Loyola Hearn

[Fisheries, December 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, following the fishery moratorium in 1992, the government offered a number of licence buyouts to fishermen in order to reduce the numbers involved in the fishery.

Some of those who sold back their licences to the government were given a lump sum tax free payment. Some were taxed on 75% of the amount, some were taxed on 50% of the amount and some were taxed on 25% of the amount. Why the discrepancy in such a program?

[Infrastructure Program, December 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, over the last few years we have seen a lot of downloading on municipalities. Government has talked about putting a lot of money into infrastructure and has talked about the great highway network program.

When can we see funding forthcoming not only to help provinces and municipalities but to create work in the construction industry where it is so badly needed?

[Supply, December 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is so right when we look at what has been done. I talk to seniors. I am picturing one couple and it could bring tears to my eyes. The gentleman has developed Alzheimer's. The only consolation they had was that they could drive out to their little cottage on weekends. The costs of the drugs he required, which are not covered by health care, were so great that they had to sell the car in order to be able to buy the drugs. No longer could they travel out to the little cottage.

I see seniors who are charged hundreds of dollars for prescriptions and do not have drug cards to cover it. We are now suggesting to the Canadian people that if they need better health care they had better be prepared to pay for it. I suggest to the Canadian government that if it managed its budget properly and eliminated the billion dollar overspending on gun control and the costs of funding its friends--

[Supply, December 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, let me give the hon. member a lesson in history and economics.

The Tory government left power in 1993 with a deficit of $43 billion. However, when that Tory government came into power, the deficit that it inherited from the Trudeau era was between $36 billion and $38 billion of that.

What happened? During the years that the Tories were in power history will show and Hansard will show that the Tory government, even though it was high in debt, did not try to balance its budget based on cutting from the people who needed help, based on cutting health and education funding.

What did the Tory government do when it ran a deficit and interest rates were at 23%? It still did not cut social payments. The Tory government developed a plan to address the deficit. The plan included free trade and it included the GST, two topics that those members over there benefited from. They campaigned against bringing in such programs. They got elected on that basis. They deceived the Canadian public and then benefited from free trade, the GST and, because of that, the lower interest rates--

[Supply, December 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to have the opportunity to say a few words in this debate. I will be sharing my time with the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough.

The member for Palliser just mentioned that he enjoyed listening to my colleague. I certainly agree with him. He mentioned he liked watching her do her workout with her moving arms. I am telling him he is not the one within reach of those arms. I happen to be sitting right behind her. However, listening to her speak on health care issues is informative to all of us in the House.

I wish to refer to the motion that has been put forth by the Bloc. We have no real problem with the fact that provinces should have a major say in funding. We have no problem with asking the federal government to give the money to the provinces and having them decide how it is spent, as long as it is done in relation to the Canada Health Act and the principles of the act are adhered to. In fact, we have always advocated a sixth principle, which is stable funding to the provinces, and this we have not seen.

We have a tremendous amount of duplication in a number of areas throughout the country, health care being one of them. If the provinces, who are on the front line trying to decide how to use their meagre income, are influenced by decisions from someone from afar, we will see that duplication continue. In this case the provinces should have more input, as long as they abide by the proper health principles. Then we can all benefit from that.

In 1995 a change was made to how the provinces were funded. In 1995 the then minister of finance, in his wisdom, decided that the provinces would be provided with Canada health and social transfer payments, or CHST. These payments were on a per capita basis. We saw a severe reduction overall. From the best figures we have, it was around $6 billion a year. That means over the last seven years the provinces have lost $42 billion in health care funding.

Some provinces have been hurt more than others. People might ask, if we distribute money on a per capita basis, is that not the fairest way to distribute funding? Not necessarily. There is a basic infrastructure when funding is delivered. If a city has a large hospital and its population changes, one cannot necessarily go in with a power saw and cut off 10%.

We must also look at geography. It is much easier to deliver health care services in urban areas that have major infrastructure as well as the specialists involved, not only in health care but any system because people who have a choice migrate toward the major economic centres throughout our country for all kinds of reasons, personal, resource wise, family wise, whatever. No one could blame them for that.

However, the rural areas of the country are the ones that suffer. In the case of Newfoundland and Labrador, the method of distributing funding based on population has been a disaster. We are the only province with a rapidly declining population. Every other province in the country has a stabilized population or, in some cases, a rapidly increasing population. Over the last 10 years we have lost 40,000 people from our province. It might not sound like a lot in Ontario, but it is almost 10% of the total population of our province.

That means we have lost 10% of the funding. Let us look at the then minister of finance, the member for LaSalle—Émard, the person who wants to be the next prime minister, the person who now has all these grandiose ideas of how to improve all the systems, whether it be transportation, education, health care or whatever, throughout the country. This is the individual who cut social and health transfer payments to the provinces back in 1995. This is the person who sat by the Prime Minister for 10 years and nodded his head to everything that the Prime Minister said and did.

