Debates of June 5th, 2000

Cape Breton Development Corporation Divestiture Authorization And Dissolution Act

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

Mr. Speaker, as I listen to my colleagues from the New Democratic Party caucus speak passionately tonight about a part of the country that I love so dearly, I remember being a young child living in Glace Bay.

I am very proud to say that I am a daughter of a coal miner. My grandfather was in the coal mine when he was 11 years of age. I remember my first day at school. The teacher went around and asked us about our heritage, whether we were Irish or Scottish. I went home and asked my grandfather what my heritage was. He stood and adamantly said to me, “You are a Canadian and you should forever be proud of being a Canadian, because we live in such a wonderful democratic country”. Unfortunately it is fair to say that my grandfather is probably turning over in his grave right now because I do not feel much like a good Canadian.

When we look at the amendments in Group No. 3, as we have heard from all of my colleagues, the amendments are not tying the hands of the government. Motion No. 14 says that “the corporation, in conjunction with the Government of Canada or of Nova Scotia or any agency of either of those governments, shall adopt and continue all reasonable measures deemed necessary to reduce as far as possible the unemployment or economic hardship that is expected to result from the closing, privatization or reduction in the production of coal”.

Some would argue that members of the government do not want to support that amendment because they themselves are not really sure of the economic or social impact, but that is not true. The government's own document commissioned by the Prime Minister in 1995 told the government of the social and economic impact of privatizing Devco.

As we know, a study that the government commissions, especially when it is with respect to a strategy to allow foreign investment, is a very detailed document which talks about the loss of tax revenue both provincially and federally. It talks about the service sector and by what percentage it will be cut in Cape Breton.

It is fair to say that, unfortunately, the government did know what Bill C-11 would do to Cape Breton.

I was taught that government works by people making their case, by people making their argument. We tried that at committee. Unfortunately, there were less than six hours of hearings. I talked to some of my colleagues who have been here a lot longer than I. They have never seen a piece of legislation at any other committee dealt with the way Bill C-11 was. There was no steering committee set up to discuss how long we would hold hearings, how many witnesses we would hear, or whether the committee would travel. None of that was done with Bill C-11. I cannot help but ask myself why. Is it because the government could not? Is it because the government would not? Or, is it because the government did not want to?

I have received a number of phone calls from miners, their wives and their children who are watching tonight, listening to the only people in the House of Commons who are talking about what is important to them, the members of the New Democratic Party. That is not new to us in the New Democratic Party. We have always been and will continue to be committed to workers.

A number of my colleagues made reference to a number of, shall we say, Liberals with a heart from years ago. I came across an interesting quote: “Business has a responsibility to eliminate the human deficit of unemployment. Canada must work not just for the powerful and the privileged, but for ordinary Canadians”. I think it is pretty safe to say that is what we are saying in the NDP caucus. That is the job and the responsibility of government.

It is interesting that the quote I just read was made by the Prime Minister on February 27, 1996. Clearly, once again what we have seen is nothing but empty words and empty promises from the government.

I have another quote: “No one in the Chrétien government approves of the kind of corporate downsizing that is going on without having regard to the long term effect on communities in terms of the people”. Who was that infamous individual? None other than the finance minister, who was quoted in Regina on March 6, 1996.

Once again we have had nothing in Cape Breton but broken promises from the Liberal government. Have Cape Bretoners asked for something they are not entitled to? I do not think so. All they have asked for is support from their government.

A few moments ago I heard a government member heckle “You do not want them to continue to be dependent”. Who created the dependency? Why was the dependency created? Some would say it was created because once the government has a dependency then it has control. To a degree that was correct. The Liberal government did have control of Cape Breton until 1997. It did have control of Nova Scotia until 1997. It does not have it any more, because Cape Bretoners have now recognized what the government is doing.

We heard about a miner's wife who received a letter from the Prime Minister. In the middle of the provincial election campaign, all of a sudden a letter came from the Prime Minister saying “Don't worry. Be happy. We will look into it. We will look after the miners”. That letter was worth about as much as the words that I just read from the Prime Minister. I have to ask myself why.

I have gone to schools and I have talked to kids about how important it is for them to have principles and integrity. One of the most difficult questions I have had asked of me in the three years since I became a member of parliament was when I recently went to my daughter's grade five class. The kids were wonderful. They wanted to know about parliament, what we do here and how we do it. A little hand rose up in the back of the classroom and a girl said to me “Miss Dockrill, may I ask you a question?” I said “Yes, dear”. She said “My dad is a miner and my dad is not going to have a job any more. The next time you go to Ottawa can you ask the Prime Minister why I am not important to him?”

I will leave that question with the few Liberal members that we have in the House tonight to see if they can find an answer to that question, because I do not have an answer for that little girl. I do not know why she is not important to this government. Maybe it is as my colleague said, she is not from Ontario. I hope I am wrong, but unfortunately, with what we continue to see from this government, it is no wonder we have 10 year old children in Cape Breton saying “Why don't we count?”

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, recently, this week and last week, there has been a great deal of discussion on the Hill about the consequences of the Westray disaster. There has been a motion already before the House and now there is a bill before the House from the hon. member for Halifax having to do with finding a way through the criminal code to deal with the contempt that mine owners sometimes show for the lives of their workers by virtue of negligence with respect to safety in the workplace.

There is another way to show contempt for the lives of miners and workers. We can show contempt for them by the way we dispose, in this case, of the property, of the place where they have made a lifetime vocational commitment. I am talking about the coal miners of Cape Breton, many of whom have worked for Devco for literally decades, some of them 30 years, 40 years; many 25 years, 20 years. We see the government moving to privatize Devco. I am against privatization in any event. I have seen the effect of other privatizations. It is an ideological fixation that I once associated with the Tories and I used to find surprising on the part of the Liberals, but now they have actually become even bigger and better privatizers than the Tories.

It is not just privatization in principle; it is also what is going on in particular with respect to Devco. What is happening, and this is what the government is not willing to do anything about or to fess up about, is that really what it is selling is not Devco. It is not a mine that someone else will take over and run to produce coal and sell coal to Nova Scotia Power or to other markets. What it is selling is a franchise to sell coal to Nova Scotia Power, which is a significant user of coal. The fear of my colleagues from Cape Breton, miners in Cape Breton and the people in those communities is that the real agenda is not to transfer ownership; it is really just a way of selling this contract to sell coal to Nova Scotia Power. The mine itself, the machinery and all of the other things, including the employees, are a disposable part of the deal. The real heart of the deal, the real kernel, is the franchise to sell coal to Nova Scotia Power.

