Page 2, The Heraid, Thursday, Janvary 15, 1981

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f TALKING
POLITICS

Thisspace offers your provincial and federa!
elected officials a place to say their plece.
Columns are selected on the basis of
relevarke, not party preference and are the
opinions of the author not the editor or this
newspaper,

-,

By JACK J. KEMPF
MLA, Omineca
As this Is my first column of the New
-Year, | would take this opportunity to
wish each and every one of you good
health and happiness in 1981 and to say
again that my door is always open should

you, for any reason, feel that | can be of -

assistance.

| might add at this point that on your
behalf, as your member, | fuily intend to
continue the fight in Victoria for a better
deal for northerners, a return of our fair
share! | have pledged myself as well to
the continuation of what | believe to be a
much larger battle and that is my
commitment to the individual enterprise
system and the right of the individual to
seek his or her own destiny - the true
individual right.

Several problems face us in Omineca
as we enter the second year of this decade
and for sure some of these problems will
occupy a good deal of my time in the New
Year. .

Kemano Completion is stiil high on the

list of subjects which, as your
representative, | feel that | have not
received sufficient straightforward
answers to.: | nave, as you know, com-
mitted myself to opposing the project as
it will deal a detrimental blow to two
river systems originating and flowing
through much of our constituency. This
stand | will not back down on and it may
be that I will require the support of every
one of you in this matter during the
coming months.

The plight of the small forest industry
operator wilt continue to be a serious
concern to me in 1981 and talks are now
inprogress in an attempt to find alternate
means by which to provide the timber
necessary to satisfy this very vital part of-
our economy. One thing for sure is that
the so-called ‘Forest Giants’ who
operate and harvest timber stands in our
area are going to have to “‘pull up their
socks”’ on the question of wood waste as it
is quite apparent now (as it was to me
many years ago} that we can no longer
afford the luxury of wasting a single stick
of our marketable forests.

Land, its use and availability, will
certainly be a cantinuying item of concern
as we progress into anew year. We inthe
north, and particularly in Omineca, have
many problems which are land related.
As a representative very partial to the
right of the individual to use and dispose
of what they own and work fo own, | will
be giving this matter much attention.

These are only a few of the concerns to
which, on your behalf, | will be applying
my energy in 1981. There are many more
concerns af course - some of which
probably haven't as yet been invented. It
is my job and | take it seriously; so,
please, If you feel | can help you. contact
me.

One note of sorrow to me early in tnis

New Year Is the fact that Rafe Mair has _

left the Proviricial Cabinet. Rate, like
myself, is an individual not afraid to say
it the way it is. We need more such
people in politics, and particularly in
Cabinet. i‘m sorry to see him leave.

With that I‘ll close for the week but
should any of you have subjects on which
you would wish me to comment in the
weeks to come, please drop meé a line.

t can be reached by writing or calling
Parliament Buildings, Victoria - 387-3038,
or Houston, Box 1240 - 645-2648,

q

by RICHARD GWYN

OTTAWA .- According to a recent poll
by the Ontario Department of Energy,
two in three Ontarians don’t believe they
face energy shortages, either right now
or thraughout 1981.

Finds like those always cause decision-
makers to wring their hands. The public,

_ .. they mutter despairingly to each other, is -
thick-headed at best,/ complacent at —

worst. foé
Oddly, the public just may be right. -

For the first time since the 1973 Arab oil .

boycott set oll prices off on a 16-fald
spiral, evidence is beginning to. ac-
cumulate that perhaps the universe of oil
is starting to unfold as It should.

‘The current issue of the authoritative
Petroleum Intetligence Weekly describes
as “‘museum pieces” past predictions
that world demand for cil soon will
outstrip the ability af the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
to supply the stuff.

“The combination of slumping demand
for oil worldwide plus the slow but steady
increase in production outside OPEC,’
says the journal, makes likely that world
demand for OPEC oil. rather than
soaring to 40 million barreis a day by 1990
as predicted by the international Energy
Agency, may drop ta 22 million or less.

