Debates of Oct. 30th, 1997

Newfoundland Unemployment

[Mark Muise, Progressive Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think that certain respect has to be shown to people who are being addressed in the House. I believe that would only be fair and I would ask you to rule on that.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I assume that the hon. member for Calgary West in his remarks is referring to the hon. member for Sherbrooke. If so, I think he would want to refer to him as the hon. member for Sherbrooke rather than by some other nomenclature.

[Rob Anders, Reform, Calgary West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, the leader of the fifth party was in a tag team with John Crosbie to hide the fiasco that was the Atlantic fisheries when there was overfishing. The Tories were more than willing to pull the wool over their own eyes and over the eyes of Atlantic Canadians.

Mr. Crosbie at the time knew that if the fishing continued, there indeed would be overfishing in the Atlantic fisheries, but he knew it would cost him his seat. It would cost him votes in Atlantic Canada so they let it happen.

The leader of the fifth party—and some call him curly—went ahead and ignored that. They worked in tandem.

Then the Department of Fisheries and Oceans made recommendations which were ignored. That is another study.

Add it all up. There has been study after study after study. Indeed I will say that both the Tory and Liberal governments know how to do studies, of that I am convinced. I have no problem saying that. However, I believe that the people of Atlantic Canada are getting tired of studies. They have been studied to death. They have had all the studies they need to have. They are looking for a few solutions.

Let us look at what some of the retiring politicians of Atlantic Canada have had to say with regard to a solution for the problem, rather than studying it again.

Let us look at the issue of taxes. Atlantic Canada, including Newfoundland where the Tory member is from, has taxes above and beyond that of the rest of the provinces in this country. One has to wonder whether or not the taxes are so high because they go to pay for the highest salary for a premier in this country. That is right. Brian Tobin draws in $150,000 a year. He is the highest paid premier in the country and the people in Newfoundland pay the highest taxes in the country. One has to wonder whether there is a correlation, especially when they are paying him a pension of $3.4 million as he sits as the premier of Newfoundland. Maybe that is where some of the taxes are going.

Let us look at what Frank McKenna, a good Liberal, had to say about this. On his retirement from politics he said to cut taxes. The federal government has been squandering money in Atlantic Canada for years. Why not save the money that it is squandering in terms of all these different types of programs because they do not seem to be lowering the unemployment rate. It has not worked over the last two decades. Why not give Atlantic Canadians lower taxes? That might actually create growth and stimulate jobs.

As a matter of fact there is another study that can be tossed onto the other ones that the Tories would like to initiate. This is one by University of Moncton Professors Donald Savoie and Maurice Beaudin who were looking at the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. They concluded that unemployment insurance had killed the entrepreneurial spirit in Atlantic Canada.

Once again I am afraid that I have to point to the previous Tory record on this. It was under their government that people could work for 10 weeks and collect 42 weeks of benefits in Newfoundland. To have that as a government policy and assume it is not going to kill the entrepreneurial drive is foolish. However it was the Tory policy that wiped out the entrepreneurial spirit.

Then we also saw what happened with the Liberals across the way and the Atlantic groundfish strategy. They assumed that by subsidizing people to continue fishing or to take them away from fishing when there were too many fishers with the technology that was in the marketplace at the time, that it would somehow solve the problem. Well no it did not solve the problem of overfishing because a lot of those people still have not had their licenses retired. Now we are back to square one. It is tweedledum and tweedledee. The Tory or Liberal solution, there is none.

We can also look at what the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has said about the region. Peter O'Brien, the Atlantic Canada director, along with the premier of New Brunswick, Frank McKenna—

[Mark Muise, Progressive Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, on a question of privilege.

I think the hon. member should stop blaming the past and help us find constructive ways for the people of Newfoundland. That is the point I wanted to make, Mr. Speaker.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I am sorry, but I do not believe this is a question of privilege or a point of order. It is a point of debate.

