Debates of June 2nd, 2000

Cape Breton Development Corporation Divestiture Authorization And Dissolution Act

[Dick Proctor, NDP, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I too am pleased, but not as pleased as I would like to be about taking part in this debate today because of the issue that is before us.

Before I get into the gist of my remarks, I would like to sincerely congratulate the two members of parliament from Cape Breton, the hon. member for Bras-d'Or—Cape Breton and the hon. member for Sydney—Victoria, who, in their remarks prior to question period, put the case for Devco very eloquently. That deserves to be mentioned at the outset.

I think it was the hon. member for Sydney—Victoria who also questioned the Prime Minister of this country trotting off to Berlin. He may come back with a couple of broken arms from patting himself and his government on the back so much for the compassionate society we are supposed to be developing.

We must look at what happens in the regions of our country. We heard in question period today what is happening with regard to toxic waste being dumped. The toxic waste that is being allowed into Canada primarily comes from the United States. There are tonnes and tonnes of it being dumped in the province of Quebec and in southwestern Ontario. We look at the situation in Cape Breton and the plight of the farmers.

At the same time, we have to recognize that the Liberal majority government opposite has roughly two-thirds of its seats in one province. We lack a national party with membership from most regions. We know what Nova Scotians thought of the government in the 1997 election three years ago today. They did not return one government member to the House of Commons. I think there is a message in there. I hope the government members opposite are listening.

Unlike the previous members, including the member for Dartmouth who spoke eloquently, I am not from that part of the world. If I may digress for 30 seconds, I want to talk about somebody who is from there, somebody I am privileged to call a friend.

His name is John Francis Lofty MacMillan. To picture this man, think of the song from the 1960s “Big Bad John”. I think the words went “He stood six foot six and weighed 245”. That will give an indication of Lofty MacMillan. He was a mine worker from Judique in Cape Breton.

When I knew him we were both involved with the Canadian Union of Public Employees. Brother MacMillan used to be concerned about the timidity of the public sector as compared with the militancy of the United Mine Workers. To inject some militancy and some backbone in the public sector in those days, he regularly told this story.

When the miners of Cape Breton went on strike, they would throw their lunch pails in the air. His idea of taking a strike vote was if the lunch pails stayed up, they went back to work; if they came down, they went on strike. According to Lofty MacMillan that is how they took strike votes in those days. The member for Winnipeg North Centre is saying that works for him. I suspect that it would. Mr. MacMillan and his colleagues were busy fighting the mine owners. However, for a number of decades now, the government has been involved. That always makes life a little more interesting.

Bill C-11 was introduced to authorize the divestiture of the assets of, and to dissolve, the Cape Breton Development Corporation, to amend the Cape Breton Development Corporation Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

The enactment provides the necessary authority for the disposition of all or substantially all of the assets of the Cape Breton Development Corporation, and provides for the dissolution and winding up of the affairs of the corporation.

The purpose of the proposed legislation is to enable a private sector operator to acquire the mining assets of the corporation so that the federal government can exit the coal mining business in Cape Breton and to provide for the continuation of the existing jurisdictional regimes for labour relations, occupational safety and health, and labour standards.

The NDP will propose that the bill be withdrawn and that the matter be referred to committee, for three main reasons.

First, the unions representing Devco employees have taken the corporation to court for failure to meet its obligations under the legislation and seek to have clause 17(4)( b ) included in any new legislation.

Second, so that the committee can institute a process of full public consultation in Cape Breton in order to develop a long term strategy for the economic development of the region in order to offset the effects of possible privatization.

Third, the uncertainty created by the recent court decisions with respect to first nations treaty rights and the repercussions on mining rights must be clarified.

This morning there have been some developments on the bill. As I understand it, and details are a bit uncertain at the moment, it appears that the arbitration board has been very critical of the way in which the government has acted heretofore. We hope that it will look very seriously at the arbitrators' report today and take the necessary corrective steps.

My colleagues from Sydney—Victoria and Bras D'Or—Cape Breton have been saying that the amendments we are proposing have been developed in very close consultation with the miners themselves, with the people of that region. They know exactly what needs to be done and the converse, what has not been done, over the past number of years as the government took arbitrary steps without adequate consultation with the people themselves.