How can he now take himself away from the blame for the suffering that he put on the people of the country, particularly in relation to health care cuts? Newfoundland, Quebec and all the other provinces, especially those with large rural components where health care delivery is costly, have suffered tremendously because of the cuts by that minister in 1995.

Newfoundland losing 40,000 people meant that we lost almost 10% of the funding we would ordinarily get. We now get fewer dollars than anybody else, not on a per capita basis, because it is delivered on that basis, but in relation to need. We get fewer dollars than anybody else. The provinces all have increasing populations. We have a diminishing one. Not only do we get fewer dollars, but the people left behind are not the young, energetic, healthy people. They have gone to Alberta or to the Northwest Territories or to wherever they could find work, mainly because our fishery was shut down in 1992.

We have another pending closure coming up this spring. We are being told the cod fishery that has kept a number of communities alive in totality, that has subsidized the income that others would have from other fisheries, is being taken away. As I said this morning, we were crippled in 1992, we can be killed if this present decision is made, and we have the House telling us it is not an emergency.

The people who are left behind are the older people, the people who require more health care funding than those young, healthy people who had to go elsewhere to seek employment. We get fewer dollars to spend on a population that has greater need, and because of our geography we have to deliver these services over a rough, rugged, rural area. So the input from the government to Newfoundland is significantly less when it comes down to the amount of money that each person would receive in relation to the services provided because of the cost of delivering the service to our province.

That was the gift to us from the then minister of finance. Then, when the provinces, because of the burden that was put on them with the downloading by the government, have to turn around, because all of them are involved, and fill in the gaps, every other service in these provinces, especially in the poorer ones, is diminished. Money that should be going into education is not going into education. Money that should be going into infrastructure is not going into infrastructure. It is not there. It has to go into health, which is a priority for all of us.

We have another study, the Romanow report, one more study on top of all the others. Even though we admit there are a lot of good things in the Romanow report, especially as they relate to funding drug care payments for people who need the cost of drugs subsidized so badly, we look at home care services, which certainly is the best bargain that government could provide and needs to be focused on and assisted. But we also had the LeBreton-Kirby report that perhaps is of more substance than the Romanow report.

There is just so much to be said. If we do not move on these reports, then what is the good of having them at all? But if we do not move properly, it is just as well not to move.

[Request for Emergency Debate, December 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, a couple of weeks ago a request for an emergency debate was made by two parties in relation to the news that came out regarding the closure of the Atlantic fishery. At that time, Mr. Speaker, you ruled that you did not think an emergency debate was necessary. In retrospect, even though we may not have agreed at that time, we certainly do now. It was perhaps only a rumour, no one was sure of the implications. That has changed.

I know in requesting an emergency debate there are two categories that must be looked at. First, it must have some national implications and, second, that it must be an emergency. I will be concise in dealing with both points.

In relation to the national implications this is not a Newfoundland and Labrador issue. It is not just an Atlantic Canadian issue. The closure of the Atlantic cod fishery would affect not only Newfoundland and Labrador, but it would affect the maritime provinces and Quebec directly. Indirectly it would affect the whole country. The effect on the economy of such a closure would be horrendous.

In 1992 we saw a moratorium on groundfish in Atlantic Canada. That cost the Government of Canada and taxpayers billions of dollars, and disrupted the lives of thousands of people. Last night I talked to the mayor of Fort McMurray, who is a Newfoundlander. There are 23,000 people there. The recent announcement is on top of what happened in 1992. Our communities were crippled in 1992; this announcement would kill them.

It is an emergency now because the House will soon be closing for the holidays. The formal announcement is expected to be made in March. There would be no opportunity to discuss it. Fishermen must prepare for the coming fishery. They are doing it now. If there is not going to be a fishery, they cannot afford to start preparing. If there is going to be a fishery, they cannot afford not too.

During Christmas, while members are sitting with their families contemplating whether to go to Barbados or Florida for a holiday, Newfoundland and Labrador fishermen will have to contemplate whether they take their families to Fort McMurray or Yellowknife for good. Is that not an emergency? If it is not, Mr. Speaker, you had better tell them because I cannot.

[Privilege, December 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. You skipped one of the items on the Order Paper, requests for emergency debates, and I believe there is one on record.

[The Environment, November 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of the Environment said that the federal government is interested in clean energy projects and will support such projects in the provinces, if asked.

Has the province of Newfoundland and Labrador asked the federal government to get involved in the development of the Lower Churchill project?

[Natural Resources, November 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has hinted at providing federal assistance to Manitoba to develop a $5 billion project at Conawapa.

The Minister of the Environment said Ottawa is examining the feasibility of federal support for a $1.4 billion transmission line to get the generated power to Ontario. We support this initiative.

Why has the federal government refused to assist the province of Newfoundland and Labrador to develop the Lower Churchill project?

[Business of the House, November 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, in his 12 allotted gifts that he will give us, will he include fish rather than partridge and ensure that during the first possible opportunity we will debate the serious issue of the Atlantic cod closure?