Debates of June 11th, 1996

Oceans Act

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Richelieu, QC]

This will be an opportunity for me to give a lesson to the members opposite. I understand, however, why they are hiding. I understand why they are ashamed of their government. I understand why they are disappointed in their government. I understand why they are hiding their red book.

But where are those top Liberal candidates who went everywhere and said their red book had a solution for all of Canada's and Quebec's problems? Where are all those top members? They are hiding and none of them dares to make a speech tonight to defend the interests of his own government. Even the Liberal members from Quebec are hiding. They know that the position taken by the government on this bill is indefensible. They know it is another dirty trick played on Quebec by the Liberal Party, which is a past master in this technique.

The complicity of the Liberal members from Quebec, who are refusing to take part in this debate, is incredible. They should, even if they are ashamed of their government, even if they are against this bill, even if they know that this bill will harm Quebec's economic interests, rise and say with us, putting aside all partisanship: "Together, the members from Quebec, we will defend Quebec's true interests, we will express our opposition to this bill, we will propose amendements, we will delay the bill's passage until next fall, we will allow the users to put forward solutions that would serve the interests of the people, that would serve the interests of the users, and that would ensure that the necessary economic restraints are imposed to enhance government management here".

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Richelieu, QC]

I see the New Brunswick member on the other side. Yes, he must regret having given up his seat for the election of the present Prime Minister. He made the big mistake of giving up his seat thinking that his leader could put Canada back on the road to sound management, dynamic economic growth and good relations with Quebec. He believed, and today he is ashamed. He does not want to speak tonight either. He gave up his seat for someone who does not keep his promises, reneges on his commitments and ignores the red book.

And what is he waiting for today? We would forgive him if only he would say: "The interests of the nation come before the interests of a political party".

[Fernand Robichaud, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Absolutely. The interests of the country.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Richelieu, QC]

But no, he seems to be willing to serve his party before his country. People from New Brunswick are listening to you tonight, or rather, they are listening to your silence. Can we talk about the sound of silence? From now on, we will talk about the sound of silence among the Liberal members.

The Acadians thought that they had someone to defend their interests, but no. They elected a Liberal partisan who is willing to knuckle under and vote the way the whip says to when the bell rings, no matter if it serves the interests of the people or hinders the economic development of a whole area of Canada and Quebec. He is ready to renege on his promises, his commitments and his red book for the sole purpose of serving his party.

[Fernand Robichaud, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

How many times did you vote against your party, Louis?

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Richelieu, QC]

I notice that the member from New Brunswick recovered his ability to speak.

[Fernand Robichaud, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

I find I am always able to speak out when I hear ridiculous statement.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Richelieu, QC]

So I guess he will join us in exposing this unacceptable bill, especially considering that Motion No. 11 is proposed by the Liberals. And yet they do not even defend it because that party is obviously led by someone who imposes his wishes, someone who says: "Now we like the GST. We did not like it during the election campaign, but we do now". And everybody says: "We like the GST".

For example, he said during the campaign that NAFTA was bad and that we had to fight against it, but now that he is in power, he is saying: "Let us welcome the president of Mexico and hear him praise us for the hard work we did which made NAFTA a success". That is what the Liberal leader and his government are all about. That is why the credibility of politicians is getting lower and lower in the polls. It is because of that kind of double talk from people like that. That double talk, the one heard during the election campaign and the one heard after the election campaign, is typical of the Liberal Party.

It is nothing new. Remember the campaign against Stanfield in the 1970s. Stanfield said: "We will have wage and price control because it is necessary in order to put the brakes on inflation". Trudeau said: "Never". Six months after the elections, the Liberals, who had been elected, introduced the same wage and price control policy that had been proposed by Stanfield.

In the 1979 referendum campaign, the Liberals said: "We are putting our seats on the line so elect us and we will give Quebec what it has been asking for for 30 years". Then, after the elections, they started to talk about repatriating the Constitution without Quebec's consent. It is the usual double talk. Think about the gasoline tax. The Clark government, which had been in office for nine months, was defeated because it wanted to increase the gasoline tax by 18 cents, if I am not mistaken.

And yet, six months after the Liberals were back in power, they increased it by 65 cents. They have always sung two different tunes. One during the election campaign, with a red book this time, the other times it was a pamphlet. They had answers for everything, but once in power they crumble. They crumble and they let senior officials and deputy ministers steer the boat. It is like a bicycle with a side basket. The Prime Minister takes his place in the basket and the deputy ministers steer first to the left and then to the right, and he sits back laughing and thinks he is setting the course. That is the Liberal government for you.

