Mr. Speaker, it is too bad about that slight interruption but it was an extremely important one.
One of the things that concerns me about what we are talking about is why we are wasting time discussing something like this anyway. We should have been here two and a half weeks ago dealing with the very issues the government now wants to bring back to the table.
The government is asking to have its cake and to eat it too. Prorogation wiped the record clean. The government is pretending that we never did some things and it wants to bring back not what was on the table, but to pick and choose from what was on the table. That is what makes all the difference. A manipulative group of individuals is trying to undermine the system of Parliament. It is playing games with how Parliament is supposed to work.
It is an interesting procedure we saw unfold over the last few weeks. All of us thought we would be back here in September dealing with extremely important issues. Some of them were on the Order Paper. New ones had occurred, including the possible war in Iraq, the terrible fishery we have had, the fiasco of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans in dealing with overfishing, the agricultural problems across the country, and the list could go on and on.
What happened is the Prime Minister figured he had to have time to develop a throne speech to illustrate to the whole country how he was going to construct a legacy for himself. First, people do not construct legacies for themselves. It is the work they do in relation with others and for others that leaves behind a legacy. That is what the Prime Minister should have done. After nine or ten years we should be able to look at what a wonderful country we have because of this government and its great leader. Can we say it? No, we cannot.
I get applause even from people on the opposite side who realize that very few people support him. It is a small number. Less than half of the caucus showed up for his speech. It is hard to believe. The Prime Minister was due to speak and the airplanes were filled with Liberals.
Those people realize there is no legacy, but how do we get one? We have to create one. How do we create one? We develop a throne speech during a period when we should be here discussing the issues pertinent to the country.
Who developed the throne speech? Certainly the architect was no Michelangelo or da Vinci or any of the great artists or architects over the years. It was somebody who knew how to use a photocopying machine. It must be a very poor machine at that if it took two and a half weeks to copy the throne speech that was delivered here just a short time ago.
What is in it for the country? Absolutely nothing. What is in it to create a legacy? Practically decimation of certain parts of our country. That will be the legacy of the Prime Minister and the government.
I come from Atlantic Canada. Atlantic Canada grew in the early years and is still there and is still developing because of its ability to use marine resources, mainly the fishery. Newfoundland and Labrador, the province I represent, was rediscovered in 1497 by the Europeans who immediately afterward began to go there and fish.
The province was developed by people who settled all over the rough geographic area to set up fishing communities. They made a living for 500 years. In fact, until 1949 when Canada joined us, we were doing okay, but when the government opposite in particular started to take control of our fisheries, places like Newfoundland, northern Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick saw our resources being traded off for the benefit of individuals and other parts of the country. We saw a decimation of resources.
Has this government, has this Prime Minister taken it upon himself, when support is building across the country, to do something about this disaster that has occurred? Has the Prime Minister said to himself “I will be the one who will take back control of our resources so that Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland can benefit from these resources that were abundant off our shores, that are being overfished by countries other than ours”? People within our own country, because of a lack of government regulations, also certainly have been to some point responsible for what is happening.
Did the Prime Minister take leadership here? No, he did not. What did he say about the fishery in the throne speech? One word, and I do not mean one word in the throne speech. There were no words in the throne speech. The one word is “nothing”. There was not one word about the fishery in the throne speech. A whole section of our country depends on the fishery. If we go west to British Columbia and talk to the people who are here today in our gallery and have all kinds of concerns about what is happening in British Columbia with the fishery, we will see that they know how much attention the government is paying to it: none, absolutely none.
So whether we talk to fishermen, whether we talk to farmers, whether we talk to people who work in the forestry sectors, and whether we talk to scientists involved in our research, all we hear about is mismanagement, cutbacks and lack of attention. When we talk about our people with disabilities, we see the complete and utter insult passed on to them by the government sending out forms which their doctors have to try to fill out saying whether or not the person can walk 150 feet. If the person can walk 150 feet, he or she will not be able to apply for a disability tax credit allowance. I had an individual say to me “I have no problems walking 150 feet. If somebody can put my shoes on for me, I will walk 150 miles”.
That is the kind of government we have. Now we see the trial balloon floating around about unemployment insurance. Members opposite will say they will not touch that. We heard the same thing a couple of years ago, and only for the election intervening we would have seen severe cuts to the unemployment insurance system. We have areas in this country where the employment is on a seasonal basis. Because of the nature of the country, it will always be that way. Will the same people always be there year after year drawing from the system? Maybe not, but people will be there. If people are in the fishing industry, they cannot fish at certain times of the year. If they are in the logging industry, there are certain times of the year they are going to be unemployed. In the manufacturing industry and the processing industries, depending on downturns, there will be times when there will be unemployment, perhaps in certain parts of the country more than in others as the universe unfolds.