We would not be surprised if whoever buys Devco is not just someone who wants to go into the coal mining business, but rather someone who is already in the business of mining and selling coal from somewhere else. They do not have to take over Devco in the real sense of the word. They do not have to produce coal in Cape Breton. All they have to do is buy Devco to get the franchise or contract to sell coal to Nova Scotia Power, and they have a ticket to great wealth from here on in, courtesy of the Liberal government and the Liberal backbenchers who have their hands over their eyes when it comes to seeing what is really going on here.

[Lou Sekora, Liberal, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Has the NDP taken over?

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

I hear the hon. member for Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam making his usual incoherent noises, Madam Speaker.

The point is that it is the people of Cape Breton and the miners who have worked all these years for Devco who have been put aside.

I might say that we stand here very much in the tradition of former members of parliament from Cape Breton, New Democrat and CCF members. There were members such as Clarence Gillis and Andy Hogan, with whom I had the opportunity to serve in this place for a brief period of time. This same great tradition has been served ably and well by the hon. member for Bras d'Or—Cape Breton and the hon. member for Sydney—Victoria.

All through the years we have been arguing for the welfare of the miners, and even when it came to this bill we realized that the government had the ability to get its way. It has the numbers. It used them tonight, in co-operation with other parties I might add, to impose a form of closure on this debate.

What is really galling is that it has not been willing to accept even the slightest amendment to its bill. We have seen this before. It is an unfortunate trend. There was a time in the House of Commons when members of the opposition knew they could not get amendments accepted which changed the basic intent of the bill or which significantly altered the consequences of the bill, but they could impose upon the conscience of government members to accept amendments which would make the transition a little easier, which would provide for a context after the implementation of the legislation, or which would ameliorate some of the possible consequences of the bill.

That is what our members from Cape Breton have been trying to do and in every way they have been met by a kind of intransigence, which I know has frustrated them in their efforts and has frustrated us. Let us look at some of the amendments they wanted to move.

They wanted to provide for at least one employee representative to sit on the Devco board of directors. That is radical. One employee representative to sit on the Devco board of directors. I am sure the Prime Minister, when he was over giving his third way speech, which really should have been called the zero way speech, was probably talking about involving workers and all kinds of flowery stuff. Here the Liberal government had an opportunity to include one employee representative on the Devco board of directors, and what do we get? Zilch. Nothing. Diddly-squat. Intransigence. Resistance.

This is not just an insult to the members who move these amendments; it is an insult to the people of Cape Breton. They must be asking themselves what kind of attitude the Liberal government has toward them that it would not trust them to have one employee representative sit on the Devco board, or a residency requirement ensuring that a majority of the directors of Devco live on Cape Breton Island in the communities affected by the corporation's decisions. If the government were really concerned about the consequences of this privatization for the community, would it not want to see members of the community on the successor board to make sure the new corporation had some sensitivity? If the government thought that a majority of the directors is too much for it to live with, it could have reduced it and provided some other number.

The list goes on: ensure that one-third of the directors of Devco are representatives of the employees' pension association. There are a lot of pensioners after a lot of privatization who have been absolutely beat up and mugged by the consequences of privatization.

I can think of two in particular. When a previous government privatized CN Express is a good example. The people who took it over had no regard for the well-being of workers or pensioners and a long struggle ensued. There are all kinds of reasons to be concerned about privatization.

Some privatizations have gone reasonably well and there has not been anything to worry about. One of the ways to make sure we do not have anything to worry about is to have people on the board whose first loyalty is to pensioners and to the workers. Is there any progress on that? Not at all.

The list goes on and it is why we have chosen this evening to raise this matter and to speak, one New Democrat after the other, in order to make the point one final time that what the government is doing is wrong. This debate over the Devco legislation has been going on for some time now, not just in the House but in committee. It is wrong for the people of Cape Breton. It is wrong for the miners. It is wrong for the communities. It is a violation of everything that a number of former Liberal members of parliament and Liberal cabinet ministers used to stand up for. It is a sign of just how depraved and deprived the Liberal Party has become that it would even consider doing what it is doing here tonight.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to the third group of motions, Motions Nos. 13, 14 and 15. I am going to continue the speech I started earlier to some extent.

A look at the history of Devco reveals that coal has been mined on Cape Breton Island for 300 years. At its peak, the Cape Breton coal industry employed over 17,000 individuals. During the first and second world wars, Cape Breton's coal and steel were vital to the Allied war effort.

Following the second world war, the coal and steel industry declined significantly. In 1965, only 6,500 miners were left, and the remaining mines had to close. The Cape Breton Development Corporation was established under an act of parliament in 1967 as a crown corporation in order to acquire and streamline the Cape Breton coal mining industry and to create alternate jobs, through the government and the development of industry. Devco was to take stock and gradually cut out coal mining while creating new jobs through local economic development.

However, the federal government decided to begin developing new mines in order to meet energy needs following the OPEC crisis and with the rise in the price of oil in the early 1970s.

In 1980, the number of jobs dropped to 4,300 miners and the number has continued to drop since then, because of developments in technology. Since 1992, only two mines have been in operation, the Prince and the Phalen mines. In January 1999, the federal government announced it was withdrawing from the coal industry and that is would close the Phalen mine by the end of 2000, would begin the process of selling the Prince mine and would dismantle the crown corporation.

In the context of a 300 year case history like this one, I really want to explain what a miner is. The Liberal member said “We are sending money and we have to pay for them. It is time to put a stop to that. These people must be able to fend for themselves”. That is almost the message they sent.

To be honest, I was insulted by that comment. As a former miner, I know what kind of work is involved. I worked underground. I know what miners did at Geco, in Manitouwadge, and I know what they do in Sudbury. I met these people.

I worked at Geco. I also worked at the Brunswick mine for 15 years. When I was working there and representing the unions, I had the opportunity to visit other mines. I went to Tucson, Arizona, where miners work underground. I am familiar with the work that these people perform. It is not easy work. A miner gets up at about 6 a.m. and begins his shift around 8 a.m.