We simply ask, will the government not agree with the amendments that have been developed by the miners and their families and indeed the leaders in and around Cape Breton?

Other members have talked about the fact that coal has been mined for 300 years in Cape Breton and it is not because there is no coal left that we are in this predicament. It is rather because of a government decision to get fine coal from other locations and countries.

One of the concerns that we have is that the coal will now be coming from Colombia in South America. As I think you are aware, Mr. Speaker, and certainly our caucus members know what has been happening for the last number of years in Colombia. I do not think there is any country, certainly not in this hemisphere and perhaps not anywhere in the world, where trade union leaders are more endangered by loss of life than they are in that country. As my colleague our labour critic is saying, they are being assassinated at an alarming rate.

We are aware of a brother from Colombia that was in this country within the past month, who is now back there, and there have been two attempts on his life. We have made appeals to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, because I presume he will be at the Organization of American States meetings this weekend in Windsor, Ontario, that there be adequate pressure put to ensure that this individual and other individuals are not subject to being assassinated, murdered, because of the actions of the Colombian government. We cannot say that strongly enough.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

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.

[Darrel Stinson, Reform, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today with regard to Bill C-11. I will give a bit of history with regard to what is going on with Devco and what I have seen take place in Cape Breton since 1994.

In late 1994 or the early part of 1995 I had the opportunity to go to Cape Breton to try to get an understanding of the concerns. I had the great opportunity of meeting with the miners, the union people and with business people. I was also taken down through the mines. I started to catch up a bit on what was taking place.

I knew about the money that had been put into Devco. What I could not understand, particularly after being down there, was what happened to a large percentage of those funds. I could see that the funds had not gone to the miners or even into the mines.

As I began to dig a little more I came across the fact that the government had decided not to renew its contracts for exporting coal from some of the mines. Although I am not a raving genius myself, I can understand that when a company gives up a segment of its market, particularly when it is competing on an international scale, it has just told its customers that it is no longer willing to produce the goods that they want. Any sane thinking company would know that its customers would go somewhere else to find the market, but not the government.

The government figured that it could bring them back any time it wanted to, but that was not the case. Instead, the government decided to try to prove that this was not economically feasible. It went through a broad scope of deals and non-deals, promises and broken promises in order to achieve this. In the meantime, it told the people of Cape Breton that it would look after their best interests.

The government repeatedly told the people of Cape Breton that Devco would be there, that they should not to worry, that they should be happy and that the government would look after them. All the time it was planning on just closing the door without very much concern about what would happen.

The door closed and now we are left trying to clean this up and trying to make some sense out of this. The government comes forward with Bill C-11. Everybody from all parties of the House have gone through the bill carefully and some members have put forth a number of amendments. The government has decided not to accept any of those amendments. I cannot understand this. We have members in the House who represent Cape Breton, who have been down there and know the people intimately, and yet their motions are not to be accepted by the government.

We have been down there and have spoken with the people. We have met with the business community, with labour and with management but not one of our motions has been accepted. This does not show a willingness on behalf of the government, no matter what it says or professes in the House, to listen to the people of Canada no matter what region they are from.

Some members like to stand in the House and say that this is an eastern problem or that is a western problem. No, this is a Canadian problem. Maybe it is about time government members made up their minds that they are here to represent all of Canada, not just pieces and segments here and there whenever they see fit.

When this bill came before the House we were in a dilemma. I may be hesitant sometimes in the way I speak, but when I went through the files on Devco and read between the lines—it is not there in black and white because the government will not let it be there in black and white—I had to wonder who took the money out of Devco. It was not the miners. It is not laying there in an abundance of assets. There are some assets there, yes, but what happened to most of the money? How much went toward patronage appointments? How much was never accounted for?

I cannot seem to find the answers in the bill no matter how hard I look. I have to wonder what Devco was all about. It certainly was not to help Cape Bretoners. Maybe it helped a select few, but certainly not the Cape Bretoners themselves. When we see the mess that is there now, we think of the money that has been put into Devco and what has been accomplished.

Some of our people have talked to the union. We have talked to the miners who have worked in the mines for years, some of whom are two months or a year short of retirement. They will get no funds out of this.

Where is this passionate Liberal Party? Where are the members who hammered on our doors just before the last election and said “I am here to help you. I am here to listen to your problems and I am here to help fix them. Please elect me again”.

