure and time allocation. I think this is what brought them to their senses.

Throughout this debate we have witnessed a party that says there is no emergency now. They say: "We do not really have to worry about any emergency for weeks or months to come. Forget Iran. Do not worry about multinational corporations and how they are going to reallocate crude oil supplies. We do not need a bill like this. There is not going to be any emergency."

As I have indicated, that relaxed attitude pervaded the behaviour of the official opposition throughout. It was best exemplified by their attitude last week when we spent five days

on report stage, three of which were spent on one of their own amendments. They said that amendment was needed in order to give parliament time to consider the important question of a national emergency-a national emergency which the Government of Canada would declare. They wanted to remove the provision which requires parliament to deal with the declaration of an emergency in three days. In other words, they wanted the energy supplies allocation board and the whole mandatory allocation and rationing system to be left in a position of some uncertainty. That is the only interpretation that can be put on their remarks unless one adopts the interpretation of the House leader of the official opposition when he said: "You do not need approval of parliament after three days' debate because you can move closure". He was saying we could use the power to move closure and require only two days' debate, whereas in the bill the government has provided for three days and a certainty of conclusion of the debate.

It was apparent that the opposition was not interested in bringing this matter to a conclusion until they were forced to by the political backlash when the country became aware that they were spinning the debate out. I think the country was aware that this bill went through the House once before. There was something like eight days' consideration in committee and eight days for second reading once before. This time we had three days for second reading, five days at report stage, and eight to twelve meetings of the committee. It was clear that the attitude of the opposition to this bill, as to the possible emergency-indeed, probable emergency if one listens to many of the experts on energy matters-is very relaxed and they are not anxious to see the bill passed before the House is dissolved. They would leave Canada without the power to deal with an energy emergency during a dissolution of parliament. I believe that is downright irresponsible.

This is not surprising when we think about the attitude of the opposition toward energy questions. It has been their record on energy for the length of this parliament. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) has never interested himself in energy policy questions. He has taken the view: "We will let Alberta decide; maybe Premier Lougheed will have an idea. I will not say anything; I will hang back and let others do it for me." He is incapable of putting Canada first, Mr. Speaker. Why else would he have ducked the important question of pricing? Why else would the Leader of the Opposition continue to repeat banalities with respect to Petro-Canada? He would like to get rid of it. The Leader of the Opposition has not been prepared to talk on the hard energy policy issues. He has abdicated any responsibility for energy policy questions.

One way that he might be able to justify that inactivity is to say that we do not need this bill because there is not going to be any emergency. It is surprising to us but, when we think about it, still consistent with the position of the opposition party when they take this relaxed attitude toward the necessity of providing legislation and powers to deal with an emergency. It is surprising that they would be prepared even at this late date to say: "Let the multinationals do the job. Let Exxon look

March 20,1979

after Canada; we do not need Petro-Canada. We are prepared to go with the multinationals to sort out Canada's problems." That position was put forward by the official critic for the Conservative party.

I am going to deal with the International Energy Agency and the Importance of Petro-Canada being part of the standing group on emergency questions at the International Energy Agency. The first amendment we dealt with a few moments ago was opposed by the official opposition. The official opposition did not want Petro-Canada to be the watchdog for Canada at the standing group on emergency questions in the International Energy Agency.

I talked about the opposition's relaxed attitude. That is something we have seen emerge in this debate, evidenced by their saying "let the multinationals do it" and their not being prepared to face up to pricing questions. As well it was evidenced by their opposition to Petro-Canada and the whole attitude toward the importance of getting this bill through and getting it through quickly.

Another issue in the debate, part of the official opposition's position, was that the government was asking for too much power. The official opposition said there was no emergency and that there would not be an emergency. Therefore, we could take all the time we wanted even though we will be facing an election without the powers to deal with one.

Let us look at some opposition charges. Most of those charges seem to be based on taking at face value a particular presentation made to the committee by the Ontario government, a presentation which examination has proved was based on a whole series of false premises and assumptions. It was one of the most shoddy pieces of work ever presented before a parliamentary committee. It was not based on any objective seeking for the truth. It was based, as I indicated in a public statement, on some misguided effort to try to embarrass the government. One can only speculate why the Conservative government of Ontario-perhaps itself in some difficulty with energy questions in Ontario-would take this moment to try to shift the limelight away from themselves and place it on us. As a result of that shoddy piece of work and inept presentation on the part of the spokesman for the Ontario government, upon examination of the case it seems the Ontario government has come out very much second best.

I regret the official energy critic for the Conservative party, the hon. member for Northumberland-Durham (Mr. Lawrence), has identified himself so quickly with some of the remarks in that presentation, arguments which suggested that through this bill the Government of Canada could bankrupt the gas transmission distribution system in Canada. That was the position of the Ontario government. However, the testimony placed before the committee clearly indicated that there are measures, protections and appeal mechanisms which can prevent any kind of arbitrary move. I believe that case has been made and made convincingly. I wait to hear whether we will

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still hear that again from the hon. member for Northumberland-Durham.

