Loyola Hearn

[Canadian Coast Guard, November 6th, 2002]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I do suggest that you stay around.

I say to the minister in answer to his five questions, yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. I am very much aware, and I wish the minister were as much aware of what is going on with the Coast Guard as most of the members here. I do not mean to slight others, but many of them are on the fisheries committee and live in fishing or marine areas and are well aware of what is happening.

I will deal with the questions very quickly. In relation to the funding for the auxiliary, I congratulate the minister. It was a tremendous move. It has done a great amount of work, but it was like always when the government announces money. Everyone says, wow, it is a lot of money, but it is over 5 years, 10 years or whatever and is announced 15 times, so when it gets to the people who need it, there is not so much money. Right now, halfway through the year, as I said to the minister, the auxiliary is out of money. What good is the money if it is not there when the real time of need arrives?

Let me also say to the minister that I was intrigued when he said we are protected in relation to security because we have now increased notice time to 96 hours. That is like making a reservation at a hotel. When we go to a hotel now, the first thing it wants is our credit card, and if we do not tell them we are not coming, it will charge us anyway if the reservations are not made ahead of time.

What we are really saying to terrorists or anyone else if they want to come to our country is that instead of calling us 24 hours before they come in, as they used to have to do, they have to call us 96 hours ahead of time. I am just wondering how many terrorists or drug smugglers pick up the phone and call the Coast Guard to say “we are coming into Newfoundland” or coming into British Columbia. The only way we know they are coming in is if we pick them up on radar or our boats see them while at sea. If our boats are not at sea, they cannot see them.

As well, many parts of our country, regardless of what the minister says, are not covered by radar. We do not have enough to cover all the coasts. If I know that there are places where we can come in without being seen, if the members know that there are places where we can come in without being seen, if the minister knows, whether he will admit it or not, that there are places where we can come in without being seen, do we not think the drug pushers and terrorists also know? I rest my case.

[Canadian Coast Guard, November 6th, 2002]

I'll send you a copy of Hansard.

[Canadian Coast Guard, November 6th, 2002]

Mr. Chairman, it is certainly a pleasure to speak to the resolution that is before us. We are not the first ones to kick it off. A few days ago the other house through Senator Carney raised the issue publicly in a press statement which was followed up by a news conference. It was a news conference participated in by many of my colleagues here and is one which drew attention from the Coast Guard.

The commissioner was not very happy with some of the stuff we said. It was interesting after he had done his presentation on the radio. The people who actually work in the Coast Guard, are hardworking people whom the minister said he is so proud of. We are all very proud of the workers in the Coast Guard because they are the ones on the front line. They are very seldom called out when everything is going well. They are called out to do their jobs when things go wrong, when the weather is bad, when there is danger. Many of them always put their lives on the line.

When we talk about the example in British Columbia, the people who were not rescued, it was not because the Coast Guard people were afraid. They go out there as firefighters and policemen. They know what is ahead of them when they go to work. It is not all hunky-dory, sailing around in a nice big ship. No, when they go to work, their lives are on the line every day and every night.

The commissioner said he did not agree with a lot of what we said because things are much better than we portrayed. That is not what the average person who works in the Coast Guard is saying.

We are not here to be popular with the commissioner. We are not here to be popular with the minister. We are not here to be popular with the government. We are here to get a job done. We are here to make sure that the Coast Guard that protects the people who travel our oceans are safe and looked after and that the Coast Guard people who work in that great institution can fulfill their other objectives as well.

Having said that, I say to the minister that we are not here tonight to criticize, as was mentioned by the parliamentary secretary, and tell how bad things are in the Coast Guard. We are here to give examples of what we are hearing, not from people who are not connected, but from people who work in the institution. They see what is happening to them.

We are here to support the minister as he goes to the government, to Treasury Board, to the Minister of Finance as he prepares his budget, to look for money.