In the next election those members will get the same message in Cape Breton as they will get in our constituency in British Columbia, “Get out of here. We are sick and tired of listening to what you say you are going to do and then having to live with what you actually do”. Cape Breton has found out the tough way, and it is really a shame.

As I go through the motions, I see one that I wanted in the bill. Motion No. 14 reads:

1. The Corporation shall adopt all reasonable measures to reduce, to the fullest extent possible, any economic hardship or unemployment that may result from the closing of any coal mine operated by the Corporation.

The Liberals turned this motion down. What is so unreasonable about that motion? All it asks is for the government to do its job, and it has refused to do it.

In closing I want to say that this government has a lot to be ashamed of today and I hope it realizes this soon.

[Dave Chatters, Reform, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, once again I rise to talk about Bill C-11.

Certainly I concur with what has been said already by my colleagues in this House, both within my party and within the NDP, although our objective on the bill is somewhat different from the NDP because we support the idea of privatizing Devco. It only makes sense to me.

Over the last 30 years this government and the Conservative government have certainly proven that Devco was created for political purposes, existed for political purposes and appears is going to die for a political purpose, which is really unfortunate. What is going on here is such a tragedy. What the government appears to be preparing to do is immoral.

I talked to you before, Mr. Speaker, and I will say it again in the House; what the Liberals are doing to Cape Breton is just as horrendous as what the Trudeau Liberals did to Alberta under the national energy program. I would understand if Cape Bretoners rose up in screaming protest to what is happening. If Cape Bretoners and Atlantic Canadians never again in Canadian history voted for a Liberal candidate I could certainly understand that.

We have a history of mining in Cape Breton that goes back hundreds of years. We have some of the best mining expertise in the world in Cape Breton. We have hundreds of millions of tonnes of coal in the ground in Cape Breton. We have a market in Nova Scotia for all the coal that Cape Breton miners can produce for Nova Scotia power. We have management capability in Cape Breton that wanted to bid on the assets of Devco and wanted to operate the mines, the wash plant and all the rest of the assets for the benefit of Cape Bretoners and Nova Scotians.

This government, it would appear, is denying them that opportunity without even a fair hearing. That makes no sense to me and it again smacks of the same kind of mismanagement, corruption and patronage that has dogged Devco for the last 30 years.

I tried to get into those issues in committee. I tried to expose some examples of the patronage and mismanagement that went on. The president and chairman of the board of directors of Devco was quoted in a local Nova Scotia newspaper on how terrible the management of Devco had been and how that was the reason Devco could never be profitable.

The fact is that coal mining in Cape Breton can be profitable, but certain conditions have to be met before that is possible. The government does not appear to be allowing those conditions to be put in place. To preserve Devco as a crown corporation and to preserve the system imposed on the coal mining industry in Cape Breton would never be profitable. It would never survive without the ongoing billions of dollars of subsidies that have been poured into it. They would have to continue to be poured in.

If Devco were privatized and not saddled with the liability of the successor rights of the existing union contracts today, or the huge liability going all the way back to the Dominion Steel and Coal Company which succeeded Devco, and if a private company could buy the assets of Devco and operate it without those liabilities and without the huge environmental liability that has accumulated over the years, which everybody has been trying to ignore, coal mining could be profitable in Cape Breton. It could do much for the economy. It could employ miners. It could be a wonderful opportunity for Cape Bretoners to control their own destinies, to have jobs and benefits, and to carry on.

The government will not allow that to happen because then Cape Bretoners and Atlantic Canadians would be independent. They would not have the strings attached that they would have by shutting down Devco, putting in a call centre and perhaps creating hairdressers like they did in the TAGS program. Those programs always have strings attached. There is always a political payback for those kinds of programs if the government puts them in place. That is what the government is trying to maintain in Atlantic Canada. That is such a shame because I think there are real opportunities here.

We will not support a few of the amendments in the three groups. The NDP has reintroduced at report stage debate the amendments we introduced in committee. We will support them as we will support the NDP amendments to ensure that there is some local representation on the board of Devco and on the pensioners administration board. Why would anybody not be willing to do that? It only makes perfect sense.