I will tell a little story. Teachers from a nearby village came to visit our mine. They said “Miners are lucky, they are well-paid, perhaps too well”. That was the comment made by visitors before going down in the mine.

When these people put on miners' gear, heavy miners' safety boots, with battery-operated head lamps, shovels, coveralls, and protective helmets and went underground and walked on the rock face, and finished a four hour shift, what was their reaction? That miners were not paid enough. Four hours earlier, these same people were saying that miners were paid too much.

When I was a shop steward in the Brunswick mine, a foreman told us that we were not working in K-Mart. I agreed with him. It is true that they are not working in K-Mart. They are not working with Smarties and candies. They are working with rocks, and rocks can kill. Smarties do not kill people. It is perhaps not healthy to eat too much chocolate, but it does not kill people. It does not fall on their head and kill them.

Miners have to go underground, dig tunnels, blow up rock, and dig. They must prepare the ground. In the Brunswick mine, we buried six of our fellow workers in 18 months in 1976. That is not easy. In the Westray mine, they lost 26 of their co-workers underground; 11 of them are still buried there. That is not easy.

For 300 years, the people of Cape Breton have mined coal, and we see what they get today—uncertainty. They do not know what awaits them tomorrow. They do not know what awaits them in six months.

I am perhaps repeating what I said earlier, but it is important to tell Canadians over and over what the Liberals are doing to Cape Breton right now. The members for Sydney—Victoria and Bras D'Or—Cape Breton have explained to the House since the beginning how important it was for Cape Breton to try to save the jobs in the mines.

I saw the women of Cape Breton when they came here to meet with us. They had tears running down their cheeks because they did not know what would happen to their husbands should Bill C-11 be passed.

I can assure hon. members that a miner who works underground all day is dirtier than we are by the end of the day. It is not easy to be a miner. He has spent his day digging and setting explosive charges to get the mineral out of the ground. It is even worse for coal miners; they come out as black as coal. Imagine, if their bodies are that black, what about their lungs?

As I said earlier, it is not true that a miner 40 or 45 years old can easily find a job elsewhere. Coal mines are not all over the place.

Working in a coal mine is different from working in a zinc, copper or gold mine. The difference is between what is called hard rock mining and soft mining. They are not in the least the same.

It is not true that a miner who leaves Cape Breton to try to find a job in another mine is going to find one overnight. It is not true that there will be work the day after, because the Caribou mine in New Brunswick is closed, the Heath-Steele mine is closed and all the miners are out looking for work. There are no jobs today.

These are our people. The people of Bathurst, New Brunswick, Newcastle, Chatham, Petit-Rocher, Beresford, Caraquet, Tracadie, Shippagan, Saint-Isidore, Allardville, Saint-Sauveur and Robertville are still looking for work. Are the people of Cape Breton going to find it? This will be another surplus of unemployed miners. Mines do not open at the drop of a hat.

The federal government and the Liberals are saying “Let's catch the wave in the Atlantic. We have to garner votes. We lost all the seats in the Atlantic provinces”. If they want to gain the upper hand, it is time they looked after these miners, they provided something definite for them and they relieved them of the fear of having no money the next day to put food on the table.

Welfare is not the answer for miners who have served their country all their life, who have worked for years and years in coal mines in order to provide energy for Nova Scotia and part of our country. Treating them this way is unacceptable.

This is why we are saying to the government that it should be ashamed for refusing to send a parliamentary committee to meet these people and face the music.

Now that these points have been made, members must not forget who has spoken in the House this evening. The Liberals are certainly not trying to save the miners' jobs.

[Peter Mancini, NDP, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Despite the fact that close to a third of the New Democratic caucus is here, I do not think we have a quorum in the House.

And the count having been taken:

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

I do not see a quorum. Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

I see a quorum.

[Wendy Lill, NDP, Dartmouth, NS]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the third group of motions on Bill C-11, the bill to divest the government of Cape Breton coal mines.

Earlier this evening on the second group of motions I spoke about federal government policy mistakes in the 1980s that have left Devco in the state it is in today. First, there was the decision not to develop the Donkin mine. Some 300,000 tonnes of coal which would have allowed for a healthy transition to a diverse economy were not mined. Federal and provincial government money instead went into the development of Westray, which we now know was a colossal disaster for many people in Nova Scotia.

The mine is not viable now because of short-sighted government decisions. Even though the coal is there, the markets are there and the miners are there, the government is divesting itself of Cape Breton coal mines.

Where will that leave the people of Cape Breton? I have some thoughts on that. Many members who have spoken very eloquently today have other thoughts on that. I want to look at the areas of poverty, out-migration, employment, education and housing.

First, I will talk about poverty. As would be expected in an area of high unemployment, the Cape Breton region has the worst poverty in Nova Scotia. Three of Nova Scotia's four poorest counties, as measured by the economic dependency ratio, are in the Cape Breton region, Cape Breton county, where the Phalen and Prince mines are located. Cape Breton county, with 13% of Nova Scotia's population in 1997, had 26% of social assistance recipients and 30% of workmen's compensation claimants.

I will now talk about out-migration. To the extent that former Devco employees are able to relocate, they will add to Cape Breton's chronic population decline. The population decline is not uniform across age groups. Between 1993 and 1998, the Cape Breton region had a net out-migration of minus 5,632. Cape Breton county bore the brunt of this population loss with 4,517. Of these, over 2,000 were in the age group of 18 to 24, all of our young people. Over 1,000 were in the age group of 25 to 44. Many in this latter group migrated with their children, accounting for a loss through migration of 665 in the under 17 age group.

What is the impact of all this economic devastation on education? There was a sharp decline in school enrolment, down 21% in Cape Breton and Victoria counties between 1985 and 1999, with a province wide decrease of only 7%. With provincial school funding based on a per student formula, this has made it difficult for Cape Breton schools to provide needed programming. Significant out-migration of former Devco employees and their families will aggravate this problem.

What about housing? Another impact of the declining population is on housing sales and prices. The great majority of Cape Bretoners own their own homes. Houses are hard to sell in Cape Breton. It will likely be very difficult to relocate Devco employees and to help them sell their houses. Cape Breton is in a crisis and the Devco closure will make it even worse.

