Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour to speak to the budget today.
Two years ago, the finance minister asked MPs to come forward with prebudget submissions based on inputs from their constituents. In the spirit of co-operation, and given the economic crisis, I submitted to the minister an extensive list of projects. I am pleased to say that the government did help with a couple of the projects, the Northside Civic Centre and the Marine Atlantic.
However, for the most part, the government ignored the requests of community leaders in my area. In my submission I challenged the government as follows:
This is a challenge to the federal government not for frivolous spending or make work projects; but rather it’s a chance to live up to its duty as a national government by providing all regions and individuals with an opportunity to compete and succeed.
Basically what we asked for was not a handout but rather an investment in our strengths.
As a farmer and a chair of our rural caucus, I saw very quickly and clearly what was missing in this budget: the lost opportunities, especially for rural Canada. When we view the estimates over the last couple of weeks, we see that the agriculture budget has not increased. We see the problems with the hog farmers and the beef farmers who are in desperate shape but there was no increase in the budget and the funding for a lot of the programs was cut, which was very troubling for the agricultural industry.
Then we have the forestry industry. We see no measurable assistance for all those industries in all those towns right across the country that rely on the forestry industry.
Closer to my region is the fishing industry and, in particular, the lobster fishing industry. The amount of assistance it has been receiving is a joke. I have an article from last week's Cape Breton Post assessing this programs as it has been winding down. This program to help lobster fishers sounded so great at the front end but many of them had their income cut in half last year. The article reads:
...impossible eligibility rules prevented thousands of lobster fishermen from accessing up to $5,000 each under a $15-million federal program.
The short-term transitional measures program was announced last year to help low-income lobster licence holders hit hard by the global economic downturn between 2007 and 2009. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans said Thursday that 1,705 applications....
Now 1,700 applications sound like a lot but there are 10,000 fishers out there with 10,000 lobster licences. Now if we take the 10,000, it means that 25,000 families rely on the lobster fishery in Atlantic Canada and Quebec. Therefore, only 1,700 could really get any money from it and were approved for the program. That was until the end of March.
This is a $1 billion industry. I am just guessing that roughly $300 million were lost in the industry and only $8.5 million was paid out. Only 57% of the total available funding, not even the full funding allocation, was sent out. The remaining $6.5 million will go back to general revenues. It is disgraceful.
I have a quote in the article from Josephine Kennedy, a representative for multi-species licence holders in northeast Cape Breton, who said, “Everybody along this shore were down between $20,000 and $25,000 less income (from lobster) in 2009 from 2008”.
$20,000 to $25,000 is a lot of money lost. She went on to say, “...the way they put the rules out there for it, they made it virtually impossible”.
For fishers on the rural side and for Atlantic Canada and Quebec it was a total disgrace. For the rural community, the government could have sent something.
Two weeks ago we had a representative from the firefighters here. In rural Canada, volunteer fire departments are crucial for all these small towns. For years the government has been asked for a bit of a tax credit for these men and women who volunteer their time to keep rural communities safe and the communities together. That tax credit for volunteer firefighters could have been a win-win for the current government but, no, it is just another lost opportunity.
As many members in this chamber know, in 1949 Newfoundland became part of the Dominion of Canada, the Confederation. It joined with this country. So we had a country that extended from the east coast to the west coast. When the declaration documents were signed in 1949, it was declared very specifically that vital links between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland had to be maintained with ferry services for goods and passengers.
Over the last year, the service has not been great. We saw delays in passenger service. That happens sometimes because it is a hard crossing, but it has been more than we have ever seen before. Truckers delivering perishable products, such as fresh meat and produce, from North Sydney to Newfoundland, were stuck in lineups that were kilometres long and, more important, fresh fish coming back from Newfoundland was waiting on the other wide. There were many delays in the service. The ferry service needs a major infusion of money over the new few years. Even the Auditor General has stated this.
Yes, there is some money there, $175 million, but it is going to need almost $1 billion over 10 years. The Shipbuilding Association states that a ship can be built here in Canada, that we might have to get some parts from Finland or Korea but, at the end of the day, most of the ferries can be built here. But, no, instead of building a ship here in Canada, what are we going to do? We are going to lease ships from Europe. If we lease these ships, then we have a problem because we have to upgrade the docks. I know it is good that there is money for Marine Atlantic, but we need a ship that is built in Canada.
As many members in this chamber know, Cape Breton took a hard hit in 2000 when we lost the coal and steel industries. However, the Liberals, under Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien, put a lot of money into that area to help boost the economy. We had the growth fund for cleaning up the tar ponds. However, when the Conservatives got in, we saw the money dwindling. They had such great opportunities there. We just lost our auto industry over the last year. We had expected to get some money in Cape Breton. Money came to central Canada for its auto industry but, no, there was another lost opportunity there with no investment.
One of the biggest priorities now in Sydney, Cape Breton, is to dredge the harbour. The harbour has been a vital link from Canada to Europe for many years, especially in the world wars. So, one of the priorities for Cape Breton is to dredge its harbour. The harbour authority came out with a firm that is going to do it this summer. It has the money. It has the quote. But what we need is for the current government to step up to the plate and invest in it to dredge that harbour. It has the gateway money there. It is holding on to it. It should step up to the plate and tell the people in Sydney and the port authority to come forward and get some money to get that harbour dredged.
It is bad enough that the money is not being invested many times, but what is really discouraging is what has been happening over the last few weeks concerning citizenship and immigration jobs. We have over 150 employees who work in Sydney who process citizenship and immigration forms, and they do a tremendous job. There are almost 250,000 immigrants who come to this country each year. The immigrants are going to keep coming to this country. Sydney did a great job of processing their applications. But what did the Conservatives do? They laid off 150 people in that riding. It is just disgraceful. We are going to see another backlog of citizenship and immigration applications. They are coming to town tomorrow to appear before the committee to state their case and state the impacts it will have on the rest of the country.
That kind of sums up this fancy book the Conservatives came out with, “Leading the Way on Jobs and Growth”. There is some stuff in here but, overall, it has not been good for Cape Breton. This budget is a lot of talk, but there is not much walk.
