Mr. Speaker, out of respect for the Chair and this House, I retract that last statement.
They do not have the courage to stand by what they wrote in the report. Their own minister will not even go down to meet with these people. The fact is that my beautiful province of Nova Scotia, the other three provinces of Atlantic Canada and Quebec have been devastated by the policies of this government.
Another thing this government has done with its so-called TAGS adjustment program is to off-load the responsibility for the care of these people onto the backs of the provinces.
On September 1 over 9,000 people in Atlantic Canada had to apply for social assistance. Before that they were either on the TAGS adjustment program or they were working, gainfully employed, but because of these policies they were destroyed by this government.
These people are now the responsibility of the provinces. What will the provinces do? They will download that responsibility to the municipalities. The municipalities will not be able to bear the burden. We have the result of the town of Canso. The people throw up their hands and say “We cannot handle it any more. We have to claim civic bankruptcy in the new year”. That is an absolute disgrace.
In 1995 we were in Catalina, Newfoundland, and there were 320 kids in the school. We were there in 1997 and it was down to 125. The town of La Scie, Newfoundland, does not have a volunteer fire department any more because all the guys left. There is no work for them any more.
I do not know how these Liberal people can sleep at night. Obviously they live in Ontario and Quebec. They do not live in the areas that I represent. Even the Liberal member for Labrador had tears in his eyes when we were talking to people in his area. These people are devastated and all he wants to do is help them.
I give him, the member for Malpeque, the member for Miramichi and all of the other members who are from that region the opportunity to stand up once and for all for their people in Atlantic Canada and vote for concurrence in the east coast report.