Loyola Hearn

[The Budget, March 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, first, let me refer to his earlier comments about investing in our youth, investing in our country, and the dividends that are paid on the far end of something like that. He is dead-on when he says that an educated population is a healthy one, a contributing one and a productive one. However, I want to raise one little point, and maybe he will help lobby for this.

For many of the people who are not educated, it is not because they do not have the ability; it is because they do not have the money. We can talk about student loans. In the budget we saw the government say to young people that they could borrow more. They do not want to borrow more. They have too much of a debt load already. What they want is some adjustment, particularly for those who have extra costs. Tuition is one thing. Board, lodging, food, and travel are all expenses that more than double the cost of education, way more than tuition.

Unless we can ensure that children of poor families, scattered throughout the country, in rural areas in particular where they have to travel in to the university towns, can afford to be educated, they never will be. That is a big challenge for all of us, not a difficult one but one that we must meet.

In relation to the figures, I have the word of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, through the budget, that the government pays 40%, and I have the word of 10 premiers plus the territorial leaders that say it pays 16%. I will let members make the choice as to who is right.

[The Budget, March 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's comments. I do not want to revisit the areas but I do want to make reference to his last comment about the government members having their pictures taken. If I were a member of the governing party, the last thing I would want flashing around the country right now would be my picture. I know the hon. member over there agrees with me and, I believe, rightly so.

Having said that, I will now concentrate on the budget. I want to look at what was not in the budget rather than at what was. What was not there is having a negative effect on a number of our provinces. At least four of our provinces today, as we speak in fact, are bringing down or have just brought down budgets. All of them are having major problems trying to balance their budgets.

Balancing the budget is something we always talk about. It seems that it is something we must do. Even though that is a major concern for the government, for the finance minister, there is something much more important in relation to that. We need to know what we have do to our people in order to balance the budget.

I want to talk about what is happening in the Atlantic provinces in particular because I am more familiar with what is happening in those provinces than I am with what is happening in Quebec, in Ontario or in some other provinces. The costs of our social services, health care and education take up a huge percentage of our budget. In Newfoundland and Labrador, the major expenditure in our budget would be the cost of health care, followed closely by education and followed closely, unfortunately, as is the case in many provinces, with the payment on debt charges.

As health care costs escalate and our population becomes older, more demands are being put on the health care system. That is true right across the country. A few years ago the federal government paid close to 50% of the cost of health care. Now its share is down around 16%, which means the burden is on the provinces to handle this tremendous debt load.

Because of the way the Atlantic provinces have been treated by the central government, because of the neglect of our resources, because of the mismanagement of the fisheries, because of the lack of consideration in relation to the development of our offshore resources, our hydro power and our minerals, we see young people leaving our province in droves. Over the last 10 years, 50,000 young people, or 10% of our population, have left the province. These were people of child bearing age, people who will produce our future. They were the wage earners. What is left is a significantly older population than anywhere else, which means increased health care costs.

I know I have said this a number of times but I learned a long time ago here that in order for people to help they must understand and in order for them to understand it seems they must hear it over and over again. When a province has fewer people than in the past, and when the money that is handed out is based on a per capita, that means fewer dollars. When our younger people leave, leaving behind the older people, it means there are greater demands on those fewer dollars.

When we look at the geography over which we have to deliver health care, then we can visualize how difficult it is to provide even the essential services to people in a province such as Newfoundland and Labrador. However, all the provinces across the country are having problems, but specifically because of these reasons my own province is.

Then we look at education. This is where the word vision is missing in the budget. Where is the vision? We have a reactionary budget throwing a few dollars out for two reasons. Because of severe problems some money must be thrown at it. The government was embarrassed, forced, to provide money for farmers in the west, long after they should have done it, putting the farmers and their families through all kinds of hardships because of the government's procrastination.

The government finally threw $2 billion into health care after three years of promising to do so. Now the Prime Minister, with no relationship at all to what was presented in the budget, says that there will be more money. Undoubtedly, that is after the election. He is sending the message that if he is re-elected, he will ensure the money is there. This is bribery, which is what we usually see from that side. We get bribes and reaction but absolutely no vision.

When we talk vision, let me speak about education. The greatest expense across the board is health care. If we analyze health care costs, we will find many of the costs are because people cannot or do not look after themselves. They cannot afford to or they do not know how to. A lot of that has to do with the education.

Many people avail of health care services, whether it be mental health, physical health, emotional and I can go on, as a result of them not being active in the workforce. This puts all kinds of different strains on them, again physically, financially, mentally, et cetera.

If we look at our justice system and we analyze who avails of the justice system in relation to who are the ones causing us to spend money on the justice system, again many of them are people who, because of no fault of their own perhaps are in trouble, or are on drugs, or commit crimes, do not fit into society as they should. On many occasions we can tie this into a lack of education.

When we look at the environment and we see those who are not properly caring for it, again we will find it is a lack of education or understanding of how important the environment is.

