Mr. Speaker, I was not sure if I should name them, but I am reading a text dated March 1993, when these people were not in government. Anyway, it is these three Liberal members, who were in opposition at the time, who said that the military businesses assistance program had to be reformed for the conversion of these businesses to civilian production.
They said jointly: "It is necessary to expand the mandate of Industry, Science and Technology Canada's $200 million Defence Industry Productivity Program (DIPP) which is aimed at developing defence technology". There already is a $200 million assistance program for military businesses, but as the members said at the time, it was necessary "to add to that program a new component that will help the industry convert and diversify into areas such as environmental technologies and high-tech peacekeeping technologies". The Liberals said that. They were encouraging our defence industries to penetrate the environmental sector.
Let us take as an example a business in the riding of Beauharnois, Expro, which manufactures gunpowder and shells and which, for the past few years, has been taking part in a soil decontamination program. Those people are now struggling to survive, since 70 per cent of their orders were government defense production orders. Now that they hardly get any such orders, they have to redirect their operations. They are now working on a soil decontamination program, which is related to the whole question of environment.
However, they need support, they need studies and research, and the government could and should get involved in that area. Otherwise, what will happen to those people who worked for many years at making gunpowder and shells and who are hardly making any today? We know also that the company had major sales on the United States market; they had many orders from the United States. But the Americans too are tightening their arms program and have significantly reduced their orders, and therefore the orders for Expro are going down.
Going further than what the Liberals were saying when they formed the Opposition, the present Prime Minister did not hesitate to say that defence industries were industries of the past. Liberals were saying that Canadians deserved a government that could show the way, a government that could bring forth new ideas and new strategies, a government that could help them adapt to change.
The defence conversion policy is an example of how a Liberal government intends to meet the needs of Canadians in the 1990s. That is what the present Prime Minister constantly repeated during the campaign and when he was Leader of the Opposition.
After having said such things, it is unacceptable to abandon the defence industries that cry out for government assistance. The government is turning a deaf ear to their pleas.
Finally, the then opposition critic for Industry, Trade and Commerce admitted realistically that unless we develop a defence conversion policy for the 1990s, we could lose tens of thousands of jobs. If the present Liberal government is aware of all that, why does it not take action? They said so, they seem to have all the relevant information, they are aware that we will lose jobs, that we are already losing some-11,000 have been lost already-and it is escalating, but they take no action. During the last campaign, the key words for the Liberal Party to get elected were jobs, jobs, jobs. The government should make an effort in that area, they should give more assistance by making funds available to help defence industries make a conversion they are only too willing to make.
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