Mr. Speaker, Americans are fond of recalling their first dollar. I can recall my first dime. It was a very small shiny thing. I remember on the one side of that small shiny coin there was the head of a man. It did not interest me much and I do not think the head on that side of the coin interests me much any more, or still, I should say. Of course that was King George VI.
On the other side of the coin, on the dime, there was a picture of a ship. It was a ship in full sail coming right out of that coin. I thought that was one of the prettiest things that I had ever seen as a very small child. This is a memory that certainly predates school age. I should also tell hon. members that dime at the time bought one Coca-Cola, but that is not the reason why I remember it so well.
That little ship is still sailing on that dime, only now it is on nickel alloy instead of a sea of silver. That ship connects this debate to ourselves as Canadians.
Later, when I got a little older, I started collecting stamps. Anyone who is listening who was ever a stamp collector will remember that the 50¢ Bluenose is without any question the most beautiful stamp that Canada has ever produced. It is a classic stamp. Of course the Bluenose is that famous vessel that was built in Nova Scotia during the 19th century that won all the races and yet was a fishing vessel at the same time.
Indeed, much, much later in life I had occasion to visit a replica of the Bluenose in Toronto harbour. It was a wonderful ship. It reflects the heritage of Nova Scotia and the maritimes, because of course in the 19th century the shipbuilding industry in the maritimes, and particularly Nova Scotia, was world class. Nova Scotia was famous for its wooden ships and the Bluenose was the most classic ship ever built in Canada, for that matter.
There are other connections of the shipbuilding industry to Canada's past. I was listening to my Bloc colleagues who have taken a very active interest in this debate and I congratulate them for it because I come from a riding that is in central Ontario, just west of Hamilton, and one would think there would be no real connection with the shipbuilding industry there.
In the 17th century a very famous French explorer visited my region at the head of the lake, at Burlington Bay, and his name was La Salle. He was the explorer who actually founded Louisiana. La Salle in the 1670s explored down the Ohio River and Mississippi right down to Louisiana, to the mouth of the Mississippi, and claimed it for France.
In the 17th century the French in New France were probably the world's greatest entrepreneurs because for La Salle it was not just exploration. It was the development of the fur trade. La Salle built the very first ship on the upper Great Lakes. He built the Griffon in 1678. He built it not very far from where I live at Niagara Falls, above the falls.
That ship set sail. It was 45 tonnes, built from white pine in the area by hand. It set sail on Lake Erie and went up to Michilimackinac. In 1680 it picked up a cargo of furs to return to the port at Niagara and disappeared. It is one of the great mysteries of Canadian history, what ever happened to the Griffon . In the cold waters of Lake Ontario, Lake Michigan or Lake Huron, for that matter, there is a very good chance that the Griffon will still be on the bottom and in perfect condition.
We know this because during the war of 1812 there was a businessman in my area who built a trading ship. The area was still forest and hardly developed. It was seized by the Americans. It was armed in the war of 1812 and sank off St. Catharines during a storm. Not many years ago they discovered that ship at the bottom in perfect condition.
The history of shipbuilding in this country transcends this country. It is all across this country. In that sense I think the introduction of the motion in the House is a very appropriate thing to do because it does touch on our history.
I do have quarrel with the motion in this sense. The motion suggests that the federal government needs to develop a shipbuilding policy, as though there was not a policy at all to date, and that it should revitalize the Canadian shipbuilding industry by maintaining and advancing a degree of excellence and the technologies that Canada is famous for.
Those are very noble sounding words. I appreciate they come from a resolution that was passed at a Liberal convention in 1998. I point out that a resolution that is passed at a convention is not the same thing as bringing something before the House. If I find fault with the motion, I find fault with it because it does not suggest a significant way of addressing the problem of Canada's shipbuilding industry. I suggest the reason is because it does not deal with the terrible problems that Canada's shipbuilding industry is facing.