[Rob Anders, Reform, Calgary West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that is so like the Tories to have caused the problem, to have started the fire and when they start to feel the heat of it what do they do? They say that it is a point of privilege and not a matter of debate. Well the world's smallest violin gets played for them.

The premier of New Brunswick, Frank McKenna said the federal government should stop giving grants to Atlantic Canadian businesses and use the savings to stimulate businesses in the region with lower tax rates. Sounds pretty logical to me. If I were operating a business in Atlantic Canada and I was taxed at the highest tax rates in the country, I would certainly consider moving if I could, because what is the point of keeping a business in an area where I would be taxed to death.

Both of those parties are complicit, indeed they are. Let us look at some of the taxes that these two wonderful governments, the Tory government and the Liberal government, have brought to the people of Atlantic Canada. Right now the federal government and its finance minister are more than happy to brag about the overpayment of taxes in terms of employment insurance. Right now there is a surplus of about $15 billion that they have sucked out of the Canadian economy and they brag that the budget has been balanced. It has been done on the backs of those people who are not getting work because of the high employment insurance tax.

Once again the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has called for a 25% cut in the EI premiums because it would create more jobs. Even Department of Finance studies indicate that high payroll taxes cut and restrict the number of jobs. But no, we do not hear those solutions coming from the Tories. Instead they try to say that the hon. member should be quiet and not mention their past blemished record. They did not have solutions then and they do not have solutions now. All they can propose is a study. Unfortunately a study is not going to cut it.

Then we look at something else that is coming down the pipe and it is payroll taxes once again, the Canada pension plan. The government is going to suck out $11 billion and it is proud to do it with a 9.9% roughly 10% tax. It thinks that somehow that is going to create jobs in Atlantic Canada. Surprise, surprise. Once again it is a failed government program that is not going to create jobs in Atlantic Canada. More taxes do not create jobs.

At the end of the day when we look through all of this, what do we have here? We have Tories who with their ministers in their previous government ignored environmental studies. We have people who kept taxes high. We have people who sucked off multimillion dollar pensions.

Then we look across the way hoping for another solution and we look to the Liberals. There we have the harmonized sales tax. They thought that by raising value added taxes it would be a benefit. They kept EI premiums high by taking out $15 billion more than they should have and they thought that would do good. Then they raised the Canada pension plan and they are going to be taking $11 billion out on that.

We have these two parties both proposing studies and raising taxes when they were in power. The Tories want a special study, a special committee to look at it and the Liberals have hired Eugene Harrigan to look after the problem that they created with the Atlantic groundfish strategy. Once again both of them are proposing more, new and expensive studies, both of them are raising and keeping taxes high and they expect that somehow the problem is going to be looked after.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, congratulations for properly identifying my riding, which comprises four regional county municipalities.

I am happy to rise to speak to the motion of the member for St. John's East, which provides:

That, in the opinion of this House, a special committee should be established to study the severe unemployment problem in Newfoundland and Labrador.

I think we can see what the hon. member is trying to o, which is to draw the attention of the House to the unemployment problems in his region. This is fully justified.

When we take a closer look, we might ask ourselves whether the unemployment problem in Canada is not much greater than that. When we look at eastern Quebec—particularly the Lower St. Lawrence and the Gaspé, which are of concern to me—all of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and not only issues of areas but of categories, such as young people or older workers aged 50 or 55, who are affected by technological change in business, we realize it is perhaps not a special committee on employment that we need in Canada, but a national priority on the part of the Canadian government.

We heard over and over again about the need to reduce the deficit for four years, and everyone agreed that this was true. Now, the number one problem in Canada is unemployment. We have this situation where there are no jobs for unemployed workers, either because they do not meet job requirements or because there are simply too few jobs to go around because, in our society, productivity gains often end up in the pockets of the very wealthy and seldom in the hands of people who could use this money to create employment.

I am inclined to say that the good will displayed by the hon. member needs to be spread around. The unemployment situation in Canada is not the result of natural law. It must be remembered that, in the late 19th century, the Atlantic region was an autonomous region.

