Mr. Speaker, that was a great question from the member for Chatham-Kent--Essex, but it is too bad the government will not commit to doing the job.
I will be sharing my time with the member for Cape Breton--Canso.
I am pleased to speak in support of the second report of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. I am pleased that my colleague from Cardigan has pushed this issue so strenuously. We are calling on the government to stand by fishermen and put the necessary funding for small craft harbours under DFO.
I was pleased when I heard the chair of the fisheries committee say that the government would be supporting this motion. Upon listening to him discuss it further, it seems the government's support is really all smoke and mirrors. He was playing with words. If the government is only going to sit around over a beer or over a glass of wine and consider what they are going to do about the cut, then they are not really doing anything at all.
It is easy for the chair of the fisheries committee and the parliamentary secretary to get up in the House and say that they support the motion, but I would like to know what concrete action they will take to deal with the problem. To concretely deal with it, the government needs to eliminate the cut and implement the increase. Unless the government does that, then the actions about which the chair of the fisheries committee talked are really mute. They are just words.
I have had the opportunity to serve both as chair of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans and as a parliamentary secretary in the past. Fishermen look to the funding of small craft harbours as absolutely crucial to their future. It is shocking to think that the new government wants to cut $20 million from funding. That sounds like what it has done with farmers as well.
While the government left the impression in the budget that it would pay out more money, it is actually paid out less. Government backbenchers left the impression that the government would have immediate cash for farmers this spring, it never came through.
Now the government is eliminating another $20 million from our fisheries, another industry in rural Canada. This is not what we would expect from a government that has a fairly strong rural backbench. Maybe the PMO does not listen to its own backbench. Clearly, the Prime Minister seems to run everything and his word is final. The government seems to be cutting back.
The Conservative government was left in the best fiscal position of any government in Canadian history. A surplus is available to deal with the problems in rural Canada. A surplus is available to increase funding for small craft harbours and for farmers as well. The government has the surplus to do this, but has neglected to do so because it has to give little tax credits to the rich and to the oil industry, which is doing well. What about ordinary people in rural communities in Atlantic Canada and across the country?
The previous government made massive improvements to fishing harbours during its term and it took on the infrastructure issue. However, there is no question that much more needs to be done. Key to the livelihoods of fishermen is the ability to work at their industry. To do that, they need good infrastructure. Wharves are extremely important. Breakwaters are important as part of that wharf, set up to protect fishermen from the high seas and the winds.
Dredging is extremely important in some of areas of the country. The member for Chatham-Kent—Essex mentioned how important dredging was in his area.
Lighting along those wharves, winches to lift the fish out of the boats and boat sheds are important infrastructure. Safe harbour access is extremely important. The wharf has to be in good repair. There has to be protection from the high seas.
I know in a lot of my area and in Atlantic Canada dredging the sand is extremely important. It is not just getting out of the harbour to do the fishing; it is a key safety area. A lot of people in our country probably do not realize that the tides rise and fall. Often in many harbours, fishermen cannot come in at low tide, even with what we have tried to do. They have to time it so the tide is higher in order to get over the sand bars.
I will give an example of a harbour in my area. It is the harbour of Malpeque. It is a very nice little harbour. It has both mussel and lobster fishermen there. We tried to get a commitment with the bureaucracy, under the previous government, I must admit, and the new government. The fishermen of that port and I as an MP felt we had a commitment last fall that small craft harbours would dredge the harbour come spring. It sanded in last fall and the mussel fishermen, who were still operating, had to unload at other harbours. They could come in and go out empty, but they could not come in loaded.
It was going to cost a considerable amount of money to dredge. They accepted that fisheries would not dredge last fall. It was going to sand in, in the wintertime, anyway. However, it was to be done as soon as ice was out this spring. When the ice was gone, DFO did not come through like it was supposed to.
It is not the fault of the staff in Charlottetown. Somebody higher up the line decided that there was a little more sand than expected and it was $10,000 over the limit. Eventually we did get it dredged, but I believe it was public works in the end that did it because it could spend a little more money.
When public works dredged it, instead of widening the channel 60 feet like it ought to have been, it only dredged it 30 feet wide. It did not want to spend the extra $20,000 to do it right. By not doing it right in the first instance, in effect DFO has to re-tender and has to spend all that money over again because it was not done right the first time. That should not happen.
Not only do we have to put more money in small craft harbours, but we have to bring some common sense to the system. If we have to go over a little to do the dredging properly, then somebody should use that common sense. I know people are scared of the new government in terms of having to watch their shadow and accountability, but they should act. That did not happen in this case.
I want to point out another problem with dredging. Every time we go to dredge, the cost of an environmental study is phenomenal. I believe we have a permit for the north side of the island at the moment. That is in place for some time. The amount of money that is spent on environmental studies, doing the same thing over and over again as the years go by, is ridiculous. There should be ways and means, through the bureaucracy in this town and at 200 Kent Street, to overcome that. Rather than give consultants and legal people money, those dollars need to be spent to get the sand out of the harbours and to make the wharves safe.
In terms of the motion, the bottom line is that it is just words from the government unless it eliminates the cut and implements the increase.