Loyola Hearn

[World Trade Organization, November 5th, 2001]

Mr. Chairman, as a follow up to the previous question, I wonder if my colleague would comment on the fact that many of the world's nations that are not as well off as we are do need access to drugs. I am thinking of Africa with HIV et cetera. However, how would it be possible to deliver cheap generic drugs to any country or any individual if somebody did not invest in order to develop that drug in the first place? We cannot have our cake and eat it too.

If we take our time, make the effort and use our money to invest in drugs, surely there has to be some protection. If not, no cheap drugs will be available to give to people in need. Hopefully proper controls will make sure these drugs will be reasonably priced and well off countries will help those in need, but surely there has to be protection for the development of the process. If not, we will not have any drugs for anybody. I would like the member's comments on that.

[Fisheries, November 2nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

For some time now the inshore crab fishermen in Newfoundland have been operating under permits. They have been requesting that these permits be upgraded to the status of a licence. The minister's department has committed to upgrade the status from permit to licence. In fact it should have happened this past summer.

Could the minister tell us what is happening on this issue? When can these fishermen expect to see the status of permit upgraded to that of licence?

[Nunavut Waters and Nunavut Surface Rights Tribunal Act, November 2nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member for South Shore. I was just about to say southern shore, that great part of Newfoundland, the hotbed of hockey where you would feel very comfortable yourself, Mr. Speaker.

However I have a couple of questions for the member. First, he talks about subsurface rights. I wonder what provision is made for the people of the area, the natives in particular, to have first right to all benefits coming from the exploration, development and processing of minerals found within the respective areas. Second, I wonder if any mention is made of the subsurface rights applying to the waters adjacent to the coast.

[Prebudget Consultations, November 1st, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I would like to follow up on the question that was just asked. I agree wholeheartedly with the member from the Bloc. I also agree with a number of the NDP members who raised this problem and members on this side of the House, particularly those from eastern Quebec.

The minister today said that everyone should be happy that there is an employment insurance program in place and that it is working when asked a question about those affected by softwood lumber. I have no doubt about that and we are thankful that it is there for those who qualify under the present, existing regulations. However there are many people affected now by the softwood dispute, such as contractors, people who work for contractors, and people in the fisheries and seasonal work areas who did not get enough work.

The department that the minister administers has within it the wherewithal and the people to put together solutions to help people. It is not being done. Neither the money nor the attention is being focused where the need is greatest.

Would the member talk to her minister and ask her to listen to those who can provide some direction and help so she can focus on those who need proper help in the country because it is not being done?

[Air Canada Public Participation Act, October 31st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is dead on in what she says. I think all of us who have gone through airports recently have run across employees in a similar situation. A while ago Air Canada tried to lay off a number of employees who had come from the Canadian Airlines system. Because of an agreement they have been asked to put it all on hold.

Because of the transition that has taken place I would suggest to the government that Air Canada not be allowed to tamper with its employees until the mess is straightened out. I hope we can deal with them by keeping them on. If not, we should still proceed in the right and proper fashion and try to get the company back on solid footing so we can continue for many years to provide the type of employment we need so badly in Canada.

[Air Canada Public Participation Act, October 31st, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Saanich--Gulf Islands.

This debate is an extremely important one. Perhaps it is no more important to anybody else in this whole House than it is to the members who represent the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Should members from any other province decide they want to walk or drive home, they can do it. We cannot. We have to fly, swim or take the ferry. We are more dependent on the airlines, especially our business people, our everyday travellers, people going on vacations, many students who are at universities on the mainland, and I could go on. Practically every family is affected by the service to our province by the airline. Basically, we are talking about Air Canada.

Fortunately, over the last while we have seen Canada 3000 coming in to the province and providing a bit of competition and some extra service. This certainly is looked upon by many as being one of the factors that kept the rates down somewhat. However, to a large degree Air Canada still has a monopoly. That is one of the concerns we have when we talk about this bill.

As we look at protecting and preserving our national airline, which we favour tremendously, we also have to make sure that the service that is eventually settled upon is provided at a reasonable price. Regardless of whether it is completely operated by the private sector, whether there is government involvement, or whether involvement by foreign companies is much greater than at present, whatever the case may be, that service must be provided to Canadians from British Columbia to Newfoundland at a reasonable price.

We are getting more letters than ever before from people who have no choice but to use the airline but cannot afford to do so. The prices to fly out of many of our smaller areas are extremely high. Consequently this has a very negative effect on many ordinary people throughout the country.

