Mr. Speaker, there is outrage today in my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador, a long-simmering outrage that has reached the boiling point over the latest unbelievable example of how the federal Conservative government is failing our mariners.
News broke Tuesday that medical calls for help from ships off Newfoundland and Labrador, and only off Newfoundland and Labrador, were being routed 5,000 miles away to Italy. The calls were being directed to a Rome-based non-profit organization that has been described as “the soup kitchen of telehelp”.
It was bad enough that the Conservatives closed the marine rescue sub-centre in my riding, directing distress calls to Halifax and Trenton, Ontario, but mainlanders have a hard enough time understanding my people, let alone Italians.
Our search and rescue response times are among the worst in the world. Our mariners have died waiting for help that did not come, and so did 14-year-old Burton Winters of Makkovik, Labrador.
The Conservative government has written off our fishery and now our mariners. The resentment toward the government is turning to disdain.