The Prime Minister is in Europe right now talking about the Canadian way. I want to send the government a simple message about Canada. We are a country which has always believed that the Canadian way involves responsible government. When one shuts down the mines and sits idly by as the provinces shut down the Cape Breton steel industry, the community is devastated. That is not responsible government. That is simply cruelty.

Cape Breton will not be the same with the closure of the mine. The infrastructure will be gone and it will not be rebuilt by the private sector. What is being done by the bill will not be undone. Having short term and stop gap solutions which are cleverly labelled transition funds gives no hope to communities like Sydney, Glace Bay, New Waterford, Dominion and many others. These communities have had their futures sold and the obvious response of the government is that it does not care.

If the members opposite force Bill C-11 into law then they obviously do not understand the consequences of their actions or they do not care about the future of Cape Breton.

Cape Bretoners are not looking for handouts. They want to work. They want to have a future for their families on the island. They want to control their own future, as we all do, and they want the major collective instrument which all Canadians have available to them, and that is our government, to act as a partner for their future not as an enemy who will deprive them of hope.

Like the people who founded this country, Cape Bretoners want a responsible government, one which listens, one which they feel will be there when they need it and one which will be willing to support them if that means helping all Canadians.

Sadly, with Bill C-11 we are seeing that none of these glorious goals our country was built on are reflected or supported, only dismantled.

[Dennis Gruending, NDP, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise again in this debate, but on a new group of motions, and speak to Bill C-11.

Before I get into the specifics of those motions, it is obvious to anyone watching that we in the NDP caucus feel passionately about what is happening in Cape Breton. It is for that reason that we are speaking in this debate in relatively large numbers, since we have a small caucus. Most of our caucus members have been here either this afternoon or this evening talking on the bill.

We in the NDP felt that before the legislation went forward, and this goes back a bit in time, that Cape Bretoners should have had a chance to have a say about what was happening. That was one of the reasons we and they felt aggrieved in this process and why we have stood here this afternoon and this evening. It is also why the NDP proposed amendments that would have allowed the Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Government Operations to hold hearings in Cape Breton before the legislation was voted on at second reading.

In its haste to ram the legislation to close Devco through parliament, the government rejected that legislation, and not only that, rammed it through in a way that really limited the debate. We were opposed to that in other cases and in this case we are opposed to it even more.

There are a number of things that the government did not do right by the people of Cape Breton. As I said, it squashed the debate on second reading of the bill, which was not right in this place and not right for the people in Cape Breton.

The government also decided to end debate before a settlement had been reached on the issue of miners' pensions and severance. As many other people in our caucus have mentioned today, the arbitrator slapped the government on the wrist over that. If it is not feeling embarrassed, it well should.

The legislation was pushed through before any decision was made about the remediation of mines sites or long term economic development to replace the jobs that would be lost. In question period earlier today, one of my colleagues asked the Minister for Natural Resources if the money for severance would come out of the existing package for economic development or would it be new money.

I do not know how many ways there are to evade answers but that is just what the minister did. We still do not know this evening whether the extra amount of money that will come for pensions will actually be new money, which is as it should be, or whether it will be skimmed from the existing package that has been put forward.

I cannot help but think of some similarities between what is happening in Cape Breton and what has happened in my own area of the country, in western Canada, in the way in which the government has dealt with getting its way on some major things, with a great relevance to the economy of the regions.

In this bill it is the Devco mine which is a fixture in Cape Breton and terribly important to the economy and to the lives of individuals in the community.

In western Canada, to take one example, we had the Crow's Nest Pass freight rates on moving prairie grain. I will not go into all the details of how and why western Canadians were able to negotiate that in confederation, but it essentially relates to the fact that we are a large landlocked area and there was no competition in the moving of grain over large distances from farm to port. I might also add that over time the railroads have been given immense subsidies in land, money, and other things that accrued to them for building the railroads. We thought we had this benefit, one of the few benefits to our farm community, forever.

The government began a move to get rid of it. The ways in which it did that bears some resemblance to the ways in which it has operated here. It made its plans in the dark of night and behind closed doors. It was only when it had something to announce that it told people and then it would announce it in such a way that it was very difficult for the community to mobilize.

To make a long and sad story short, the Crow rate was taken away from us by the Liberal government in the 1990s. It said it would tide the farmers over by giving them a payment. The one time payment was made but it was kind of like buying people with their own money. The one time payment was made and then along came this government which got rid of the Crow benefit.

What have we seen happen? We have now seen freight rates for moving western grain move up, depending where the benchmark is set, from three to six times. Now when farmers get a green slip, as they do when they send grain out, they find that between 30% and 40% of that gross amount goes to freight rates.

The similarity I see here is that we have people saying, “This will be better for you in the long run”. Is it not interesting how the people who think something will be better for us in the long run, short term pain for long term gain, are seldom people who are suffering from short term pain. They always think it will be better for us but they do not mind the very difficult transition period that is necessary which can break communities, families and individuals.

My colleagues in the NDP caucus, especially the members from Cape Breton, have moved a number of amendments. Regarding this third group, I would like to describe them as amendments that would really soften what seems to be the inevitable, the privatization of this company. By and large these amendments want changes, if changes are being made, to be made in a way that will guard and take into consideration the needs for employment in the region. We are not at all convinced by what we have seen that the privatization of this company will put any priority on that.

These amendments in Group No. 3 really speak to what we believe may or may not be the government's intentions as to what it is doing. We believe and know that the corporation is for sale. We do not know to whom. We do not know under what conditions.

Coal has been mined in Cape Breton for decades and decades but we do not know if a new buyer will mine coal there anymore. A new buyer might simply be buying what one of my colleagues described as a franchise, the right to supply coal for Nova Scotia Power and others, but will it put any priority on employment? We do not know that and that is the reason we are standing here and the reason we are prolonging this debate to the extent that we are. We do not know if we are getting, as we used to say in farm country, a pig in a poke. We do not know if the new buyer will continue mining. We do not know what will happen to people's jobs. We know that people will get laid off but we do not know what the conditions will be.

In the previous group of motions we wanted to ensure that at least some of the people involved in the boards of directors would have some sensitivity to the local community. We had the audacity to suggest that people on the board of directors for Devco, which is important to Cape Breton and has been over all these years, would actually be from the community and represent the community's best interests. We do not have any such guarantee.

