Mr. Speaker, I have some questions for members of the government. They talk about wanting to be fair and treating all regions of Canada fairly. I would like them to take another look at the budget and what they have really done to the Atlantic region.
The Atlantic region last time around took 27 per cent of all the cuts in the last budget and we have 8 per cent of the population. This time around someone has to tell me how they can justify taking away the freight rate subsidies to get our product to market. When they brought down the budget on Monday, 15,000 jobs were jeopardized in the Atlantic region. Members do not know this and backbenchers do not know this, but the Minister of Transport knows it. He made promises to the people in the Atlantic region. They held public meetings. Our people said they would give up ARFAA, the interprovincial subsidy, but that they must have the westbound one in order to keep working. They were led to believe the Minister of Transport agreed.
Does anyone know how they heard that the ARFAA and MFRAA were to be taken from them? They heard it from Peter Gzowski on CBC interviewing the Minister of Transport. I have a list of companies in the Atlantic region that will be affected. The Canadian Manufacturers Association wrote to the Prime Minister about the fact that there had been no dialogue from the Minister of Transport.
We want to be fair and responsible in the Atlantic region. I get tired of hearing people refer to us as have not provinces. Our people believe in the family unit and in work. They want to work.
What are they going to do for all the people in manufacturing? What are they going to do today? I represent a city that has a nuclear power plant and the largest privately owned oil refinery in Canada, and the government took away the weather office. Does the government not know what it is doing? I do not believe it does. This is a very serious situation.
I ask hon. members to revisit what they have done. What has happened to the Atlantic region is devastating to our people. The people are sitting at home today wondering what is going to happen tomorrow because they have not had all the bad news yet. They took the bad news the last time and said: "We are good Canadians. We will accept it". However we cannot accept any more.
I ask members to take another look at it. Where are the 31 members in government from the Atlantic region? Why are they not speaking out for good, honest people who want to work? That is all they are asking for. Government members say they will create jobs; we are still looking for them. They know our transportation costs have been increased by 40 per cent with what they have done by taking away the freight rate subsidies. They cannot compete. They are finished.
I ask hon. members to take another look at what they have done to the Atlantic region, a part of this country. They did not state that the St. Lawrence Seaway would no longer be ice free. When that project came into play it affected my international port. What will you do for the Atlantic region?