The member for Saint John was the lead off speaker for the Conservatives, and this is a Conservative motion. She proposed that what the government should be doing is it should be sweetening the loan support for people who are buying ships or it should change the tax laws slightly with respect to leasing and little fixes like that. That does not address the problem of 40% overcapacity in the shipbuilding industry around the world. That does not address the fact that South Korea alone has $10 billion worth of orders for 1997.
Canada is not alone with respect to a problem with its shipbuilding industry. All we have to do is search across the world wide web and what we will find is that the European Union is desperately worried about the fact that its shipyards are beginning to perish because it cannot compete on the open market with particularly South Korea and also Japan.
We are faced with an overcapacity in the shipbuilding industry, and we are faced with the Asian flu for example which has lowered the currency in South Korea enormously. They have cheap labour, cheap currency, and they have a huge shipbuilding infrastructure.
The OECD has had meetings just in the last few months in which it has tried to come to grips with this problem in the shipbuilding industry because it affects almost every country.
Brazil, Romania and Russia are complaining. Both communist China and Taiwan have very active shipbuilding industries, but no one seems to be able to compete with the South Koreans. Indeed, if we follow the Internet, there are even some complaints or some suggestions that the South Koreans are using IMF dollars to unfairly buoy up their industry. There is a problem there. When put in that context, a few tax fixes is not going to correct, not going to help, not even going to address the desperate problem that faces Canada's shipbuilding industry.
Then there is the other aspect. The other problem is that during the North American Free Trade Agreement the Tories, the former government of the party that has advanced this motion, had an opportunity to give shipbuilding the protection of the North American Free Trade Agreement, particularly by doing something about the Jones law. The Jones law is a law that forbids carriers from American ports to other American ports to use anything other than American made ships.
There is a huge amount of traffic in coastal vessels that runs up and down the American eastern seaboard. If we had managed to get only one-tenth or maybe only 1% of the shipbuilding market of that traffic, we would not be having this debate today. It was a huge failure of the free trade agreement not to include shipbuilding.
We have this dilemma. It is not a simple matter of a couple of minuscule tax fixes. That will not do any good at all. We could try it but it is not going to do any good. What the minister has said is closer to what we must do. He said that we have to put pressure on the OECD to come to terms with the unfair advantages that South Korea and Japan have been enjoying in the shipbuilding industry. We have to bring it into the international forum and make it into an even playing field.
I point out that the minister and the member opposite from the Reform Party in his last remarks during questions and comments said that maybe we have to go back to the United States and do something about the Jones law. I would say he is precisely right. We have to go back to the United States and offer it something to allow us to take part in that industry in the United States. Just a small percentage and we would be doing just fine. We have to do that. These are things perhaps that are almost wishful thinking.
As I mentioned, the minister in his remarks said that Canada is proceeding on these two avenues right now. There is no question that the federal government does have a policy, but if I may add my dime's worth to this debate I think we need to think of novel approaches as well.
I hate to bring up the Government of British Columbia but I am going to do it. The Government of British Columbia has undertaken a very controversial, if not notorious, ferry building project. In order to buoy up the industry in B.C. the Government of British Columbia undertook a project to build three fast ferries out of aluminum hulls, the idea being that hopefully they would develop new technology, create competitive vessels and develop expertise. Unfortunately there have been major cost overruns. It projected $70 million for each vessel and now the overrun is running at approximately $400 million.
That is not the kind of thing we want to see in this climate of fiscal prudence, but there is something very strong to be said for the federal government investing not only in the shipyards to produce the ships it needs but also through various technological enhancement programs or infrastructure programs. There is a lot to be said. If the industry rationalizes itself so that it comes to the federal government in a coherent fashion, perhaps we can work with the provinces and set shipbuilding along a course where we build specialized high tech ships which we can sell abroad.
Right now I do not think there is much more that we can do other than what the minister is already doing, which is pressuring the OECD to come to terms with the unfair competition that is occurring in shipbuilding across the world. We can also do something about the unfair competition in South Korea and talk again to the Americans. That is a policy. That is what we should be doing and that is what we are doing.