Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure for me to comment on the motions Group No.11, on Bill C-26, a group of motions concerning the schedule of charges. Hearings were held and 75 per cent of the interested parties came to tell the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans that he should suspend the application of his new fee schedule until general economic impact studies had been carried out.
I am very familiar with the St. Lawrence River region, in particular the lower north shore. I worked for 15 years for Iron Ore in Sept-Îles. When I left the company, in the mid seventies, it had annual exports of 15 to 29 million tonnes of iron ore that were loaded on 300,000 tonne supercargoes.
Of course, the cost of iron ore was not excessively high, it was 1 cent per tonne. However, Iron Ore employed thousands of people through its two entities, the mining company and its subsidiary Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway, and in this way it sustained the whole economy of north shore, an economy that was working well.
Let us come back to the measure advocated by the minister. He does not seem to realize what impact a fee increase would have on users on St. Lawrence River. In the port of Sept-Îles and Port-Cartier for example, this would mean $5 million for each buoy.
That is hard to understand. Even though the government wants an exorbitant price for a buoy, I am sure the mining companies, Iron Ore Corp., Wabush Mines and Quebec Cartier Mining in Port-Cartier could all afford hundreds of buoys. But the current price of $5 million a year for installing a buoy they do not need is too high. The big ocean going cargoes all use satellite positioning. They do not need the minister's small buoys that are much more useful for windsurfers than these supercargoes.
That is somewhat reminiscent of the highwaymen of the last century. They would hide behind a bush, wait until someone came by and, on whatever pretext they could think up-La Fontaine was good at doing that in his fables-they would jump on him and rob him. They would relieve him of all his belongings. That is what the government is doing.
You know, this ultimately has an impact. I am sure the mining company, Iron Ore, does not even ship 10 million tonnes a year, while from 1970 to 1975, it shipped almost 20 million tonnes. It employed between 10,000 and 12,000 people in its best years. At the present time, it employs about 2,000. But the others are all taxpayers who do not pay taxes any more, because they no longer have a job.
That is what happened. That explains the $600 billion deficit. The Liberals sometimes remind me of the man who will not feed his cow yet wants it to give more milk. After a while, it does not work any more. You cannot kill the canary and ask it to have chicks. You must think logically and realize that policies such as these are bad for the economy of Quebec in general and the north shore in particular.
However, the minister is going about this in a haphazard manner. He does not have a buoy, and it shows. He is going around, rudderless, and has decided to hike user fees. You know, we already pay taxes in our society. Life is not free in this society. As far as individuals are concerned, the minister can always say they sometimes get sick, receive hospital care, unemployment insurance or welfare. Sometimes, they travel and we open the roads for them.
However, mining or paper companies pay taxes, but do not get sick very often. When they get sick, they shut down. The same goes for mining companies. They cannot receive welfare when things go wrong. They pay taxes to begin with, like all of us, as well as a surtax in accordance with the user pay principle. It say it is nonsense.
There are deep water ports, in Halifax, Vancouver and Victoria for example, where buoys are not required. These users get off lightly, as they use services without paying since they do not have buoys.
I think that $5 million per year, just to have a buoy at the mouth of the bay in Sept-Îles and Port-Cartier, is excessive. The minister should take notice because this is the kind of thing that happens little by little, insidiously. Before you know it, the number of workers has gone down from 2,000 to 1,500, then from 1,500 to 1,000 and from 1,000 to 300. When the minister finally wakes up, he says that he does not understand, that the people in that region have not been paying taxes. How could they, when they are out of work?
Over time, small things have added up and they are now having a disastrous effect on the regional economy, if not on the whole province. But that, the minister does not care two hoots about. I am still directing my remarks, through the Chair, to the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra, who does not seem the slightest bit perturbed by what I am saying, but this member, whom I salute,
should try again to make the fisheries minister see reason to ensure that adequate regulations are in place.
How competitive will be our ports, as compared to those in the northern U.S. states? Take for instance a transatlantic liner coming from Europe. It goes in the St. Lawrence River estuary, makes its way up the river, bypassing Saint-Lambert, ends up in the Great Lakes and heads straight for Pittsburgh.
It pays nothing, even though it used the channel, the water and the St. Lawrence. It pays for the locks in Saint-Lambert, but it is getting the rest free. On the other hand, the small coastal trade carrier on the North Shore, or on both shores of the St. Lawrence will be hit hard.
We mentioned earlier the carrier crossing the Atlantic and unloading its cargo in Sept-Îles; it costs a fortune, whereas the carrier unloading in Thunder Bay has nothing to pay even though it went 3,700 kilometres further down a waterway maintained by Canada. Sometimes, as far as this upkeep is concerned, one wonders if Canada has not bitten off more than it can chew. If it cannot afford to look after such a large country, why does it not leave a part of it to Quebecers? We could take care of it and manage it, if Canada cannot do it.
I know this is not easy, but we will not get out of the situation by adopting such measures, nor by acting like highwaymen. Companies do talk to each other. They realize that ore is not expensive on the North Shore, but they must pay an additional cost. Moreover, they are being squeezed dry with navigation costs after having invested billions in a region that was not really developed before they came. Once they are grabbed by the throat, fees are raised any which way. They respect their commitments on iron ore tonnage, but as far as using ports and wharves is concerned, the sky is the limit. They are asked $5 million for one buoy. Really, this is nonsense.
Has the government yielded to the pressure of the lobby representing eastern interests? These people from down east, from Halifax and Newfoundland, have a great influence on the government. When military bases are closed in that region, the government gives them $17 million. By comparison, when a base was closed in Quebec, our province only got $1 million. In any case, given their small number here, MPs from the maritimes are particularly effective. Everything generally turns against Quebec. This bill is yet another illustration of that.
Through the Chair, I ask the member for Vancouver Quadra who is listening so carefully to what I have to say, to try to influence his minister and make him realize that, even if Quebec is a distinct society, the waters, rivers, docks and ships are no different. Even if Quebec is a relatively rich province with its iron deposits and other minerals, such as the bauxite found in the Lac Saint-Jean region which is transformed into aluminum ingots, this is no reason to try to choke Quebecers by depriving them of their economic infrastructure, unless it is a current Liberal strategy.
The hon. member for Vancouver Quadra is looking at me and seems surprised that we could think of such things. You know, once we get used to hearing the current Prime Minister, we realize that words do not have the same meaning for him as for the rest of us; we are speaking in good faith. When the Prime Minister talks about a chair, it is not a horizontal seat with four legs. In the Prime Minister's mind, a chair can have two horizontal legs, two vertical legs and a tilted seat. That is a chair or a table for the Prime Minister. Now we have learned not to trust him. The hon. member for Vancouver Quadra might find it very funny, but such is the sad reality in Quebec. The Prime Minister makes promises to us, but we learned many moons ago that we have to be cautious and examine what he means because one never wins against him. There is always a meaning nobody had thought of.
I think it is in the interest not only of Quebec but also of the whole of Canada to try to make the Prime Minister understand and reconsider this bill and its fee structure. As suggested by mayors of municipalities and by various other interested parties, before doing something irreparable, we should wait until we at least get impact studies and know what disastrous consequences such a bill could have.
So there is no point hurrying to shoot ourselves in the foot, to chop a hole in the bottom of the boat. Let us proceed slowly and await the results of studies.