It is great if someone is travelling for a wealthy company that is paying the bill or travelling on behalf of the government, realizing of course that if the government is paying the bill, it is coming out of the taxpayers' pockets anyway. However, for the average family on medium or low income who have to travel because of sickness, educational needs or work, whatever the case may be, it is extremely difficult for them to get on and off the island of Newfoundland at the present rates that are being charged by the airline. We must keep that in mind. It is not just in Newfoundland; the service provided has to be reasonable enough to be used by all the people of the country.

The private sector, God love it, keeps the economy going. However, the bottom line for everybody involved in business is to make money. In order to make money they provide a service. In providing that service, any company worth its salt will try to make as much money as it can. When we are talking about providing an essential service to the people of this country, then companies have to be regulated to some extent so that they cannot charge people whatever they wish, or just pick lucrative routes into the larger areas.

Everybody wants to fly out of Toronto. Everybody wants to fly out of Vancouver. Everybody wants to fly out of Montreal. However, not everybody wants to fly out of Stephenville, Deer Lake, Goose Bay or even St. John's and many other small towns and cities throughout this great country.

People in the lucrative areas usually earn much higher incomes than those in the rural areas. If they can fly for fairly reasonable rates, why should people who are in areas where the going is tough economically have to pay two to six times more per mile than the people in the larger centres? It is entirely unfair. The government has to do something about it.

The problems first started a couple of years ago with the closure of Canadian Airlines. That was when the government should have stepped in and made the right decision. It certainly did not. The private sector had the opportunity to move in and solve the problems that we face today and by refusing to do what the government is now asking with the share restriction, we could have solved that problem two years ago.

Instead, the government basically forced the then lucrative Air Canada to take on the complete debt of Canadian Airlines. Canadian Airlines, with all kinds of employees, was going down the tubes. The government said to Air Canada, a company that was doing very well, that it could merge with Canadian Airlines and take it over but it would have to take all the debt and carry all the baggage, pardon the pun, with it.

It just cannot work that way. Rearranging the company so it would be a viable option was not allowed. Instead Air Canada was saddled by government regulations with a company that has now put it under.

Now that we are revisiting this whole situation, hopefully common sense will prevail. Whatever the resolution is, by the time we pass the present legislation and deal with the Air Canada situation in total, hopefully we will have a decision that will enable Air Canada, whoever the owners may be, to operate viably and to provide a reasonably priced service to everyone in the country.

Air Canada was viable before government asserted its authority and tried to tell it how to run the company. When we look at the experiences of this government in particular, when it asserts itself to try to do anything, we know the result is not successful. The records are there to prove it.

In all of this process the group of people we all must be concerned with is the employees of Air Canada itself. From coast to coast we have a tremendous number of hardworking dedicated Air Canada employees, some of whom have been with Air Canada for quite some time. Some of their jobs were jeopardized when Canadian Airlines was taken over by Air Canada. The type of deal the government set up was entirely unfair to the employees who had been with that company for quite some time.

Regardless of that, an employee is an employee. We certainly do not want to make choices as to who should be laid off and who should not. Hopefully a properly structured regulated airline can be busy enough and the profits lucrative enough for it to ensure that all the employees, regardless of whether they were with Air Canada for 30 years or whether they came with the Canadian Airlines merger, can find good, solid jobs within the airline.

In view of September 11, we must instill some confidence in people to get back in the airplanes and fly. As many of us know, in many cases it is much safer to fly than it is to drive or walk. Hopefully, we can get back to creating a good economy around our airlines.

However, profits are made around numbers. I mentioned this before. I know I am repeating myself to some degree, but I cannot overemphasize the fact that we are pricing ourselves out of business. It is great to say that we made a profit because we can charge $2,000 for a trip from point A to point B. If we charge $1,000, three times as many people may take the trip and then the profits would be even greater.

We have to make sure that an airline, especially where it is serving areas of the country which depend entirely upon that mode of travel, charges prices that are within reason. We are getting away from that. From Newfoundland to Ottawa the round trip costs anywhere from $1,800 to $2,000. Not many people can afford that. To fly from Newfoundland to Halifax quite often costs in the range of $700 to $800 and sometimes even more. Just a few years ago it cost in the range of $200 to $300. How many average people can afford to fly when they are paying three times more than they paid just a few years ago? Why should they have to pay that?

It is interesting to compare fares, as I mentioned earlier, in areas of British Columbia. I should not say British Columbia because it has the same problem in certain parts of the province that we have. However, quite often the fares from Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal are quite reasonable.

