Mr. Speaker, I wanted to actually speak on Motion No. 1 regarding the make-up of the port authority boards. There is a port back home I want to mention. I hope the parliamentary secretary will have some patience here because I will come back to the motion.
This has to do with Bayside port, which is a small port on the St. Croix River, an international body of tidal waters. It is one of the few profitable ports in Canada. In fact last year that little port made a profit for the Government of Canada of about half a million dollars. It is blessed with deep water, close access to U.S. markets and so on and so forth. It is ideally situated, if you wish, and blessed with a good geography.
The reason I am concerned about this port in terms of privatization is simply that there is a group out of New York and New Jersey that wants to take over this port. All members on both sides of the House have to be concerned about this because the group that wants to take over this port is a large conglomerate from the United States. They are actually in the sand and gravel or aggregate business. They are big, extremely big.
The reason we are concerned in New Brunswick is that the aggregate business in the United States is controlled by a group of families. In fact, the shipping of aggregate is controlled by a group of families who are notorious, and many people refer to them as organized crime. It is an industry that is practically impossible for a Canadian company to break into. The only way to get into the aggregate business if you want to ship into New York or New Jersey is to be owned by the Americans. The Americans have set their sights on taking over this port.
I know the parliamentary secretary will find this very interesting. On May 20, 1997—and as the minister just said a few minutes ago, the legislation died on the Order Paper and obviously was not passed before the last election—these people from New Jersey had a plan to take over the port.
Now this is interesting. Please hon. parliamentary secretary listen very intently to this. They hired two former members of Parliament as consultants to expedite the transfer of that port into the hands of these Americans. The two former members of Parliament, one of them being Paul Zed, the other Doug Young, a former minister of transport, were hired to lobby the federal government to allow the transfer of that port into their hands. Not only did they attempt to get the port into their hands, in doing so they presented a 40 page document to the province of New Brunswick to assist them in expediting the transfer of the port into their hands.
We know that they hired two former members of Parliament to assist them, but they did not stop there. They hired a former member of the New Brunswick legislature and a former cabinet minister from the province of New Brunswick to assist them on the provincial side.