Mr. Speaker, I too congratulate and commend the motion presented to the House, the depth of the research that has been done and the understanding of the industry. I also commend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry for his light on the subject.
The intent of the motion is probably one we could all support. There ought to be a sound industrial policy not only with regard to shipbuilding but with regard to all industrial development in Canada. That is what is lacking in the government currently in charge of the affairs of Canada.
I cannot help but to refer back to a particular response the Ministry of Industry made as recently as yesterday. It is no wonder people are confused, particularly the hon. member who proposed the motion. The Minister of Industry in reply to a question by the member for Halifax West said:
If he is asking me to announce that Canada will get into a subsidy bidding war in shipbuilding, the answer to him as it was for the member for Saint John last week is absolutely no.
The interesting contrast is that the same Minister of Industry is quite prepared to enter into a subsidy bidding war when it comes to the aerospace industry. How is it that the same minister will unequivocally say “absolutely no” to the subsidization of the bidding war with regard to shipbuilding but it is absolutely okay when it comes to the aerospace industry?
This is the same minister who does this. The unfortunate part of it is that is not unusual. It so happens that this is a Liberal government right now. There was a PC government before it which did exactly the same thing. It also subsidized the one but not the other. So there is nothing new here.
What this motion does is allow us to articulate rather clearly that while there is nothing new, the PCs did the same thing as the Liberals, Liberals do the same thing as the PCs, now they are saying the government needs to have policy. That is right. It does need to have a policy but so do the PCs because they do not have one either.
This is just one of those crazy back and forths. One would think it was a ping-pong game we were involved in here. The unfortunate part of it is that the people who are suffering in this are those working in the shipyards, the families involved, the lack of work for these people. That is where the problem lies for not having a good policy come to the floor.
I want to read this motion. The motion is a very interesting study in semantics. It reads something like this. They want the policy to focus:
—on making shipyards internationally competitive by providing tax incentives and construction financing comparable to what is being provided elsewhere in the world and which ensures reasonable access to foreign markets, particularly the United States of America; and should recognize that such a policy would not provide direct subsidies, but create alternative methods of support to ensure the growth of the industry.
What other alternate forms of support would their be than subsidies, maybe not direct but certainly indirect?
The hon. member said that there are all these other programs. Indeed there are. In fact, there is the foreign investment opportunity company and all kinds of other programs that exist which do allow countries that want to buy these ships to get financing from the Canadian government.
There is nothing new here. What there is, and I commend the member for this, is to articulate very clearly what the problem is in certain parts of this country.
I happened to be at the vision conference in Moncton, New Brunswick and I was particularly impressed by the tenure and discussion that took place at that conference. There were premiers and business leaders from the Atlantic provinces who all had one theme at this vision conference, a vision for the Atlantic provinces. It was led by the premier of New Brunswick.
Today this gentleman has retired from his position but he said to the assembled group “we want the federal government to get out of the subsidy business, get out of the grant business and give us that money in the form of tax breaks or reduced taxes”.
The Reform Party has talked about this for the last eight years. We know that is the answer. The answer does not lie in subsidies or grants. Grants and subsidies create dependency and operations that are now competitive, operations that do not search out markets, that do not have the incentive to apply the most recent technology, the most efficient ways of applying that technology and the most efficient deployment of personnel and people who are skilled. That is what is wrong with subsidies.
What has to happen here is that the environment needs to change. We said limit things like ACOA and grants and subsidies and then these industries could become indeed competitive, search out the markets and do the kinds of things that really matter.
From that point of view I support the motion but unfortunately that is not what it states. It states one thing and I am not so sure that it totally explores it the way it should. Perhaps the motion could be reworded in such a way so that we could fully support it and be enthusiastic about it.
The specific questions with regard to the shipbuilding industry really could be summed up in two questions. First, is the shipbuilding industry in trouble because it did not remain competitive? Second, is it in trouble because there is not enough of a market or the market is not large enough to sustain another international global shipbuilder?
Those are two absolutely critical questions. They lie at the very base of a Canadian shipbuilding policy. What ought it to be? I think the hon. member will agree that those are the key questions. I do not have the answers to those questions.
I suspect that the Canadian Shipbuilding Association does not have an answer to that question either, but I think it needs to address those two questions and then come to wherever the policy ought to change so that indeed the competitiveness of the marketplace can be established as far as the shipbuilding industry is concerned and the size of the market identified as to whether the capacity for building ships ought to be expanded. I think that is a major issue.
The hon. parliamentary secretary indicated that there was a rationalization of the shipbuilding industry. Part of it was to reduce the number of ships, and that is fine. However, what we now need to do is not only rationalize in terms of the numbers of ships that are to be built, but the kinds of ships that ought to be built and the technology that exists in those ships so that they can become competitive in the international marketplace and that they will then build the kind of profit picture into the people who own those shipbuilding yards so that they can hire people and give them work so that they can supply their families and friends with the things they need.
I wonder as well whether we should not become very serious about this whole business of how industry ought to run in this country. What kind of an environment ought the government to create for this country so that business could compete?
The number one issue it seems to me is to have a level playing field. We do not have a level playing field in Canada. It is anything but level when the government interferes in the marketplace with agencies like regional economic development agency like ACOA, western economic, FEDNOR or whatever it is. That creates an artificial intrusion into the marketplace.
When the government intrudes into the marketplace in giving specific grants to particular industries that are not repaid, that create an unfair advantage to the manufacturing agents receiving that money over and against a group that does not. It also raises the question of providing certain kinds of guaranteed loans.
I understand under title 11 in the United States, which is what I believe the member referred to, there have been no defaults on the money that has been granted since 1936.
The significant aspect here is that we know that in Canada there have been many defaults of various kinds of government repayable loans. This is a double whammy on the taxpayer. First the taxpayer is asked to give the grant or subsidy to a particular industry. When that industry defaults, the taxpayer has to pay again.
That is what is wrong with this kind of system. We cannot afford to do that. I encourage the member to go back and reword his motion slightly so that we could support it and recognize that subsidies and grants are anathemas to good business.