Similar stories are circulating in
Washington. Exxon Corporation has just
shaved its forecast for U.S. oil con-
sumption by the year 2000 by ten per cent.
The U.S. Energy Department has just
dropped its forecast for the growth in
annual total energy demand to one per
cent from the 2.5 per cent target It set
only two years ago.

If these rejiggled calculations are

correct, the Implications for Canada are
dramatic. For one thing, we ought to be
able to reach our targe! of cil self-
sufficiency’ by 1990, assuming of course
that Ottawa and Alberta find a way to get
together while keeping face. For
another, self-sufficiency may not be quite
so essential a target as we’ve assumed all
along.
. Because of all the fuss over
“Canadlanization’ of the industry, and
the Ottawa-Alberta revenue squabble,
the most interesting aspect of Energy
Minister Marc Lalonde’s National
Energy Program has been jargely over-
looked. This is that to achieve self-
sufficlency, Lalonde depends entirely
upon conservation and a switch from
using oil to using other fuels rather than
upon increased oil production.

Lalonde assumes that by a scheme of
subsidies, for everything fram new gas
furnaces to substitute for oil ones for
home heating to a new gas pipeline to be
extended tc the Maritimes. he can reduce
Canada’s demand for oll to 1.5 milton
barrels a day by 1990 from 1.8 million in
1979. By coincidence, this lower figure Is
exacily the same as projected Canadian
dil production In 1990.

Until now, Lalonde’s supply-demand _

projections have looked pretty iffy. And
more than a little too neat. But maybe
not. If the world can curb its appetite for
oil surely we can also.

There are signs that we are beginning
to become a little less greedy. During the
first nine months of 1980, Canadian oil
consumption dropped by 1.7 per cent.
This is ohly the second year (1975 was the
other) that Canadian oil consumption has
decreased from one year to another since

the mid-1950s which is as far back as

comparable statistics extend.

‘ Economic “stagflation”, It needs to be
said right away, is the principal reason
why we are using less oil - which is a bit
like losing weight by cutting off your
arm.

Canadian consumption of gasoline, for
instance, is up by one per cent over last
year: in the U.S., by contrast, gasoline
consumption actually is down by four per
cent. Also, we still believe big is
beautiful; Large car sales in 1980 ac-
counted for 51 per cent of the total, higher
than the 48 per cent mark in both 1978 and
1979,

But we are getting there. We use one-
fitth less gas to heat our homes than a
decade age. Canadian Industry has
exceeded its conservation targets for
1980, set five years ago, andhas laid down
new targets to do twice as well again by

The public may be right
on energy shortage issue

1985. The forestry industry is leading the
way: Some sawmills now run entirely on
their own sawdust.

To the new circumstances, there are

‘risks and opportunities. The risk, ob-

viously, is that we'll go back to guzzling.
The opportunity is to jake a bit of a

_ breather. Wecan take another look at the

urgency of becoming self-sufficient, since
if oil is readily available around the
world. then self-sufficiency becomes a
tool to generate economic growth rather
than a policy of despair to save us from
freezing in the dark.

Each opportunity for econamic growth,
though, needs to be examined in its own
cost-benefit terms. | Canadianization,
even at the cost of a slowdown in oil ex-
ploration, becomes an arguable alter-
native fo a crash program to increase
production at any price. Lower oil prices,
which enhance our international com-
petitiveness, becomes a detensible way of
doing good to ourselves rather than
higher prices imposed to give the in.
dustry more money to dig for more oil.

A few revised forecasts aren't reason
enough to conclude we no longer need to
become self-sufficient in oil. Bui they do
give us a chance to think again about the
best way to become self-sufficient. At
least until Saudi Arabia becomes another
Iran.

~~

op

“What about our East-West monologue?”

~