It is the power trip, the limousine, and as far as the people are concerned, they will keep their promise for the next election and win office again if they can. As a Liberal member in my region said: "We are never so poor that we cannot make promises". That is the Liberal Party philosophy.

We can see tonight with this bill that they have not changed. They have been like this for years. During all the years they held power, we saw these changes of tune. Today, with an election in the offing, people are wondering if they will trust them again. Of course, their popularity is dropping in the polls, of course, Liberal members are no longer able to defend the position of their party. They are ashamed, they have quit talking.

In a bill as important as this, they are almost muzzled. But there is no need. They hide so as not to have to defend such a position, because it is unacceptable from an economic point of view, unacceptable from the point of view of regional equity in Canada, because we are speaking about large regions.

Once again, they attack the region that includes Quebec. It is easy, because everything always goes well for the Liberal Party. What did they say during the election campaign? They said that it would take the fall of a big Conservative project. They looked around for a big project and came up with the helicopters in Quebec and figured that would be a good target to secure the votes of the rest of Canada.

Once elected, jobs in Quebec were next. When it was a question of reducing military spending, they wondered what they could go after in Quebec. It is a popular thing to sock it to Quebec, andthat was what happened with the military college in Saint-Jean. The rest of Canada was delighted and the Liberal Party was able to keep some popularity.

It is always an easy thing for the federal government to sock it to Quebec. We are used to that. No wonder there is a sovereignist movement here in Ottawa. It is because we have had enough of being one among so many others, a province like any other that is always the scapegoat of the federal government.

The member for Trois-Rivières was right in saying that we are once more the victims. The hon. member for Trois-Rivières used the word victims rightly. We are the victims of this reform, which could have otherwise been a major restructuration project inspired by some serious thinking on the part of all parties in this House. Have a look at the amendments proposed by the Reform Party. They are quite acceptable and quite debatable and would improve the bill. The Liberal Party will reject them all. It will reject the amendments from the Bloc, just like the users' suggestions.

Why? I call on this party, which claims to embody Canada, which even claims to embody Canada's two nations. Will it agree to listen to users and the other political parties, which took the time to consult the public. Will it return to committee and forget the IBI study, which is a sham criticized by all who have read it and have anything to do with the area.

So it will dismiss this study and simply rearrange the bill. We say there is a need to give thought to signage, the cost of it is very

high. The cost of ice breaking is very high, the cost of dredging is very high. What we are saying is what the users are saying and Canada's economics interests are necessarily repeating the same thing.

We say that a way must be found to distribute costs so that the taxpayers will pay less but we will maintain our competitive edge against other areas like the United States and Halifax. To do so, before we transfer the Coast Guard to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, we must consider its role and review all of its operations not for the purpose of making it disappear but for the purpose of transforming it into a service comparable to a private sector business which would do ice-breaking and dredging or provide navigational aids.

We know however that people working for the coast guard are extremely competent. We only have to look at the safety system we have in Quebec and Canada. I am saying that we want to reorganize the coast guard, but we want to keep these people and pay them a decent salary; for years now, they have made a lot of sacrifices in terms of salary freeze, cuts and job losses. We want to keep these competent people who are vital to sound management.

At the same time, we want to consider with them the kind of reorganization which would better serve users and the economic interests of the people, while meeting the goals of the government, the official opposition and the Reform Party, namely reducing costs. But it has to be a through a well structured reorganization, and not by way of a bill rammed down our throat at the end of the session.

In a couple of years, we will see the economic consequences. But will all our ports, all our transportation industry, all our small flourishing industries along the St. Lawrence River have been killed off for the sake of a test? As the member for Trois-Rivières said, if we want a fairer tax from coast to coast, let us base the system on the tonnage of vessels rather than transhipment or unloading, as is done in Halifax or in Montreal.

Let us think also about what the member for Châteaugay said when he referred to extremely important demands and quoted the letter of the stakeholders, of Simon Lacroix, which summarized the situation by speaking about what it meant for Quebec and Montreal. I am happy that the member from New Brunswick is present to hear this necessary object lesson.

For your information, the port of Montreal processes 20 million tonnes of cargo annually and 726,000 containers pass through it every year. This capacity generates 14,000 direct or indirect jobs, as well as revenues of $1.2 billion a year. And the hon. member wants to kill off these economic interests.

[Some hon. members]

Shame.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Richelieu, QC]

No one oppposite wants to defend this bill. I understand why. It is the shame of their party. They are ashamed of their party, of this marine policy, of their program. They are disappointed with their Prime Minister. They are disappointed with their minister, who does not understand anything about the economic reality in Quebec and in Canada as a whole.

