Madam Speaker, in October I asked the minister about the Liberals' failed Atlantic groundfish strategy or TAGS program.
Canadians had better hope the TAGS program is not typical of Liberal strategic brilliance because if our well-being were to rest on that kind of strategy, we would be in bad shape.
The TAGS program failed miserably to provide a meaningful future for Atlantic fishers. Now just released is the government's post-TAGS review report.
Mr. Harrigan and his team have provided a comprehensive and forthright report. It contains no praise for the government. The report clearly reinforces the scathing comments of Canada's auditor general on the terrible mismanagement of the TAGS program. It also confirms what Canadians in Atlantic Canada have been trying to get through to this government for years. After four years of so-called government assistance, and after spending nearly $2 billion, there remain the same problems today as four years ago, only now with a couple of new ones thrown in.
First, there was supposed to be job training so that fishers could get into new areas of employment. Very little, nearly not as much as was promised, was spent on this job training. In fact, the job training that was done was not linked to any realistic employment opportunities.
Second, there was supposed to be a license buyout to remove capacity from the industry. Virtually none of that was accomplished. Now we have thousands of people dependent on TAGS for income support. We have income support that was promised suddenly being pulled so that people who had planned and had done their financial forecasts on this income are being left in the lurch by a government saying sorry, we know we promised that this program would stay on but now we are not going to do it.
We have a situation where people on TAGS who want to leave the industry to find meaningful work cannot do that. We are not giving any meaningful assistance. The community development projects that were supposed to be funded lacked any kind of realism and failed to use the talents and expertise from the community.
We have a real issue of government ineptness and gross mismanagement not only in the past of the government fishery, but now a lack of vision for meaningful alternatives for those who were affected by the government's incompetence. Here we have both Liberal and past Tory governments politicizing all their decisions and resulting only in waste, inefficiency, personal hardship and loss of personal independence by reducing people to rely on government handouts when they would rather work.
After months to reflect on their failed policies and programs following the loss of the Atlantic fisheries critical resource base, I ask the government whether it has any idea what people's lives are going to look like after the TAGS program is over?