I could go on and on, however I only have two minutes. However, we have the future of the country in front of us. We have young people, the pages in this House, who over the years will contribute so much to the country. They are being educated. I am not sure whether this is an education in here, but hopefully they are learning a lot. However, they are being educated at universities.

They then will become contributing members in our society. They will be young and educated for the rest of their lives. They will work and pay taxes. They will feel good about it because they are contributing and helping others. They will also spend every cent they make buying things which create work for someone else. If they are not educated, they do not contribute. Instead of contributing to the country, they take out more through social costs, health care costs, welfare costs, housing costs, justice costs, et cetera.

A little vision, a little investment upfront pays dividends down the road. Many more things have been left out of the budget. We will have a chance to talk about them at another time. We must start looking ahead. We must invest where we get return. We cannot only react by throwing money at problems. We will have fewer dollars coming in, more dollars going out, and that puts us exactly where we are today.

[Fisheries, March 26th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, after all of that there has not been one fish saved or one boat reprimanded.

Is the Prime Minister still of the view that the House of Commons is where the public will must be heard, articulated and exercised as he stated in his Osgoode Hall speech on democratic reform last October?

If so, in view of Wednesday's vote, when will the government introduce legislation to implement the will of the House of Commons?

[Fisheries, March 26th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday a majority of the House of Commons voted in favour of my motion that called on the government to take immediate action to extend custodial management over the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap.

What instructions has the Prime Minister given to officials in the Departments of Fisheries and Oceans, Foreign Affairs, and International Trade as a result of this action taken by the House?

[Fisheries and Oceans, March 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, that means he knows nothing about it. Let me ask him something else.

Last week the minister announced some extra funding for air and water surveillance. What this means is that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans will be able to issue more citations to vessels raping our stocks.

In the last 10 years, 300 citations have been issued. Will the minister give us one concrete example of where a sufficient penalty was imposed to keep these rogue vessels from raping our stocks on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap?

[Fisheries and Oceans, March 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, fishing vessel insurance has skyrocketed and is threatening the viability of many enterprises.

When the federal government dismantled the fishing vessel insurance plan, it assured fish harvesters that the insurance market would be competitive. That is not the case.

Will the Minister of Fisheries reverse this decision and re-establish a new fishing vessel insurance program immediately?

[Supply, March 22nd, 2004]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member is dead on in what he says. The committee presented a report to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans who rejected it without reading it. He did not have a clue what was in it, just like Mr. Gagliano, and rejected it.

He also rejected a unanimous report that was presented to him recommending that the government take custodial management over the nose and tail of the Flemish Cap. This was a report by an all party committee from Newfoundland and Labrador, including members of Parliament and Senators. Our report, including all members of the House, was also unanimous. What did the minister do? He rejected it even without reading it, and we are seeing the same thing.

Let me tell members something funny. Wednesday evening we will be voting on a motion asking the House to support the Government of Canada taking custodial management of the fish stocks on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap, our continental shelf which extends beyond the 200 mile limit. Is the government concerned about it?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans today sent a letter to every member in the House, not just to his own people, asking us to vote against it because the government had other plans. The other plans, and he even outlined them, are to do what we have done for years and years: go cap in hand, get no results and others will go off with our fish while we sit here with empty plants, empty boats and people headed out of the country. That is not the way the government members over here will operate once we move across the way.

[Supply, March 22nd, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I am familiar with Guelph and Guelph--Wellington. I have probably spoken there over the last three or four years, more often than she has herself. I am quite familiar with the students from Guelph who will be involved in the upcoming campaign, and that is a warning to the member, not a hint of help for her.

Let us look at the big picture of education. We can invest all the money we like, but we need proper planning and proper consultation. We see the government every now and then get an idea and throw out dollars. A lot of people at Memorial University back home in Newfoundland and Labrador, as I am sure there are a lot of people at Guelph University, are looking for money that will be well spent. I have no doubt it has been well spent, but it is a minuscule amount compared to what is needed.

The government is starting to listen to some of the things we have said on this side of the House. We do not care who delivers as long as somebody delivers. We must invest in our youth.

We have two choices in the country. We can invest early and educate our young people so they become contributing members of society, putting in for the rest of their lives. Or we can wait and react down the road, which is exactly what the government has been doing, and pay a heavy price. Instead of having a contributing population, we have a population depending on the state. Our population has not been given the opportunity, because of socio-economic status or the geography involved, to get the education it wishes. That is where government should show leadership. Consequently, we would have a contributing population that would make this a better country rather than having a population living off the people of the country. It is a no-brainer.

[Supply, March 22nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Fraser Valley for sharing his time with me today. He provided some fodder for the member for Guelph—Wellington to ask her question. She provided me with some fodder to speak in this debate when earlier, in asking a question of one of her own colleagues, she asked would people not rather hear us talking about and she listed things such as health care, education and whatever, than doing what we are doing here today?

The member represents an area which has become very quickly a very solid Conservative area and she should be very much aware of that. Let me say to her that people across the country are sick and tired of listening to the government talking about these issues. What they want to hear in the House is some solid debate that leads to decision making.