The leader of the debate from the opposition side showed no readiness or willingness to look at the way the powers which the government was seeking in this bill could be controlled by parliament or how those powers would be made available and published in the form of amendments to allocation programs or orders dealing with mandatory allocation.

I believe it was the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Symes) who put his finger on it best when he said that it was quite clear that the amendments introduced by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) and supported by the hon. member for Northumberland-Durham, the energy critic for the Tory party-which did not come to a vote because after a while I suspect the Tories became embarrassed by the nature of them-were designed to subvert the intentions of the act. If these amendments had been accepted by this House they would have so cut and emasculated-to use the words of the right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker) in some of his remarks-the administrative process that it would be impossible to deal with the emergency which this particular bill is designed to cope with in the event an emergency comes about. God hopes it does not, but let us be safe rather than sorry.

That has not been the attitude of the official opposition. As I have indicated, the position of the official opposition is to recognize no urgency. They do not recognize that the administration is complex or that it will be dealing with hundreds of thousands of separate transactions. It will be dealing with particular regions, and regional aspects differ from place to place in this great country. There is no recognition that priorities may be changed through the advice of the provinces. There has been no recognition that certainty is needed in the administration of emergency measures. The Tory opposition closed its eyes and stuck its head in the sand when it came to deal with this bill. Its intelligence has been covered up because it has been buried in the sand.

I have indicated that there is a provision for parliamentary approval after a declaration has been announced. There is provision in the act which requires that orders and amendments to orders be tabled before parliament so that Canadians may know what the emergency supplies allocation board is doing. I would be the first to recognize that there are very significant powers associated with this board. But when one is dealing with an emergency and something as strategic as energy on which our whole economy depends, surely it would be foolhardy not to provide the necessary powers and flexibility, and indeed, as we have, the necessary process of parliamentary approval, so that the job can be done.

There was a charge of a degree of unfairness somehow or other introduced into the administrative process, and no recognition that this possible unfairness could be redressed. Answers to those charges were also placed on the record and set out in detail during committee stage.

In the balance of my remarks I would like to deal with the International Energy Agency and the part it may have in

March 20, 1979

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triggering the need by the Government of Canada to declare an emergency under the terms of this act.

I am looking at the clock, and with your permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to call it five o'clock and resume my remarks on this important aspect of the bill after the adjournment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker:

It being five o'clock, the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper, namely public bills, private bills and notices of motions.

Mr. Deputy Speaker:

Before dealing with the order of business which according to the order paper will be called today, we might attempt to complete discussion on the point of order raised by the hon. member for Vaudreuil (Mr. Herbert) on March 16 and give hon. members who have indicated their interest in this matter an opportunity to express their point of view.

As hon. members are aware, on March 16 the hon. member for Vaudreuil raised as a point of order the fact that Bill C-232, to amend the Holidays Act, having been considered at report stage and debated at the third reading stage on March 13, 1979, ought to have retained its precedence on the order paper and remained at the beginning of the list of private members' business, public bills. Some members from both sides have already expressed opinions on the issue. Unless they have something new to add, I hope they will not repeat the contribution they have already made. I will give priority to those who have not yet contributed to the debate. Following this discussion, I hope to make a decision this afternoon.

Mr. Gordon Towers (Red Deer):

Mr. Speaker, speaking strictly to the point of order, I believe the suggestion made by the hon. member for Vaudreuil (Mr. Herbert) is entirely out of order. According to the customs of this House, after having been debated for an hour in the House, a private member's bill automatically falls to the bottom of the list. I do not intend to speak long. Some of my colleagues will also have something to say on this bill.

I wish to give Your Honour a precedent. The hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville (Mr. MacGuigan) presented Bill C-208, referred to as the Heritage Day bill, which also was a bill dealing with the Holidays Act. It was handled in exactly the same way as this bill has been handled. First reading was

given October 15, 1974, page 374 of Hansard. Second reading was given on March 18, 1975. At that time the motion was put by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) for the hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville, presumably because the hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville was not in attendance. That can be found at pages 4215 and 4216 of Hansard.

The bill was reported from the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs and amended to "National Heritage Day" on April 22, 1975, page 5079 of Hansard. Third reading was debated February 13, 1976, pages 10944 to 10951 of Hansard. One hour was allotted to that private member's bill. The time expired and it went to the bottom of the list. I suggest if Your Honour does otherwise today, you will be setting a precedent since this has never happened.

Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):

Mr. Speaker, my intervention will also be brief. First I want to correct a misunderstanding I had when I made my preliminary comments. I thought at that time we were still at report stage, but we were, of course, at third reading stage of that bill.

I wish to present an argument to your Honour with regard to the order in which this bill should stand, namely at the bottom of the list of private members' bills, and take its turn. To accept the suggestion that this bill remain at the top of the list would give no opportunity for any other bill to have second reading. In other words, if there had been an inclination, as I suspect there may have been, to carry this particular bill and read it out each time, we would never have reached order No. 9, No. 13 and, most important, No. 16 standing in the name of the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich.

