Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport a few questions about the Petitcodiac River in my riding.
On October 25, I asked the Minister of Transport a simple question.
The question was essentially, when will the river restoration project continue?
As the House knows, the background for that question is that the provincial government, under Premier Graham, has bravely committed to fund, and to join with the federal government in its responsibility to clean up the Petitcodiac River, some of the $68 million that may be required for its restoration.
On October 25 when I asked that question, the answer was that the unprecedented amounts of money for infrastructure programs would be coming and the good discussions with the Government of New Brunswick would continue. That was the answer.
I am here this evening to follow up and ask why it was on November 9 that the minister leaked a letter to the press and let it be known to the premier in that fashion, through the press, through the public, that the deal was off, and that the unprecedented amounts of money for the infrastructure project was unprecedented. It was zero. There was no money for the restoration of the Petitcodiac River. There was no commitment to a legal obligation under the Fisheries Act. The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans in his visit to Moncton reiterated that the federal government had a legal responsibility under the Fisheries Act to see to some of the restoration of the project.
It seems on the one hand that the federal government participated and funded, through the good work I might add of the member for West Nova, the former fisheries minister, the environmental assessment, paid for the scientists to find as a fact that the river needed to be restored, and that there were options for its restoration.
The Petitcodiac riverkeepers launched a lawsuit in the Federal Court of Canada.
At the last moment the federal Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities instructed his solicitors to advise that the government had no opposition to the removal of the gates in the restoration of the project which was coupled the same day mischievously by the Minister of Transport's leaked letter to the press. There was no courtesy to the federal government, no courtesy to the House, suggesting that although the government had no problem with the gates being removed, it was not funding any part of it.
My question as a follow up is this. Why is it that the federal government is denying its legal obligation to restore the Petitcodiac River which involves replacing 280 metres of the causeway with a new bridge, removing the fish gates, and conducting extensive investigations? Why is the government denying that when it has funded $26.6 million to the Saint John Harbour cleanup? I have nothing against our good neighbours in Saint John, they deserve a harbour that should be clean from sewage treatment. There was $12 million in funding over the next two years to support the cleanup of Lake Simcoe in Ontario, $11 million over two years to accelerate the cleanup of the Great Lakes, and $7 million for the Lake Winnipeg Basin cleanup. I have absolutely nothing against anyone in Manitoba or Ontario. They deserve the environmental remediation that is taking place under those programs.
The question is pure and simple. Why is the government and the Minister of Transport--