Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue.
The motion before this honourable House today says that the government must recognize that saving lives is the top priority for Canadian Coast Guard search and rescue services. This motion is much like the motion that was debated in the House just weeks ago. That motion called for Canada to adopt an international search and rescue readiness standard of 30 minutes at all times, around the clock, for the military's search and rescue Cormorant helicopters.
The response time for a Cormorant helicopter varies depending on the time of day. Between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday to Friday, the wheels-up response time for a Cormorant helicopter is 30 minutes. After 4 p.m., on weekends and during holidays, the wheels-up response time is up to two hours. Needless to say, that response time has cost mariners their lives. A fire department would never operate that way. People would revolt. It would make no sense because people would most surely die. People have died on the water because of the search and rescue response time policy. In fact, according to the CBC's The Fifth Estate, there have been nine cases in the last eight years alone where people died waiting for search and rescue that did not come quickly enough.
The Conservatives voted against that motion. The previous motion calling for Canada to adopt a 30-minute around-the-clock response time and the motion before the House now are about saving the lives of mariners, about how saving lives should be a top priority. That is the common theme: saving the lives of mariners.
Why did the Conservatives vote against that motion at the end of April if lives would have been saved because of it? I will tell members why. I have a quote from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence, who we heard just a few minutes ago. He stated:
We also do not think it is the place of the House, this member, or other members to determine what the actual response times of the Canadian Forces, or any other body, ought to be on these matters.
I will repeat that quote:
We also do not think it is the place of the House, this member, or other members to determine what the actual response times of the Canadian Forces, or any other body, ought to be on these matters.
I could not believe it when I heard him say that it is not the place of the House to debate a search and rescue policy of the Canadian Forces that impacts the lives of Canadian mariners, that it is not the place of the House to debate an adequate search and rescue response policy that has been directly linked to the deaths of Canadian mariners, that it is not the place of the House to debate a search and rescue response policy that the Conservative government is reluctant to change because of the associated cost. How much is a life worth? Can the Conservatives give us a cost breakdown? Is that in the Conservatives' action plan?
I say it is our place to stand up for Canadians who cannot stand up for themselves or to stand up for any injustice on land or on water. It is our place to stand up when a policy falls short of protecting the Canadians it was instituted to protect. It is our place.
Here we are today debating another motion stating that the government must recognize that saving lives is the top priority for Canadian Coast Guard search and rescue services. I cannot believe we are actually debating this. How the Conservatives can argue this is beyond me. The next part of the motion before us reads, “that local service and knowledge, as well as the ability to communicate in the language of the communities served, are essential to delivering effective and timely life-saving operations...”.
Closing the maritime rescue sub-centre in my riding of St. John's South--Mount Pearl, more specifically on the south side of St. John's harbour, was the wrong move. It was the wrong move because those distress calls are now directed to Halifax, Nova Scotia, or Trenton, Ontario.
I do not know if anyone has noticed, but Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have unique accents. Most Canadians know that. Myself, I am not so lucky to have a full-blown Newfoundland accent, although we all sound different on the wharf. Many mariners are not so easy to understand unless one is from the place. If a ship is going down and there are mere seconds to send off a mayday, a mainlander would have a hard time understanding a person from outport, Newfoundland and Labrador, who is also probably over-excited, facing a life or death situation. A mainlander would have a hard time pinpointing the various locations around Newfoundland and Labrador on a map. There are countless Seal Coves and countless Bell Islands, so local service and knowledge and the ability to communicate in the language of the communities served are essential. They are more than essential, they are critical. They are more than critical, it is a matter of life and death.
It was bad enough the Conservatives closed the maritime rescue sub-centre in my riding, directing distress calls again to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Trenton, Ontario. How did the Conservatives next fail our mariners? I will give the House an unbelievable example.
Medical calls for help from ships off Newfoundland and Labrador, and only off Newfoundland and Labrador, were routed 5,000 miles away to Italy. That is right. 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 the Conservatives closed the maritime rescue sub-centre in my riding, but mainlanders, let alone Italians, have a hard enough time understanding the people where I come from.
Our search and rescue response times are among the worst in the world. That is not debatable. 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 Conservative government is growing and will continue to grow unless the Conservative government changes tack and drops its defeatist attitude toward the east coast.
The last part of today's motion calls on the Conservative government to reverse the decision to close the maritime search and rescue coordination centres in St. John's and Quebec City as well as the Coast Guard station in Kitsilano, Vancouver.
I have had conversations with former employees of the maritime search and rescue coordination centre in St. John's. I have heard these former employees say that lives will be lost. I ask members on the other side to hear me: lives will be lost because of the Conservative government's decision.
These former employees know what they are talking about. They have worked on the front lines for decades at the rescue sub-centre. These front-line employees know the coastline of Newfoundland and Labrador like the backs of their hands. These front-line employees know the dialects of Newfoundland and Labrador. We must keep in mind that accents can be different from one cove to the next cove. These front-line employees are familiar with the hundreds of communities that dot our coastline. They know many of the men and women who ply the waters. They know not just the mariners but their friends and their relatives. That on-the-ground knowledge is critical in a search and rescue situation, where seconds seem like hours, where hours seem like days, and if it is days, well, the person would probably be dead.
I implore members of the House to vote for the motion, to vote for saving lives, to vote for making the saving of lives the top priority above saving money, above petty politics.
I implore the government to reverse its decision and to do the right thing. Show the mariners of Newfoundland and Labrador, show the mariners of Atlantic Canada, show mariners all over Canada that it knows where its priorities are, so that in the words of our late leader Jack Layton, no one is left behind on land or on water, no one is left behind.