Mr. Speaker, after rising in the House on March 16 to ask the government about the future plans for Devco I was attacked by the Minister of Natural Resources who, when asked by a fellow government member about the Liberal position on Devco, the Donkin mine and other issues of grave concern to the people of Cape Breton Island, resorted to the worst form of heckling and insult.
I was accused of not thinking of my constituents, but of trying to save the skin of the NDP. Regardless of what the hon. member thought my motives to be, it was clear that I had no need to worry about saving the skin of my party, as we are all aware of the stunning defeat suffered by the Liberal government on March 24 and of the NDP's rise to official opposition status.
Perhaps the minister and the House would also be interested to know that of the seats on Cape Breton Island that went NDP, the two with the biggest majorities are in the areas where coal mining has been the way of life for hundreds of years. Those are the people who stood on March 24 and rejected the party that has hurt them and their communities, which has refused to listen and to speak honestly.
I hope that this latest political rejection of the Liberal Party will be noted by this government and we can now start a new era in relations between this federal administration and the people of Cape Breton, an era where justified and factually supported questions are no longer dismissed as fear mongering, where questions are answered instead of questioners being attacked, and where the people of my island are treated as equals with those from any part of this great country.
I hope that this new era will begin. As the weeks pass I grow more and more concerned that the process of closing down the coal industry is continuing with increasing speed. Since I last spoke on this issue, the international coal piers have been closed, shutting Devco coal off from the export market for at least two years.
It is easy for the government to comment on Devco's inability to make a profit, but it should also be critical when the crown corporation is cutting itself off from valuable future markets. While more and more miners are being placed on indefinite layoff, the latest Devco revelation comes in a letter I received this week from the tripartite task force on fires and explosions in coal mines that expresses grave concerns over the shutdown of the coal research lab in Sydney earlier this year. The lab, which was urged to expand its activities in the report on the Westray disaster and whose necessity has been reinforced by the recent coal mine disasters across the former Soviet Union, was closed down despite objections from the industry and from the task force, which itself is a government funded body.
We have a government body questioning and condemning the actions of the government. More than that, in a copy of a letter from 1996 included with the pleas to restore funding to the research lab, the former chair of the task force talks of how he has been made aware of a government plan to shut down the lab if it cannot be privatized.
The orderly shutdown of Devco continues. The government continues to hide the truth. Why is this government helping Devco to shut down its future by destroying the corporation's ability to develop new markets and new technologies? I have asked this question so many times. I hope you will indulge me one more time, Mr. Speaker. I hope that the government will take advantage of the changed political landscape and start a new relationship based on open dialogue with the people of Cape Breton.
Will the government release its real plan for the future of Devco and come clean with Cape Bretoners?