Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 30, 1981, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free october 1981 7 Ottawa Bells rang on parliament Hill wednesday for nearly two but for most of that time maps were staying away from the commons chamber in they were trying make a with the government and with the the facts and figures related to via rails operations should be brought out in the they were telling us and if they had to their concern by halting the commons business for most of wednes so be opposition politicians have been slowly but relentlessly beating up a Over transport minister Jean Pepins decision to lop off Worth of via rails passenger services beginning challenging the meagre figures produced by Pepin about deficits and on the condemned the government is show Ling its determination to keep a lid on the disciplined democracy it now turns out that there Are some unusual strings attached to Pepins fortnight old offer to appear before the commons transport com Mittee to explain the governments Pepin will not testify until the oppo1 sit Ion accepts a double pronged Condi Tion that the committee will not Call other and will not Send a report about the cutback Deci Sion to the his argument seems to be that since the government does not intend to change its it is pointless to Start producing new any says the the com Mons does not have time to Start examining a committee yet two critical facts make his Case difficult to the first is that the governments action is not Only potentially far reach ing in its it is unprecedented in its the Cabinet has invoked a familiar Section of the Law and applied it in a Brand new Way under Challenge in the courts to close Down the rail the Cabi net used Section 64 1 of the National transportation which allows it to act by order in Council to vary or rescind orders of the Canadian trans port what makes action unique is the fact that the rescinded orders were brought Down As Long ago As in hearings at that the Etc ordered both in and up to main Tain their parallel Western Canada transcontinental abuse of Power former conservative transport min ister Don Mazankowski has challenged the governments backed by his Leader Joe he has argued tellingly that in using Section 64 now to close Down the the government both exceeded its Powers and established a precedent that could Lead to the shutdown of a whole Range of transport facilities by government a careful Reading of the statute books suggests in the government probably is within its though it is tempting to speculate that maps examining the proposed transportation act some 15 years ago were oblivious to the Power they were turn ing Over to future As it is normally Section 64 1 allows the Cabinet to move in and alter a Etc most often the Section specifically allows after an Appeal comes in from the pub As popular theory has the country political masters thus re Tain the after All the evidence is to substitute their judgment for that of the Mazankowski him demands hearing muzzle Joan Cohen Ottawa editor As transport used Sec Tion 64 to Block it ordered closures of a handful of Prairie and Northern on Tario Branch but according to Mazankowski a the requirement of the act is that any such intervention be time As decisions made under Appeal normally one legislative in a written ruling to a commons sen ate committee the other suggested such an argument might have a sporting Chance in Legal this is the argument that will be put in by the City of the town of and two Public interest groups when they seek to Block the governments move in a Federal trial court hearing in yet Section 64 does not talk about it allows the Cabinet to vary Etc decisions at any time and on its own initiative and to the Lay Eye at gives ministers vast authority to rearrange transport services in without reference to the has Rea son to take umbrage at the govern ments pattern of behaviour since the via rail cancellations were announced a decision tabled immediately after parliament Rose for the then the use of a Long Dor Mant Power which allows the govern ment to bypass the hearing processes of the and then in these past Days a refusal to let maps put the Deci Sion under scrutiny in the second serious of relates to the substance of the governments there is already enough information on the in earlier Evi Dence before the transport in leaked documents it would in statistics produced by the to suggest a solid Case might be made against at least a portion of the cancellation testimony presented to the trans port committee just last May by via rail president John and vigorously restated by Mazankowski the other Day in the suggests first of All that the formula used to calculate the via rail and thus the charge to the Federal is both artificial and highly two thirds of via rails costs come in charges made by the two railways for the services they Render the Young company services that include everything from railway station operations to the labors of train engineers and As Well As the costs of each passenger rail car attached to a the method of calculating the costs attributable to passenger service was developed jointly by the railways and the Etc in the late when the government was covering 80 per cent of operating losses on passenger via rail has Long argued that it was in the railways interests to attribute As Many costs As possible to its contract with the rail ways does not permit it to look at their books to determine How the charges Are via rail unhappy via its real Cost to the country is Only