I remind the minister that just a year ago we were discussing the state of our marine infrastructure. It was the fisheries committee and the presentations that were made that embarrassed the government. The government was told by its own people that $400 million was needed to bring the wharfs up to par, that 21% of the wharfs were unsafe. It was because of what came out truthfully from the witnesses that the government was embarrassed to the point that it gave the minister $100 million over a five year period on top of what he gets for the small crafts harbours division.

If as a result of our input here tonight and the other things we are doing outside, the minister receives money to keep the Coast Guard not in the state in which it is in now, but in the state it should be, our job will have been well done.

We have heard members talk about the west coast and about Nova Scotia. In the few minutes I have I want to zero in on Newfoundland and Labrador.

A number of duties are outlined for the Coast Guard. Let me just read them out in case the minister does not know:

Responsibilities: Safety of life at sea; protecting the environment; vessel screening; safe and efficient movement of traffic; broadcasting vital information such as notices to shipping of weather warnings; supporting other government agencies.

That is quite a chore. When it is being cut and cut, it is very hard to fulfill all those needs.

I have raised safety issues with the minister before. He has said that along with our own boats, despite the fact we are taking the odd one out of service, we now have an auxiliary. We have a great auxiliary back home. People train through the Coast Guard to effect search and rescue with smaller boats because of our changing fishery.

They can do their job as long as they have the resources. We are halfway through the present year in terms of budget, approaching the season when the needs are greater. The auxiliary does not have any money, nor does even the minister's own department, his own Coast Guard boats.

I have memos to prove it from his own people to his own people telling them to conserve fuel, to only use the boats when they have to and to reduce speed because it saves time. The skipper of a ship on an ocean in times of search, rescue or even travel, because of sea conditions, wind, storms, ice or whatever, does not want somebody in Ottawa telling him how fast he should move that ship along because of the safety of the people involved and the needs of the people with whom they probably will be involved in terms of search and rescue.

I did not pick up who, but someone said why not. Perhaps that person could picture somebody sitting in an office in Ottawa telling someone how to operate a ship on the Grands Banks of Newfoundland or on the coast of Labrador when the ship is surrounded by ice or there is a storm and they are trying to rescue a small fishing vessel.

We have a change in fishery in Newfoundland. Some years ago when the Coast Guard was much stronger and when we had more boats, more facilities than we have right now, we had big boats and we had little boats. The major fish companies had big draggers that were as big or bigger in a lot of cases than the Coast Guard boats. They could look after themselves quite well. We had small boats that operated within sight of land, practically inshore.

The fishery has changed. Not only have we gone from the 25 foot or the 30 foot trap skiff, to 45 foot and 65 foot long liners, almost everybody has gone to the midsize boat, anywhere from 35 foot, decked over and made into a small long liner, as we say, to the 65 foot or even to the 100 foot class. Not only have they moved up a little bit, they have had to move further and further from shore to get the meagre resource that is left. The small boats that fished within sight of land or within a few miles of land are now fishing out around and even outside the 200 mile limit.

The fishermen themselves, and we have them here tonight, members of the auxiliary, members of the Coast Guard, will tell us that all that is needed is the perfect storm and we could have major disasters. Every day in relation to the fishery and during the winter in particular with the seal fishery, many, many times the Coast Guard is called upon to assist people in search and rescue. The needs are greater than ever they were.

On top of that there is extra traffic in relation to the oil development off our coast. We talk about protecting the environment. There is an example. If there is ever a disaster, who do we think would be called upon? It would be front and centre the Coast Guard.

I talked about security. I have always said anybody could get into this country by plane or car, but they would be searched and so would their car, bumper to bumper. However if they used a boat, a dory, and it was a foggy day or night, there are many parts of our country, whether we are talking about terrorists or drug traffickers, they could move into this country without even being noticed. If members do not believe me they should ask the people who operate the radar.

The minister says it is an RCMP problem. It is, but who do the Mounties call when there is a case in relation to security on the ocean? It is certainly not ghostbusters. They call the Coast Guard.

