Loyola Hearn

[Social Development Canada, December 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, all of us here have the opportunity to do our Christmas shopping whenever we want. However, those who receive old age security and Canada pension benefits must wait until the cheques come, usually December 22. This forces them out into all kinds of weather in the midst of huge crowds.

Will the minister responsible be a Santa this year and not a Scrooge, and get the cheques out a few days earlier?

[Supply, December 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I will ask my colleague from Kootenay—Columbia if he thinks that we have taken the right approach.

First of all, let me clarify that there is no motion to get rid of Mr. Williams. There is a motion asking the minister to review the decision to appoint him in light of the fact that a majority of the stakeholders in British Columbia has expressed concern about his chairmanship.

Our comments about the commission, and I will ask the member if this is not true, have been that we do not think it can in such a short length of time with such a diverse commission get to the bottom of the major problem here. What we do hope it will do, it is the same thing as when we asked the standing committee to go to B.C. It was to get an interim solution to save this year's fishery. Is it not right that we ask for a judicial inquiry to deal solely with the overall problem so that we can correct it in depth?

[Supply, December 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, we cannot let the remarks of the hon. member stay on the record. There is no motion before the standing committee to get rid of Mr. Williams. I ask the member to retract his statement.

[Supply, December 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it does not take long to say that DFO basically rejected all the recommendations. As we know, it did very little to implement any of them. Pilot sales have now been changed, but we are hearing about an economic opportunity, and that is causing some concerns. The aboriginal people who are also affected by this are suffering under this complete and utter mismanagement. The fishery out there has to be clarified. Our recommendations would have helped do it. They were ignored completely. We will see what happens today. Maybe a judicial inquiry can solve our problems.

[Supply, December 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am familiar with the document. It is basically a document sent by representatives of the minister, undoubtedly at the request of the minister.

There is no way to answer his question, and I will tell him why.

There is no way in such a short timeframe that a committee representing so many diverse stakeholder groups can be put together, get to the bottom of what has happened here and get a report done that would be of any value whatsoever or any credibility.

The minister is in a panic. We saw a fishery disappear on the east coast. We see problems in the Great Lakes. Wherever there is a fishery, we see problems because of the complete lack of science, the cuts, which the department will be doing again this year, and because of complete and utter mismanagement. The left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.

Why are we seeing this come in? It is imply to deflect attention and try to affect the vote of people in this House who, because of their concern for the fishery generally but mainly because of the Fraser River, they want to say that everything is okay and that we do not need it.

Why do they not want a judicial inquiry? It is because, in the words of a great actor in a great movie, they cannot handle the truth.

[Supply, December 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to participate in this debate, as I am sure you, sir, are probably delighted to be here to witness this debate today because it centres on your very area, the Fraser River.

I have some concerns about the interpretation of the resolution given by government members. I heard the parliamentary secretary talk about the concern he would have about the judicial inquiry because all it would do is pit one side against the other. I also heard him talking about the department and asked if we wanted the army sent in.

At no time in any of this debate or in the wording of the resolution have we talked about pitting one side against the other or about any disputes between the various users or stakeholders in the Pacific fishery. I want to clearly outline what the resolution is about. The resolution states:

That the House recognize that the maintenance of the sockeye salmon stocks in the Fraser River is crucial for conservation and for commercial, recreational and aboriginal users; that the government's investigation--

--which it slapped together and is still not off the ground by the way--

--into the collapse of this resource cannot be considered independent; that this resource--

Here is the key part, the crux of this resolution, the resource, and we could say all fishery resources in the country, but in this case it is the sockeye salmon in the Fraser River.

--has been mismanaged; that past decisions have been made without the proper science; and that, as a consequence, the House call on the government to establish an independent judicial inquiry to determine the cause of the collapse of the sockeye salmon stocks on the Fraser River.

The parliamentary secretary also said that the department had assessed various reviews to bring together recommendations to deal with this issue. What a pile of baloney.

First, very good studies have been done into this issue. We had the Fraser report because of problems in 1994. We have had several audits by the provincial and federal auditor general departments dealing with concerns about this issue. We also had a report tabled in 2003 by the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, which, by the way, went out to B.C. on the weekend.

Before I go any farther I would like to remind the House that I will be splitting my time with the member for Kootenay--Columbia.

