Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Nova Scotia for his passionate defence of our shipbuilding industry.
Before the North American Free Trade Agreement, 1,200 people lived in the little town of Wawa, where I lived back in the sixties, and pulled ore out of the ground, out of which they burned the sulphur and shipped it down to Sault Ste. Marie where 12,000 people turned that into steel.
I was in Saint John, New Brunswick, in 1987 visiting the shipyards. I noticed large piles of steel waiting to be used in the ships that were being fixed and built there at that time. They were all stamped “Algoma Steel”, which made me feel good? Here was a Canadian industry, from beginning to end, that was providing good paying jobs for Canadian citizens and opportunities for Canadian businesses to make money. Our economy was rolling at that time.
Why is that not happening any more? The mines in Wawa are shut down. Essar Steel Algoma, formerly Algoma Steel, in Sault Ste. Marie employs between 3,000 and 4,000 people. They are losing their jobs in this difficult recession, as we speak. The shipyards in Saint John, I understand, are shut down completely. Why did that happen?