We are supposed to flesh out ideas here to provide the type of debate that stimulates government into making not just decisions but right and proper decisions. There should be debate that holds it accountable. For a long time the government got away with it, but that day has ended. No more will the government members opposite get away with it after a few days, weeks, months, or perhaps even a year and a half, because they will probably try to hold on now with their fingernails. We will probably have to drag them out of here as we had to do with the Liberal government in Newfoundland. When it realized it was going to lose, it held on in order to get every last ounce of benefit it could out of what is provided by the people of the country.

What has the government done about resource development? We see resource rich provinces as they develop their resources looking at empty purses because of the clawbacks of the government. What about the equalization formula that it has set? It is so idiotic that no one benefits. What about the health care system? It talks about the $2 billion. For five years it promised a couple of billion dollars to health care. By the time the provinces get it, it is going to mean very little. In fact, all of the provinces ended up with less money than they had originally because of the effect on the equalization program.

In the health care system, one area that has been neglected is research. We could say the same for fisheries. Because of the total lack of research, we do not know what is going on and because we do not know what is going on, we waste a tremendous amount of money.

Imagine how much money could have been saved in the House by the government if it had done more research into amnesia. Many of the members over there on the government side have amnesia. They cannot remember what happened and because they cannot remember what happened, they have consistently spent more and more and more of taxpayers' dollars without any accountability.

On forestry, it has already been mentioned the mess the government made of the softwood lumber deal. I remember standing here. We were together on that issue. I remember my colleagues around me talking to the then minister responsible. We said that the softwood lumber agreement would soon run out and asked when would we have a new agreement. Day after day the minister kept saying “Don't worry, be happy. We have never lost an argument before the World Trade Organization. We are protected. We have no problems”. The time came for the agreement to end and the agreement ran out. What happened? History of course will write that Canadians got shafted from coast to coast. The softwood lumber issue has been a fiasco.

When it comes to managing our fishery, there has not been any management. The funny thing about it is this past week the new rookie Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, who would not know a cod fish from a McDonald's burger, came to Newfoundland and promised all kinds of new money. He promised money for aerial surveillance and he promised money to put more boats on the water so we could have greater surveillance on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks, the Flemish Cap, and within our own waters, within the 200 mile limit.

More surveillance means one thing, and it gives us great consolation. It means we can now issue more citations to foreigners. One might ask, what is a citation? It is something like a warning ticket. Whenever one meets a friendly Mountie on the highway, and everyone is in a good mood and not too many people are around, instead of giving the speeding ticket, he gives a warning ticket which basically says, “Be a good little boy or girl, slow down and drive safely”, which we should do anyway. We have been doing year after year.

In the past 10 years alone the Government of Canada, through the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and perhaps even National Defence, has issued approximately 300 citations to foreigners because they have been blatantly abusing the rules. We have to understand that out on the high seas, in the NAFO-regulated zone and within our own waters, we probably only have one vessel at a time, and for many periods no vessels. For months last year we had our coast guard boats tied up because the government would not give it enough money to put fuel in them boats. The people on the boats and the people involved in the coast guard could not go out and do the job they wanted to do. We have great people in the coast guard.

When they would catch somebody breaking the rules, blatantly fishing species under moratorium, blatantly fishing inside the 200 mile limit, blatantly overfishing, blatantly using gear types that were illegal, they would issue a citation, send the boats home and get the country of ownership to deal with the boat. Do we know what happens? I do not know and the government does not know because we have asked. What happened to the 300 citations and how many of them were punished? The government does not know. It has done research, but it does not know because when it sends them back home, nobody comes back and tells it what has happened.

We are now going to put out more boats and more planes. We have tremendous aerial surveillance in the country. A company from Newfoundland and Labrador actually does the work, top of the line, the best in the world. I am prejudiced, but it is true that it is the best in the world. It can do its job by spotting blatant abuses, but the government has to follow up and take action. There has been no action, none whatsoever. Nothing has been done except issuing citations, and now we are going to issue more citations.

Getting back to the member for Guelph--Wellington, do the people of Canada want us to talk more here? No, they do not. They want us to perform. They want to see some action. We have a reactionary government that has been throwing money at the issues across the country.

The Prime Minister today was in Alberta and announced $1 billion for BSE. It is two years too late and a billion dollars too short. The Prime Minister has been running around the country throwing out money like Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, like giving out candy on Hallowe'en; trick or treat. It does not matter how the Prime Minister treats the people of the country over the next few weeks leading up to the election. The people of Canada are going to play a trick on the Prime Minister and members opposite, one that they will remember for a long time. We will get away from talking about things in this chamber, and start doing things that need to be done for the people of this great country.

[Question No. 31, March 22nd, 2004]

How many times did the Finance Minister correspond with the Business Development Bank of Canada between 1997 to 2002, and of these exchanges, how many were related to individual loans, what companies were involved, and what was the value of each loan, its purpose and its date?

Return tabled.