Outboard motors. That's right. The Bloc Quebecois is not opposed to having big boats registered. However, with this provision—and that is where it makes no sense, and they never convinced me otherwise—they wanted to force people to license and pay fees for pedal boats, rowboats and the flat bottom boats used in wildlife sanctuaries, in northern Quebec, northern Ontario, northern Manitoba and the riding of my NDP colleague from Churchill, who sits with me on the Standing Committee on Transport.
They wanted to charge a fee to register pedal boats, flat bottom boats, rowboats and sailboards. This is absolutely scandalous. I said to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport and member for Hamilton West—he is here and cannot contradict me on this “You are making a huge mistake. You will be charging people for services they are not getting”.
In northern Quebec, around Mistassini, north of there, in Abitibi, north of Schefferville and in all the little spots where the coast guard has no jurisdiction, the government wanted to force people to pay a fee. That is totally crazy.
I direct my remarks to all hunters and fishers in Quebec and everywhere in Canada. I tell them to watch out. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport and member for Hamilton West said in his speech—I wrote down what he said—“We will be removing certain clauses in the bill, particularly those dealing with pleasure craft licensing”.
The Bloc does not criticize for the pleasure of it. When the government uses its head and is reasonable, when it listens to our arguments and accepts them and when it uses common sense, we are obliged to recognize it and support its action.
I took note of the commitment made by the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Transport. I hope he will act on this commitment in committee and withdraw these provisions of the bill, which are an absolute aberration.
You have come to know me since 1993, and I am the kind of person who believes greatly in fair play. I have a background in labour relations. I have worked with labour unions. We have been forced to sit down and talk things out on a number of occasions, but when we were done, we always concluded our meetings with a handshake.
This to tell the hon. parliamentary secretary that, if he keeps his word and does what he publicly committed to do, we will agree to complete second reading, consideration in committee, and to pass this bill at third reading. I give him my party's word on this. However, I want to make sure that the parliamentary secretary will hold his end of the bargain.
Earlier, I urged all hunters and fishers in Quebec and Canada to watch out, as well as all recreational boaters and anyone who has a cottage 15 or 20 kilometres away from their ordinary place of residence, has a small craft or canoe and enjoys a leisurely ride on the lake after dinner with the wife and kids or the family mutt.
That is when the government realized I hope it made no sense to charge a fee to these people, to start asking them to register a paddle boat, a canoe or other small craft in areas not even patrolled by the coast guard. Investigators would have had to be hired to take an inventory of all these crafts, which would have cost more than the fees collected. The government acted sensibly and paid attention to our representations, I am grateful for that.
However, people should watch out. The government may try again, differently, under the cover of a different bill. This government can hide things from any of us. As it stands, this fee has been lifted, or so they said, but we must remain vigilant.
Furthermore I find it unfortunate that there is nothing in this bill on shipping, an important industry, to encourage shipbuilding. The Bloc Quebecois will have to think up a strategy in this respect.
As we know, Quebec is the only province that streamlined its shipyards. Before the Conservatives came to power in 1984, we had three shipyards in Quebec. The Conservatives said we had to streamline our shipyards' operations in order to be competitive.
Quebec closed two of Canada's three largest shipyards. It agreed to shut down Canadian Vickers, in Montreal, and MIL, in Sorel, and to keep only the MIL Davie shipyard, in Lévis, across from Quebec City, and some other very successful shipyards that can compete on the international market. These include the Verreault shipyard, in Les Méchins, and Mr. Hamel's shipyard, on l'Île-aux-Coudres.
So, Quebec is the only province to have acted thus. Before the Conservatives came to office, Quebec accounted for 50% of Canada's shipbuilding activities. Following the streamlining exercise that took place under the Conservatives, Quebec now accounts for only 33% of shipbuilding activities in the country.
What is deplorable is that, while Quebec was streamlining its shipbuilding activities, the Conservatives gave subsidies to help open about 10 shipyards in the maritimes, including St. Mary's, in Newfoundland. That shipyard could not even complete the construction of drilling rigs, which it began some years ago, and it had to send them to St. John Shipbuilding or to Halifax. This is a double standard, with one treatment for Quebec and another one for the rest of Canada.
All this took place under the Conservatives. I could give examples of things that happened under the Liberals, but 40 minutes is not long enough to do so. The bottom line is: Conservative or Liberal, it is six of one and half a dozen of the other.
We reserve the right to move amendments to encourage shipbuilding. There are people in Quebec who have clear ideas on the issue. We already had the opportunity to meet Mrs. Verreault, from the Verreault Navigation shipyard, in Les Méchins.
We would have liked the federal government to follow the Government of Quebec's lead. The Quebec government's budget, brought down by Bernard Landry on May 9, 1996, if memory serves, contained tax incentives for ship building in Quebec. But there is nothing from the federal government.
Before wrapping up, I am going to go back to something I mentioned earlier, something I am happy to repeat. This bill modernizes the administrative and financial frameworks of the pension plan administered by the Corporation of Lower St. Lawrence Pilots for and below the Harbour of Quebec.
Pilots' groups had long called for this. Bloc Quebecois members can only indicate our approval of this provision. I do not think the pilots were asking for charity. Maritime pilots, particularly those on the Lower St. Lawrence whom I know a bit better, are proud folks. They are professionals, people who like their work, who are concerned about maritime safety and the environment. What they were asking for was not charity. All they wanted was for their pension plan to move into the next century. This was an old provision that needed to be updated.
In conclusion, I note the undertakings given by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport and member for Hamilton West—now there is a long title—and I want to repeat that we will co-operate in committee, if he does as he says. I have no reason to think he will do otherwise.
I will even go a bit further. I offer the government the opportunity to skip the recorded vote on this bill. If there is agreement, we could, at the end of debate this morning, deem the bill agreed to on division at second reading, which would move things ahead more quickly and allow this bill to be referred to committee as soon as possible.