Mr. Speaker, I too would like to begin my remarks by commenting on the terrible state of affairs in the House of Commons when the idea of time allocation and closure is entered into so lightly and so frequently. Instead of being the exception to the rule, it has become the norm, at least in the short period of time I have been in the House of Commons.
I cannot tell the number of times I have had to stand here and criticize the government for abusing the idea of free and open debate in the House of Commons by invoking closure and time allocation anytime it is convenient for the government to do so or anytime it is worried about being politically embarrassed by the subject matter at hand. Since 1993 I believe it has been over 60 times that the Liberal government, the ruling party, has invoked the idea of limiting debate in the House of Commons. We came here to take part in the democratic process, to speak freely and raise the issues we believe are important and not to be silenced every time we turn around by a heavy-handed ruling party that sees fit to silence people when debate is clearly so important.
Having heard the members who actually reside in Cape Breton speak passionately about the bill earlier today, the people of Nova Scotia do not want the debate to be terminated. The people who live in the communities in Cape Breton want their voices to be heard. They want a free and open debate that explores all the aspects of the closure and the bill which will oversee the shutdown of the Devco corporation.
In what limited debate there has been we have heard from the government side misinformation that borders on negligence in not having had the courtesy to find out what the true facts are about Devco before the government invokes measures that will see its termination. We heard speeches earlier today that border on being intellectually dishonest.
I heard a member say that the government has poured $1.7 billion of what he called taxpayer generosity into these coal mines and that enough is enough, that we have to terminate this flushing good money after bad. The hon. member failed to point out, whether deliberately or through naivety and if it was through naivety it would be irresponsible naivety, that the Devco corporation was not just a coal mine.
Does anyone who does not live in Cape Breton realize that Devco was not just a coal mine? When it was founded Devco was a coal mine and an economic development corporation. The coal mine in fact was successful as a stand alone enterprise. For many years it showed a profit. It served a valuable function by providing coal for the Nova Scotia Power Corporation and it operated in a viable manner.
The other side of Devco in the years from 1967 to 1980 was economic development. All kinds of things were tried on the island to stimulate and diversify the economy. Some of those ventures succeeded and some of them failed. Not all of that $1.7 billion went into coal mining.
It would have been a lot more honest had that been pointed out at the front end. We would have expected someone from the government side at least to have been honest enough to portray those figures in an accurate way. The government also failed to point out that in that same period of time, the coal mining aspect of Devco produced $5 billion worth of product and economic activity in Cape Breton, $5 billion with a spinoff effect. Everyone knows that a dollar spent in today's economy gets spent four times before it reaches its final state of repose, which is usually in some American shareholder's pocket.
I am in the middle of my speech and a lot of the comments I am making are being addressed to the government side. I cannot help but note there are virtually no government members in the House of Commons. it would be irresponsible for them to push this legislation through and not even have the courtesy to be in the House of Commons to listen to what little debate we are going to have.