Mr. Speaker, I rise today on a question I asked in this House on March 25 of this year. I asked the finance minister if and when he would produce sufficient funds as recommended in the east coast report and the Harrigan report. We are talking about TAGS and the infrastructure money required for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and the other four Atlantic provinces.
With your indulgence, Mr. Speaker, I would like to read to this House a letter signed by five premiers of Atlantic Canada to the Prime Minister dated December 12, 1997:
“We the premiers of Canada's five eastern provinces are writing to express our concerns over the pending expiry of the Atlantic groundfish strategy, TAGS, and to call upon the Government of Canada to immediately establish a successor program to TAGS.
“As you are aware the Atlantic groundfish strategy is due to expire in May 1998. Over the past four years this program has constituted an essential lifeline for over 40,000 individuals and their families from Atlantic Canada and Quebec, individuals who through no fault of their own have seen their livelihoods and those of their families and communities challenged severely by the groundfish crisis.
“TAGS was based on two fundamental premises which have proven incorrect. First, the program was based on the expectation that key groundfish stocks would begin to recover by the time the program was due to end and commercial fisheries could be reopened by this time. This premise has proven incorrect and many of the principal groundfish stocks off Canada's east coast remain incapable of sustaining a commercial fishery.
“Second, the program was expected to bring about labour market adjustment and assist individuals in moving out of occupations tied to the traditional fishery. This has not occurred as funding for training and other adjustment initiatives had to be terminated prematurely in order to meet demands for income support which significantly exceeded initial expectations.
“The net result for these considerations is that many of the fundamental challenges which caused the federal government to establish the original TAGS program remain. Clearly, a comprehensive and effective post TAGS program is essential to the future of individuals and communities throughout Canada's five eastern provinces.
“Through the recent hearings of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, of which I was a member, and through the community hearings held by the Harrigan task force, the people of Atlantic Canada and Quebec have called on the federal government to assume its responsibility for the development and implementation of an effective post-TAGS program.
“They have also stated clearly that the social and economic stress created by the fisheries crisis are continuing to represent a fundamental challenge to the future of many of our rural communities. This challenge cannot be met effectively through normal programs of government.
“Unquestionably the urgent need to establish the effect of the post-TAGS program cannot be ignored. On behalf of the people of Atlantic Canada and Quebec we therefore call upon the government to ensure that an effective TAGS program is developed and implemented immediately”.
This is the response the government gives. Today in the House the Minister of Veterans Affairs spoke to the delegation from Newfoundland and Labrador. Some 3,000 people are to be cut off TAGS on May 8, one year premature of the originally promised date. He said to those people that there would be no program for them. They are finished. They are cut adrift.
I find that absolutely abominable and the Liberals should be ashamed of themselves for that kind of action to people who are in such a crisis.