Michelle Dockrill

[Budget Implementation Act, 2000, June 5th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I will try to provide my colleague with some wit and wisdom.

As I have stated over and over again in the House, it is unfortunate every week when I go back to my part of the country to see the overwhelming effect government policies have had.

As my colleague from Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore has said, a number of the people who are being adversely affected are children and women.

Just recently I had the occasion to talk to a young couple. He worked on a fishing boat. We all know what has happened to the fishery on the east coast. He lost his job. His wife was a process worker in a plant. They were sitting in my office with the most beautiful three and a half month old baby girl. They were in their late twenties and thought they had the world by the tail. Neither one of them had a job. We talked for a while. The woman finally broke down and told me that she had just put the last diaper she had on her daughter. That is the reality in my part of the country, day after day.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2000, June 5th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, as my colleague from Regina—Qu'Appelle said, I would never attempt to speak on behalf of government members or even attempt to explain why they have done what we have seen them do over the course of the last six years.

It is important to note for my colleague from out west that we on Cape Breton Island have never complained about paying our fair share. In all of the years I have lived on Cape Breton Island, I do not remember ever hearing one person complain about paying their fair share. What I have heard people talk about is the unfairness of the tax system.

I would like to leave my hon. colleague with the message that my constituents tell me all the time. They tell me that they would like to have a good job so that they could pay their fair share.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2000, June 5th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-32, an act to implement certain provisions of budget 2000. This morning I listened with great interest when the government member spoke about the wonders of budget 2000 and the wonderful effects its implementation will have on Canadians. I thought about how a country measures success and realized that a country measures success by the success of its citizens.

The Minister of Health and other government members talk about health care and the fact they have reinvested in health care because Canadians have said they want to maintain a public health care system. I wonder why the government does not want to talk about the realities we see every day, certainly in my part of the country, with respect to what government cuts have done to health care.

Recently I turned on the television to watch a program about two individuals in two different provinces in Canada. One was a young woman who had been diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumour and had to undergo surgery. Unfortunately she ended up disabled. She was only in her early thirties. It was found out later that the tumour was not cancerous, that it was benign. It was the matter of a misdiagnosis.

The other case involved an older gentleman with some abdominal pain. He went to the hospital and was diagnosed with cancer of the bowel. Following surgery, approximately 10 or 12 days later he died because of complications from the surgery, only for his wife to find out that he too had not had cancer.

The show went on to talk to approximately seven Canadian pathologists. The commentator was asking them how this could happen in Canada. The pathologists said very clearly that it was because there was not enough money being invested into the system. There are not enough pathologists in Canada. The number they quoted was 59 pathologists for every million.

I come from the health care sector. I have found myself asking on a number of occasions what kind of a country we live in. I heard the remarks of my hon. colleague in the Bloc. He asked whether we were living in a better society.

When I listen to government members, I guess from their perspective there are some people who are living in a better society. The hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle has just mentioned a couple of them, those individuals in Canada who are not scraping by on a daily basis. What about the areas of the country where people are not doing all that well, as in the unfortunate case of Cape Breton? What is the government's answer? It does not want to talk about the reality that we have 1.5 million more children who will go to bed hungry than we did 10 years ago. The government does not want to talk about the fact that we are hearing from doctors and health care professionals that there is a major problem with the health care system and we need the government to reinvest money.

Nobody is saying that the system does not need to be changed. From the perspective of the health care system, we all know there is a need for innovation, but we also know, and we are being told on a regular basis, that the government has to put back what it took out of health care.

In my part of the country we have 25% poverty. Child poverty is much higher. Government members would tell us that their commitments to EI, health care and education have made things better for Canadians. Better for all Canadians, or better for some Canadians? We see on a regular basis that the answer to that question is that these policies have not been for the betterment of all Canadians.

Five or six years ago Canadians were willing to do their fair share to deal with the deficit. That was our responsibility as Canadians. People did that, especially the workers. As we all know, the government obtained its surplus on the backs of Canadians.

We are all familiar with a program that used to be called unemployment insurance. It was there in case we lost our job. It was a safety net to help us until we got another job. The government changed the name to employment insurance and it has become nothing more than a cash cow to generate revenues for the federal government. Might I say that those revenues are not assisting the unemployed.

Only 30% of unemployed women in Canada qualify for employment insurance. We have heard government members and the Prime Minister recently say that there are problems with employment insurance which will have to be fixed. Maybe that will secure some seats for them in Atlantic Canada.