Is it the result of power struggles then? I think so. Just think of how Canada was built. Twenty-five or 30 years ago, there was a very clear understanding in Canada. Ontario was to be developed to be the home of the manufacturing industry and related jobs. As for the people in the maritimes and Quebec, who supplied the natural resources, since they could not be given jobs year round for lack of an appropriate regional diversification policy, they were given transfer payments. This worked pretty well until the tap was turned off.

Things are topsy turvey in this country. Instead of diversifying economic activities in the regions that depended on natural resources and then imposing stricter standards, if necessary, it was decided to impose stricter standards and not to diversify the regional economy.

This led to the results that we know. We are on the verge of a social disaster. There are people in our ridings who do not have the proper training for the available jobs, who are looking for work, and who are unhappy. They can no longer work enough weeks to qualify for employment insurance benefits to last until their next job. They have to go through the spring gap, a period of 10 or 15 weeks without any income.

What can we do to correct this situation? First, there must be a clear and specific political commitment on the part of the federal government to the effect that it will indeed make the fight against unemployment a priority.

Recommendations are being made in that regard. Let us not forget that two weeks ago the human resources development committee of this House passed a resolution to say to the finance committee and the Minister of Finance that employment and employment insurance must be given priority in the next budget. A majority of opposition members prevailed, so that the human resources development committee will have to convey this message to the finance committee. This step must lead to concrete measures.

Unfortunately, the proposal before us today is not a votable item. I would like to see many more motions on which members could vote. We could have amended it, based on the human resources committee's recommendation, and arranged to have Parliament require the federal government's priority for the coming year, when it concocts its budget, to be the reduction of unemployment.

If that choice were made, if that were put on the table, it would automatically result in the need to develop policies to diversify our regional economies. It would mean that, since priority was being given to employment throughout Canada, there would be a way of seeing that forestry workers who no longer had work in the forests could find jobs in wood processing. We should have programs to help companies develop these new products that can be sold on the American and European markets, and elsewhere.

This means that, in the dairy sector, we could place greater emphasis on exporting our milk, creating new products and developing specialty niches. It means that, in the tourism sector, we could overhaul the program the federal government has just created.

It has just created a $500 million fund to help major tourist centres compete better internationally. This is very interesting where centres already exist, such as at Mont-Tremblant.

As a member representing a region where the tourism industry is still growing, where there are not necessarily any existing infrastructures, I can tell you that what we need are more flexible programs that will meet these regions' needs.

If the federal government gave priority to jobs, a motion like this one today would not be necessary because that is what would be required on a government-wide basis. This would mean that when the government's procurement policies are developed, there would be an assessment to ensure that the impacts are desirable, sufficient and in keeping with the taxes paid by each region of Canada.

Tomorrow morning, if we did a profile on that, if we went around the national capital, around Ontario, we would see that they are not doing too badly when it comes to having their share of these programs. If you come in our area, try to have one of your small or medium size firms register with the computerized bidding system and see if it will succeed in obtaining a contract from the Department of National Defence. It is quite an experience because, often, there are already many contracts, many people who have been tendering for two, three, ten, twenty or thirty years. It is the person who will get the contract who ends up drafting the call for tenders. It is much easier, in such cases, to get the contract.

It is actions such as these, in all areas, that the government should be promoting. For that to happen , there must be a commitment from the Prime Minister, from the government, saying that yes, our priority will be the fight against unemployment; yes, in ten years, we will assess Quebeckers, Canadians, and we will see where we are at that time.

We must evaluate how we are utilizing our human resources as quickly as possible during this mandate. Are we making full use of the potential our young people have to offer? Are we making full use of the potential of people in their thirties who can only rely on one contract at a time? This is another aspect of the unemployment issue. We must also look at how other types of income can be provided to people who do not now have sufficient annual income from their jobs.

Two weeks ago, we learned that the number of self-employed workers was increasing dramatically in Quebec and in Canada. More and more people are creating their own jobs, they do not have an employer, and they are not eligible for employment insurance.