In a sense we might say there are privatizations and there are privatizations. None of us in this caucus are arguing that everything always has to remain the way it has been, but there are ways in which one can deal with people and then there are other ways in which one can deal with people.

We are very concerned in this case that the government is taking privatization to mean something much different than what we in this caucus and members of the community would consider it to be. That is the reason that we feel so passionately about this.

This government's record on privatization is anything but reassuring. I think of CN rail. It used to be a national company. It has long since ceased to be a company that takes the needs of its customers much less their communities into account. There are two things we can now say about the new CN rail. First, it has had a record profit, and second, it has been gobbled up by an American conglomerate. We are afraid that will happen here.

There are many other examples we could give. I could give the example of Air Canada which is a raw nerve for many of us. What has happened to Air Canada? What has happened to its social responsibility, its knowledge that it was performing a national function? That is out the window. All it talks about now is shareholders.

In summary, this group of motions put forward by my NDP caucus colleagues want to ensure that if there is going to be a privatization, that there is a priority put upon employment of the people who are affected by this in Cape Breton. We will not rest until that happens.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have another opportunity to speak to Bill C-11 and in particular to focus on the third group of motions. This is another attempt by the New Democratic Party caucus to convince the Liberal government to hear the concerns of Canadians, particularly the people of Cape Breton who have felt the harsh realities of the government's negative policies.

I think people will notice that if it were not for the NDP caucus here in parliament this evening, there would be no debate and an issue of grave significance for a large region of the country would be virtually ignored. We may be only 20 members in a House of 301, but we will do our utmost to make the voices of Canadians heard, voices which otherwise would not be heard in this place. As we said when we were elected, we will do whatever we can to wake up the Liberals and shake up Ottawa. I see that some of the Liberals are awake tonight. I hope they will hear the message we bring to them through this group of motions which are very constructive propositions that should be seriously considered.

Earlier today I tried to wake up the Liberals to what they are doing by drawing parallels between Bill C-11 and Ralph Klein's bill 11. It would be worthwhile to go over the similarities one more time in the interests of making a difference this evening.

The purpose of bill 11 in Alberta is to privatize health care. It is the first time in the history of this country that the possibility of private hospitals in our otherwise universally accessible, publicly administered health care system is real. Compare that to Bill C-11 brought to Canadians by the Liberals and note that it is about the privatization of the Cape Breton Development Corporation. It is the dissolution of an economic development corporation that has been a part of the history of Cape Breton for many years. There is privatization on the one hand with Ralph Klein and health care, and on the other hand there is privatization with the federal Liberals when it comes to economic development in the region of Cape Breton.

The second similarity is on democracy and the opportunity for people to be heard, to make a difference and to have their concerns taken into account. When it comes to bill 11 in Alberta, thousands and thousands of Albertans demanded to be heard. Ralph Klein decided that the views of those thousands of Albertans and Canadians everywhere were not important enough to be considered and arbitrarily proceeded with the bill. Of course we know the outcome today. Just a few days ago bill 11 received royal assent.

Let us look at the whole process of democracy when it comes to the government's Bill C-11 and the essence of why we are here today. The government refused to allow open public hearings before proceeding down the path of the dissolution of Cape Breton Development Corporation. We are here today because the government has denied any opportunity for the people most affected to have their voices heard.

In both cases the pattern is the same. They are autocratic, undemocratic, heavy handed approaches to decision making. As my colleague from Winnipeg Centre said, at least the Liberals are consistent. Absolutely. Day in and day out there are nothing but examples from the government of this kind of heavy handed, undemocratic approach.

Let me talk about the next similarity between Bill C-11 put forward by the Liberals and bill 11 put forward by the Conservatives or the reformers in Alberta. It is a question of who is supporting the bill. Let us look at what is happening.

Contrary to the wishes of most Canadians, the Liberals are lined up with Canadian Alliance members, Conservatives and the old reformers. Together in one voice they are supporting these two initiatives. On the one hand there was passive acceptance by the Liberal government when it came to bill 11 in Alberta and today with Bill C-11 there is proactive, initiated privatization on the part of the Liberal government. It is all the same whether we sit by and let it happen or we actually make it happen. It is the same outcome for Canadians.

The outcome of these two bills is very similar. When it comes to bill 11 in Alberta we know what will happen if the bill is allowed to be proclaimed. It will mean for the first time in the history of medicare the possibility of hospital services being delivered by private for profit corporations. There is a hope, a possibility that it can be stopped, that the dangerous path embarked upon can be halted by some decisive moves on the part of the federal Liberals. We will continue to pressure the health minister and his colleagues to do just that before it is too late.

Let us look at the outcome of Bill C-11 brought to us by the federal Liberals. Again we are dealing with a survival of the fittest scenario. Those who can somehow eke out an existence without the support of the Cape Breton Development Corporation, those miners who can find other gainful employment or some security in their older years will survive. The rest will fall by the way, thanks to the government.

The similarities are absolute. It may be a coincidence that we are dealing with two bills numbered 11, but the outcome and realities are the same.

I want to touch on a couple of other points. One is that the government suggests time and time again that we on this side of the House should get with it, that with the new global economy we should change our ways, recognize that things like the Cape Breton Development Corporation are no longer feasible in this day and age and we have to tighten our belts and learn to accept these new realities.

There is another way other than the callous approach by the Liberal government. In mentioning that, I also want to point out the hypocrisy, if that is permissible in parliamentary terms, the double message of the Liberal government. The Prime Minister goes outside the country and delivers a speech on the Canadian way and says:

The success we have achieved as a nation has come not only from strong growth but from an abiding commitment to strong values, caring and compassion, an insistence that there be an equitable sharing of the benefits of economic growth.

I am struck with the difference between those words and the reality. It leaves us all to ask the question is this kind of initiative, is Bill C-11 the Canadian way? Is that what the Prime Minister meant? Is that where the Liberals are taking us in the future?

Nobody on this side of the House is suggesting that there are not changes to which we have to adapt and that global forces are at hand, but there is a difference in how we approach our responsibilities given those global trends, given technology and so on. We may not be able to deny globalization. We cannot always turn back the clock, but that does not mean we stop exercising democratic means to shape the nature of the global economy. It does not mean we leave to chance the kind of society in which we live.