I feel we should not be deprived of the opportunity to present our bills, each of us in our turn, the hon. member for Burnaby-Richmond-Delta (Mr. Siddon) and the hon. member for Prince George-Peace River (Mr. Oberle). An opportunity should be given for each of these bills to have second reading and not be pre-empted by having a bill which has been dealt with at second reading and report stage, at the suggestion of the mover of that bill, remain at the top of the list to the detriment of other bills.

Mr. Allan Lawrence (Northumberland-Durham):

Mr. Speaker, as I understand the situation, and I know that you or some member of the House will correct me if I am wrong, the long-standing tradition has been that we simply do not have enough time to deal in a sensible and fair way with the large number of private bills presented by private members in this House so that each one has a full hearing and reaches its logical conclusion with an eventual vote. Obviously there are not enough hours in the day, days in the week and weeks in the month to do this with the very large number of private members' bills that are presented.

Every year there is a draw made. That is an eminently fair way of handling it. That draw picks out the priority for each of these private members' bills. They are then presented to the House in that order of priority. From time immemorial it has always been the gambit of the government in power, no matter

March 20, 1979

what its political complexion may be, that those private members' bills rarely come to a vote.

Let us not be mealy-mouthed about it. The position is that nine-tenths of the bills are embarrassing to the government. That invariably results in most bills being talked out. That is the parliamentary phrase for people saying one thing while really not wanting it to come to a vote.

1 have no strong views one way or the other on the merits or demerits of the hon. member's bill because I have not looked at it that carefully. However, I do know this. Those bills have been proceeded with quite regularly on the basis of the draw. Once a member's bill is talked out, not having reached a vote in the private member's hour, it automatically goes to the bottom of the list. To all intents and purposes, that means it is dead for that session. We really have not whined, complained or belly-ached about that in the past. Most members realize that that is the rule of the game before getting into it. I have had a private member's bill on the list for two years. It has not been reached. It is so far down the list this year that I know darned well it will not be reached.

Quite frankly, it is an effrontery for another member who enters into that course of action, knowing the rules, traditions and practices, and because of some actions of members on his own side or perhaps members on all sides of the House the bill is talked out, for some extraordinary reason to think he is aggrieved and therefore wants another kick at the can. He wants that bill left at the top of the list so that next time it can come up again. That is basically the appeal that has been put to you. Let us not clothe it in parliamentary terms; let us put the stark, naked facts in front of the House. Somebody feels he has been aggrieved because his bill has been talked out.

[DOT] (mo)

If you take it upon yourself to change the system, Mr. Speaker, I suggest you are opening up a hornet's nest. I do not know on what grounds the Chair could change this rule; there may be something hidden in the depths of the green book which gives you that authority, but I doubt it. If the Chair does have such authority it has never been cited. I suggest to you, Mr Speaker, that if you do exercise it on this occasion there are likely to be 347 bills on the list of private members' bills in respect of which the same appeal will be made. In such a ridiculous situation, the government itself would be obliged to step in. I am not saying this in any partisan way. Usually, no matter which party is in power it is in that party's interest to see a private member's bill come to a vote. If Your Honour establishes a precedent simply on the basis of a private member's bill having been talked out, then every member is going to be appealing to you and demanding that his bill come to a vote. My suggestion is that this would prove more embarrassing to the government than it would ever be to any opposition.

Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):

Mr. Speaker, I commence with the well known words that "1 had no intention of taking part in this debate". That happens to be true. I see an argument on both sides. I suspect that the argument which wields most strongly against the hon. member

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for Vaudreuil (Mr. Herbert) is that it has been done before the way it has been done this time. But the remarks just made by the hon. member for Northumberland-Durham (Mr. Lawrence) did prompt me to get to my feet. He tries to argue that if Your Honour allows this bill to be at the top of the list the same arguments will be raised with regard to 200 or 300 other bills on the order paper. I would remind the hon. member that this bill has already been given second reading. It went to committee, got committee approval and came back at the report stage for third reading.

It is certainly true that if the Speaker allows this bill to stay at the top of the list, then any other bill which gets committee approval and comes back here would be entitled to the same treatment. But it does not follow that all the bills which were talked out on second reading would have a case for being put at the top of the list.

Mr. Robert C. Coates (Cumberland-Colchester North):

Mr. Speaker, regardless of the stage which the bill has reached in the parliamentary process, it is still a most discriminatory proposition that it be given preferred treatment to the detriment of every other bill introduced. I do not understand how the hon. member can feel he has the right to make such an appeal against a practice which has been followed, without exception to the best of my knowledge, during the 22 years which I have sat in this House. Nor do I understand why the House is using 15 minutes of the private members' hour to discuss a procedural matter of this kind. I do not believe it ought to be before the House regardless whether the bill in question has progressed to third reading stage. The whole proposition is contrary to the practice and precedents of the House and it is an affront to every other member here that we should even be discussing it.

Mr. Yvon Pinard (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council):

Mr. Speaker, the last hon. member who gave his point of view indicated that no precedent or procedure could justify the request made by the hon. member for Vaudreuil (Mr. Herbert). But to date there is no precedent either of an hon. member's private bill at the third reading stage which has been ignored in favour of other bills at the second reading stage.