Mr. Chairman, I would be sharing my time with the member for Brandon—Souris and if I have a couple of minutes or 30 or 40 seconds left at the end of my 20 minutes he will get them. I think that is only fair and reasonable as a colleague.
The debate here tonight is on natural resources. I very much appreciate the Secretary of State for Rural Development being here and staying throughout the debate, and his colleagues with him.
Certainly I think that when we look at the economy and the global situation on the planet today we tend to trivialize the primary industries. Many of us tend to forget where we come from. A number of the ridings represented in this place are rural ridings. I would even dare to say that perhaps we rural ridings are equal to the urban ridings. If we counted them all, I think we would surprised by the number of parliamentarians who are here representing rural constituencies. There are a great number of us.
I am also going to take the opportunity in this debate to discuss rural issues, very much like the rest of the speakers have discussed rural issues, but I think we are discussing rural issues in a number of sectors.
I do not look at the Secretary of State for Rural Development as being responsible simply for rural Canada or the agricultural community. There is a very large forestry sector out there. There are large fishing communities on the three oceans around the country and on Canada's inland waterways. We have a huge mining sector in the country that has been quite often overlooked and underrepresented, I believe, by the present government, by other governments in the past and by provincial governments.
We have to find a way to accommodate our primary industries in the country, to have them represented so that the people have viable jobs and opportunities, not only for themselves but for their children and for their grandchildren.
Most of us from rural Canada are survivors. We live in communities that have survived for hundreds of years, quite often. We represent 15 or 16 generations of ancestors and more in some parts of Canada. We have managed to eke out a living, whether that has been a subsistence agricultural living or one dependent upon forestry or fisheries, for literally hundreds of years.
Now we have to find a way in the modern economy, with the globalization of the planet, with transportation that is immediate, this minute. It is no longer that day or that week, it is this minute. The discussion taking place here can be listened to in Australia or China. Decisions we make in the Parliament of Canada can be reacted to immediately by businesses halfway around the world. With all respect, I do not think this government or any government is quite ready for that type of accommodation of the new economy. I do not think we have adapted to that. The appointment of a minister of state for rural Canada is a step in the right direction. I applaud the government for it.
I would like to talk about a couple of specific areas and hopefully get some replies from the minister on these specific areas. I will try to be brief.
My first love is forestry, so I have to go there for at least a second. We tend not to recognize the importance of forestry in Canada. It is the primary industry. It is the second most important industry in the country. If we combine the primary industries such as forestry, agriculture, fisheries and mining, we can shut out the rest of the economy in this country. We produce the jobs. We put more money into the economy than the rest of the sectors put together.
A tremendous amount of money comes from the primary industries of this country and the majority of them are sustainable. The mining sector, we have found, is more sustainable than we thought. When people look for minerals today in Canada they do not try to look for a new mine. They go where we have been mining for generations and find more resources, more ore bodies, wherever that may be. Timmins, Ontario, is a prime example of that.
I started to talk about forestry. We should not take away or ever forget the fact that as much as we may love to look at a view scape of timber, the real economy of that timber is the noise of it hitting the ground. It is not only the fact that companies cut that timber. There are jobs involved in getting it to the mill. The wood is processed. Houses are built from it. There are value added products that come in, whether that be paper, pulpwood or finger jointed mouldings for door frames.
We tend to trivialize the contribution the forestry sector has made to this country and that it will make forever. It is 100% completely sustainable. In most of Canada it is not dependent on planting a whole lot of trees or putting a lot back into it. We can continue to harvest the forest through natural regeneration on the west coast of Canada and certainly on the east coast of Canada in those maritime climates. Very little of the land in eastern Canada needs to be replanted. Foresters have to go in there 10 years after harvest and thin it. There are so many stems coming up on the acreages that they have to be spaced. It is not a matter of planting trees unless someone is trying to grow a different type of forest, unless the land is better suited for Norway pine instead of black spruce, or perhaps better suited for an exotic species like Norway spruce instead of balsam fir. There are alternatives.
We need very much to look at the mining sector, on the east coast in particular now that we have the advantage of the development of the Sable gas fields and the Panuke oil fields. That oil and gas liquids and gas are coming ashore now in Nova Scotia. We have been talking for six months about a second pipeline. The first pipeline is already developed. Now there is discussion about a second pipeline double tracking the pipeline that is already there.
We need to look at a way to do a better job of sharing the money. I spoke about this earlier, about the fact that when Alberta was developing its oil and gas reserves the federal government recognized the position Alberta was in. From 1957 to 1964 Alberta received equalization payments from the rest of Canada and kept the revenues from their oil and gas reserves. That allowed them a head start in putting their infrastructure in place to actually develop and exploit the natural gas and the oil fields of Alberta.
Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and any other province should get no less a deal than Alberta got. That takes a little bit of backtracking by this government. That takes a different approach, but it can be done.
We are not asking for the cancellation of equalization payments or the refusal of the federal government to gather royalties from the east coast.
What we are asking for is a period of time similar to what Alberta got, five, seven or eight years, in order to build the infrastructure up so what has been happening does not continue to happen. For every dollar that is made in the offshore, 81 cents goes to the federal government and 19 cents goes to Nova Scotia. This is not rocket science. This is a very simple equation. Somehow we have to change that imbalance, and that takes time and that takes an initiative on behalf of the government to compromise on a position that it has already taken. I see no reason why we cannot do that.
We have tremendous resources in rural Canada and in our primary industry. In the South Shore riding that I represent we have 1,760 boats fishing. That is phenomenal. That is in three counties. The fishery is in decline and it is facing great hardship. We have a lot of people fishing.
We have a great primary resource that is sustainable and we need to maintain that. We have an oil field that is being developed that we need to encourage. We have a forestry resource sector that needs to be encouraged as well. I have left the agriculture sector for the hon. member for Brandon—Souris. We need to encourage agriculture in Canada and we need to find a way to enhance it. Those are issues that face rural Canadians every day.
If we want to encourage people to continue to live in rural Canada, if we want to have ghost towns in Saskatchewan and Manitoba and if our small towns in Atlantic Canada are to survive, we need infrastructure for transportation. We need all kinds of innovative ways to continue to live in rural Canada and have an economy of means that can support us to do that.