Loyola Hearn

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a brief comment and a question. I notice the member did not give us the figures, which my colleague requested, when they were presented to him by the parliamentary secretary. I believe, like the rest of us, he does not trust the figures.

However, my question for the member is this. As he represents an area that is very rich in non-renewable resources, much like I do, in light of that and in light of the fact that we probably have not even scratched the surface when it comes to developing the non-renewable resources in the great territories, does he not think that non-renewable resources should be taken outside the equalization formula, in other words, not considered when we discuss equalization?

[Crohn's and Colitis, November 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, November is Crohn's and Colitis Month in Canada. November is now coming to an end, but unfortunately Crohn's and colitis are not.

These chronic intestinal disorders can strike anyone at any time. They cause a variety of symptoms, from mild to extremely severe, and flare-ups that can occur without warning, sometimes resulting in hospitalization and surgery.

There is currently no known cause or cure, a cure which 170,000 Canadian men, women and children await.

We in the House cannot find that cure, but we can make sure that the best hope, medical research, is well funded. This, along with the support of thousands of volunteers across Canada working constantly, will get us closer to our goal each day.

Hopefully in the not too distant future, not only will November come to an end--

[Fisheries, November 19th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, recently, at a United Nations meeting, Canada was one of the sponsors of a resolution recommending action be taken on destructive fishing practices, including bottom trawling. This was done without any consultation with industry and without the minister's officials being aware of the key components.

While such a ban could be tolerated in certain sensitive areas, this one could be interpreted very broadly.

Why would Canada and the minister support a resolution that could have a disastrous effect on several of our fisheries, including the shrimp fishery?

[Supply, November 16th, 2004]

Mr. Chair, the member for Parkdale--High Park mentioned FACTOR, the Foundation to Assist Canadian Talent on Records. I totally agree with her comments about the great contribution some of the artists have made. What she forgot to talk about was the funding agreement which ran out last March. It received an extension for one year until March 31 of this year. It had been asking for increased sustained funding. It cannot plan for the future if it does not have long term sustained funding.

Why has the minister not announced long term sustainable funding for people like Nickelback, Alanis Morissette, Sarah McLachlan and Blue Rodeo who received less than $500,000 over the years but have made over $2 billion in sales for this country? Is it because she does not think it is important to plan or is it just bad timing?

[Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Act, November 16th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for reading what was given to him, but let me say to him that he should have checked it out beforehand because what he said is certainly not the facts.

Toward the end he talked about the province looking for equalization after it goes above and beyond the fiscal capacity of Ontario. That is not the case. We have always said that when we reach the five province standard, when we are looked upon as being equal, we do not want equalization, thank you. We want to be a contributing partner in Confederation, but we do not want the federal government taking back our share of our money.

We are not looking for 100% of all the revenues from the development, as some people think. We are looking for 100% of our share which is less than 50% of the total revenue. When we reach the average capacity, we do not want equalization. We are saying, do to us what the government did to Alberta. Give us the opportunity to use our own revenues until we reach that fiscal capacity. Equalization would disappear and the revenues would continue to flow.

Progress has been made, the parliamentary secretary said. The premiers from both provinces met with the Prime Minister. It was a cozy meeting. They turned it over to the finance ministers and they had a meeting. Everyone thought that everyone understood each other. Then they did the unpardonable thing by turning it over to the officials. From what I know, we are no further ahead. Hopefully things will work out because if not, the war has just begun.

[Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Act, November 16th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, a couple of weeks ago I asked a question of the Minister of Finance relating to the present dispute between Ottawa and Newfoundland as it relates to offshore revenues.

In June during the election campaign the Prime Minister came to our province. Having been forced by the other two major parties, ours and the NDP, to take a stand on revenues, the Prime Minister accepted an offer put forth by the province of Newfoundland and Labrador through the premier, Mr. Williams. The Prime Minister said several times, and it is in writing, that he accepted the proposal put forth by Mr. Williams. However, when the election was over and the dust had settled, no one wanted to deliver on the promise.

After all kinds of meetings and pressure, the Minister of Finance finally gave in writing some indication of the government's offer. They talked about caps and timeframes. They talked about the fiscal capacity of other provinces, particularly Ontario. There were several things tied into the deal that had not been mentioned before and were not part of Mr. Williams' request to the Prime Minister, which the Prime Minister said he had accepted.

