Mr. Speaker, as the Reform Party's Atlantic issues critic, I have met with and spoken to Atlantic Canadians from all walks of life, including those with, to them, an unwelcome dependence on the social program known as unemployment insurance.
It is the future of this social program that we are debating today. Reforms to the program are long overdue. It is a prize understatement to say that there is an unemployment problem in the Atlantic provinces.
The latest unemployment rate in Newfoundland is 15.9 per cent. In P.E.I. it is 12.2 per cent; in Nova Scotia it is 11.2 per cent and in New Brunswick, the lowest of the four Atlantic provinces, it sits at 11 per cent. By contrast the national unemployment rate for Canada is 9.4 per cent.
It is ironic that the Liberals are now going to call the system in which these disastrous rates of unemployment are flourishing, employment insurance. They have certainly done anything but foster employment for Atlantic Canadians in the past. What they have done is foster an unwelcome dependence on politicians, their programs and their promises.
In 1994, the Atlantic region, with 8 per cent of Canada's population, collected 16.6 per cent of UI benefits. Also last year, $15.8 billion was paid out across the country in UI benefits, $2.6 billion of which ended up in Atlantic Canada.
This is a huge chunk of our national wealth. The tragedy is that so many of these hard earned dollars do not end up in the hands of those who really need assistance. The distribution of these moneys is too often governed by political considerations rather than sound planning.
The great seaworthy vessel known at Atlantic Canada is in need of a major refitting. The weight of dependence on political intervention has punched a very large hole in the bottom of the boat.
Now the ship is taking on water at an alarming rate and who is at risk of drowning? First, our young people. In some fishing communities it is not uncommon for teenagers to drop out of school to take a position on a fishing boat because it gets them enough weeks of work to qualify for UI. The result is one less person in the school system. In the end, one person has been robbed of an opportunity to receive an education.
Young people like this are suffering twofold. On one hand, they will be penalized for being labelled a frequent user. For years, they were led to believe that the UI benefits would always be there. Now, in a cruel twist of irony, they are also feeling the brunt of the years of mismanagement of the oceans' fish stocks which have disappeared.
Also facing the risk of drowning from the foundering ship of UI are the communities dependent on this social program, communities where the dollars from UI have literally kept the town alive. In the past the government has tried to bring in training programs to help workers move out of failing industries. The Liberal government is trying this again. Unfortunately, the job training programs, by the minister's own admission, have failed to deliver in the past.
As the hole in the bottom of Atlantic Canada's economic ship grew and as more water poured in, the people who could save the foundering ship were also penalized by the government. For years small business, the driving force behind job creation, has asked for relief from UI payroll taxes. Now, as the UI surplus fund grows, the government is offering a small stipend to the business community. The amount a business will pay in UI taxes will drop by one-twentieth of 1 per cent. This means that for every $100 of earnings it will drop by 5 cents. This is a very frail tool to hand to our economic builders.
The ship that foundered over the years sank steadily through debt, mismanagement and abuse. As the hole in the bottom of the ship grew wider, successive governments tried to lighten the weight of the sinking ship by throwing overboard a couple of deck chairs, rather than by repairing the damage.
The Liberal government still has not moved to repair the damage caused by the heavy borrowing of its own and previous governments. What the ship needs is to be repaired, to be pulled into drydock for a short time and to be made seaworthy again.
Think of the possibilities of putting back to sea in a fully seaworthy ship. We can repair the ship and our social programs by making tough decisions now, saving them from being made for us down the road.
The international community, whether we like it or not, is watching what we do very closely. By bringing financial spending under control, the economic ship can be rebuilt and put back to sea. It will be a refitted ship, able to withstand the storms of the open ocean of global competition and avoid the rocks along the coast of variable interest rates and currency fluctuations.
The ship that is repaired and put back to sea has a host of ports to head for. The ports of possibility for Atlantic Canada are bountiful. By moving on the Reform Party's policy initiative Atlantica, the Atlantic provinces could open up new markets and a new north-south trading arrangement with the New England states, a market of 15 million people. Let us not forget the opportunity of tapping into the European market. By capitalizing on their unique proximity to other trading partners, the people of Atlantic Canada will be the real winners. The people who helped to carve out a country and a harsh new world 200 years ago can compete in the 21st century.
Sending a pile of cash in to try to solve the problems of a region does not work. According to the auditor general it never did. Programs designed to create employment, growth and prosperity, such as those set up by the Atlantic Canada Opportunity Agency, have shown questionable results at best. The importance of good,
solid infrastructure to enable movement of products for businesses with initiative cannot be stressed enough.
ACOA has often been used as a means to create competition to successful enterprises by funding grants to new but unviable enterprises. This has had the effect of setting up the new for failure and at the same time damaging the success of the old.
The people of Atlantic Canada need ways and means to become self-sufficient. A region with natural resources such as lumber, fish, mining, Hibernia and Voisey Bay has opportunities to rival those of any other part of Canada if the shackles of government restriction, red tape and taxes could be thrown off. The federal government must free up the governments of Atlantic Canada and its citizens by giving them the opportunity and their own resources to manage and make decisions on the areas they see as being needed most. A move toward creating real jobs, not the make-work projects of the past, is what Atlantic Canadians need and want most.
What the government needed to do and failed to do with this bill was to send a message to Atlantic Canadians that there is hope. There are ways to lessen dependence and restore self-sufficiency. We should not have to depend always on the ill-conceived training programs which in the past have not worked. Politicians can trust the initiative of working people.
Atlantic Canadians want to work. They have a right to go to work but have been prevented from doing so by the very governments they say are trying to protect them. They have been taxed out of jobs. While the federal government increased taxes over the years, the provincial governments followed suit. Borrowing money and taking out a mortgage on our children's future is not the way to build a strong country.
Atlantic Canada is a region of the country which feels that the debate on this topic over the next few weeks is one that will have a very strong impact on them. I urge the government to take measures which will give this part of the country the long term plan and hope it needs to build a strong economic future and not tinker with programs which have no long term plan or benefit.