The member for Saint John who has been flying for some time will tell us that the prices paid to get from New Brunswick to here are much greater today than they were even two or three years ago. It does not make a difference for us; I have to come to work and the government pays my way. However, the taxpayers are paying for it. It is affecting our bottom line. If the person next door to me has a job in Ottawa and wants to go home, or his family wants to come to visit, they usually cannot afford to do so because the costs are so exorbitant.

There are a few things we have to keep in mind. If government is asserting itself by bringing forward and approving legislation, let us make sure it is good legislation. If we are to interfere with the operation of a company, let us make sure that we have some say. If government money is going into a company, the government has to have some say in its operation, not telling it how to run the company, let us stay out of that, but making sure that the consumer is protected.

We have to make sure that a private company can operate viably. Quite often the best way to do that is to get out of its way, cut the red tape and bureaucracy and let it do the job.

If we had let Air Canada do that two years ago or the private sector we would not be here today worrying about how to straighten out our national airline. If we had not stuck our nose in and interfered with Air Canada as it took over Canadian Airlines we would not be here today. It would undoubtedly still be a profitable operation.

We all know that Air Canada, Canada 3000, West Jet and all the other airlines were affected by the events of September 11. It is right and proper, because of actions taken by governments around the world, that the government compensate them for the direct losses they incurred during that process. We have no problem with that. However we cannot let inefficient companies or companies that are operating under such government restraints that they become inefficient piggyback on September 11. However, if it is the government's fault, as I would suggest it is with the present situation as it relates to Air Canada, then the onus is on the government to correct the mistakes of the past.

We should have learned from what happened a couple of years ago. Let us not make the same mistake again. Let us not make our cuts and changes on the backs of employees of the company. Nor should we make our decisions and cuts on the backs of people who live in certain areas. We should not sock it to them, as the saying goes, and say that if they want to travel they must pay the price.

Confederation is about looking after all the people and provinces that fall within this great dominion. We are supposed to be brothers and sisters who share and share alike. Some of us have advantages because we live in larger regions. Many have advantages because we live in small ones, whether it be greater resources, the types of freedoms we have or whatever.

When it comes to movement throughout this country, we should not be penalized because we live in remote areas. We should not be disadvantaged when it comes to educational or employment opportunities because we live in small communities or because our accent or skin colour is different. That is not what Confederation is about. That is not what Canada is about.

We have a chance here to do something right. Let us use a bit of common sense, as I said before, and make sure we do it right this time.

[Constitution of Canada, October 30th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, that is an extremely important question. Two great races, the Innu and the Inuit, cover most of Labrador. They are in Davis Inlet and many other areas.

One of the things we have tried to do with a lot of these people is to show them how to do it our way. We should be asking them how they would like to live their lives with their own leadership, under their own direction and with some help and encouragement rather than trying to force our way of life upon them.

If we set the example then perhaps we would see changes in attitudes. They could make a good living for themselves rather than try to depend upon the directions we set. The potential is there. Leadership is what we need. It is something that has always been lacking in all of us.

[Constitution of Canada, October 30th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for the question and I am proud that he is part Newfoundlander. If we did a research study throughout the House we might find that many more people are the descendants of people who came from Newfoundland or at least through Newfoundland.

There are two things we can do. First, we have not done a good job over the years of publicizing our positives. When we hear about Newfoundland it is often looked upon as the poor cousin. That is changing. Our job, the job of my colleagues across the House and my colleague from St. John's East and others, should be to talk about what we have, the positives of Newfoundland and Labrador. By doing so we would encourage more people to look upon it as a place to visit rather than wondering who would want to be stuck there.

The people who were in Gander during the September 11 events will tell us that they have never been treated so well in their lives. Somebody from St. John's referred to a person from New York who was walking up the waterfront as being stuck there all week. The person from New York said he was not stuck and that he had never seen such beauty and freedom in all his life.

We have to put more money into our infrastructure. One of our problems is that we are an island and getting there by air is expensive. We are held hostage by an Air Canada monopoly or by the ferry which should be looked upon as a permanent link. It should be an essential service. It should be an extension of the Trans-Canada Highway. We have to pay more to get to Newfoundland than any other province in the country. If we can solve some of those problems and put more money into our general infrastructure, we can be and eventually will be the Mecca of Canada.

[Constitution of Canada, October 30th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to do something that I do not do very often. I should like to pay tribute to the Minister of Industry for his initiatives not only in relation to bringing forth the government motion but also the name change that took place unanimously in the house of assembly in Newfoundland while the hon. gentleman was the premier of the province.