When people became upset with this process and this approach, the Minister of Natural Resources was summoned behind closed doors and briefed on the issue somewhat. He should have been there from day one because not only is he the minister responsible for that portfolio, but he is also the minister responsible for representing the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. However, he was called in and briefed briefly, pardon the pun, and sent to Newfoundland to sell the deal.

I quoted him in my question as saying that there is no cap, that there is no concern about tying it in with the fiscal capacity of Ontario, that if oil goes to $1,000 a barrel, we will get all the revenues, that it does not matter about any other province or the fiscal capacity of anybody.

I asked the minister at the time if this was the government's position. The minister did not answer my question. Tonight I know the question will be answered by the parliamentary secretary. I ask him to forget about the prepared text he has been given to try to talk his way out of this.

I want to ask him, is it the government's position that the Minister of Natural Resources has been enunciating in Newfoundland and Labrador? If not, what is the government's position and why is it taking so long to get to a point where the Prime Minister delivers on his promise to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador?

[Act to establish the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec, November 16th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member two brief questions, one dealing with one of his comments about older workers in particular being displaced when an industry shuts down.

Certainly we have gone through a lot of that. Quite often many of these people are left in a complete vacuum, yet we have a surplus in the EI fund of $40 billion, money which these people paid in over the years and for which in some cases they received absolutely no return. Some of these people worked all their lives and did not draw any social benefits. Others, because of seasonal employment, might have.

I ask the member why it is that some of this fund is not used to help people who have been displaced, particularly if they are at an age when it is almost impossible to find new employment.

Second, the member talks about Quebec and the need of each province to benefit from its resources and certainly I agree to a large extent. However, yesterday evening in the House we had a resolution asking the government to live up to its promise to let Newfoundland and Labrador benefit from its oil resources, to at least hold on to its share of the revenues from a major resource, and the very party that stresses provincial ownership and responsibility voted against the resolution.

How does the member account for the fact that his party did not support a sister province in looking for what his province is constantly looking for?

[Supply, November 4th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for raising the main point, that people in the House had a chance to speak out. The unfortunate thing about this is that people who are watching this tonight are waiting to see us vote. We fought for it. The Conservative Party, the NDP and the Bloc asked for a vote this evening on this very important issue. Who cancelled the vote? Who refused to vote? The Liberals. Why?Because they do not have the gall to stand up in the House and tell their own leader, the Prime Minister, that they do not believe a word he said.

With regard to the member's comments about Ontario, the people of Ontario dealt with that government. The people of Canada will deal with this one.

[Supply, November 4th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, if I were that member I would not have the gall to stand in the House in a debate about the future of Newfoundland and Labrador, when a couple of days ago in this very House, following some questions from our leader, our deputy leader, the member for St. John's East and myself, that member said to the Speaker at the time, “Now I do not want to disturb the trend of questioning, but what about an important question?” He was telling us that raising questions on the deal promised to Newfoundland and Labrador were not important. He should not even have the gall to be in here when we are talking about Newfoundland and Labrador.

Let me answer him when he refers to comments made in the past. First, I would like him to show me one politician who has said something because of not knowing about the bigger picture in the past that he would not love to take back. When did he change the mind of his Prime Minister who said, when he was talking about the CoR Party in P.E.I., “They will be speaking to empty halls in Atlantic Canada when we end the legacy of dependency that Confederation has given them”. What is the difference?

Now that we are on even terms, let us get back to what we are talking about, a deal for Newfoundland and Labrador.

[Supply, November 4th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for sharing his time.

Before I get into the points directly connected here today, I would like to comment on the question from my colleague, the member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell. He asked about comments made by our leader. Perhaps he should reflect on comments made by his own leader when he referred to Atlantic Canada as a culture of dependency. Maybe he will want to check into that before he starts throwing slurs at other members.

I want to begin by thanking our leader for bringing forth this resolution today and the members on both sides of the House for participating in the debate. It is understood, I am sure, that my thanks to some of them is much deeper than my thanks to others.

Many of the people in the House today, all from our party, all from the Bloc and all from the NDP, have supported the principle of the resolution. Some of the members opposite, one in particular, the member for Random—Burin—St. George's was also very strong in his support for the intent of the resolution.

