moved
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should take the necessary measures to ensure that the St. Lawrence Seaway remains navigable on a year-round basis, namely through a more effective allocation of the ice breakers in operation in eastern Canada.
Mr. Speaker, the St. Lawrence River and the Seaway are a major asset for Canada and Quebec. Historically, this huge river and its network of tributaries has been a major route of penetration into North America.
Not surprisingly, the first towns were founded on its shores and their prosperity came from their shipping activities. This is the case for Montreal which developed mainly because of its port facilities.
Today, the St. Lawrence Seaway, with an operating budget of $78 million and almost 900 employees, has an annual volume of more than 30 million tonnes. More than 5,000 ships go through the system every year. It provides a major transport infrastructure, not only for Canada and Quebec, but also for the whole of North America.
Today as in the past, the river remains the main corridor for the transportation of goods into the interior of the continent.
The motion I introduced today asks the government to provide for measures that will ensure the St. Lawrence Seaway remains navigable on a year-round basis, namely through a more effective allocation of the ice breakers in operation in eastern Canada.
The Canadian Coast Guard is responsible for navigation on the St. Lawrence. It has enough ships, ice breakers, helicopters and communications equipment to carry out that mission.
However, last winter, ice jams paralysed traffic on the river. During 29 days in February and early March, some 40 ships were held up for various periods of time. A dozen ships had to be sent to St. John harbour, in New Brunswick because they could not moor in Montreal. The Coast Guard had simply not installed the booms that control freeze-up and ice flow, thus preventing ice jams.
Needless to say that the losses resulting from this incident were catastrophic and enormous. Of the 560 longshoremen who normally work in Montreal harbour during the winter, barely 200 were called in sporadically during that period and those who did not work were not paid because this was an act of God.
The port of Montreal alone incurred losses estimated to $1.5 million during those few weeks.
Substantial losses were also incurred by road and rail carriers awaiting delivery of merchandise on board the immobilized cargo ships and consignees suffered inventory and production problems.
As for ship owners, water carriers and insurers, according to Frank Nicol, the president of the Shipping Federation of Canada, their losses totalled tens of millions of dollars. And that does not include the losses due to flooding incurred by individuals, particularly along the shore, where the ice jams occurred.
Aside from these immediate, short-term losses, the port of Montreal now finds itself under the obligation to defend its reputation as a port open on a year-round basis in front of potential users who may well decide to land their cargo elsewhere, and this at a time when transportation infrastructures and communications are playing a major strategic role in the positioning of regions. It was a terrible blow for the entire east side of Montreal, which has already been hard hit by unemployment and job losses.
I will remind this House that, based on a document prepared by the greater Montreal mayors' convention, forty or so shipping lines connect the port of Montreal to over 200 ports around the world. It creates tens of thousands of direct jobs, and more than 20 million tonnes of goods, or 40 per cent of the total volume for Montreal, transit through the port".
The Coast Guard blamed the ice jam phenomenon on climatic conditions, and Mr. Frank Nichol added: "We were hit hard by the weather and we were not ready".
Yet, it is not the first time that the Coast Guard is blamed. In 1980, the commission investigating the circumstances surrounding the collision of the Athanasia Comninos with the railway and roadway bridge in Quebec City said this: "If federal authorities want the St. Lawrence River to remain navigable in winter, it is unacceptable on their part to tolerate at any time that ship captains be faced with ice jams such as the one which the pilot of the Comninos had to dealt with. The solution calls for the river to remain free of ice and, seemingly, this implies a greater use of the ice breakers in operation''. Again, this report goes back to 1980.
In 1982, another commission, this time on the Hudson Transport tragedy in the St. Lawrence River, headed by Judge James K. Hugessen, was even more critical of the Coast Guard. It said: Obviously, the Coast Guard attaches a low priority to its search and rescue responsibilities. The Coast Guard is certainly renowned, but not because of its role in this particular case'.' Following part of the testimony given by the then regional director of the Coast Guard, Judge Hugessen added this:His admiration fills us with deep contempt. It is symptomatic of the need for a fundamental review of priorities and attitudes in the management of the Coast Guard''.
The report concluded with those comments: "Winter navigation in the river and the gulf has now reached a level such that it can no longer be considered an exceptional occurrence. Hundreds of men and thousands of tons of goods use this waterway, which is dangerous in the best of circumstances, and particularly so in winter. We assume that Canada reaps an important economic advantage of winter navigation in the St. Lawrence. Otherwise, this waterway should be closed in the wintertime. If the seaway is to remain open, Canada must arrange for adequate search and rescue services". And this involves icebreakers.
The effectiveness of the Coast Guard in Quebec and in eastern Canada, notably as regards the allocation of vessels and land personnel, leaves something to be desired. Of the 19 icebreakers operated by the Canadian Coast Guard, 11, or roughly 60 per cent of the fleet, are based in the Maritimes. This figure includes the only three heavy icebreakers operated by the Coast Guard.
Yet, ice jams virtually never occur in this region and we fail to understand why the majority of our icebreakers-including all of our heavy icebreakers-are based hundreds of kilometres away from the locations where the ice jams occur, either because the seaway is too narrow or the water flows more slowly, as is the case in the Montreal area. Only two medium icebreakers and three light icebreakers are based on the St. Lawrence. They account for only 25 per cent of the Canadian Coast Guard's fleet of icebreaking vessels.
When an icebreaker moored in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, is deployed to break up an ice jam on Lac St. Pierre, it should come as no surprise if the damage intensifies before the vessel manages to arrive on the scene.
Mr. Speaker, the port of Montreal should have been better protected last winter. We really did not need to have these problems.
This glitch, which could have been avoided, only adds to the problems already encountered by the port of Montreal and the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Since 1977, the overall tonnage of goods shipped has steadily decreased. In fact, tonnage declined from 57.5 million tonnes to 31.4 million tonnes in 1992, an especially catastrophic year, primarily because of a marked decline in wheat shipments.
We know that, in the last two years, Ottawa has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on direct and indirect subsidies to Western rail carriers for the transportation of grain to West Coast ports under the Crow's Nest Pass agreements and that a direct effect of this has been a considerable reduction of activities in the port of Montreal.
We also know that the maritime industry as a whole is in decline and that, at a time when the MIL Davie shipyard in Lauzon is in its death throes, Canada is still wondering whether it will ask this shipyard to build the Magdalen Islands ferry or buy a ship from a foreign supplier.
The Japanese would never do such a thing. They would build the ship themselves and provide work for their own citizens rather than putting them on unemployment. In this day and age, Canada would be well advised to follow the Japanese example.
In 1945, Japan was a third world country. It is much smaller than Canada, with five times the population, few natural resources and no energy sources; it is very far from its markets and yet, in a 40-year span, it became one of the world's major economic powers.
In contrast, Canada, with its huge territory, abundant natural resources, nearly inexhaustible energy sources and the world's biggest market on its doorstep, managed to accumulate a $500 billion debt and to kill the job market.
The only certainty in the government's recent budget is that the debt will reach $600 billion in three years and that the unemployment rate will remain high. Under these circumstances, it is important to go ahead and make the changes that can be made right away.
Under these circumstances, it is imperative to maintain maritime activity in the St. Lawrence on a year-round basis and to have the Coast Guard simply do its job. That is why we are recommending to the government to ensure a more effective allocation of the ice breakers in operation in the St. Lawrence, specially in February and March, to avoid these preventable events in the future.