Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-11, which would authorize the divestiture of the assets of the Cape Breton Development Corporation. This bill is very important to me and to some of my constituents, as well as to many of my colleagues.
One of the legacies of the federal policy toward Cape Breton and its citizens is that the young people leave. They go down the road to find work. They go to Montreal, Toronto or Alberta. Many of them come to Dartmouth because it is closer to their families. I have neighbours and friends who leave Dartmouth most weekends to make the four hour trek back across the Canso causeway.
The problems which face industrial Cape Breton are misunderstood by many. This bill shows that the group that is most ignorant of the history and reality of industrial Cape Breton is unfortunately the federal government.
I sometimes find it useful to look into how misconceptions are created. Many in Ottawa follow mantras. These mantras are not real. They are not based on fact, but they are followed with a religious fervour by both the government and the opposition. The latest Ottawa mantras include such best sellers as “Cuts are Always the Best Policy”, “Public Sector, Bad—Private Sector, Good”, “Corporations are Always Right”, and “Cape Breton is a Financial Money Pit”. It is interesting that not only has this last mantra become government policy, but the same chant has been taken up by the Reform Party. I guess members of the Reform Party have finally become Ottawa insiders as well, adopting the bureaucratic mantras just as the frontbench opposite.
I want to bring the fallacies of these last mantras to the attention of the House. Cape Breton has been producing coal for 300 years, long before Ottawa bureaucrats existed to criticize the enterprise. The coal which was produced in Cape Breton fired the steamers which helped to build the British empire. It was a critical component of industrial expansion in the early days of Canada.
The contribution which Cape Breton coal made to our war efforts in both wars cannot be underestimated. At the end of the second world war, 17,000 workers kept Cape Breton coal moving, but there was no doubt that, as with many other industries, after the war there would be big changes to coal production in Cape Breton, and there were. The mines declined substantially and by 1965 they were ready for a closure which would have thrown 6,500 miners out of work.
The government of the day, a more progressive government than the one which has brought in Bill C-11, understood that allowing the collapse of the coal industry was against the public interest for two reasons. The Pearson government understood that there was a viable economic need for coal production to continue in Cape Breton. It is almost eerie how the setting up of Devco seemed to have foretold the oil crisis of the seventies. Until Devco, power in Nova Scotia was produced by oil generating stations. If these stations had not been changed to coal fired stations in the late sixties, the impact of the OPEC crisis would have decimated the Nova Scotian economy.
I have heard both Liberals and Reformers whine on about the money pit of Cape Breton requiring this drastic legislation, but I never hear them talk about the billions of dollars saved by businesses and residents of Atlantic Canada because of cheap Cape Breton coal being used to create electricity.
Neither am I hearing any argument coming forth from either the Liberals or the Reformers which explains where the coal for Nova Scotia's power plant is supposed to come from. Does the Reform Party want us to import electricity from New England or to just buy the coal? Does the government hope the lights just go out, or does it care?
The Pearson government understood that the impact of an economic collapse in Cape Breton would threaten the whole economy of Atlantic Canada. It understood that there were two sides to an economic equation, both expenditure and revenue. It knew that cutting back on a single line of the budget does not necessarily save taxpayer money. It knew that if it had no one working then everyone goes on EI and then on welfare. These are increased expenditures created by cutting expenditures. It also knew that no jobs means no paycheques, no taxes, no small business and no GST, creating a downward spiral which has significant costs associated with it. Cutting expenditures in this case means cutting revenues as well.
I have not heard members opposite crediting Devco with making $6 billion. The bill could see 6,000 lost jobs in relatively small communities and 1,500 direct layoffs with up to three times that many lost due to the downward spinoffs. The impact is astounding. I firmly believe that economically destroying a community is what really creates a money pit, not working to preserve it. It not only fails to make economic sense, but it fails to make moral sense.
That is why there were provisions put into the act which created Devco to compel the government to ensure that all reasonable measures were put in place by corporations to reduce the possibility of economic hardship which can be expected from a closure.
There was an obligation set into law that the economic development of the area was part of the responsibility of the Devco Corporation. Devco was to plan not only for the production and sale of coal, but for local enterprises to take root and to have sustainable communities created for those who have given their blood, sweat, tears, their sons, their husbands and their environment to coal.
The people of Cape Breton were to have the opportunity to diversify their economic base. They were supposed to be allowed to try another way to contribute to the economic well-being of their communities. The government of Lester Pearson seemed to grasp the importance of federal assistance in this matter. There used to be an understanding that part of the public responsibility of the government was to help Canadians, not just guard corporate rights in an unfettered marketplace.
In question period today we heard again from the minister who keeps harping about corporate viability this and market value that. When will the government look into community viability? When will he recognize that we need consumers for a marketplace? When will he recognize that labour is required to create market value? These are important ideas and we need to work with the wonderful people of Cape Breton to establish alternatives which build their communities.
Atlantic Canada is seen by many as a one way street, a money pit. Nothing could be further from the truth. Atlantic Canadians work very hard and they like to work hard. They want to be productive, but government policy seems to have been designed to ensure the failure of our economy. It has reduced the availability of EI to workers who need it, which has disproportionately affected Atlantic Canada.
TAGS is a joke, again a joke of which Atlantic Canadians have borne the brunt. Now we see in Bill C-11 an increase on the attack toward Cape Breton. Let us have a meaningful dialogue with Atlantic Canadians on ways to fix our economic problems, on ways to help keep our children in the region, on ways to use government policy to help, not hurt Atlantic Canada.
I would also like to point out some other costs to closing Devco which have been ignored by this government and by the provincial Conservative government and which do not fit easily on to an accounting sheet. How do we cost the fear of cancer because of the environmental legacy of the coal and steel industry? Where on the government balance sheet would we put the anxiety that older workers feel seeing their years of service reduced to a buyout or the equity they have in their homes evaporating due to the economic effects of this legislation?
I heard the hon. member for Broadview—Greenwood ask my colleague who represents most of the affected miners how much money would be required to make her happy if there was a blank cheque available. I found it a very difficult question to hear put in this place. It showed ignorance of Cape Breton and demonstrated the mindlessness of the mantras put out by this government.
I would ask hon. members opposite where the supposed and probably modest savings which may be seen by killing the economy of Cape Breton will be placed. Do they believe that Cape Breton's savings should go to subsidize more corporate boxes at Maple Leafs games? Should savings made by destroying Glace Bay go to the NHL subsidies, or perhaps to big tax cuts for wealthy Canadians? This approach to government, punishing a poor region and giving more to the wealthy, is divisive and morally bankrupt.
We need to be working on ideas such as community economic development, alternative approaches to financing small business, tourism and jobs, and the urgent clean-up of the toxic legacy which existed in industrial Cape Breton.
My colleagues have talked about renewable energy industries. We have talked about national shipbuilding. There is no end of good ideas and people in Cape Breton who want to execute them. These are the kinds of ideas that we need government policy to support, not the short-sighted approach taken in Bill C-11.
In conclusion, I urge the government to scrap this punitive, mean-spirited piece of legislation and to go back to the basic principle of working with Cape Bretoners to develop a fair funding package which will give Cape Breton a future and not just a past. The responsibility of parliament in this matter is to assist the people of Cape Breton in developing new economic roots which will sink into their beautiful earth. We owe them that much and much more.