The resolution was brought forth to give people who represent the various regions of this country the opportunity to stand in the House and let the people of Canada, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador in particular, know how they feel about our request, but also to let the people of Canada know a little more about the great province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

We are referred to as a have not province. We are not. We have plenty. The problem is that we have never been given the chance to benefit from the great resources we have.

Canada joined us in 1949. When that happened we brought with us into Confederation tremendous resources. We had the greatest fishery in the world off our coast. That fishery has now been mismanaged by successive Ottawa-based, Ottawa-controlled governments to the point of almost non-existence.

We have some of the richest hydro producing sources in the world. What happened when we developed the Upper Churchill? Two things happened. First, the Liberal government from Newfoundland, which negotiated the deal with Quebec, gave away the shop. At the time, that government thought it had a very good deal. I want to come back to that, because that perhaps is the crux of why Newfoundland and Labrador is standing so firm today in demanding its full share of our benefits.

When we negotiated the deal on the Upper Churchill, we got about $10 million. It was a tremendous amount of money back in those days. Quebec got approximately the same thing, except the people who negotiated the Quebec side were much more astute. I do not blame my friends. We would have done the same thing. When I say my friends, it is because they have been very supportive in this. Today we are still getting $10 million but Quebec, from that same source, is drawing close to $1 billion a year.

We saw the Minister of Natural Resources, who is from our own province, go to Newfoundland a couple of weeks ago to try to shove a deal down our throats, a deal that was cooked up in Ottawa, without any understanding of the total concept of what the deal was all about. The deal offered us $1.4 billion over eight years. The Newfoundland request, and the deal we thought had been accepted by the Prime Minister, would have brought in over $4 billion during that same period. Just in that one short timeframe, we would have lost billions and billions of dollars if we had accepted the deal proposed by the government, the deal that it says is a good one.

Besides our hydro power and our fisheries, we were not given the courtesy by the government opposite, by the Liberals, to have a power corridor through the rest of the country to sell our power. Alberta benefits greatly from its oil, but I suggest that part of that benefit comes from having the ability to ship the oil to other provinces where they buy because of the great need. We cannot do that with our hydro power. This government and successive governments have not provided a power corridor for our power to the American markets.

Whatever way members want to look at it, we have been deprived from benefiting from our own resources. That will never happen again.

During the election the leader of our party went to Newfoundland, as did all leaders campaigning, and made a commitment to give Newfoundland 100% of the royalties from the offshore. It put pressure on the Prime Minister who, up until then, had ignored the requests from Newfoundlanders to do so.

In the dying moments of the campaign, under pressure from the Liberal members, some of whom have not said a word yet today on this, although I hope they will in the time that is left, the promise was made. It may have been under duress and maybe he can plead temporary insanity, but he made a promise and a commitment.

Premier Williams and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador followed up in writing three successive times to ensure that the Prime Minister understood what the deal was about. Did the government respond? No. That led everyone in the province to think the deal was accepted. The leader of the NDP had made a similar commitment in writing. Our leader had made it in writing, as requested by the premier. Did the Prime Minister put his in writing, as requested by the premier? No. The premier, unfortunately, being an honest man himself, took a leader at his word. Danny Williams said, “He gave me his word.” Consequently, the premier accepted his word. The Prime Minister has gone back on his word.

Then, after all kinds of pressure, and Mr. Williams having to walk away from the equalization talks to make a point, the Minister of Finance scurried back to his office, drafted an offer and sent the Minister of Natural Resources, as the little lackey, back to Newfoundland to deliver the deal and said, “Here it is. Do you want it, Mr. Williams? Do you want it, Mr. Sullivan”, our great minister of finance? “This is it. Take it or leave it. There will not be any changes”.

I believe he was right in saying that because not one of those people across today has said there will be any changes. The Minister of Finance talked about the whole fiscal development around a revenue sharing between provinces. We know that because that is the way it has been. He basically said that is the way it will be. The parliamentary secretary has been spouting the same words all day. Nobody has said that the Prime Minister will keep his promise. The Prime Minister himself has not said a word.

The deal that the Liberals have tried to shove down our throats, the deal that they have been saying all day is a good deal, is not a good deal and it is not a deal that we will accept today or tomorrow. We will never accept it.

What we want is what the Prime Minister promised and we will not settle for less. If this government does not want to give that deal to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, let me assure members that the next one will.