Mr. Speaker, as has been pointed out by my colleagues, the representatives from Sydney—Victoria and Bras D'Or—Cape Breton and now the member for Palliser, members of our caucus, they have all made it abundantly clear that Bill C-11 constitutes a breach of a promise. It constitutes a breach of trust. It constitutes an abdication of responsibility. Even more worrisome, it indicates a shift in policy that we find most disturbing.
The member from Halifax was indicating that somehow there is a prevailing attitude within the government that all things publicly run are bad and all things privately run are good. It is some philosophical shift. The government bought into the right-wing line that the government and the public sector are incapable of managing any enterprise and therefore it should be divested and put into the private sector which will somehow do a better job.
That is worrisome, because when we look at why public institutions were generated and created, it was for the public good, the common good. There was a vision larger than just the profitability of the corporation. It served a purpose and function in the community.
When we look at the history of Devco, the development corporation in Cape Breton, it was not just about coal mining. Devco went beyond coal mining. People do not realize that it had a number of functions within the community and coal mining was just one of them.
What we are really talking about today is the shutting down of the mines. I ask the House to consider what good common sense it was to support the coal mining industry, which had a great long history in the area already, for the purposes of providing fuel to run the generating stations to provide electricity for the province of Nova Scotia. If it was a corporation it would be called vertical integration. People are always saying that government should act more like business. This was good business sense. This was keeping the jobs in house, enjoying all the benefits as well as the actual product of generating electricity for the public at a reasonable rate. This was common sense.
When people talk about Devco as being some kind of a money pit, a waste of money or too much money spent, they forget the benefit. Yes, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars were invested, but there were billions of dollars worth of benefit extracted, not just in wages but in actual productivity and production.
Overall, Devco may have been a net loser. There may have been some enterprises which it tried and failed at, but the coal mining side of it was economically viable and served a valuable purpose.
I am glad the member for Palliser illustrated the folly in this line of thinking. Now the thermal generating plants which generate electricity for Nova Scotia will have no option but to outsource for their coal. Ironically, and we pointed out the tragedy of this, they are going to buy their coal from Colombia of all places. Instead of looking after jobs in their home community of Cape Breton and allowing families to grow up with a decent standard of living, we are going to support the murderers in Colombia.
I do not know who we are buying our coal from there, but it is a corrupt place. Working conditions are poor, wages are pathetic, and people who speak out to try and make it better are assassinated. Is that who we want for a business partner to supply the generating stations of Nova Scotia? It is absolutely tragic.
The frustration I sense from the speakers today is overwhelming. We have people in our caucus who spent their lives representing the people of Cape Breton. Now they have the privilege of doing that in the House of Commons and they have made passionate, compelling arguments to the government for years since they have been here.
Since June 1997 I have heard the members representing Cape Breton appeal to the government to find a satisfactory resolve to the economic development situation in Cape Breton. Ironically, today there has been a bit of a breakthrough. The much awaited arbitration case dealing with the outstanding issues finally came through. It says exactly what the two members have been saying for three years. They should be able to feel some sense of satisfaction.
Why it took three years is anyone's guess. I think there is a philosophical bent, a fundamental shift in policy on that side of the House of Commons which makes them unwilling or unable to listen to reason and logic to find a satisfactory resolve.
Bill C-11 is so fundamentally flawed. It indicates a failure to recognize the significance and the impact that the bill has on the community. It constitutes a breach of trust and a breach of promise.
Back in the old days there was some sense of national vision, even from Liberal governments of the day. There was some sense of national pride and national unity, and it becomes a unity issue with economic development. There was a feeling that government has a role to play to stimulate the economy in areas where it is necessary in order to ensure that all Canadians enjoy a reasonable standard of living. In the richest and most powerful civilization in the history of the world, one would think we could at least devise a way that we could all share in the bounty of the country to enjoy a reasonable standard of living. The government has abandoned that.
I do not know specifically who the people were who did have some vision in those days. I suppose they were the Allan J. MacEachens, the Walter Gordons, the Paul Martin Srs., the people who had some sort of a philosophy associated with pulling the country together instead of letting it drift apart.
We have abandoned the attitude that government has any role to play and we are going to leave it up to the free hand of the market, to the Adam Smiths of the world. They will say that if we let the market prevail all will be well. All is not well because, fundamentally, capital has no conscience. I have reminded the House of Commons of that simple fact before. It is like a big dumb shark that gobbles up stuff and has no conscience, no vision, no thought and no sense of doing the right thing.
Government has the role of conscience of capital. Somebody has to intervene and give these Liberals a conscience and a little more sense of purpose. Frankly, without that there would be no regulations and no controls whatsoever. This, unfortunately, is what has happened now in Cape Breton.
The government has abandoned Cape Breton. It has traded off an economically viable enterprise for $68 million. That is the 30 pieces of silver it used to buy off the people of Cape Breton. Sixty-eight million dollars may sound like a lot of money but we need to put that in perspective given the surpluses, et cetera, that the government has now.
The EI system alone is showing a surplus of $600 million a month. That is the kind of money the government deals with. Sixty-eight million dollars is a paltry and trivial amount when we are talking about trying to replace the economic base of an entire island. It does not even register on the map. We find it offensive that the government thinks people are so gullible that they will be blinded by the flash of silver, the $68 million. It is almost insignificant statistically.
The member for Bras d'Or—Cape Breton and the member for Sydney—Victoria thought they could salvage some satisfaction out of Bill C-11 by moving some very important amendments that we are debating here today. I thought these were very thoughtful and very meaningful amendments because those members did what the government did not do. They consulted with the stakeholders. They actually spoke to the miners and asked them what they needed and what they thought the shortcomings were in Bill C-11. What a novel concept: ask people what they need, ask the experts.
The government refused time and time again to hold public hearings. It is going to take steps that will devastate a whole community but does not have the courage to defend its position in front of the very people these decisions affect. Government members did not have the guts or the intestinal fortitude to talk to the people in Cape Breton, and that is cowardly. The members of parliament who represent Cape Breton and that area spoke to the people and came forward with meaningful amendments, some of which are so common sense that it is inconceivable why the government would not deal with them.
One of the amendments wants to ensure that members of the new Devco board of directors are from Cape Breton. The Liberals do not want to handicap themselves. They might want to parachute in some patronage candidate from central Canada, no doubt from some place where they have friends and some elected representatives, instead of Cape Bretoners.
Another meaningful amendment would ensure that miners who became sick from working in the mine for 40 years and have black lung disease would be protected with some kind of long term extended health benefit. After giving their lives to the industry and now having the government pull the rug out from under them, would it not be common decency to ensure extended health benefits for those miners? No, the government will not entertain that idea either.
This group of amendments seeks to make Bill C-11 less devastating. I am disappointed that there has been no movement whatsoever from the government side. Do those members not feel any responsibility or accountability for what they have done to Cape Breton? I do not know. I do not think they do.
I regret and lament the fact that Bill C-11 will probably pass unamended. My prediction is that the government will wear that and pay the political price for many years to come.