The only amendments we will not support are the ones dealing with successor rights under the union contracts. If the government has not already guaranteed, and I think it has, those successor rights guarantee that whoever buys the Devco assets will never operate the mines, or at least not operate them for any length of time, and will therefore shut them down.

It is pretty obvious that the government has refused in committee or in debate to indicate whether or not there was any requirement in the conditions of sale of Devco that whoever buys it would have to operate the mines even for one day. I suspect not.

When I was in Cape Breton the miners that work underground in the Prince Mine told me that the real reason there is such a rush on the bill is that they are working on a particular coal face in the mine. Instead of preparing another coal face at the same time so that when that one is mined out they have the next face to move to and continue, there is no preparation for another coal face. This indicates to me that there is no intention, once the current coal face is mined out, to continue operating the mine. They could not, if they wanted to, without that forward thinking.

When we look at some of the yearly financial statements of the corporation we see no long term plan to operate any of the mines in the Devco corporation. Certainly there is no capital investment, maintenance or upkeep of the assets. It can be seen as plain as day that it is heading for a dead end and will be shut down. It is being strangled to death.

It is no wonder that the people of Cape Breton, the NDP, our party and the Conservative Party are suspicious. This whole issue is shrouded in a veil of secrecy under the guise of commercial confidentiality.

When I asked the minister in committee if Canadians would ever know the terms and conditions of the sale, he assured us that once the sale had gone through and the bill had passed he would have no problem disclosing the terms and conditions of the sale, until one of his minions leaned over and whispered in his ear that it would not be possible, that the terms and conditions of the sale would have to remain secret forever, that they could never be exposed.

Why would everyone involved not become extremely suspicious of what is going on? A very valuable asset is on the auction block, and that is the contract with Nova Scotia Power. Clearly that is what is being bid on. As far as anyone in Cape Breton knows and as far as anyone here knows, and I guess only the government knows for sure, any local bids have not even been considered in the sale. The bids being considered are foreign bids, American bids, assuming the coal is to come from offshore.

When the transport minister was asked a question about the mess in the airline industry, he stood in the House to say that is a small price to pay for a Canadian solution. There is a price to pay for a Canadian solution in Cape Breton, and we should pay it.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the comments of previous speakers. A number of times I wondered whether I should intervene and either bring the discussion and comments back to the amendments we are looking at or challenge some of the numerous points that I think were outrageous and, at the very kindest, totally exaggerated. I decided I would not do that and would encourage those who are interested—

[Michelle Dockrill, NDP, Bras D'Or, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. If I look over on the government side I find that we do not have a quorum.

And the count having been taken:

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

We have a quorum.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I resisted the temptation to respond to every point. Some good points were made but quite a large number of them were exaggerations.

Be that as it may, I encourage those outside the Chamber who are interested in the facts to read the various public documents that relate to Bill C-11 and the proposed sale of the federal coal assets in Cape Breton. I would also have them refer to the committee proceedings.

I will briefly deal with some of the amendments. I will not try to deal with all the amendments in Group No. 1. Motion No. 1 refers to the Government of Nova Scotia. I am not aware that Nova Scotia has expressed any interest with reference to this proposed amendment. In any event I do not think it would be helpful to put in place measures that would preclude a future owner of the coal operations from government interference at that time.

With respect to all these amendments, the government will not be supporting any of them. For the most part they are in many cases redundant, such as Motion No. 3 which refers to the auditor general. The auditor general is Devco's auditor. The Devco board is responsible for reporting to parliament every year. Therefore I doubt there are concerns over disclosure which have much if any substance.

With reference to Motions Nos. 4 and 5, I believe they refer to undertakings to the general advantage of Canada. Those measures are already taken care of in the bill as it stands. Indeed they would also be redundant.

With respect to Motion No. 2 in terms of a public inquiry, notwithstanding comments made earlier there have been extensive consultations over the years. It has been studied enough.

I will conclude my comments on the first group of amendments. Let me just add, though, that I respect the views of members on Bill C-11. It is a tough thing to do, but we on this side believe it is best for Cape Breton to allow the coal industry to get on. We believe the communities and the people of Cape Breton are up to the future and will do well.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The first question is on Motion No. 1. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And more than five members having risen:

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The recorded division on Motion No. 1 stands deferred.

The next question is on Motion No. 2. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.