What has the government done? In my part of the country it has is changed the boundaries. We used to have five regions in Nova Scotia. The proposal of the government is to take it down to three regions. The government says it will do this to ensure that the areas of the country which have the highest rates of unemployment will receive what the people need. The reality is, in my part of the country the changing of the boundaries will mean that the people of Cape Breton will now only qualify for 30 weeks of employment insurance, rather than 32 weeks.

Something I have always found phenomenal when listening to government members is that they are wonderful at confusing Canadians with numbers. We always hear them talk about 18% unemployment in my part of the country. I have had the occasion to ask Statistics Canada how the unemployment rate is measured. An official told me that if people were unemployed for two years they would be included in the data of Statistics Canada. I do not know about central Canada, but in Cape Breton if someone does not have a job for two, three, four or five years, they are still unemployed. They still do not have a job. However, unless they have been unemployed for two years they are not included in the mechanism used by the government to measure the number of unemployed. With the changing of the zones in my part of the country Cape Breton will fall under an unemployment rate of 15%.

When I go home and talk to my constituents about the policies and the changes that the government is talking about, people laugh. They know it is not 18%. They know the rate is closer to 40% or 45%, with some areas of Cape Breton at 50%. With the stroke of a pen the government will now officially say that the unemployment rate on Cape Breton Island is 15%.

I go back to my original comment. How do we as a country measure success? Do we not measure it by the success of our citizens? It certainly appears that the government does not measure its success by its citizens. If that were the case, then the government would be addressing the issues and the concerns directly affecting Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

When government members talk about how good the budget is, I hope some of them have a conscience and recognize in their own heart that this budget will not assist the number of Canadians who have been drastically affected by the policies of the government.

[Cape Breton Development Corporation Divestiture Authorization And Dissolution Act, June 2nd, 2000]

moved:

Motion No. 9

That Bill C-11, in Clause 8, be amended by adding after line 41 on page 3 the following:

“(4) One director other than the Chairperson and the President shall be an employee of the Corporation.”

[Cape Breton Development Corporation Divestiture Authorization And Dissolution Act, June 2nd, 2000]

moved:

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-11 be amended by adding after line 22 on page 3 the following new clause:

“(1.1) Section 4 of the Act is amended by adding the following after subsection (3):

(4) One director other than the Chairperson and the President shall be an employee of the Corporation.”

[Cape Breton Development Corporation Divestiture Authorization And Dissolution Act, June 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. If I look over on the government side I find that we do not have a quorum.

And the count having been taken:

[Devco, June 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the Devco arbitrator announced his decision today. The arbitrator slammed the government's plan to provide no real support for Devco miners, something we in the NDP caucus have been telling the government for 18 months. Now the arbitrator has forced the government to recognize that its package was wrong.

Will the government now admit that its package was an insult to Cape Bretoners, and will it commit to act on the arbitrator's decision immediately?

[National Seniors Month, June 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the month of June is National Seniors Month. This provides Canadians from all over the country an excellent opportunity to pause and reflect upon the numerous contributions that our seniors have made to society.

I find it unfortunate that the Liberal government does not want to recognize our seniors. Through its actions the Liberal government is ignoring the needs of seniors and throwing their rights away.

Cuts to health care, the high cost of prescription medication and other cuts to the services seniors depend on are making day to day life very difficult.

Seniors are also being hit economically. They have to rely on a pension system which is not reliable. They also have been penalized by the old age security clawback.

After living through the depression years and sacrificing their children to war, why is this the thanks they get?

I sincerely hope that in recognition of National Seniors Month the government uses the opportunity it now has to improve the lives of our seniors.

[Cape Breton Development Corporation Divestiture Authorization And Dissolution Act, June 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that it is a pleasure to stand in the House today to talk about Bill C-11, but unfortunately I do not feel that way.

I think it is important at this time to point out to Canadians the difference between fact and fiction as it relates to the Cape Breton Development Corporation.

In 1995 the Prime Minister asked the Minister of Natural Resources at the time to return to cabinet with a privatization plan for Devco. When we talked to the government and asked it about its plan with respect to the privatization of Devco in 1998, it denied a plan existed. It said that there was no plan and that it had not made a decision about privatizing Devco.

Mr. Speaker, as you have said, we are today commissioned with the task of privatizing Devco.

As a resident of Cape Breton Island all my life, I was always brought up to believe that I lived in a wonderful country called Canada. One of the reasons we lived in such a wonderful country was because it was a democratic society. We had governments which were responsible for ensuring that all citizens were treated fairly and equitably and that it was the responsibility of the federal government to ensure that its policies did not have undue or harsh ramifications for the citizens.

