Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to say a few words on this motion, a motion which is from a motionless party, a party whose stock is not doing too well right now and its tom is long gone. After a daylong battle on the 24th, it will have to preston with the same group they have right now. As we have always said, I guess if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. It will be the same party it was previous to the reforming of Reformers.
But that is not what we are hear for tonight. We are here to talk about the record of the present government. Today is an extremely interesting and exciting day in Newfoundland. In this honourable House yesterday, I had the privilege of asking the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans a question about the shrimp stocks off the coast of Labrador and whether or not he intended to bring in some new players to catch a stock that is rapidly declining. Through the various departments of the government, including fisheries and oceans and with heavy involvement, just to be relevant, with HRDC, we saw the decimation of the groundfish stocks in 1992.
We thought we would have learned from that. Some of the funding that has been channelled out over the last seven or eight years we would think would have gone into fishery research. We did not see any. We saw cutbacks. Instead of learning from the past, we went ahead and made the same mistakes.
People say if we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. Right now the government opposite is repeating the mistakes of the early 1990s and we are doomed to suffer.
If we talk to any person fishing northern shrimp off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, they will tell us that the shrimp stocks are declining, that the size of the shrimp is smaller than it was and the large shrimp seem to have either been caught up or are moving away.
That is an extremely serious situation. What does the minister do to alleviate this situation? Does he bring in more scientists to study the cause of the problem? Does he reduce the catching effort? No, he increases the catching effort. He does not increase it to benefit the coastal communities, many of which are without product. He does not increase it to benefit the three major communities on the south coast of Newfoundland, Burgeo, Gaultois and Ramea, where there are fish plants in isolated areas that have not operated since the moratorium. These areas are devastated with the inhabitants moving out on a daily basis. Communities last year were promised crab stocks or access to the offshore crab stock, the crab stock outside the 200 mile limit, to keep their plants going.
That was put on hold when studies showed the crab stocks were in hard shape and there is an overall reduction this year. That quota could not be granted to the companies wanting to operate those plants. They put their hopes on the fact that maybe they could get some shrimp. Is there extra shrimp this year? Yes, there is. Does it go to the south coast plants? No, it does not. It goes to Prince Edward Island, which has not had any attachment to the stock before. Why is it going to Prince Edward Island? Simply because there are four Liberal government members from Prince Edward Island who are holding on to their seats with their fingernails, knowing that in the next election they, like every other Liberal in Atlantic Canada, will be gone.
That is why shrimp went to Prince Edward Island. It is not because the government has any great affiliation for Prince Edward Island or its people, or any other part of Atlantic Canada. It is simply because Liberals are trying to buy the seats that they hold. It is to save their necks and their fingernails.
There is another interesting side to the story. In almost every battle and confrontation, five will always beat four if they are any good. There are four Liberal members in Prince Edward Island and five Liberal members in Newfoundland. The question is, how did four beat five? The only answer is that the five must not be as good as the four.
The unfortunate thing about this is that three of the members from Newfoundland and Labrador represent districts that are adjacent to the shrimp stocks. They are seeing somebody else take the fish, bring it past their plants where their plant workers cannot find employment, and outside the island.
One of the other members who is not adjacent to the shrimp stocks represents the three communities I talked about where the people are starving and looking for work. What happened when they saw extra shrimp being allocated? They thought maybe they would get some to re-open their plants as they should. But did the member deliver for them? No he did not.
If members are wondering why the people of Atlantic Canada and the people of Canada generally are so cynical about the government, that is just one example.
How is this going over in Newfoundland? That is an interesting question. The main person in any province is the premier. The Premier of Newfoundland is extremely upset with his colleagues opposite. He is extremely upset with those people who sat with him for years when he was a Liberal member and Liberal cabinet minister.
In fact he was a Liberal cabinet minister in 1993-94 when the vicious cuts were made to health care. I give him credit for championing the health care cause at the present time. Maybe it is because he wants national recognition so that he can take a seat opposite again. However, he cannot forget that he was also sitting there when the vicious cuts were made. He was also minister of fisheries and oceans.