Mr. Speaker, right off the top I would like to address the conflict and divisiveness that is being created at this very moment when households across this country have to choose between watching the awarding of the Stanley Cup or listening to the comments presented by the member for Cape Breton—Canso.
Congratulations to Darryl Sutter and Dustin Brown, captain of the L.A. Kings. I heard second-hand that they ended up beating New Jersey tonight, so congratulations to the 18 Canadians on that team. Way to go.
There are any number of issues that I could address during this budget discussion. One is certainly the cuts to ACOA of $19 million over the coming years.
There are the cuts to the regional development authorities, groups that have done so much for their various communities and contributed in many different ways to programs and projects over the years. They are being cut.
We are seeing regional offices of Veterans Affairs being shut down in Sydney and Charlottetown and being centralized. If we owe anything to anybody, it is the veterans of this nation. We at least owe them the courtesy of being able to meet with a live person to discuss their files and current challenges. That is being taken away from them through the measures within this budget.
I could talk about the OAS and how the changes to the OAS in this budget are going to disproportionately impact the poorest in our country: disabled persons and persons who live close to the poverty line. It is not only those who live in poverty, but those with low-income households and single mothers. Those who most need that support will be the ones most impacted by these changes to the OAS. I could talk about that, but I am going to limit my comments to five letters. The first three letters will be DFO and the last two letters will be EI.
My riding of Cape Breton—Canso is a coastal community, and it has been seized by both of these issues. I heard a government member say the Conservatives have done what they said they were going to do and the government has delivered what it said it was going to deliver. I know that in 2008 they identified in their platform that they were going to bring forward a new Fisheries Act in 2008. They are in a majority position now and pretty much ram through whatever they want. This piece of legislation is its marquee case in point.
They could have brought forward a Fisheries Act, but instead lumped all of this stuff together—the environment, natural resources, the fisheries. Changes to the application of the Fisheries Act are going to be felt in fishing communities right across this country, and not only by coastal communities but by communities on inland waters as well.
A couple of the changes to DFO are certainly cause for alarm when we look at what the Conservatives have done with the science branches and science within DFO. Regardless of the species, we know that the health of the stocks, the biomass and the exploitation rate are generated and driven by pure science. If the Conservatives do not have access to the science, the health of our sustainable fishery will be put in question going forward. That is something we should all be very concerned about.
With regard to enforcement, we know that front-line officers are being taken out of regional offices. I spoke with my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour about something we were made aware of last week, the change in policy whereby DFO is no longer going to require lobster fishermen to buy tags because there is nobody in the offices to sell and administer them. The government is going to stop the practice of selling tags. The lobster traps are not going to be tagged, yet what the lobster fishermen have done over the last generations is put in place conservation practices that have sustained that fishery and those communities by having that fishery.
One thing that has been a key component of those conservation methods is a limited number of traps per fisherman. When the fisheries officers do pull a trap, if they are not marked, how would they know who owns that trap? That is an obvious step backward in conservation in what should be a move toward further sustainability in those fisheries. We have seen that.
The most egregious one that really gets the hackles up on anybody is this. I have a great number of friends who are progressive Conservatives. They are good people and they want to see people succeed and prosper. St. John's, Newfoundland, long before oil and gas, was the hub of finance for the Atlantic coast fishery. That is where people came and did their trade. Fish were bought and sold. Certainly, DFO has a long history and long presence in St. John's, Newfoundland. The government is taking 28 jobs out of St. John's, Newfoundland, and moving them to Fredericton, New Brunswick, which is the only constituency in Atlantic Canada that does not have a wharf. Coincidentally though, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans is from Fredericton, New Brunswick. I am sure there are Reformers over on that bench who, when they heard that, wanted to take a shower. That was so cheap and tawdry that the Conservatives should apologize to the good people of Newfoundland for taking on such an activity. They should be embarrassed. I hope that the Reformers in that caucus would address that particular move.
If Loyola Hearn were in this House, that would not happen. Those jobs would still be in St. John's, Newfoundland. Loyola Hearn would not let that happen. I guess it is a penalty for not electing Loyola Sullivan.
The other two letters are EI. We know that the changes to this EI system are nothing short of an attack on rural Canada, on seasonal industries. What they are doing is robbing a group of industries. Seasonal industries contribute about 26% of the GDP of this country. That is seasonal industries, such as tourism, forestry, the fishery, contractors and construction workers. It is about 26% of the GDP. What these measures under this bill would do is rob those industries of a pool of labour going forward. I will just typify this.
We all have landscapers in our communities. Fifteen years ago, anybody with a half-ton truck and wheelbarrow was a landscaper. That industry has come so far now that they have red seal approval, so they have attracted people and professionals to the industry and we see that in the projects they create and the job they do. It is a very professional organization. They know that these changes would steer people into other professions that will steer them away from landscaping. This is just one small seasonal industry. Even more so than the workers who would be chased out of rural communities, it is the industries and the communities that are driven by these industries that would pay the price for the changes in the EI system.
They made a couple of good changes. Had this been a smaller bill or legislation coming forward and if they had debated the EI changes in this House, I think we could have done something to make it better for all Canadians.
I look forward to any questions.