Mr. Speaker, we oppose this bill not because we do not care but because we do not believe that it is as realistic or as compassionate as the government would have us believe. We suggest that the bill is defeatist, that it shows a lack of faith in people.
We believe that happy people are people who are productive and people who have some control over their own destiny, men and women who earn a living and provide for their families.
People do not want to be pushed aside and told: "Here is $750 or $1,000 a month. We understand you are only 50 years of age, but that's it. Your life is over. You can no longer provide for your family and in fact you cannot provide a positive example for the younger members of your family". We do not think that is what people want in any part of our country, let alone in Atlantic Canada.
We have a government which in the last election promised jobs and now all it has to offer is early retirement. The government estimates that there are 1,200 older fish plant workers who will participate in the early retirement program and that the cost will be $6 million to the federal government. It claims that 75 per cent of the eligible older fish plant workers will be from Newfoundland.
It is okay to criticize what the government is doing but I think what is called for here are some suggestions on what we can do to make things better for these people. If I could I would like to share how I felt when I visited Newfoundland.
When you get off the plane there and make a purchase you are going to pay almost 20 per cent in sales tax and GST. If I were an entrepreneur and I arrived in Newfoundland and I had to pay almost 20 per cent sales tax, I would probably get back on the plane and head right back out of town. If I stayed around long enough to take a look at what the personal income taxes were I
would swim to get off the island. I think that is where the problem is here.
There is a problem wherein we have a province that is not economically attractive to entrepreneurs to establish businesses. What we need is more fundamental change in the economy to make it possible for the economy to grow.
What we do not need are more handouts. More handouts do nothing for people. They destroy people. They destroy their spirit and their will.
On this issue I am preparing a private member's bill which will make suggestions for cutting capital gains tax which I think will be very helpful in this regard.
Bill C-30 provides legislative authority for one part of the Atlantic groundfish strategy, the part to be delivered by human resources development. I assume the department believes it has authority for those other components of TAGS that it will be delivering.
Bill C-30 therefore responds to one of the recommendations of the Auditor General in his latest report with regard to the previous Atlantic groundfish package. The Auditor General stated this:
The government implemented a program for which in our view no clear and satisfactory authority existed. At no time did it go to Parliament to seek proper substantive authority for its actions. Parliament was denied thereby proper opportunity to review and debate the government's proposed program as part of the normal legislative process, to decide on its objectives and to approve expenditures to achieve those objectives.
The Auditor General went on to state:
The government should present to Parliament legislation that will provide a proper authority for this program and for any future programs of a similar nature.
The Minister of Human Resources Development is to be congratulated for the introduction of this bill as recommended by the Auditor General. But where is the rest of the bill? Does this bill really give Parliament the opportunity to debate the program's objectives? No, it merely attempts to patch TAGS into a pre-existing legislative authority.
Unfortunately this is not its greatest deficiency. Where is the legislative authority for those parts of TAGS that DFO is delivering?
DFO will be attempting to retire fishermen, their licences, and to create industrial renewal boards. This part of the TAGS program is without legislative authority and I call on the government to bring in the remainder of the required legislative authority to cover it.
DFO officials tell me that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans intends to use the Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act as part of the authority. The Auditor General has already ruled that the Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act is an inappropriate legislative authority. That act, the Auditor General noted, was passed in the mid-eighties to permit the government to implement the Kirby commission's recommendations.
It is important to note that the Kirby report and the Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act were founded on the expectation of a doubling of the groundfish harvest. The Kirby report saw the problem of the fishery as one of finding ways to market the growing supply of fish, the oversupply, not the lack of supply.
TAGS expects to reduce the catch capacity by 50 per cent. The underlying assumptions of TAGS and the Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act are incompatible.
The Kirby report said that one of the bright spots in the fishery was the outlook for the harvest, that by 1987 the cod catch would be more than triple the 1976 harvest. The total groundfish catch will have more than doubled.
The act expanded the catch potential and the fish were caught. Now there are none. Let us have done with any talk of using the Atlantic Fisheries Restructuring Act to deliver any part of TAGS. I call on the government to bring in to the House a comprehensive bill that would outline its objectives and would give it the necessary authority to carry out the needed changes in the Atlantic groundfishery.
Dwindling stocks, caused in part by a failure to manage the fishery, created the need for TAGS. While the government is spending nearly $2 billion on TAGS due to this failure to manage the fishery, it is not even maintaining existing surveillance and enforcement programs on the east coast.
No better case exemplifies the willingness to allow this important infrastructure to run down than the letting of the contract for the fisheries observers in the Scotia-Fundy region earlier this year. The government did not even follow its own tendering rules. The tender requirements were manipulated in order to give the contract to a company that had no experience with foreign vessels and the offshore fishery.
The company has been allowed to use observers without the necessary experience. There has already been overfishing as a result. There have been published reports in sector 3-0 of vessels without observers catching undersized fish and dumping the unwanted fish at sea. There have been problems with Cuban vessels in the silver hake fisheries which by law must have observers on every vessel. The Cubans are fishing in Canadian waters without experienced observers on board.
This makes a mockery of TAGS. The improprieties in the letting of this observer contract are too numerous to list today, but I do want to comment on one further problem that came to my attention this morning.
Fisheries observers this morning told me that those fisheries observers who appeared before the standing committee only a few weeks ago have been blacklisted by the new observer contractor who has refused to hire them simply because they came to Ottawa and addressed the committee on the improprieties on the letting of this contract. If that were not bad enough, there is also an investigation under way into allegations against the chief of the fisheries observer program in Halifax as to his involvement in the letting of the observer contract.
The investigator was to have submitted his report today. The investigator told my office this morning that the investigation had been delayed for perhaps two weeks.
I call on the government to explain the status of this investigation into the chief of the observer program and to explain why DFO has delayed the completion and release of the investigator's report.
In his report the Auditor General noted two other items I think worth mentioning. He said that the government had difficulty in targeting payments only to those clearly affected by the moratorium. What he means in this regard, as I understand it, is first that it is very difficult to define who those plant workers are who were directly involved, and second many people who are not covered by this program were as well seriously affected by the decline in fish stocks.
The other point that he makes, and I think again it is very appropriate, is that fewer people than expected were taking training that would lead to work outside the fishery or were taking up retirement options in response to the adjustment component of this program.
What we have to do is help people overcome the difficulties that have been forced on them by this program, not simply to give them a handout and say: "Here it is, take this, go away. We do not want to hear from you again". We must provide opportunity for people so that they can lead successful and happy lives.
We on this side of the House envision an east coast fishery that is viable, self-sufficient and sustainable. We believe that the fishery can and should be a cornerstone of a more diversified economy in Atlantic Canada. We are confident Atlantic Canadians can compete in a world economy.
The government would have Atlantic Canadians living dependent on government handouts and in a constant state of instability. It is the desire of Reform members to encourage the implementation of a comprehensive program of change which would see the people of Atlantic Canada not only working but working in an environment that is both profitable and satisfying.
On the other hand the implementation of the government's plans will be to perpetuate the tragedy that is currently taking place in Atlantic Canada.