Madam Speaker, I was trying to make the point about how forgotten the people of Cape Breton feel in the nation today and I found myself speaking to an empty government, empty of ideas, empty perhaps of compassion and empty of concern for the people I represent. I was speaking about the truths that I hope to convey to some of the government members on the other side.
We face a crisis in Cape Breton that has been building for 40 years. It has been brought to the attention of politicians of every stripe by every member of Parliament to come from my island. To give an example I will provide a quote. On October 11, 1962 the hon. Malcolm Vic MacInnis, the member of Parliament for Cape Breton South, rose in this very House to deliver his first speech:
Last winter our people experienced unemployment at the rate of 25 percent. We will be the first to admit we have received assistance from this and other governments, but the assistance has always been a stop-gap measure, in times of emergency to meet each crisis as it comes along.
Exactly 17 years later to the day, on October 11, 1979, my predecessor rose in this House to deliver his first speech. He commented on the suffering of Cape Bretoners faced with an unemployment rate of 17 percent.
As I rise today, 17 years later almost to the day, we face an unemployment crisis in Cape Breton of 20 percent minimum.
To say we have been patient is an understatement. To say that we are angry is a simplification. To say that we have been betrayed is perhaps the truth.
We have become the third solitude in Canada. What worries me and my constituents is the growing ranks in this country of that third solitude. It includes many Canadians. Men and women not only in Cape Breton but in New Brunswick, in Newfoundland, in the Gaspé, in all regions of this country. It includes our First Nations people, our youth and our elderly, our farmers and our fishers. It includes in short all those who have lost faith in the generosity of our nation.
The people who control the money markets, the free traders and those who sing the praises of the multilateral agreement on investment stand today with the absent members of the Liberal government indicted in the court of public opinion.
In the throne speech this government congratulated itself for its so-called economic recovery and for maintaining our social programs when in fact it is the same government that has slashed transfers to the provinces, cut EI benefits and failed to meet its commitments to the east coast fishers and has failed to address the concerns of our veterans from the merchant marine.
In this land of plenty, we have hunger. In this land that should echo hope, we have despair. In a land that should be strong, we have weakness.
The third solitude is the millions of Canadians who no longer believe that Canada's strengths are their strengths or that Canada's gains are their gains. They are the people who have not benefited from the so-called economic recovery. They are not the people who benefit from the bond trades and the stock market rallies. They do not make transactions on their laptop computers or their cellphones.
They are the people who used to make things and it is they who built this nation. They worked on the assembly lines and in the mines and plants and on the boats and in the fields and in the forests. Today it is they who make up a class that was once middle or called working but is no longer.
It is 17 years since my predecessor rose in this House to give his first address and 36 years since his predecessor's.
We are angry. Cape Bretoners are angry. In fact they are enraged. I do not rail against hard times alone. That is nothing new to us in Cape Breton. What is new is the new meanspiritedness of this new Canada.
We built and worked and fought for a nation that believed in compassion, equality and social justice. But persistent and unrelenting cuts by this and past governments to our national social programs have threatened the very fabric of our society and impacted Cape Bretoners more than most. In response, governments shrug their shoulders and say there is nothing they can do.
Government is not powerless. This government could act today to improve the lives of the people I represent.
It could take action on the environmental disaster that is the Sydney tar ponds. A real commitment from this government could not only clean up the environment, but create new jobs and real growth in the environmental sector while helping to establish the University College of Cape Breton as a centre of excellence in this field.
This government could act immediately to develop the Donkin mine. This government could stop the offloading of ports and docks in communities like Baddeck and Iona, communities that depend on these services. This government could make a real commitment to the east coast fishers in towns like Ingonish and Pleasant Bay.
If this government does not move in a bold and decisive way and take action to develop a strategy for real economic recovery in Cape Breton, then they will have done nothing but to continue their legacy of hopelessness and despair.
We in Cape Breton will endure. We always have. We will continue to face the adversity before us. We ask for the support of our government. It is after all the reason we have a federal government.
We have always been committed members of Confederation. We ask this government to show the same commitment to the people of Cape Breton.
In closing, it is my deepest hope that years, many years from now when my successor rises in this House for the first time, it will be to speak of our natural beauty and the prosperity of our people and not the economic and social disparity that we face today. It is to that end that I will devote my energies as a representative.