I question whether we live in a democratic society when we see what the federal government has done with respect to the Cape Breton Development Corporation, the miners, their families and the communities which will be affected drastically by this legislation.

All members of the House have seen over the course of the last number of years delegation after delegation coming to Ottawa, miners' wives coming to Ottawa, pleading with officials of the government to recognize what this bill would do to them, their families, the future of their children and, more important, the future of their island.

Did the government listen? Of course not. The government has refused to listen to every delegation which has come to Parliament Hill to voice their concerns about what the government was doing as it related to the Cape Breton Development Corporation.

In 1995, when Cape Bretoners were being represented by what some on the government side would tout as being one of the most powerful government members in the country, the government executed the plan to destroy Devco and in essence destroy the island.

If the government had decided to get out of the industry why was it not willing to sit down with the stakeholders, with the union, with the mayor and with the community and try to work out a solution that would guarantee that nobody would be adversely affected? It did not do that. It decided to continue meeting closed doors and making decisions based on only the facts it had.

Day after day government members get up and talk about their responsibility and what they have done in terms of assisting the people in Cape Breton as it relates to Devco. Their own study in 1995 told them what would happen economically and socially if they continued on with the plan to privatize Devco. Did they recognize those adverse effects? Did the government want to sit down with the stakeholders to find a way to work out a solution? No. It decided to do what it has done for a number of years which is to continue on its course of selling off Canada's assets to foreign investors. Devco is no different.

Because I come from Cape Breton and having lived there all my life, it angers me to no end when I hear government members say that they are committed to Cape Breton, that they have sent money there for economic development and recovery.

Given the amount of money that the federal government has sent to Cape Breton, why is Cape Breton's economy where it is right now? Why have we ended up having the highest rate of unemployment in the country if the government is so committed to economic recovery?

The answer to those questions is that this government has never been committed to any kind of economic recovery as it relates to Cape Breton, and Cape Bretoners know that. We in the House saw the drastic steps that the miners took in January of this year when they took over over one of the mines and went on a hunger strike. It was because of what the government was doing and because it was not listening.

The parliamentary secretary or the minister will stand up later and tell us that the government consulted Cape Bretoners, that a panel went around Cape Breton Island and gave everybody the opportunity to voice their concerns and their issues. Interestingly enough, everybody on that panel had an affiliation to the Liberal Party. Surprise, surprise. There was a former senator on the panel. One of those people on the panel was successful in obtaining over $300,000 through the millennium fund. Another member was able to open a new FM radio station.

Government members will say “There goes the member for Bras d'Or with her paranoia”. No, that is reality and a fact on Cape Breton Island. The government members know it and certainly Cape Bretoners know it.

The issue here is that there has been absolutely no consultation as it relates to what will happen to Cape Breton Island. Economically in Cape Breton right now our research shows that even to bring Cape Breton up to the mainland standards we will need approximately 14,000 jobs. That is before Devco closes. That is before the steel plant closes. What do we hear from the government members? They say that they have given us $68 million. By the way, they have already spent $7 million on a call centre that we all saw the Prime Minister come and announce to Cape Bretoners. This is patronage at its best. One thing we do know about in Cape Breton is patronage. We have seen it for an awful long time from the Liberal government.

Given the fact that the government arbitrarily made the decision in 1995 to get out of the industry, why did it not consult with Cape Bretoners? Why did it not consult with the unions? Why did it not listen to the $500,000 study it commissioned from John T. Boyd, which told the government how to make it work? The reality was that the government did not want it to work. It did not want Devco to be viable. It set in motion decisions, since 1995, that would ensure that it would not be viable.

What will Cape Bretoners be left with? Today we await the arbitration to decide the fate of the miners and their families.

It is a sad day in this country when we have a government that is commissioned by the people to look after its citizens and we see the manipulation and games that have been played with the citizens of Cape Breton Island by the Liberal government. What is it? It is just proof that once again the Liberal government is phenomenal for its promises, but as Cape Bretoners have known for a very long time, it is also phenomenal at breaking them.

[Cape Breton Development Corporation Divestiture Authorization And Dissolution Act, June 2nd, 2000]

moved:

Motion No. 5

That Bill C-11 be amended by adding after line 13 on page 2 the following new clause:

“5.1 If a work or undertaking of the Corporation or any part thereof is transferred, by sale, lease, merger or otherwise, to another employer, the work or undertaking or the part thereof, as the case may be, shall continue to be a work or undertaking for the general advantage of Canada.”