Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to take part in the debate on the Speech from the Throne.
I will begin by mentioning some things that were not mentioned in the Speech from the Throne. I believe it is worth mentioning some of them. The government is attempting to hide from some of the very real concerns, some of which we are living through now.
One is the Donald Marshall ruling in terms of native rights, fishing rights, mineral rights and so on. I should say treaty rights in general. That is a huge problem in Atlantic Canada but obviously it has implications from one end of the country to the other.
At this point it is focused on the lobster fishery simply because the lobster fishery is one of the most lucrative fisheries. It goes far beyond that but I certainly do not have time in 10 minutes to go into the minute detail. The government must address the issue and show some leadership on it. Up to this point it has not shown any leadership on the issue.
Yesterday in my home riding in New Brunswick I met with very concerned lobster fishers on Grand Manan Island. We have eighth generation fishermen who do not know whether or not they will be able to make a living at their fishery. The fisheries minister simply hides under his desk when we talk about it. He has yet to bring the native community and the non-native community together to make reasonable progress on this very important issue.
The next shoe to drop in this whole debate will be the word compensation. The fishers accept the fact that the supreme court has ruled. We talked about the government exercising the notwithstanding clause to give the fishing community time to resolve the issue because it does not appear as if the minister or the Prime Minister will resolve it. We also talked about a stay of the decision. The government obviously dropped the ball on that as well.
A day after the decision can we imagine the Prime Minister of Canada standing up not knowing whether the government could have asked for a stay in the decision or at least get the government time to respond? He could have done that but did not. This created a crisis when a crisis could have been avoided. That is a big issue that was left out of the Speech from the Throne.
Another one is the merger of Air Canada and Canadian by Onex. It appears like we will be looking at an American controlled airline with services diminished in many parts of the country. However this has never been debated on the floor and was never mentioned in the Speech from the Throne. Neither was the agricultural crisis which extends far beyond western Canada.
We are focused on western Canada and low commodity prices but we are obviously not supporting our farmers the way we should to get them through this international crisis. We are showing no sign that we are interested in helping them. I think the government has to do something.
The same thing applies to the immigration policy. We went through a crisis on the west coast this year in terms of illegal immigrants coming into Canada.
What has been the response from the various ministries? On the immigration crisis the minister says that winter is coming, so there is not a problem out there that mother nature cannot take care of. In the native fishing dispute it is the same. Winter is coming and the winds will blow. Thank God for mother nature because the ministers will not take action when it is necessary.
To go back a little on some of what I have heard from the government side of the House in terms of the throne speech, there has not been a member on the government side speaking on the debate who does not fall back on their financial success. That just amazes me.
What amazes me even more is that we on this side let them stand up and get away with it. They talk about the huge deficit they had and the financial mismanagement that was there when they came to power. It is interesting to note every success they have had. I do not deny they have had success in terms of balancing the books, but the question has to be how they balanced the books. That is the question.
One of my members said that it was like an old country western song, give me 40 acres and I will turn this rig around. They turned the rig around for sure but on policies we brought in when we were in government. One I want to mention is the GST. Every member sitting on that side of the House fought against the GST from day one. In fact most of them over there were elected on that. Anyone over there elected in 1993 was elected on the false promise to eliminate the GST.
It is quite interesting that I would mention this point. It is past history but it is very relevant because on the CBC radio program Cross Country Checkup , hosted by Rex Murphy, the Secretary of State for International Financial Institutions as a guest panellist responded to some of the phone calls coming in from across the country.
One of the questions put to him was on the elimination of the GST, that old promise from 1993. The minister in his own words said that they could not abolish the GST. When he was asked why he said that it was because it was bringing in $22 billion in revenue. That would simply blow away every inch of financial success they have had on that side of the House. They won the election on the big untruth. I know I am not allowed to use the word lie, but they won that election on the big untruth.