Globalization does not have to mean helplessness. It does not have to mean an ever widening gap between the privileged few and the rest of us. It does not have to mean a generation of young people living in idleness. It does not have to mean leaving our senior citizens who have built this country to fend for themselves and survive by the seats of their pants.

The question for all of us is how can we channel trends like globalization into things that work for people? We have to take on the challenges but we have to do it based on the values the Prime Minister talked about but which clearly do not serve to guide him or his government in any way.

I want to end by simply saying that while we are not afraid of something new, we also know we do not discard something just because it is old. There are ideas and institutions which have outlived their usefulness and ought to be discarded, but in our eagerness to discard what is redundant and irrelevant, we must take care not to throw overboard the moral and social values without which human society would become a ruthless jungle.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am very glad to take over the debate, to receive the baton passed by my very capable colleague, the member for Winnipeg North Centre who was making some excellent points when her time unfortunately ran out.

At this late hour of the night it is significant to note that it is only the NDP that is standing up in defence of the people of Cape Breton. Speaker after speaker after speaker from the New Democratic Party caucus has tried to drive home the point that we are trying to emphasize the fact that the people of Cape Breton are not being well served by Bill C-11. In fact, Bill C-11 is so fundamentally flawed that it needs and deserves the attention of the nation and it deserves the attention of the House of Commons.

My seatmate here in the House of Commons, who is in fact my roommate as well as we share an apartment in Ottawa, is the member for Sydney—Victoria. We have become close friends. He and I have visited each other in our ridings. The member for Sydney—Victoria has visited me in the riding of Winnipeg Centre and I in turn have visited Cape Breton, the riding of Sydney—Victoria.

The one thing that struck us, even in the early part of our relationship, was the similarities that exist for those of us who live in regions outside central Canada. It is glaring and obvious to anybody who does not live within the great heartland where I suppose the power exists in central Canada just how our issues are not reaching the national forefront. Our issues are not being given the attention they deserve in terms of the direction in which the country is going. This leads to a resentment.

It is not any mystery why people resent central Canada. Frankly, it is because people in regions outside central Canada feel abandoned. They feel cut off. They feel adrift. Even if there was once a pact that sought to bring us all together in a national vision, that accord has been broken and shattered in recent years. It has been destroyed by the government. Ironically it was the Liberal Party in earlier years that created that accord, people with better vision than those in the present government. Notwithstanding the fact they may have been in rural governments in a past era, the deal has been broken.

Previous speakers have pointed out that our Prime Minister has been making speeches recently about the importance of making globalization work for all people. He is speaking in global terms. What he has not been talking about is making Canada work for all regions. That seems to be an obsolete concept. That seems to be a concept that was embraced by previous Liberal governments and it has been abandoned by the present Liberal government. Bill C-11 is the manifestation and personification of that abandonment.

I want to speak to the Group No. 3 motions to amend Bill C-11. We cannot really do that until we go through a bit of the history of why it is necessary that we have these motions at all.

First and foremost, the reason we are debating this issue tonight is that the Liberal government refused to bring the debate to where it belongs, which is to the island of Cape Breton to talk to the families of the Cape Breton miners and the people who are directly affected by Devco. It was cowardly of the government to introduce Bill C-11 and to close Devco without consulting the people there.

What were the Liberals really afraid of? Were they afraid that the wives and families of Cape Breton miners would come to them at a public hearing and voice their concerns? Is that so threatening? Is it so damaging that people might have an alternate opinion about what we should do about the dissolution of the Cape Breton Development Corporation? Cowardly is the only word that comes to mind.

The fact that we are here so late at night discussing this, trying to keep the House going so we can have this proper debate only indicates we should have had this debate much earlier when we had the opportunity. The government refused to go to Cape Breton to consult. It left the miners of Cape Breton with no alternative. Sometimes when the mechanism we put in place to give ourselves satisfaction in terms of having our voices heard collapses and falls apart, Canadians are left with no alternative but civil disobedience.

I hate to say it but it is true, the miners of Cape Breton took things into their own hands. We would not even be here today with the small bit of satisfaction that Cape Breton miners will get out of this dissolution if it were not for the courage of Cape Breton miners to take over their mine by civil disobedience, to strike illegally and to occupy the mine. That took courage. That took strength. That indicates to me that the government refused to listen to them and refused them access to legitimate means of satisfaction, which should have been available to them and this House of Commons through legitimate debate, and should have been available to them at the committee stage, when the committee could have actually toured Cape Breton and listened to the concerns of Cape Breton miners.

I am pleased that at the committee stage our party at least put forward meaningful amendments. Some of those amendments now stand before the House under Group No. 3, but they were raised at committee first. We made legitimate, honest attempts to change Bill C-11 to make it more fair, more just, more equitable, and they were refused. They were just cast out. They were categorically denied by the Liberal majority on the committee.

Some of those amendments were as reasonable as things like guaranteeing that the people of Cape Breton would be represented on any Devco board of directors in the future. How could anyone think it would be in any way wrong for the people who are directly affected to have representation? Honestly, it is enormously frustrating for those of us who are still trying to get some satisfaction out of this bill.

It is really no surprise that there are no Liberal representatives from Cape Breton. I would say that Cape Bretoners have lost any confidence in the Liberal government to represent them adequately. There are only two members of parliament from Cape Breton. They are both from the New Democratic Party. I guess that explains partly why we are still here standing for Cape Bretoners and trying to represent their interests.

It comes to mind that there are no Liberal members of parliament from all of Nova Scotia. That perhaps is significant.

The debate on Devco was quashed by the Liberal government. The Liberal government has tried its best to deny voice to the people of Cape Breton by ramming Bill C-11 through the House of Commons, knowing full well that there are reasonable arguments to be made to the contrary.

Many of the things brought forth by the member for Sydney—Victoria and the member for Bras d'Or—Cape Breton two and a half years ago now find themselves in the arbitration award, the ruling that came down which resolved the illegal walkout and the occupation of the Prince Mine. Yes, the people of Cape Breton took the action of an illegal strike and an occupation of the mine, but to their very great credit they were reasonable enough to say that they would end the occupation if the government put the matter to binding arbitration.