Why can we not innovate and allow these people to become eligible? In this way, they would have a chance to continue working in these areas, to develop their entrepreneurial skills and also to benefit a little from a social security net that would protect them from a lack of jobs or a lack of contracts.

This motion was tabled in a good faith and deals with a problem found in the regions that the member mentions. But this is also a problem that exists thoughout Canada.

I would like to add that people from western Canada should refrain from passing judgment on how people from eastern Canada or elsewhere did things. What we are doing today could be done to look at all kinds of ways. The grain transportation subsidies, which existed for some years in the west, could be looked at for instance. I do not think they should judge. What needs to be looked at instead is how to ensure that each government, as long as we are still part of the system, has a proper mastery of its tools, how we could have a government machine that responds more quickly to requests.

I will conclude with this point. As long as the federal government brings in such things as the youth strategy, which parallels similar programs already in place in a province, and forces young entrepreneurs to go knocking on two separate doors for a solution to their problems, we are not on the right track. The right track, and this is perfectly clear, requires areas of jurisdiction to be clear, economic markets to be wide open, and we must show confidence in the potential of the people in our regions.

Ottawa is not where the solutions to unemployment lie, they are in each of the regions of Quebec and of Canada. People must be able to lay these solutions out on the table and have them heard, they must be made a priority, and we must be assessed according to the way we respond to that priority. This is the challenge we are giving to the present government.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am speaking today in support of Motion No. 177, which states:

That, in the opinion of this House, a special committee should be established to study the severe unemployment problem in Newfoundland and Labrador.

At the same time, I would add New Brunswick, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and, going even further afield, British Columbia, on the Pacific coast, with all its fisheries problems.

Before I proceed with my speech, I would like to make a few comments to my colleague in the Reform Party. He spoke about Frank McKenna and said we should listen to what Frank McKenna has said.

I will say this in his language to make sure he will not have to get the translation. For the 10 years Frank McKenna was in power in New Brunswick I never once heard him say that he did not need any programs. However, on the same week that he took his resignation he said he did not need those programs and now we have to break the tax. Maybe this was because he wanted the support of the Reform Party out west if he were ever to become the prime minister of the country. I can tell the House he never said that when he was in power.

When we talk about the reduction of taxes to health and how much the government is spending, the Reform Party is in the wrong place. If Reformers want to save money for the country, they should follow what their leader did before the election when he said he would not move into Stornoway or use a limousine. Now they are using taxpayers' money to live at Stornoway. As if Stornoway was not good enough, it needed over $100,000 for repairs.

Clearly, unemployment rates in Newfoundland and Labrador have reached critical levels, despite the government's promises to invest in manpower training and economic restructuring.

Like the Conservatives before them, the Liberals cut social services and deregulated industry. The result? The rich get richer, but the ordinary folks continue to suffer.

The Liberals were elected on a promise of hope. Instead they embraced the idea that we could no longer afford the things we value as Canadians. Unemployment and the economic insecurity that goes with it are facts of life that we have to accept.

Accepting the insecurity that goes along with unemployment is out of the question. Never will the NDP support the Liberal view, which ignores human suffering. Never will the NDP say that nothing more can be done for the workers in this country.

Recently, in his first speech in the Atlantic region since the election that saw the number of Liberal seats there drop from 31 to 11, the Prime Minister had the nerve to say that cuts were inevitable and that people in the Atlantic provinces were going to thank him. For what?

I doubt that the thousands of unemployed are ready to thank the Prime Minister for the cuts that have plunged them into terrible poverty.

In his speech, the Prime Minister also admitted that the Atlantic provinces had suffered the most from federal cuts. He said that, because we depended more on the federal government than other regions in the country, we had naturally, yes naturally, been at a disadvantage.

When is this government going to wake up and realize that entire communities are suffering because of the Liberals' failure to act? The problems in Newfoundland are problems that can also be found in my region of New Brunswick. People want to work but cannot find employment because the region's economy has not recovered from the fisheries crisis.

