Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise on behalf of my colleagues in the Marine Workers Federation and other organizations on the west coast, on central inland waters and on the east coast. The reason I am rising is because of a very fundamental and important issue to my colleagues on the east coast, specifically in Atlantic Canada in my home town of Halifax.
What this country does not have, and I will repeat it throughout my four minute presentation, is an industrial strategy for a shipbuilding policy. We just do not have one. Italy has one. France has one. Britain has one. Spain has one. Korea has one. China has one. The United States has one. We do not, and we are a mariner nation.
I asked a question of the Minister of Industry in the House. He has been in that portfolio for six years. I asked him whether he would at least meet with these people, the unions and the workers, to discuss their concerns. His answer was no.
For six years Les Holloway, head of Marine Workers Federation in Atlantic Canada, has been asking to meet with the minister, and the minister's answer is no.
My question is quite clear. I want the parliamentary secretary, or whoever will respond for the government, to tell me why the government is refusing to meet with these workers.
Government members say that they have open, transparent policies, that they want to be open to Canadians. However, in an era of solidarity, in an era of co-operation which I have heard the government constantly preach about for the last six years, it is unbelievable that it would act in the way that it does.
Mr. Buzz Hargrove, head of CAW, is aligned with the Marine Workers Federation as is Mr. Irving who represents one of the largest corporations on the planet, a billionaire. An empire builder, Mr. Irving, and a labour activist, Mr. Hargrove, two people from the opposite ends of the political spectrum, are singing out of the same hymn book. They are both saying that the country needs an industrial policy for shipbuilding.
Why is the government not grabbing the opportunity in co-operation, in transparency, in openness and in fairness? It could put these two people in a room with the government industry officials and come up with a policy that will benefit thousands of Canadians in hundreds of communities?
Why is the government so intransigent and not willing to help Marystown Shipyard in Newfoundland; Saint John, New Brunswick; Halifax, Nova Scotia; the Pictou yards; Vancouver; the Great Lakes; and ports in Quebec? It is probably because it is a central based government and the extremes of Canada outside this place mean absolutely nothing to it.
If the government can be very proactive when it comes to the high tech and the aerospace industries and give them hundreds of millions of dollars, all I am saying is why can it not come up with an industrial policy for shipbuilding. Why will the minister not meet with the workers to come up with a decent proposal?