Loyola Hearn

[Committees of the House, April 22nd, 2005]

I had a meeting yesterday with representatives of the Canadian Coast Guard and--

[Committees of the House, April 22nd, 2005]

If I said it I will leave it on the record. I will not bother to withdraw it. Anyone worth his or her salt representing the people of Canada in this House will deliver for the needs of the people of the country.

There is an interesting thing about it, and it is why people are more interested now in looking at this side of the House forming the government than in bringing back what they have seen over the last x number of years. It is that not only will we put money where it is needed, into seniors, into homelessness, into the veterans, into infrastructure and into municipalities, but we would have more money to put in. We would not be giving away money to our friends and ad agencies. We would not be letting other people rip off the people of this country. We would not be spending $2 billion on the gun registry.

Let us look at some of the other issues.

[Committees of the House, April 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I remind the Minister of Finance that he should know. He is the Minister of Finance. But if he is like the former minister of finance, he probably does not know either what is going on in light of his department and the funding that flows through to provinces or to agencies or to friends.

Having said that, I note the record will show that the last major infrastructure money that went to Newfoundland and Labrador came from the Mulroney government.

In his speech, the Minister of Finance would want the people of this country to believe that should his party be put out of power, all the topics that would be covered by the budget, money for seniors, money for cities, money for homelessness, money for child care, would disappear. No one in his right mind would even think that any government, even--I will not say even--the NDP, the Bloc--

[Committees of the House, April 22nd, 2005]

It is true. Check your records. You were the minister. You should know, unless you are like the former minister--

[Committees of the House, April 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to participate in what could be a very record-setting debate. It may be the last sensible debate we have in this place.

Before I get into the gist of my speech and the comments on the speech made by the Minister of Finance, I want to refer to the last speaker from the opposite side. He talked about infrastructure and infrastructure agreements and the lack of involvement by the former Conservative government under Prime Minister Mulroney.

I cannot speak for the hon. member's province of Ontario, but I can speak for my own province of Newfoundland and Labrador. During that time, when I was a member of the provincial government, we had two major funding agreements on infrastructure for the province, very substantive ones, which certainly improved the infrastructure throughout the province, particularly in relation to highways. The last one was back in the 1980s. Since then, we have not had one cent coming to our province by way of major infrastructure agreements with the federal government.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, April 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her speech and also for her knowledge of the situation as it pertains to the Atlantic accord agreement and the benefits that should be accruing right now to the province of Newfoundland and Labrador and to Nova Scotia.

She mentioned taking the single piece of legislation pertaining to the accord out of this omnibus bill. The Liberals have countered with “pass the bill and everything passes”. I will ask her if this is reasonable. When we compare one two-page piece of legislation, which has been agreed to by the provinces and by the Prime Minister, with an omnibus bill, is it fair to ask people to make that comparison?

[Natural Resources, April 19th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals would love to see the 24 clauses passed without scrutiny or due diligence because that is the way they operate.

First of all, the Prime Minister had to be pressured into promising the deal. Then it took months of more pressure from us and the provinces to get an agreement. The government refused to bring forth stand-alone legislation. Then the Liberals eliminated our opposition day when we could have debated this. Now they are playing around with Bill C-43. Why does the government not want to give the provinces their money?

[Natural Resources, April 19th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, they would love to see--

[Question No. 106, April 15th, 2005]

With regard to the oil spill on November 21, 2004 off the Terra Nova platform and Canadian Coast Guard, CCG, involvement in any response: ( a ) how many CCG personnel were involved; ( b ) over what period of time were any CCG personnel involved; ( c ) how much CCG equipment, if any, was dedicated to the response and for what amount of time; ( d ) was there any reporting internal or external to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans that resulted from any CCG involvement in responding to this spill; ( e ) if CCG ships were part of the response, what responsibilities were forgone in order to respond to the spill?

[Question No. 105, April 15th, 2005]

With regard to the study of the relationship between cod and seals being done by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans DFO: ( a ) when did this study begin; ( b ) how is this study being undertaken; ( c ) how many DFO personnel are involved in the study; ( d ) is any portion of the study been outsourced; ( e ) what is the cost of the study to the department broken down by fiscal year for the length of time the study has been underway and for the projected time it will take to complete; and ( f ) what DFO policies or recommendations have been cancelled, altered or implemented because of this research?