I wish I had more time to speak because there are so many things I could put on the record. Let me say to the minister that we are not here to complain. We are here to highlight concerns that I hope you and the government will listen to, to make sure our Coast Guard can continue to do the type of work it originally was intended to do and not be hamstrung by the type of operation that we see at present.

[Canadian Coast Guard, November 6th, 2002]

Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask a question of my friend from the Bloc Quebecois. The Liberal member told us that everything is fine and that the coast guard has enough money. This is not the case in Newfoundland. Is this true for Quebec?

[Canadian Coast Guard, November 6th, 2002]

Mr. Chairman, following up on the question from my colleague on my right who is ordinarily on my left, I also attended many of the committee meetings on the west coast. I wonder if my colleague from the Alliance would comment on two different aspects of the information we received.

We were told that funding was so short that regular maintenance was no longer being done at the remote radar sites. The only time a site was serviced was when it went down. These sites are remote. Consequently, when they went down, accessibility was always a problem, especially in winter and during bad weather. When they got to the site, if they did not have the right parts to fix whatever was wrong, quite often a second or third trip had to take place. If it became dark, they had to get out of there before the work was finished and the situation was further aggravated.

We heard horror stories of what happened in the interim, including a fisherman who got a jigger in his eye and there was no way of hooking up to a hospital to receive guidance as to what to do.

The committee also visited the coast guard set-up in Seattle just across the border. I wonder if the member would compare what he saw in Seattle with what we saw along the Pacific coast in British Columbia specifically.

[Canadian Coast Guard, November 6th, 2002]

Mr. Chairman, I thank the minister for being here tonight to participate in the debate. Unless we can get our information from him and he can get the answers to all of us we will never solve the problem.

The minister remembers last year that when we talked about marine infrastructure the officials would say, “No, everything is great. Our wharves and everything are perfect”. We then had hearings and people had to come and really discuss the problem openly. We were told that $400 million was needed just to bring marine infrastructure up to par.

We are hearing now from the minister's own people that $500 million is needed over the next few years to bring the Coast Guard up to par; $350 million roughly to replace an aging fleet and provide proper coverage, and $150 million or $160 million to keep it going. I wonder if the minister thinks these figures are accurate.

Second, in relation to seniority, could the minister tell us the status of people working in the Coast Guard?

[Motions for Papers, November 6th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

A few moments ago the government House leader accepted the request for unanimous consent from one of our members to withdraw a motion but in the meantime gave a lecture that this was not the way we do it, that the offices should be notified.

I have been notified that the government House leader's office was notified that this was going to be done, as were other members who have indicated that was the case.

[Petitions, November 6th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I would like to present a petition signed by several hundred people as part of a petition originally signed by over 20,000 people. Along with this petition, there is a petition on the web that has been signed by several thousand people, which we cannot present in the House but which plays an important role in asking Parliament to support the recommendation of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans of extending Canada's jurisdiction or custodial management over the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap so we can protect the meagre resources we have left.

[Points of Order, November 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to make sure we are clear on this. I will not comment on the first set of questions, but I will on the second one, which was a general question to the minister.

Usually what we see here is the minister responsible coming to the defence of the one to whom the question might be pointed. It happens often, if new members, in particular, or anybody are not exactly sure of whose responsibility it is. Sometimes over there that is hard to know. Usually the minister responsible gets up. However today, because it was a very difficult question to answer, we saw the minister floundering, nobody coming to his defence, so he answered the question.

I think what is happening here is that the charge is not against those answering the question. The charge by the House leader of the government is against you, Mr. Speaker, because what he is saying is that you should have interrupted and it is your fault this occurred. I leave it at that.

[Supply, November 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if there was a question in there, but certainly from what the hon. member said let me make just one point. Let us ask not the people in the House but the people of the country: When it comes to concern or interest or honesty as it relates to the military, who do they trust? Is it the member for Saint John, who is ready and willing to put forth a motion that can be accepted by everybody, or a government that has slunk away from its responsibilities and is trying to protect a minister who went out and shot his mouth off when he had no right to do it?