Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in support of the NDP motion, presented by my colleague, the member for St. John's East. This is an issue that all of us from Newfoundland and Labrador have addressed on numerous occasions because of our knowledge of how important search and rescue is, not only to Newfoundland and Labrador, but to people who have a need to access search and rescue services when they travel on the ocean around our province.
The idea of closing down the maritime rescue sub-centre in St. John's, and the one in Quebec I might add, has been met with public outcry for a number of reasons, but certainly because of the impact it will have on safety. The work of MRSC St. John's and Quebec, when it closes in a year because Quebec has been given a one-year reprieve, will be consolidated and delivered by the joint rescue coordination centres in Halifax and Trenton. However, given their already heavy caseload and the small number of search and rescue coordinators at these centres, it is unlikely they will be able to handle the increased workload caused by the St. John's and Quebec City closures.
Let me just speak to the maritime rescue sub-centre in St. John's. On average the centre has overseen 500 calls a year, many of them distress calls, resulting in approximately 600 lives saved annually. We are talking about life and death situations. The parliamentary secretary suggested that this was one way to deal with the deficit, a deficit that I might add has been created by the government, not by ordinary Canadians from coast to coast to coast, the largest deficit in our country's history. Now this will be handled on the backs of Canadians from coast to coast to coast. The problem we have with that is the government is really putting safety on the back burner, while it tries to deal with the deficit.
The reality is that in Newfoundland and Labrador in particular, we have so many coves and harbours, places where local knowledge and expertise is really important. Local knowledge of a dialect is critical. We have had examples in fact where people have been out and have made a distress call and because their dialect is such that if one were not familiar with the place names, one would have a hard time recognizing where they are located in order to be rescued.
Therefore, we cannot just take the positions out of Newfoundland and Labrador and move them to Halifax or Trenton. Bear in mind none of the search and rescue coordinators who work at the centre in St. John's, Newfoundland will actually move to either Trenton or Halifax. Therefore, that local knowledge and expertise and appreciation and understanding of the dialect is not moving. It is not going to be in Halifax and it is not going to be in Quebec.
We have another issue in Quebec because we have the French language. My understanding is that at this point in time the people are having difficulty finding coordinators who can speak French. On another front, they are also downgrading the qualifications of people who would have been expected to come with very high qualifications prior to the closure of the maritime rescue sub-centre in St. John's and Quebec. They will now be employed with many fewer qualifications. This is a serious issue and one that I can speak to because I know the public outcry. I know that people are naturally nervous.
When I say it is the maritime rescue sub-centre in St. John's, Newfoundland, this does not only apply to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. Do not forget, Newfoundland is now an oil producing province. Off our shores we have oil platforms. There are people working on those platforms from every part of this world. Therefore, it is not just Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who we are speaking about here.
It is the same with tourists who are coming from all over the world. When we talk about safety, it is their safety that is being put in peril as well. People tend to think that it only applies to fishers. That is absolutely not true. Yes, of course our fishers need assistance when they get in trouble and yes they are the ones with the local dialect that when they need to be rescued, they really need to have that local knowledge there. However, when we have oil platforms off our coast, a vibrant tourism industry, then closing down research centres will impact dramatically those people as well. It will put their lives at risk.
I cannot say it enough. What we are talking about here is safety. While we need to deal with the deficit as the government has said, there are so many other avenues it can go down to deal with the deficit, one being the F-35, another being the megaprisons it is looking at building. However, to even draw a comparison between those and search and rescue safety issues does not make sense.
I have to question the government's understanding of and appreciation for exactly what it is doing here. I cannot believe that it would do this with a full understanding and appreciation of what it would mean .
I want to quote the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke when she commented on the use of search and rescue by mariners on the Atlantic. She said that in Ontario they would never ever think of calling the Coast Guard for help if they found themselves in trouble on the Ottawa River. Can anyone imagine comparing being on the Ottawa River with being on the Atlantic Ocean?
That is why I have to question whether or not the government really understands what it is doing here. If the example is that people on the Ottawa River would never think of calling the Coast Guard, that they would help themselves, I would love to see the member out in the middle of the North Atlantic needing to be rescued, but saying, “No, we're not going to call the Coast Guard. We're going to help ourselves”.
There is no understanding, no appreciation of the volatility of the weather. It can change in a minute. This is what people are exposed to when they are on the North Atlantic. This is what people experience when they are out fishing. This is what people experience when they are out on the oil platforms. This is what people experience sometimes when they are travelling on Marine Atlantic and are stuck trying to get into port, or they cannot leave North Sydney to go to Newfoundland and Labrador because the weather conditions are such that they cannot cross. They can be out in the middle of the ocean and they will have to stop because of the weather conditions.
It does not make sense to me. When I hear a quote like that from a member of the government, I have to wonder where the advice is coming from. Then maybe that is where it is coming from. Maybe there are others in the government who think that way, who have no idea of the role of search and rescue, who have no understanding of what it is like to be in distress, who have no idea of what it is like to travel on the Atlantic Ocean.
I am making a plea to whoever is making the decisions in the government. Even though it has closed the maritime rescue sub-centre in St. John's, even though the SAR coordinators, who have done a wonderful job, who are so experienced, who have given so much, who have devoted their lives to this, who know exactly what is required when someone gets in trouble, have been laid off, I am asking the government to reconsider. This has to be one of the worst decisions it has ever made because this will, without a doubt, result in the loss of life. Nobody, but nobody, would want that to be the outcome of this particular decision.
The SAR coordinators know exactly what they are doing. My fear is that because the government or the centre in Halifax or the one in Trenton is having difficulty attracting those with the qualifications necessary to do the work that is required in the search and rescue centre, they will downgrade those qualifications. That will make it even more difficult. That means that people on the ocean will not be able to have that sense of comfort that there will be someone there if they should be in distress and need to be rescued.
This is such an important issue. This decision needs to be reconsidered, because loss of life is imminent if this decision is not changed.