The TAGS program was supposed to eliminate this problem and make it possible to reinvest in manpower, to support communities financially, in order to diversify the economy and alleviate suffering. But, as with everything the Liberals have undertaken, it was just a knee-jerk reaction lacking long term vision.

This program was so badly managed that cheques were distributed to people who had been dead for some time. If a private company had been run like this, it would have gone belly up in no time.

Now the government comes to us and says “Sorry folks, but we have run out of money, and we have to close down the program”. Can a government give this kind of answer when these people have paid taxes for years and devoted their energy to the economic development of their community, particularly when the crisis they find themselves in is again due to the government's mismanagement?

Well, enough is enough. People do not just want to survive. All they are asking is to be able to work and earn a decent living.

The TAGS program did nothing to build on Atlantic Canada's strengths; on the fishermen's tenacity, determination and expertise; on the fishing culture and heritage; or on the community's determination to survive.

As elected representatives, we must offer constructive criticism of these types of government programs. We have a duty to tell the Prime Minister it is not enough to help his friends the bankers; he must also think about ordinary people.

What people from the Atlantic region need is a proactive approach that takes into account the structural problems of regional economies. This is why it is so important to establish a parliamentary committee to look at the unemployment crisis. It is the first step toward a proactive approach that will identify the region's fundamental problems, thus making us aware of the communities' real concerns, instead of applying a band-aid solution.

People in Newfoundland also need short term projects to fill the void left by the expiry of TAGS. They need an early retirement program for older workers who will probably not have an opportunity to re-enter the labour market. This is also true for people in New Brunswick, in the Gaspe Peninsula and in Nova Scotia.

The NDP believes we must tackle the serious issue of unemployment right now. It is possible to set up long term job creation policies that will ensure decent salaries for families. We believe a full employment policy must the government's top priority.

As we know, job creation remains Canadians' first concern. There must be a more balanced approach than the ones proposed by the Liberals, the Conservatives and the Reformers. These are irresponsible approaches, as they never take into account the impact of the policy on small Atlantic communities.

They always come up with proposals that serve Toronto bankers at the expense of fishers in Harbour Grace.

There is another way of acknowledging the suffering of people, which is to offer solutions to alleviate it. Newfoundland is not an isolated case. We must face the real problems that ail the Atlantic region. This government must have the courage to put forward proactive measures for the short and the long term.

The people of Newfoundland deserve to have a courageous government that is listening to them. Is this government able to fulfil their needs and meet their expectations?

[Mark Muise, Progressive Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I support a study of the problem in the EI program as my colleague from St. John's East has suggested, but I propose that it be for all of Atlantic Canada.

Many people in my riding of West Nova are employed in the resource sector which means seasonal jobs. The negative changes to the EI program have caused a serious and devastating impact on our local economy. If payroll taxes were reduced, specifically EI premiums, it would permit business to create jobs and therefore reduce the dependency on the EI program. That would be very positive for our area.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I should advise the House that if the hon. member for St. John's East speaks now, he will close the debate.

[Norman E. Doyle, Progressive Conservative, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I thank all hon. members for their submissions in this debate.

I reiterate that the unemployment problem in Newfoundland is devastating. The official unemployment rate in Newfoundland is higher than anywhere else in Canada. For a number of years it has had a 20% or 21% official unemployment rate. However, the fact of the matter is that an awful lot of communities in Newfoundland and Labrador have unemployment rates of 60%, 70% and 75%. A number of communities are shutting down all along the coast of Newfoundland, which is causing a lot of social unrest among people. This is an issue that has been with us and on the agenda for many years. It just does not go away.

I appreciate the submission of the government member. I am well aware that half the provincial budget of Newfoundland and Labrador comes from federal transfer payment. We are well aware of it and very grateful for it. I have heard much of the rhetoric before, but with respect we need creative solutions to this devastating problem. We have to look at the problem in its own right.

The hon. member for Calgary West stood a few minutes ago in this place and talked about this problem as if it were some kind of joke. If the member for Calgary West thinks it is a joke, if he thinks that a 20% unemployment problem in Newfoundland is a joke, he had better think again because it is no joke. The member is a joke but this is no joke.