He has certainly been the leader in bringing these two great names together, recognizing that there is one province and that Labrador is an equal part of that province. This is perhaps a fact that has been overlooked by a lot of people for many years. I thank the hon. minister for this initiative. This has to be a proud day for the people of the Labrador section of the great province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Why was this not done long ago? In the historic days of colonization Canada was just a dominion and Newfoundland a little colony under the direct rule of Britain for many years. Newfoundland eventually joined this great Dominion of Canada and became part of this great country.

Labrador always seemed to be looked upon as an entity unto itself and not part of the great province of Newfoundland and now Newfoundland and Labrador. There seemed to be a geographic separation over the years as well as a psychological separation.

The people of Newfoundland looked upon Labrador as a place to go to rape the resources and take advantage of it. The area would then be left for the people of Labrador to try to survive and eke out a living from the resources without any assistance from either the province of Newfoundland or from Canada. However these hardy people survived.

Over the years the recognition began to hit home. The resources that were geographically in Labrador were not for the sake of Newfoundland or for outsiders but primarily for the benefit of the people of Labrador. The sharing concept between both parts, the island and the mainland, has grown to the point whereby officially recognizing that we are one province, Newfoundland and Labrador, we will not hear any more about the issue of divide and conquer.

Labrador has brought so much into Confederation. We hear what the province of Newfoundland brought in. However much of that is actually part of the Labrador section. Now we can truthfully say the great province of Newfoundland and Labrador brought so much into Confederation.

This is quite different from the way we are viewed by many people who do not know the great strengths and resources of our province. At the most northerly tip of Labrador the scenery and fishing resources are incredible. I am sure that anyone who has flown, I will not say walked, over Torngat Mountains has had the pleasure of seeing how immense and beautiful they are. The wilderness in Labrador is the last great wilderness in Canada where hunting, fishing and hiking are indescribable. One has to be there to be able to appreciate it.

There has been great mineral wealth discovered at Labrador west in the mines that have kept the towns of Labrador City and Wabush going for many years. The ore from that area has benefited Quebec and Ontario perhaps to a much larger extent than we would like to see, with all due respect to our friends in those provinces.

There are the great discoveries in Voisey's Bay which one of these days will be primarily developed for the benefit of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. Undoubtedly there will be benefits for our sister provinces as there should be. Newfoundland has never said no to that. It has never said it would not share its great resources.

There are the northern cod stocks based off the coast of Labrador which swim down the northeast coast to Cape St. Mary during the summer. Over the years they provided a livelihood for the people in Newfoundland and Labrador. They also provided a livelihood for many other Canadian provinces and foreign nations that came in, raped our stocks, took quotas given to them to sell other products, and we were left the losers. It is to the point where the stocks have been practically wiped out. The people of Newfoundland and Labrador are the losers. They received absolutely nothing in return.

The best example of how we are treated is before us right now. There is a 20% tariff placed on the great northern shrimp stocks that we catch off the coast of Labrador and send to the European market. Our fishermen face a 20% tariff on our peeled and cooked shrimp going to the European market because one company in one country in the EU is trying to make sure the tariff is imposed to protect its own market opportunities.

It does not make any sense whatsoever. It is not an issue between Canada and the European Union at all. It is an issue between a company in Denmark and Canada. It is something that should be resolved overnight, instead of having to wait for the next round of World Trade Organization discussions.

I have often said it is only Newfoundland and Labrador and it is only fish. However the great fishing stocks off Newfoundland and Labrador have kept many a country afloat since the discovery of Newfoundland in 1497. The economies of Britain, Spain and Portugal were all boosted tremendously by the economic benefits from the processing of the fish stocks off Newfoundland and Labrador.

We have oil and forest resources. We are an island and a mainland section with a population of a little over half a million people. We have more resources per capita than any province in Canada and any country in the world. Yet we have the highest unemployment in Canada. We have sat back over the years and watched others benefit from our resources and we have not benefited at all.

I was in Taiwan earlier this summer. It is a country that is smaller than Newfoundland with the population of Canada. It has less than 4% unemployment and practically no resources.

What is wrong? It is the leadership in our province. It must recognize the strengths we have and be willing to work with us. I am delighted to support this initiative to make sure that Newfoundland and Labrador are recognized equally as one province, not only in our own eyes but in the eyes of this great country and the world.

[Coast Guard, October 26th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, earlier today the solicitor general said “We have beefed up the coast guard by requiring them now to call in 96 hours in advance”. His own people, the people in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans responsible, will tell us the onus is on the captain to make the call. If a boat does not call we do not know it is in our waters because cutbacks have caused the coast guard to be almost eliminated, 20% coverage by radar.

Should not terrorists at least have to have a reservation confirmed before we let them into the country?