Mr. Speaker, again I would like to take a few moments to thank the members of the House for their support of the motion and my colleagues who spoke to it.
Certainly there is one point I would like to stress in closing, that is, this is not about the March of Dimes. This is about the schooner Bluenose . I would like to illuminate, to show more clearly if possible, my position that the Bluenose should remain on the dime. In no way, shape or form is it about having anything against the accomplishments of the women, the volunteers, with the March of Dimes. Certainly I understand the Mint's position in wanting to put the volunteers and the women who founded the March of Dimes on the ten cent coin. I would, however, disagree with the Mint that there is no better way to do this.
If we had wanted to mint commemorative coins such as the dime for the March of Dimes, there is no reason we could not have minted them simultaneously with the regular Bluenose dime. We bring out commemorative coinage every year. I would suggest that since we use the silver dollar all the time as commemorative coinage it may have been a better symbol. Also it would have more closely and truly represented the value of the dime received by the women who marched for the March of Dimes in the early 1950s. A dime was worth something in the 1950s. Quite frankly, the dime is not worth a whole lot today. Perhaps the silver dollar would more truly represent that.
The symbolic rendition of the marching mothers who went door to door in the 1950s to raise money for polio in the March of Dimes campaign is not what this discussion is about. Certainly the March of Dimes has played an important role in Canada, and we recognize that, not only with its inaugural task of funding research that helped develop a vaccine against the disease but also its development into an organization for the disabled.
Once again I want to make it very clear that this is not in any way, shape or form against the celebration of the work that those volunteers did with the March of Dimes. This is about restoring and maintaining the Bluenose on the dime and at the same time finding other ways to recognize the valuable contribution that the March of Dimes has brought to all of us.
The other point I would like to make is in recognition of some of the work done by the Bluenose II Preservation Trust to have the Mint itself recognize a fact that all of us knew all along: that the image of the sailing schooner on the ten cent coin is in fact the Bluenose . Quite frankly, the Royal Canadian Mint resisted that recognition for many years. It was only on March 15 that it finally admitted it actually was on the dime. I realize we are not allowed to name colleagues in this place or in the Senate, but I also would like to recognize the work of a senator who helped to bring that about. It was extremely important to get that recognition from the Royal Canadian Mint.
Our lives, heritage and history are represented by the Bluenose , as well as our long association with wooden ships in eastern Canada and in the country as a whole. Certainly there were thousands of wooden ships built in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, P.E.I., Newfoundland and Quebec, probably tens of thousands. Our shipbuilding in Nova Scotia actually peaked in 1875, but even after that there were hundreds and hundreds of schooners built from the 1900s to the 1930s.
In closing, to show how important wooden boats were to the east coast of Canada, it was not until 1965 that the first totally metal fishing boat was built in Nova Scotia. We are indeed, without question, a land of wooden ships and iron men.