So, we want a better user fee policy based on the ships' capacity, without taking into account ships that do transshipping or unloading. In brief, we would want to take the time to further reflect on this bill, instead of passing it quickly.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member for Richelieu.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Richelieu, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think my time is up. May I continue tomorrow? I had the unanimous consent.

[The Deputy Speaker]

We will see tomorrow.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

[Vic Althouse, NDP, Mackenzie, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I hate to interrupt a very interesting speech. I hope the member gets to continue it tomorrow. However, we are now officially adjourned and I wish to raise my point of business in the post-adjournment debate.

I posed a question to the minister of public works concerning the Peace Tower project. She answered a very small part of the broad range of questions I raised. She pointed out that the Ann Raney and Ray Wolf discrimination case had been withdrawn and concentrated her answer on that.

There are a great many things the House should be aware of with regard to the Peace Tower project. As a review, the previous minister of public works said he could not enforce any of the anti-discrimination clauses in the contract for the Peace Tower project because gender discrimination had not been proven. He essentially used the argument that it was before the courts.

That has now been proven and admitted to by the offending parties. The present minister is seeming to say that if there is nothing outstanding with regard to gender discrimination, there is nothing she can say.

Members are aware that there are still two outstanding discrimination claims before the Ontario Human Rights Commission, the case of Marcel and Denis Lamoureux.

Other aspects of this contract become more and more disturbing as we go through it. There seems to be what I can only interpret as mismanagement on the part of Public Works and Government Services Canada and the officials handling the contracts.

The contract is available through the right to know legislation. There is a 30-day arbitration clause built into the contract. This issue began in August 1995 and public works officials did not step in to correct the problem of $165,000 worth of work already done on the project for which Pro-Tech, Ray Wolf's company where Ann Raney worked, has never been paid. The salaries of 25 workers are still outstanding as a result of that. Also, a number of tools were left on site which they have been unable to recover.

Public works did a very poor job of investigating this situation. It did a cursory investigation of people on the site during working hours under the nose of the supervisor who appeared to have been most of the problem. How can honest answers be obtained from workers when their jobs depend on what they say about their supervisor, the person being investigated, when their supervisor is sitting there listening? They will not speak honestly or directly. Public works officials never arranged to meet with them off site or off the job. It did not do a proper investigation. Raney and Wolf were never interviewed by public works officials, yet public works has told the minister that it did an investigation.

Since those investigations and from listening to the CBC radio program "The House", there seems to be clear evidence that the subcontractor required that Ray Wolf as the owner of Pro-Tech pay what amounts to kickbacks in order to maintain himself on the site. Reports were that he paid almost $13,000 in four or five weeks in June and early July.

He had been told by the supervisor that if these payments stopped there would be no work for him and his crew. It is unclear whether the reason for the pressure on Ann Raney was to put further pressure on Ray Wolf and his crew to continue the payments or whether it was simply a straight matter of sexual harassment.

However, the result has been that these workers have not been paid. Mr. Wolf and his company have been put under severe financial stress. He has lost a lot of tools, his truck, his car and perhaps his reputation with this situation. It appears on the surface at least that Mr. Wolf has acted in a relatively straightforward and honest way in this matter.

It really makes me, as a citizen of Canada, upset to think that our officials at public works would permit this kind of operation to go on right under their noses, or above our heads more specifically, in the House of Commons on the Peace Tower project and not do anything to correct the injustice.

I had hoped the minister would address these broader issues to the rather broad question that I had put. All the minister did was say the parties had signed off over the sexual harassment case. I repeat, there continues to be a human rights case before the courts. That is true. However, all these other issues, which I think public works Canada has within its grasp to resolve and look after our interest as taxpayers, should be investigated. I am not sure public works Canada officials are the ones who should be the investigators any more.

[John Harvard, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Mackenzie for his presentation.

Let me repeat for the hon. member this is a complicated case which deals with two very different issues. On one hand, there were allegations of discrimination involving two subcontractors, Colonial Building and Pro-Tech Restoration. Fuller Construction is the main contractor on this project.

When the Department of Public Works and Government Services learned of the allegations of discrimination on the job site, it immediately advised the general contractor, Fuller, that the anti-discrimination clause would have to be respected.

In this case the contractor accepted his responsibilities for the conduct of his subcontractor, Colonial. A settlement was negotiated between Colonial and Mr. Wolf and Ms. Raney. This agreement was signed by all parties involved and therefore fully resolves the issue of discrimination.

Even though this dispute was resolved through an agreement signed by all parties, the Minister of Public Works and Government Services wants to do more. She wants to do whatever is within her power to ensure this kind of situation can be dealt with more quickly and more efficiently in the future.