Ten years down the road, the have provinces that today perhaps thumb their noses at some of the rest of us may be the have-not provinces, because some of the others have rich resources and, if given half a chance by the government, we could be doing very well and be contributing partners. Where is it written in the throne speech, the throne speech that took two and a half weeks to put together to create a legacy, that resource-rich provinces will be the primary beneficiaries from the development of their resources so that they in turn can be contributing partners in Confederation and not be perceived as having their hands out, waiting for the goodies from Alberta and Ontario? Where is it written in the throne speech for Newfoundland and Nova Scotia in particular that as their oil resources come on stream they can benefit, to reinvest and to create opportunities that enhance the provinces involved so that we can become contributing partners? Where is the incentive in the throne speech? There was no mention of it whatsoever.
The offshore in Newfoundland is starting to produce a lot of oil. We are starting to see a lot of revenue being generated. People may say we must be extremely rich, but if we did a breakdown to look at Newfoundland's share this is the way it would sum up. There are 365 days in a year. If we look at revenue from development over a 365-day period and somebody says we are getting half of that, Newfoundland's share equates to something like a day and a half in relation to the total amount of production. We are getting about one half of one per cent of the development from the offshore. Number one, this is because of the lack of consideration by the present government to properly interpret the Atlantic accord, and number two, it is because of resource royalty clawback.
What government is saying to provinces like ours, to Nova Scotia, to Newfoundland, and to Quebec, also a resource-rich province, is “you develop your resources but we will take the money”, instead of saying as it said to Alberta in the early days “you develop your resources and for the first 8 or 10 years we will let you hold onto the larger percentage” of that as a sliding scale that would bring the amount down to what the government was giving Alberta, so that it could reinvest in its infrastructure and improve its educational system.
Our country would be a tremendously rich contributing country if we developed our provinces. By holding on to this central control, the government is the boss and keeps the provinces in line. Why do we have so many concerns expressed throughout the country? Why do we hear people in Alberta talking about separation? Why do we hear people in Quebec talking about separation? Why is there a royal commission in Newfoundland and Labrador conducting hearings on our place in Confederation? Why are so many people saying they would be better off out of Canada? Simply because of the relationship between the central government and the governments of the different provinces.
We are not being treated fairly. The cry from the west some years ago was “the west wants in”. It still has not gotten in. The east also wants in, and the present government or some future government must decide to treat this country fairly, to give people from one coast to the other a chance to develop and get on their feet and become contributing partners when they have the resources to do it. Newfoundland and Labrador is not a poor province. It is an extremely rich province when it comes to resources. We are leading the country in GDP. We have for a number of years and we will for a number of years. People ask us what we are complaining about. They say we are well off.
GDP, as you know, Mr. Speaker, means absolutely nothing. It means the value of our gross domestic product is relatively good compared to every other province. If we cannot hold within our province for developmental purposes some of these resources it means nothing. If it is only the value of the resource that is taken from the ocean or from the land and sent elsewhere to create jobs and build up the economies of other places, the gross domestic product means absolutely nothing. The net domestic product is an entirely different story. How can it be corrected? Simply by having a government that uses its head to help develop strong provinces, strong economic bases, people who can work together, and provinces that can feel good about being part of this great country and work as a partnership, not feel subservient as many of us do at present.
There is another issue I will mention. In the great throne speech that took two and a half weeks to copy, where do we talk about investing in our youth? If we are talking about bringing back legislation, let us look at some new legislation. The government is picking and choosing what it brings back. Maybe we would agree to let it pick and choose provided it selects some legislation pertinent to the needs of the country today. Where is the investment in our youth? Where is the investment in our health care?
Let me deal with health care first. Today as we speak, the doctors in Newfoundland are on strike. They have been for some time and maybe they will be for some time to come. What is the main bone of contention? It is pay. They are grossly underpaid. They are looking for parity with at least the doctors in Atlantic Canada. Any of them could pack up, leave Newfoundland today and go anywhere and do considerably better than they are doing in our province. Why is the provincial government not settling with them? I am no fan of the present provincial government, but let me say, however, that one of the problems we have is that we do not have money. We do not have money for some of the reasons that I have already given, but in relation to health care a lot of our funding comes from the federal government through the CHST, the Canada health and social transfer payments.
How are the payments delivered? They are delivered to the provinces on a per capita basis. For every person in the province, the province gets so much money. As the population increases the investment in health care increases. The government always talks about more and more money going into health care, some provinces doing very well because they have rapidly increasing populations.
In fact, every province in the country except Newfoundland and Labrador has either a steady or an increasing population, which means that its health care funding increases. Newfoundland has three strikes against it and we know what happens after three strikes, especially now when it is very relevant with the World Series coming up and the playoffs already underway.
First, we have a declining population. Over the last eight or ten years, we have lost 10% of our population. Consequently we get fewer dollars. The people who are leaving are younger people, so those left behind are older people requiring a greater health expenditure. So we get fewer dollars to deal with greater expenditures over the roughest geographical section of the country. We need more money to be equal and what happens? We get less. So can we compete? Not unless the government finds a better way of delivering health care funding on a more equitable basis to the rest of the country.
I am told my time is up. It is too bad. Education will be picked up at another time because investment in our youth is extremely important.