During the latter part of last week and over the weekend, the standing committee went to British Columbia and held hearings on the concerns about the sockeye salmon stocks in the Fraser. Before I get into what happened at the hearings, I want to give a couple of examples of what we are talking about when we talk about the complete collapse.

This year, about 4.5 million salmon returned to the Fraser. Of that, only about 200,000 reached the spawning grounds, a minuscule percentage of what is necessary to guarantee a fishery four years from now.

With one particular part of that stock, the early Stuart run, with which you are quite familiar, Mr. Speaker, the powers that be within the department felt it necessary that at least 90,000 of that run should reach the spawning grounds. They made allocations to the various users, the food, social, and ceremonial fishery, the commercial fisheries and the recreational fisheries. They left the 90,000 salmon there to get to the spawning grounds.

However we saw a slight rise early in the year of the water temperatures, not what we saw later in the summer but the early run might have been somewhat affected. Therefore, to err on the side of caution, they added an extra 29,000 salmon to the escapement, which means that 119,000 salmon should have reached the spawning grounds. In reality, only 9,000 reached the spawning grounds, less than 8% of what was needed in order to guarantee any kind of a fishery in 2008.

We have seen people scrambling to explain what happened, not only in the early run but in the total run. They talked about water temperatures. We heard evidence from practically every stakeholder group in British Columbia during our three days out there. All of them stated that there was no evidence whatsoever that the increased temperatures had any effect on the disappearance of that number of salmon.

At no time did anyone see any amount of carcasses on the river, on the banks or being eaten by birds, all the signs that would be there if there had been a massive kill in the river. Could the higher temperature have had an effect? Yes, it certainly could. Could it have killed some salmon? Yes, it certainly could. It would have weakened the salmon anyway. Did it destroy 1.8 million fish? Absolutely not.

Where did they go? Most of the groups that came before us looked inwardly and said, “ mea culpa ”, meaning that it was their fault and that they all contributed. We know that is true to some degree but any amount of overfishing or misreporting would be a minuscule amount.

It comes down to the fact that someone has to get to the bottom of why so many fish disappeared. There could be a number of reasons. It could be overfishing, misreporting, water temperatures or predation. We do not know. However, more important, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans does not know either despite the fact that we had a similar catastrophe in 1992 and another one in 1994. Studies have been done. The auditors general have made reports, the standing committee has made recommendations but the Department of Fisheries has completely ignored everything.

When we asked for a judicial inquiry, the department, through the parliamentary secretary, said that an inquiry was not needed because the minister had set up a committee to study it.

Because of the pressure, the minister has pulled together an ad hoc committee, under all kinds of questions by stakeholders, but no one at this stage has a clue who will be on the committee. We have heard talk of about 30 or more groups being represented. Then there are talks about picking, choosing and involving others from the side, and yet the committee is expected to report by February or early March in order to make recommendations for the coming season.

Knowing where the members opposite come from, they know that is not going to work. Nobody else thinks it will work. None of the stakeholders thought it was a practical way to address the problem.

What we have is a committee, which right now is not even operable, and it is questionable at best as to what will happen. Even if it were to come out with a few recommendations about next year, which would be very important, our standing committee recommendations will be important because we must save next year's stock. If we do not, half the cycle will be gone. However in the long term we have to get to the root of the problem.

Mismanagement and lack of science is at the bottom of this. The responsibility for this rests solely with the department. The only way to get to the truth about what happened this year and what is happening generally is through a judicial inquiry, for which we have a lot of support.

It is very interesting that a motion at the standing committee this morning was turned down because the Liberals brought in five goons, who had never heard about this before, to make that decision. A number of them will be voting on this very issue again tonight and I am sure the same thing will happen. It will be interesting to see where our Liberal colleagues from British Columbia sit, or more important, where they stand tonight.

[Supply, December 9th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I would like to say, for those who may be watching, that the best argument any of us could make for a judicial inquiry is to listen to the member opposite. He gave us just about every reason why we should have an inquiry that would get to the bottom of the complete mismanagement of the fisheries.

However let me correct the member in what he said. He said that this morning the standing committee rejected a call for a judicial inquiry. I will give two reasons for that.