The member for Calgary West has nothing to add to the debate. He had the nerve to stand in his place today and say to the people of Newfoundland that maybe they should move or that maybe the people of Atlantic Canada should go away.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The hon. member for Calgary West on a question of privilege.

[Rob Anders, Reform, Calgary West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, nowhere in my speech did I ever mention that the people in Atlantic Canada should move.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Order. I am afraid that is not a question of privilege. The hon. member for St. John's East.

[Norman E. Doyle, Progressive Conservative, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Calgary West might think this is a joke, but it is no joke. I can tell him that.

He said a moment ago in his speech that the smallest violin plays for Atlantic Canada. What a terrible remark to make to the people who are moving away from Newfoundland in droves every year. Some 7,500 people per year are moving out of Newfoundland. All we hear from the member for Calgary West of the Reform Party is that the smallest violin plays for Atlantic Canada. What a shameful remark. The hon. member has a red face now, but I think when he gets back to his office and he gets a call from his leader he will have a much redder face. What a terrible remark for somebody to make.

If the leader of the Reform Party had looked after it himself instead of costing the taxpayers of Canada millions of dollars, there might have been something we could have donated to the unemployed people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

We hear jokes from the Reform Party about the unemployment problem in Atlantic Canada, but we do not hear any creative solutions.

As I said a moment ago, one creative solution, and I know I do not have a lot of time to talk about it, is to change the equalization formula for Newfoundland so that we can take advantage of some of our resource based industries. We are waiting for Voisey's Bay to be developed. That industry is worth billions and billions of dollars. We have to realize that we will have to give away one dollar in equalization payments for every dollar we raise in taxes and royalties.

In summing up, if we had a fairer equalization formula applied to Newfoundland as it applies to its resource based industries, we would be a whole lot better off.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired and the item is dropped from the Order Paper.

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

[Lynn Myers, Liberal, Waterloo—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my riding of Waterloo—Wellington is a mix of urban, rural and suburban areas. Approximately 30% of the wealth of my riding is generated as a result of agriculture and agribusiness. Needless to say, farming is very important to the economic well-being of Waterloo—Wellington.

Farmers throughout Canada are very concerned about our supply management system and what might happen to it. Over the years farmers have come to rely upon the supply management system to ensure the viability of the family farm.

It is a system which has brought stability to agriculture throughout Canada and it is a system which has ensured a reasonable rate of return for farmers as a result.

There are always those who would strip away the supply management system, so it is important for the federal government to take a lead role in protecting the interests of farmers by protecting the supply management system wherever and whenever possible.

This protection often is reactive. For example, the government will have to defend our system before a tribunal as a result of the American challenge. Government also needs to be proactive. Therefore the next meeting of the World Trade Organization will be crucial in this matter.

Would the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food outline exactly what steps the government will be taking at this meeting to maintain a viable and strong supply management system?

[John Harvard, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question of the hon. member for Waterloo—Wellington. I am well aware of his support of his constituents who count on a strong supply management system.

When the government took office in 1993 the negotiations of the Uruguay round were just coming to a conclusion. The issue of how to protect supply managed industries was front and centre in those negotiation. We moved quickly and decisively to achieve very substantial tariff protection for those industries, protection that has allowed supply management to continue operating effectively in Canada.

We defended our rights to impose those tariffs when the U.S. challenged us under NAFTA. We were successful in that case because we all worked together, federal and provincial governments and industry.

We are seeking the same kind of collaboration as we prepare for the next round of WTO agriculture negotiations. We are working closely with all stakeholders to identify Canada's agrifood trade interests. We will defend those interests in the Canadian position when the negotiations begin in 1999.

Our strength is in a clear and united position representing the interests of all parts of the Canadian agrifood system. In collaboration with industry and the provinces, that is exactly the kind of position we propose to develop in time for the 1999 WTO negotiations.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24.

(The House adjourned at 6.25 p.m.)