They were confident that their argument had enough merit that an objective outside third party would see the merit in their arguments, would agree and would rule with them. It takes great courage for people to throw their future into the laps of an outside third party, which they did.

We are pleased to say that in very recent days this arbitration ruling came down. I believe it was on Friday, June 2. Ironically, that was the third anniversary of the election which saw every Liberal member of parliament summarily kicked out of Nova Scotia due to gross dissatisfaction. The ruling came down with almost word for word what the Cape Breton miners had asked for originally and what the members from Cape Breton have been saying would be a fair and just award in terms of pension settlement, in terms of long term support for those who will be displaced, in terms of representation on boards of directors for any institution that might replace the Cape Breton Development Corporation.

There is some satisfaction in that, but there is still a huge sadness and a huge disappointment for the people of Cape Breton that it took civil disobedience and direct action to get this satisfaction.

It speaks to the absolute arrogance and almost punitive kind of indifference, almost a malice toward the people of Cape Breton, that the government made them go to those degrees, to take those steps, to go to those measures to get what should have been theirs to begin with. Even still the arbitration award does not adequately speak to the whole philosophical shift on behalf of the Liberal Party, that Liberal members no longer feel any responsibility toward any region outside central Canada.

I did not come here to fight about western alienation, but the longer I am here I certainly sense how alienated I am as a westerner. I can only sympathize with my colleagues from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia or any region outside the golden triangle who may feel that the Liberal government has abandoned them.

[Bev Desjarlais, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am sorry that I am here to speak to this issue, but glad that I have the opportunity to speak for another 10 minutes. There was a lot that I did not have the chance to say about the previous amendments and I will make a point of emphasizing those points.

We are now dealing with the amendments in Group No. 3. They have been brought forward by my colleagues, and obviously none of my colleagues from the other parties, not the reform alliance nor the Bloc. Maybe one member of the Conservative Party had a little meek voice at one point. There has been nothing from government members, not a thing. Once again it emphasizes that they are all on the same wave length, that they are all in bed together, so to speak.

I am really disappointed in my colleagues from the Bloc. As much as I know they are here strictly for Quebec, usually they have more of a social conscience than some of the other parties. Quite frankly, that they would not even stand to speak for workers in Cape Breton is a disappointment. I expected more of a principled approach. Those members are there to support workers. The workers are fighting for what is important to them, ensuring that they have a decent pension and an opportunity to have a say over what happens to their pension.

Again, as my NDP colleagues have mentioned, there are some really way out amendments being asked for. The other parties are quite bothered over having to stay these extra hours to discuss these amendments. It is important for people to know that the hours have been extended. The NDP has forced the hours to be extended. The government wants to get on with other issues, so it wants to extend the hours to get this over and done with. Let us wipe those Cape Bretoners out of the House. Let us get them off the Hill as quickly as possible and move this issue out of the way, so we can deal with other things and go home for the summer recess. Everybody here is mumbling because they have to stay late tonight.

As hon. members are mumbling because they have to stay late tonight, as they are really feeling put out, they should think of each and every one of those miners in Cape Breton. They should think of each and every one of the families in Cape Breton, those small and medium size businesses and all those people who will be directly affected by what is happening here today. As they are feeling bothered, instead of hemming and hawing and cursing, they should take a moment to think about those families in Cape Breton who will lose out because the government did not have the will to start working on this issue five years ago.

It is quite apparent that it planned this five years ago. Instead of getting on with things and ensuring that there was training in place and opportunities in place, the government is fighting, saying that it does not want to put any more money into that black hole. The reform alliance members are saying no more money into that black hole and asking where else would pensioners get any money at 25 years or whatever. They are moaning about that.

The bottom line is that those miners in Cape Breton do not want a government handout. They never did. They want to work. As rotten as the coal mining industry can be, as dirty, wretched and unhealthy as it can be, those miners want to work, just like the miners at Westray wanted to work. They want to put food on their tables, a roof over their head, and clothes on the backs of their families. That is what they want. They do not want a government handout. The government had this plan in the works. Did it do anything for the last five years? No, nothing. All of a sudden it comes down with this policy of “We are not going to give them anything. We are going to get out of this”.

As I said when I spoke to the amendments in Group No. 2, we will watch to see what happens with coal mining in Cape Breton. If Devco is sold off for a little buck and a patronage investment is made, or if we see Canadian dollars being invested in Colombia, we will remind the government each and every day and we will remind Canadians each and every day that that was what it was about. It was a cheap investment.

We maintained all along that the government never really cared about decent labour standards, work standards or any of those conditions. It will take us right to the bottom. It will wipe out the coal mining industry in Canada, but invest in that same industry somewhere else with Canadian taxpayer dollars, the same dollars that those miners in Cape Breton put into the economy in their communities and throughout Canada through their taxes, their EI payments and their investments in the local economies.

The miners in Cape Breton cannot afford to invest in the Cayman Islands. The cannot afford to run a flagship under another country. They are not investing in Colombia; they are investing in Canada. That is more than this government is making sure is done.

The first amendment in Group No. 3 asks for:

“good mine safety, to provide permanent, full-time employment to the residents of the Island of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and to conduct its operations in a manner that benefits the economy of the Island of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia”.

That is pretty far out.

[An hon. member]

Good safety.

[Bev Desjarlais, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Yes, good safety. I can see why the government would shy away from that, good safety.

This whole horrendous issue could have been avoided had the government started dealing with it a number of years ago.

No one wants to see a situation where taxpayer dollars are invested and nothing really comes out of it. No one wants to see that. Neither do the miners of Cape Breton. This could have been avoided had there been some planning and work done over the last five years.

I would like to emphasize that those miners had to fight just to get a decent pension. My colleague mentioned the miners having to engage in civil disobedience, closing down the mine for a few days in order to get the government to at least come up with a decent pension. Canadians should be getting used to this now with this government.

The women of the federal civil service had to fight for pay equity for 15 years. They had to literally pull the government, kicking and screaming, into the new millennium. It took that long to get the government to pay what was owed.

The merchant marines had to fight for their pension. How long did it take? It has taken the three years I have been here just to have the government give them a decent pension, after all those years.

[An hon. member]

It stole the surplus out of EI.