the specific Addon for services not already in place to serve freight it is that the costs for the Long haul trips common to the Prairies Are much cheaper per car per mile than the More broken but the current Billing methods make it impossible for via to produce the Fig ures that would prove despite the governments reassure via rail is known to have been deeply unhappy about the Deci Sion forced on it by Ottawa to Cut the second Eastern and Western Continental the Branch line and com Muter service and Cut backs in its Northern service was viewed As but having settled on those via found itself having to find a final victim re Duce its spending by what is described As tens of millions to hit the governments target figure of million in so a Cross country service was thrown into the it is suggested that this second Long haul along with the remaining could prove Given new equipment and thus improved even with its decrepit via is proudly claiming annual passenger in creases of 10 per cent during its four year a private government me Moran prepared by a ministry of trans port supports virtually All this proclaiming that the cuts were As uninformed and inconsistent an exercise As could be it goes on to warn of the decimation of Large passenger gains on the transcontinental pointing that the Day liner services being introduced along the in Western route will be redundant and Little used by Prairie trav it is hard not to sympathize with the governments nor to argue for less restraint in a period when spend ing cuts in the interests of the very much the order of the but it is in the interests of the nation too that it not throw away an important and useful part of its that is a Case that the people most informed on rail passenger operations seem and just possibly to More focus on Page 8 tory Davis puts state into the Oil business by Eric Dowd special to the free press Toronto possesses pre Mier William Davis to spend Mil lion of taxpayers Money buying one Quarter of a Canadian subsidiary of a Oil company at a time when Ontario is struggling to provide reasonable social services and has a Defi Cit this year of billion the explanations volunteered by the Premier do not completely add he said first he wants to contribute to the canadians Matiun of the a process the Federal government is suf Fering a lot of sings and arrows trying to Davis would not be doing this out of any desire to help the Federal nor from any deeply held philosophical beliefs about the Virtues of canadians owning their own except before his first in when he made a lot of noises about promoting Canadian then in but did and shortly before the March when he offered minor Loans to on tartans wanting to buy out foreign Branch Davis has never been much of an economic National the Premier said he also is anxious to help make Canada self sufficient in Oil and it is Here that Ontario Pur Chase of 25 per cent of Sun Cor May have some Sun Cor owns Oil and Gas production facilities in Western Canada and in the Arctic and off the East As almost 100 per cent it qualified for Only the lowest level of Grants the Federal government provides for companies carrying out High risk exploration and development programs under the recently announced National Energy even Ontario buying in will still not make Sun Cor Canadian enough to obtain the higher Grants the big As people around Oil Call them that will make exploring and developing Well compan ies have to be 50 per cent or More owned by canadians to qualify for the higher but Ontario is hoping others will buy in so that Sun Cor will soon be More than 50 per cent Canadia owned and has kept an option so if others fail to the province can buy enough Stock to make Sun Cor eligible for the higher either Sun Cor will then have new incentives and its plans to find and develop Oil and Gas presume Abl will have been expedited by the Ontario but Sun Cor after Only one producer and it is difficult to accept that Davis would go to All this Cost merely to Spur one producer among Daviss other main justification was that having part ownership of an Oil company and seats on its Board will provide a stronger voice for Ontario and its people in the Energy a window on the Oil and greater insights into the whole Energy Ontario no longer has a direct voice at the Energy pricing table 1978 the Federal government stopped hold ing full Federal provincial conferences on Energy pricing in favor of bilateral talks with the producing and Ontario has had to shout from the but owning part of an Oil company will still not give it such a seat will it give the province much inside knowledge of what goes on at such meetings Oil companies were As much in the dark As anyone in the negotiations which led to the sep tember Price the Federal government and the producing talk to Oil companies a lot in making rules about How they can and having part of a company May give Ontario a better understanding of these and what to try to influence and How and this is an but it seems an extremely expensive win Dow like building an Eiffel Tower to see what the world looks like from 984 Davis May have been even More impressed by some political mat ters that the Only provinces anyone appears to listen to generally these Days Are those that have Oil or Gas or prospects if he wants to be a somebody he should be Able to whip out some sort of membership in the Oil and Gas club certainly most of the Public is not Likely to complain about the part nationalization of an Oil company Only institutions less popular appear to be a motive Davis