That comes as a great shock to members in the House, but when I was a young man the Liberal Party actually talked about things like Canadian ownership. Let me tell the House what we are facing on Cape Breton Island today.
The government has plans to sell the Cape Breton Development Corporation and its most useful asset, a contract with Nova Scotia Power. The government is to sell it to a foreign company. Do we know what that will mean? It will mean that ships will come into Sydney harbour with foreign coal while there is a reserve worth a billion dollars at the Donkin coal mine. Cape Bretoners will not mine that coal. That foreign coal will feed the contract with Nova Scotia Power. The provincial government is looking at selling the steel corporation to foreign ownership. While we were happy to have EDS locate in Cape Breton and bring some jobs, it too is a foreign corporation.
Again we talk about betrayal. I remember when the Liberal Party once believed that Canada should belong to Canadians. Here we see a complete reversal, a sell off of assets so that foreigners and foreign companies will once again control the economy of Cape Breton. The miners and steelworkers in Cape Breton died fighting foreign ownership. For 30 years we made some progress. In the stroke of a pen and by bringing in closure the government is undoing that.
There are some very other important issues. For example, there is the pre-existing pension plan. There is money now. Many retired miners are receiving their pension. Who administers that pension? One might ask the Liberal members of parliament if they know that since they are so anxious to vote on closure. I challenge them. If they do not know the answer to that question, I challenge them tonight to vote against closure. If they do not know the details of who administers the ongoing existing pension fund, if they do not know the details of who is the buyer, if they do not know where this corporation will be at the end of the day, I challenge them to vote against closure, to be responsible members of parliament and to ask the hard question. I do not think they will do that.