For this reason the minister has instructed her officials to review the terms of the department's contacts to ensure corrective action can be taken against contractors who have violated laws protecting individuals from discrimination and to ensure the department can quickly deal with any allegations of discrimination which may arise.

The department is also revising the terms of its contracts to ensure the non-discrimination clause also applies to subcontractors. This is in addition to asking Labour Canada to strengthen the anti-discrimination clause so this type of situation can be handled better in the future.

An interdepartmental team has been put in place to explore practices and procedures to enforce the government's commitment to fairness in the workplace. The government strongly believes no one should have to suffer discrimination and we are committed to doing whatever we can to eliminate it.

[Roger Gallaway, Liberal, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak with respect to an issue that was raised several months ago in the House dealing with priorities within the Department of Canadian Heritage and specifically in Sports Canada.

At the time I raised the question on March 25, I wanted to deal with the whole issue of how the department treated sports that were inherently and specifically Canadian. In particular I raised the question of lacrosse.

The Department of Canadian Heritage through Sports Canada is there to encourage sports in this country at a national level. In other words, we would have and provide some level of funding to those organizations which provide a national tie to other local and provincial organizations.

In Canada there are more than 200,000 young people participating in the sport of lacrosse, yet under the funding framework devised by Sports Canada the Canadian Lacrosse Association, the national co-ordinating agency for lacrosse in Canada, was cut totally from any funding whatsoever.

It seemed that was an anomaly, a bleep in the funding framework, created by people at Sports Canada. In bobsledding, in which there are 400 people including athletes and support staff, its national association received $315,500 in 1995-96. Synchronized swimming, in which there are fewer than 10,000 people, received $535,000 for its national association. Yet those youth, some 200,000, who participate in lacrosse in Canada are receiving nothing.

As a result of that I raised the question to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, who replied on March 25 that she would instruct her officials to find a way to provide funding to the Canadian Lacrosse Association because without that national association the sport will eventually die. There will be no national perspective, no national tournaments.

To this date there has been no funding provided, although the department has indicated it wants to explore it with the Canadian Lacrosse Association. I suggest there are certain anomalies within the department that must be corrected.

I will go one step further to what is referred to as carded A athletes. We certainly want to encourage our top level athletes in this country, as most countries do. We have reached a point where we are providing funding to athletes who are very wealthy.

For example, those athletes who sign endorsements for hundreds of thousands of dollars, in some cases more, continue to receive $800 a month from the Government of Canada. The department seems to have reversed its priorities, whereas it has cut lacrosse off at the knees and provided $315,000 to bobsledding and $535,000 to synchronized swimming. It has said to these 200,000 children involved in lacrosse sorry, their national association does not count because under the circumstances it is not a recognized Olympic sport.

At the same time we are feeding out $800 a month, about $200 more than a single welfare recipient receives in the province of Ontario. Yet at the same time they are receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in endorsements from commercial interests.

I am asking the department therefore to get its priorities in order, to say we believe there are some sports that are inherently Canadian. Let us forget about the International Olympic Association. Let us start looking at Canada. Let us start looking within the Department of Canadian Heritage. Let us start encouraging those sports that are inherently Canadian and provide funding to encourage them rather than to say we will write a blank cheque to the International Olympic Association and provide funding to those sports which are Olympic in nature but which in most respects are inherently not Canadian. I once again urge the department to move on that.

[Gordon Kirkby, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Sarnia-Lambton for his interest in this issue.

The Minister of Canadian Heritage has acknowledged earlier the importance of lacrosse as a sport in Canada and has pledged to restore some of its funding. The minister is pleased to announce the cultural development and heritage program within the Department of Canadian Heritage is providing a contribution of $150,000 to the Canadian Lacrosse Foundation.

Lacrosse, which Parliament has declared as Canada's official national summer sport, has played an important role in the history and culture of our country and in shaping Canadian identity.

The support being provided by the cultural development and heritage program combined with other private sector sources of funds will allow the Canadian Lacrosse Foundation through the Lacrosse Heritage Institute and the Canadian Lacrosse Association to continue this long Canadian tradition.

In addition, consideration is being given to the introduction of a sport development initiative which could assist sport organizations with a large domestic participation base. The minister fully expects that Lacrosse will be one of the sports that would be eligible for funding from such an initiative once it has met the criteria of the new program.

The minister has directed the officials of the department to work with the Canadian Lacrosse Association in order to pursue this

avenue in greater detail. I thank the hon. member for Sarnia-Lambton-

[The Deputy Speaker]

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. The House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m.

(The House adjourned at 9.46 p.m.)