acknowledged Only when but which May rank High with is that the province May make a it bought into Sun Cor at a reasonable the company Al ready is profitable it made Mil lion in 1980 and once it qualifies for the higher Federal benefits has Poten tial to be even More Davis has watched enviously As other provinces gather substantial revenues from Oil and after losing on keeping Down Pil the Premier quickly horned in to get some share for Ontario by imposing a tax at the pumps which goes up As the Price of gasoline As it does now he has found a Way to share in the Revenue from finding and developing Davis has never been averse to joining them if he cannot beat Lyon has kept debt and spending promises Howard Pawley keeps telling us we should follow Saskatchewan example in Many such As setting up a Manitoba Oil Sid Green keeps telling us How Sterling Lyon broke his Promise because the Public debt of Manitoba now is higher than it was four years and that Sterling who promised to reduce has really increased Howard Pawley is not saying too much about the provincial debt of and he has so suggested we follow Saskatchewan example in that particular it is a Good thing he has about ten Days the Regina Leader Post carried a with the headline provinces debt doubles in four not Only is the headline but the Story itself is particularly applicable to the Manitoba scene because of the time period involved to Saskatchewan debt Back in its real including Lon term borrow ing by Crown such As Saskatchewan Power corporation and was during the four years that four years in which Saskatchewan enjoyed Windfall revenues close to a billion dollars a year from Oil and revenues not enjoyed by Mani the experts of the planned econ omy concept spent Money so fast by this the Overall debt of Sas Fred Cleverley Kat Chewan had climbed to just million Short of double the 1977 the Manitoba debt picture is quite bad news about Manito Bas debt is that it is almost twice that of most can not be blamed on the present govern the debt owed by the peo ple of Manitoba for government for Hydro and Telephone now stands at the Good news about this debt is that it is just million More than the Overall debt in Sterling Lyons administration has in precise reduced the Overall debt of the but it has kept the increase Down to 20 per cent Over four the same four years that with All its Gas and Potash income almost doubled its Overall Sid Green is Correct when he says that Sterling Lyon has allowed the Overall debt of Manitoba to rather than during the time he has been but Green is not exactly right when he says the Premier has broken a what Sterling Lyon promised to when he was campaigning for his Job Back in was to reduce the percentage of Mani Tobas Gross product that was needed to cover the costs of and what he also promised to do was to Cut Down on government on both counts he has kept his governments everywhere Are complaining about the uncontrollable parts of their budgets and their they complain that inflation alone tends to increase Public debt by about ten per cent a that foreign Bor which Are a part of nearly every have taken a particularly sizeable chunk of flexibility out of financial management be cause of the value of the Canadian applying these two measuring Sticks to Manitoba and it can be argued that inflation was the same for Saskatchewan economists Are free to Point is responsible for an increase of at least 40 per cent in the provincial debt in four if the argument is and applied to then the performance of the Lyon government is better than if inflation has added 40 per cent and if the total increase in Manitoba is Only 20 per then it could be argued that removing inflation from the picture would have allowed the Manitoba government to reduce its debt during that the comparison figures certainly substantiate the conservative claims that their plans to get Manitoba mov ing were effectively hobbled by the Deot they inherited when they took of the billion total debt listed in the last financial billion was already in place before the conservatives had any control of the government at this debt was run up by Many including the rather senseless forays into the business world by the previous forays that in the Case of building Unsel Lable More than Saskatchewan Deputy minister of Robert is quoted in the Leader Post As saying the province will require additional millions this year to finance Short term borrow even though the provincial budget is helping to balance the and keep things tidy in the province of Saskatchewan Are expected Oil revenues of million and Potash revenues of Saskatchewan will lend itself million from its own heritage but will still have to on the traditional Money about million for major capital Douglas says Saskatchewan has no plans to curtail its High interest the same rates that Are keeping individual plans to expand in will not persuade the Saskatchewan govern ment to Cut Douglas but Saskatchewan has not had to carry billion in debt for the past four since Saskatchewan has experienced Boom revenues from natural but has managed to nearly double its Overall Manitoba massive debt came about partly be cause the former provincial ment was convinced if it got involved in enough it would eventually find one that had a Money tree growing in its Back doonesbury of frs kxjgnrjjup6in Wjk Uncle let m5tbil you5qmethih a this of boy and uha7 Hes Pond for 1030 in Nunnun Hes fixed our loaned us co my Beth fluff the pot th5fougaiwip a Pond rj6ht by us for 15 by a our Ckik not any you cant buy that kind of t ;