First, the standing committee just returned from British Columbia where it had three days of excellent hearings. We will hear a lot more about those hearings today. The committee needs to finish a report. It is only right and fair that the committee be given time. The committee was put on the spot. I respect the committee's right to say that this is not the time to make the request. It has not yet assessed the evidence. That is fair ball.

However, do members know how we were defeated this morning? The majority of the people who were at the hearings supported it but five Liberal goons, who had not been to British Columbia and who did not have a clue about the issue, were sent in and they voted against the inquiry. That is why the standing committee made that decision this morning.

The hon. member talks about other inquiries. The standing committee did a report in 2001, which was tabled in 2003, making pointed recommendations that would have solved some of the problems that we are facing today. The Fraser report did the same thing. Both reports were completely and utterly ignored by government.

The minister, under pressure, waxed together a committee, which every stakeholder out there said would not work because all the players around the table would just argue and fight and that there would be no coordination, especially with the short timeframe.

What we need are some recommendations from the committee, even such as it is, to deal with the upcoming season because if we lose this coming season we will lose half the cycle.

What we need for the long term is to get to the root of what caused the problems in 1992, 1994 and again this year, and the ensuing problems. If we do not have an inquiry, I ask the member, how will we get to the bottom of the problems?

[Supply, December 9th, 2004]

It happened in 1992, 1994 and 2000.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, November 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the member is very conscientious and looks at things very reasonably. He has really put his finger on the dilemma that we face in this country.

I say to the hon. member that even though we use the word equalization, and the bill is about equalization, he knows as well as I do that the provinces, particularly when we speak in fiscal terms, are certainly not equal. Perhaps they never will be. Some have more than others. That is why we have a central government that tries somewhat to equalize at least to some degree some of the opportunities and abilities.

Back in the 1930s when Alberta was going through an extremely rough time with farming, people from the east, from Nova Scotia, from Newfoundland, sent salt fish out so that people would have something to eat. Times were pretty tough. Things have turned around. Alberta is now the richest province in the country. It is contributing significantly to the funds that go to the have not provinces, if we can refer to them as such, and many of them are not.

Other provinces have resources. Let us look at Ontario, the pride of my friend from Scarborough—Guildwood. If tomorrow some of the major car manufacturers said that they were moving to Mexico, that they were taking their car production factories out of Ontario, imagine what would happen. If the federal government said that to really foster Canadian unity it would move the centre of government to Quebec, to Montreal, or to Regina or St. John's, what effect would that have on the economy of Ontario? Very quickly Ontario would become a have not province.

What I am saying is that the pendulum swings. Today we are well off; tomorrow we may not be. That is what Confederation is about. I have said that before. Alberta's turn today may be ours tomorrow. As its oil wells dry up, ours are coming on stream. Once we hit that magic number of the five province or 10 province formula, whichever one is in effect, we become contributing partners and we stay contributing partners. We do not look for equalization. We contribute then. We get the benefit of our own resources, but we pay into the equalization formula that helps other provinces. Somewhere down the road, the pendulum swings back again.

To answer the hon. member's question in short terms, provinces generally are in confederation to help each other and to share with each other. Whichever one happens to be fortunate looks after the less fortunate, because tomorrow the shoe could be on the other foot.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, November 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to have the opportunity to say a few words on Bill C-24. I thank my colleague from St. John's East for sharing his time with me.

When we talk about equalization, quite often we hear people saying, “There goes Newfoundland and Labrador again, looking for more money”. Let me just put on the record quite clearly that our province is not the only province that gets equalization.

Newfoundland and Labrador, according to the legislation, next year will receive--and there is some argument about this--$860 million, probably closer to $861 million, but Manitoba will receive $1,600,000,000, twice as much. New Brunswick will receive $1,347,000,000, almost twice as much. Nova Scotia will receive $1,343,000,000, almost twice as much, and Quebec of course will receive $4,798,000,000, which is just about six times as much.

So right from the start let us make it clear that Newfoundland and Labrador is not the only province in the country that receives equalization.

The legislation itself, as far as it goes, basically just legalizes a process of delivering the equalization payments to the province, adjusting the formula somewhat and legalizing payments. As far as it goes, we have no problems with it. It is where it does not go that causes us real problems.

Equalization has its basis in section 36 of the Constitution. It is a redistribution program aimed at nation building. I want members to remember nation building, because I will come back to it in a moment.

