Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-44, the Canada Marine Act.
I rise to speak wearing various hats. I rise as Bloc Quebecois transportation critic in 1993, 1994 and 1995. I also rise as a representative of a people who, on the eve of what I hope is an imminent election, want to demonstrate the role of the Bloc Quebecois in Ottawa.
Quebecers watching us from the comfort of their living rooms will be more than able to understand-and I assure you Quebecers do understand-the importance of the Bloc Quebecois here in the House of Commons in Ottawa. If, in 1993, they had sent back 74
Liberal MPs out of a total of 75, as happened in the Trudeau era, there would not have been a block of MPs to defend Quebec's interests.
Once again, in this bill, we have solid evidence of the victories won by the Bloc Quebecois for Quebecers.
I also want to congratulate my colleague, the member for Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup, for the excellent work he did on this bill, assisted by the hon. member for Blainville-Deux-Montagnes. I think that what we have before us is almost the final product, but hours and hours of hearings and committee work went into the amendments we see today. I would therefore like to congratulate them.
As the previous two Bloc Quebecois speakers have mentioned, the Bloc Quebecois will not be opposing this bill in principle, but once again, as the member for Blainville-Deux-Montagnes has just pointed out, everything depends on the government's receptiveness to our amendments.
But I should begin by addressing the whole issue of the commercialization of ports. I remember that, in 1985, the first goal of the Standing Committee on Transport, made up of a majority of Liberal members, was to replace or abolish Ports Canada. I see that the minister is listening to my speech and I am very pleased to tell him that the decision to terminate Ports Canada was an excellent one.
I remember putting questions to the transport committee about expense accounts. So, at the outset, I wanted to say that we wholeheartedly agree with the dismantling of Ports Canada. However, the Liberal majority sitting on the transport committee supported the establishment of some kind of ports secretariat which would have been based here in Ottawa, another monitoring agency.
Fortunately, the bill before the House provides for the commercialization of these ports. So, no structure will have to be set up. There will be independent entities. The board will be made of a majority of local stakeholders, that is people who are familiar with the needs and the concerns of the region and the local ports. Again, this is an interesting development.
Once again, with regard to the role played by the Bloc Quebecois, members of the Bloc who sat on the transport committee managed to have included in the Canadian port authorities network two ports that were originally forgotten, namely the port of Trois-Rivières, thanks to representations made by my colleague, the Bloc member for Trois-Rivières, and Saguenay port, located in the federal riding of Chicoutimi, thanks to representations made by my colleague, the member for Chicoutimi, and also by another colleague, the late member for Jonquière, André Caron, who had replaced me as transport critic. It is a victory for the Bloc Quebecois.
Another victory is the retention of pilotage on the St. Lawrence River. I had the opportunity to make several speeches in this House in which I asked a simple question: can we afford another Exxon Valdez on the Montmagny archipelago, in the Cap Tourmente wildlife preserve in my riding, along the shore of Île d'Orléans? Can we afford that?
I can tell you that it is thanks to the tenacity of the members of the Bloc Quebecois and also to representations made by the pilots of the Lower St. Lawrence that this bill provides for the retention of pilotage. At least, it will not be reviewed until December 31, 1997, and this is why I wanted to stress this interesting aspect of the bill.
My time is running out and the last point I would like to make is that our party plans to vote against this bill at the third reading stage because, even though we do agree with some elements of the bill, we object to some of its shortcomings. For example, nothing in this bill reflects a determination to maintain or promote shipbuilding.
I made some proposals and submitted some amendments concerning tax laws so that shipbuilding could be encouraged and even developed in Quebec and Canada, but the bill contains nothing to that effect. Once again, I would like to stress that the Quebec region shipyard now called Industries Davie, formerly MIL Davie Inc., is still waiting for the federal government's position on its recovery plan and its future.
Workers at MIL Davie have done their part. They literally butchered whole sections of their collective agreement to allow MIL Davie to compete with shipyards in Korea, China or elsewhere. It is now profitable, the rest is up to the federal government.
It should be remembered that only Quebec has been affected by the downsizing of shipbuilding. We saw the demise of Canadian Vickers, in Montreal, and Marine Industries, in Sorel; MIL Davies is the only shipyard left in Quebec. While shipyards were closing in Quebec, 10 or 11 were being built in the maritimes with the help of the Conservatives.
That is why, in the next election, we will keep telling Quebecers that Tories and Grits are all the same and that the only solution is to support the Bloc Quebecois members, who will go to Ottawa to stand up for their interests, as we did with this bill.