[Bev Desjarlais, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Absolutely. How long did the hep C victims have to fight to see some kind of settlement? We still have some who are not covered. We will keep at it because we know that little by little maybe somebody on the other side will listen. Perhaps there will be enough voices raised in Canada to get those Liberals onside, to say nothing of my hon. colleagues on the other side who are busy mumbling because they have to stay late. Perhaps we will get something done.

The government should have got on with it and had things working. It should have made plans, rather than wasting the last five years.

We saw the same thing with the recent airline crisis. The government could have done something about it. We did not have to be in this situation with a monopoly carrier. However, for the sake of deregulation and privatization, we had to make sure we did not have any of that because it was really bad. We needed a competitive industry. We really got the depth of a competitive industry in Canada, did we not? We have a monopoly carrier and numerous problems to go with it, all because the government did not act a number of years ago.

Today we are arguing over the high price of air fares and the treatment we are getting from Air Canada. The employees are taking the brunt of it. They are the ones who are at the counters with lineups two miles long. They are the ones who are taking the flack from the passengers, not the Prime Minister, not the Minister of Transport, not the Minister of Industry. Not them at all. Not the president and CEO of Air Canada. The workers are taking the flack, the ones who cannot afford to invest in the Cayman Islands. The workers are always taking the brunt of the policies and decisions of the government.

There is no question that the government does not look as though it will do anything about the amendments to this bill. It is shameful. It is very shameful. There is no question that none of the other parties will do anything. They have other things which they think are more important.

We have the Canadian Alliance members who are all rushing off to make phone calls to get someone to vote for Preston or Stockwell or Tom. I am surprised they did not send someone out to get Joe onside because pretty soon we will see the rest of them moving over there too. Then they will just move in with the government, because there is really no difference.

It is disappointing that none of those hon. members are here speaking out for ordinary workers and for the miners of Cape Breton. It is extremely disappointing.

[Peter Mancini, NDP, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Madam Speaker, once again I see a good portion of the New Democratic caucus here, but I do not think we have a quorum.

And the count having been taken:

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

There is no quorum. Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

We now have quorum.

[Dick Proctor, NDP, Palliser, SK]

Madam Speaker, I guess they must have come out of the mine. I am pleased to rise on to speak to the Group No. 3 motions. I want to address myself to the contents of the bill again and to indicate the support I have for the two members from Cape Breton and from Sydney—Victoria. Motion No. 13 in Group No. 3 reads:

That Bill C-11, in Clause 12, be amended by replacing line 35 on page 4 with the following:

“good mine safety, to provide permanent, full-time employment to the residents of the Island of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and to conduct its operations in a manner that benefits the economy of the Island of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia”.

This motion involves broadening the good mine safety terms and includes an employment requirement on behalf of Devco.

[An hon. member]

Who would vote against that?

[Dick Proctor, NDP, Palliser, SK]

I have no idea why anyone would vote against good mine safety and an employment requirement on behalf of the development corporation. Motion No. 14 in Group No. 3 reads:

That Bill C-11 in Clause 12, be amended by adding after line 10 on page 5 the following:

“17. The Corporation, in conjunction with the Government of Canada or of Nova Scotia or any agency of either of these governments, shall adopt and continue all reasonable measures deemed necessary to reduce as far as possible the unemployment or economic hardship that is expected to result from the closing, privatization or reduction in the production of coal”.

This bill would reinstate the requirement for the development corporation and both the federal and the provincial governments to take all necessary steps and precautions to reduce the negative impact of the privatization or cessation of activities of the development corporation. Motion No. 15 in Group No. 3 reads:

That Bill C-11, in Clause 12, be amended by adding after line 10 on page 5 the following:

“17. 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”.

Again we support this initiative because it reinstates the requirement for the corporation to take all necessary steps to reduce the negative impact of the privatization or cessation of activities of Devco.

The motions categorized in Group No. 3 are very important to what we are trying to develop not only in Cape Breton but in terms of what we want to see carried out from coast to coast to coast with regard to proper occupational health and safety for mine workers in particular and an employment requirement on behalf of Devco.

Regarding the notion that the corporation should adopt all reasonable measures to reduce to the fullest extent possible any economic hardship, obviously there is coal in the ground in Nova Scotia. The mine nevertheless will be closed. We will be buying coal offshore. Some of us are very concerned from where the coal will be delivered to Nova Scotia.

Some of the miners have worked for 25 years or thereabouts. It is tough to retrain those people after a lifetime of working underground. They will not come up and suddenly qualify for the new emerging technology, the infotech the other buzzwords that are so prevalent.

[An hon. member]

What about Silicon Valley?

[Dick Proctor, NDP, Palliser, SK]

They will not come out of mine valley and work in Silicon Valley. This is the essence of what my colleagues in the House have been trying to convey to the government and to members of other parties.

We are striving to make sure that these workers, these employees and their families are treated as humanely and fairly as they possibly can be. It is important not to lose sight of that aspect of it. That is why we are holding up this bill. That is why we are fighting for these changes. We think that what has been offered so far falls short of what is fair and just to these folks. They have been dealt a very bitter blow.

There has been an absolute lack of public hearings. I know the Minister of Natural Resources was there, but all attempts to have meetings in Cape Breton to debate and discuss this issue have been brushed aside in a classic father knows best approach that they do not need to hear from the local people, that those in the Department of Natural Resources have all the answers and do not have to bother with hearing from the folks who are most closely affected.

The people of Cape Breton deserve a lot more than what they have been offered by the government in this bill. Again that is why we are so supportive of the important motions of the member for Bras d'Or—Cape Breton and the member for Sydney—Victoria.

We are talking about the issue of the representation. We want to ensure that the proper associations are represented so that they can sit down with management and discuss the issues that can help the employees and their families to reach a proper, just and fair settlement.

This will be the last time I will have an opportunity to speak to the three groups of report stage motions. We discussed some of them at some length on Friday and adjourned the debate at 1.30 p.m. We have been dealing today with Groups Nos. 2 and 3.

Good mine safety is obviously an important issue. These motions would reinstate the requirement for the corporation and the federal and provincial governments to take all necessary steps to reduce the negative impact of the privatization or secession of activities by Devco and would reinstate the requirement for the corporation to take all necessary steps to reduce the negative impact of the privatization or secession of activities by Devco.

I will pleased to participate in the third reading of this bill.