The formula itself is not in the Constitution. Instead, it is set out in the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act. And here is the thing that worries us, particularly in light of negotiations that are going on at present. It has changed a number of times since its inception in 1957. It has changed a number of times and the concern of course is that if it changed once, it can change again. The enactment does not deal with non-renewable resource revenue sharing outside of equalization, and that is the other thing that scares us.

Let us talk about nation building and just talk about what some of the hon. members opposite think about equalization as it deals with nation building. Let me quote one of them. He said:

--we are now 10 independent little countries.

I respectfully submit there is no sense of nationhood or nation building out of these moneys. We have 10 little emperors. Each has his hands on ridiculous amounts of money. They erect trade barriers which interfere with each Canadian's ability to move from province to province and to practise his or her trade.

If I had any impact on the finance ministers of Canada, and that is somewhat dubious, I might ask some rather fundamental questions. How do these equalization transfers help build Canada? How is Canada better off at the end of the day once these transfers are done? How will Canadians know that their money is well spent?

The hon. gentleman actually went on to say:

I cannot quite fathom how we should take $1 billion worth of transfer moneys given to the Government of Newfoundland [and Labrador] own funds, not call on the federal transfer and still complain.

One would wonder who would say it like that, first of all to ridicule 10 provinces and 10 premiers and say they are a bunch of greedy little emperors with their grubby little fingers out reaching for federal dollars, and then to complain that Newfoundlanders or perhaps people from the north or any province with natural resources would sit back and not try to develop their own resources because Ottawa is passing out the money to them.

The interesting thing about it is that the statement was made by the member for Scarborough—Guildwood when he was the member for Scarborough East about four or five years ago.

So when we hear the hon. member, now the parliamentary secretary, constantly belittling equalization and trying to prevent the government from proceeding with its deal to give provinces that have non-renewable resources a fair shake, to develop these resources outside of equalization until and only until they become contributing provinces, this is where the problem is coming from, from people like that.

There he is on the record proving himself to the people of Canada. Maybe his own party will look at him and others who are the naysayers, including the President of the Treasury Board, by the way, and show some leadership.

The Prime Minister today in question period, in answering the question from the Leader of the Opposition, in referring to the deal the federal government has offered Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, said how much better off “our offer is than the Conservatives'”.

The offer that the Prime Minister made was a very good one. The offer he made Newfoundland and Labrador, the offer he made Nova Scotia, was a very good offer. He promised it during the election campaign. The problem is that it does not matter how good the offer was if he has no intention of delivering on that promise or the offer, if the little minions on the other side are saying to him, “You cannot, you cannot, help. One of these days these provinces might be as rich as Ontario. We can never let that happen, Mr. Prime Minister”.

We have a Prime Minister who came to Newfoundland and Labrador, who came to Nova Scotia, and in the case of Nova Scotia the day before the election, to try to save a few seats and save face, and promised to do what any good Prime Minister should do: give them a fair shake.

Do members know what are we asking for? Remember Oliver Twist and “Please, sir, I want some more”? That is almost the position we are in. We are not asking for anything from this government, or anything from this House, or anything from this province, or anything from this country.

What we are asking is that we can keep our share, not the whole amount but our share of our resource, which in reality is less than 50% of the total resource. We get less than 50%. The province gets to keep about 30%. The federal government wants to claw back 70% of our share, less than 50% of the total, on top of the 50%-plus that it has anyway. All we are saying is please let us keep our own revenues until we become a contributing province. Then the government can take equalization and help those who need the help.

Equalization in itself, as we know, is a bit of a joke, because the funds certainly do not equalize anything in this country. It just helps, however, some provinces that are not in a position to help themselves.

Therefore, let us say when we look at a bill like this that as far as it goes all it does is legitimize the delivery mechanism for the next round of equalization payments. That is fair ball as it goes. However, here is what we must look at and why we have so many concerns. When we hear a Prime Minister talk about an offer which he has no intention of fulfilling, when we see members throwing in every monkey wrench they can, when we see that there is no protection in legislation that the equalization will not be changed next year or the year after, is it any wonder that we are holding out for a good deal? No, it is not, and let me tell this House that until we get the deal we want, we will not be signing anything.