House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2006, with 45% of the vote.
Supply October 23rd, 1997
I know the member's new idea. There would be no Atlantic Canada if the member had his way. He would cut us off. There would be nothing in the east. The elitists from the west cannot identify with the problem in the east.
Are they really gaining ground in Atlantic Canada? Is there any doubt about that?
Supply October 23rd, 1997
Mr. Speaker, I apologize for using the name of the finance minister. I could have said other things.
I want to respond to the hon. member. I have been here since June 2. I am new to the House of Commons. Whoever made mistakes made mistakes. I will not stand here and try to defend mistakes that were made by former governments. That is not my role. That is the way it is with me.
Supply October 23rd, 1997
He is not trying to help me. He is not trying to help Atlantic Canadians. He is trying to help Paul Martin and his quest to become prime minister. He has lost sight of his priorities.
Supply October 23rd, 1997
I have not met the hon. member. Maybe I should never meet him. Does he realize the value of fish resources to the people of Canada? Both of them are in big trouble.
The member is saying that they would not spend any money on research and science. They would keep on making the same old mistakes. They would let the stocks go down the tube and more people would be unemployed.
Does it not make more sense to put money into science and research so that we make sound management decisions, have a sustainable fishery and keep people employed on the Atlantic and west coasts? What is wrong with spending some money to do that?
Are they going to cut spending money on everything? Maybe that is the member's solution. If they do that they will wipe out Atlantic Canada.
Supply October 23rd, 1997
Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the parliamentary secretary asking about solutions. We are talking about a national policy for a sustainable fisheries.
Can we imagine being minister of fisheries and oceans and trying to make management decisions about fisheries on either coast without adequate research and adequate science? Therein lies a big problem. The government has gutted the research and science budgets of DFO. The solution is to get money back into the research and science budgets and to get research and science activities operating on both coasts to determine exactly what fish are there and what environmental problems are being experienced.
We hear talk on the east coast about the effects of cold water, the effects of seals and the effects of foreign overfishing. We are now talking about a fishery of the future without in essence a budget for science and research.
I ask the parliamentary secretary and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans how they can make any management decisions. How can we ever hope to have a sustainable fisheries if we do not have proper and adequate research and science? Excuse the pun, but we have been floundering around too long.
It was indicated at the parliamentary committee this morning that a former minister of fisheries set a total allowable catch of double what the scientific community recommended. That is bad enough. We can blame that on the minister. However, to be making management decisions when they do not have anything to base them on and then trying to shift the blame on to people in those regions of the country for all they have done—
Supply October 23rd, 1997
I have no idea. You will have to ask him that. He may have been fishing.
It is a very, very complex problem. However I am very proud to say that at least my party and our leader have initiated this debate. As my colleague has said, we should have more days like this because we are dealing with the future of regions of the country, particularly the Atlantic region. If we do not debate and suggest solutions, then there is a region of the country that may just disappear. It is the role and responsibility of the federal government to find solutions.
This country is so diverse and our problems are so different. All that the people of Atlantic Canada are asking is to continue to be a part of this great nation and to be treated with dignity and respect and be allowed to stay where they have lived, worked and been educated.
In concluding, I would like to move the following amendment. I move:
That the amendment be amended by deleting the words “continue the implementation of” and substituting therefor the word “implement”.
Why I say that is, how can you continue the implementation of something that you have never implemented, such as a national policy on sustainable fisheries? How can you continue to implement something when the auditor general so clearly highlighted in his report that there is no clearly defined national policy on sustainable fisheries?
Supply October 23rd, 1997
Yes he did and he still knows a lot. John Crosbie knows more than the whole 60 of them put together not only about fish but about anything else I say to hon. members.
There is one thing I can stand in this House and say about John Crosbie. I am not shy about defending John Crosbie. John Crosbie would not expect me to stand here today and say that everything he did was right. John Crosbie was always a man who if he made a mistake he admitted it. The first clue to success and the first way to be successful is to recognize when one is wrong.
I guess today we are asking the government to recognize that there are things that have been done wrong over the years which are really impacting upon our people today. And TAGS is a part of it.
Having said that, TAGS was necessary. If it was not for TAGS the Reform wish of Atlantic Canada disappearing may have already been realized. I say that quite sincerely. It may have already been over but the question is now what will come after TAGS. We are hearing many suggestions. We are preoccupied with it these days in Atlantic Canada. Many people there have very good suggestions.
When Mr. Harrigan and others go around this country I hope they talk to the people who are really involved in the industry, the people who have had to try to stay alive for the last four or five years on a meagre income. There is a perception that has been portrayed throughout this country by certain groups that this has been a total waste and this dependence has to end. I am sure people to my right know who I am talking about.
These people have been only kept alive. They have not been able to live in mansions. They have not been able to drive new cars. They have not been able to pay for their children's tuition for post-secondary education. They have only been kept alive.
What was wrong is that successive governments of Canada mismanaged the fishery to a degree that those people could no longer earn a living from that resource, a common resource, a people's resource. What was wrong with the government recognizing its mistakes and the problem it has created?
What is wrong now when we ask as a party and other parties in this House ask for solutions to the problem and to help those people in Atlantic Canada after May 1998? We must not forget that this program was designed to continue to May 1999. The federal government has cut a year off that program.
Why has there been a year cut off the program? Because there were 52% more take up on the income support component than was anticipated. I ask you, Madam Speaker, to think about that. How could anyone underestimate by 52% the take up on income support of a program that followed NCARP, the previous program? All the government had to do was transfer the files from NCARP to TAGS, from DFO to HRD but can you imagine that they underestimated the income support take up by 52%.
So people wonder why I am here today and why I am so frustrated and why I behave and speak the way I do. I want members to listen to this. It is because my worst fear is that after NCARP and TAGS it is most conceivable that if there is something after TAGS, we could even make it worse.
There should be no lessons left to be learned about TAGS. We should already know the answers, we should know what will follow. There are certain components that are going to be compulsory. There is going to have to be early retirement. There is going to have to be effective licence buy-out if we are going to reduce the harvesting capacity.
I say to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans this time not to just buy the licence out from the fisher person and pay him the $100,000, $150,000 or $200,000 and allow his boat and gear to remain fishing. If we are really sincere about reducing harvesting capacity, it should come out of the industry. That is where there has been a big failure.
Last week when the House was not sitting, I met with fisher groups in two areas of my riding. I say to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and to members that today there are more people fishing in those areas, more boats, more vessels fishing than there were before the moratorium. And there is a reflection cast upon Atlantic Canada and Atlantic Canadians that they seem to be the problem. Can you blame us for wanting to make a living, for trying to stay alive?
The government program has failed and I have to say to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans since he is listening that this is a very complex problem that has taken a number of years to get to this point. I have to very seriously question whether the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has the ability or the competence to straighten out the Atlantic fishing problems. I am not saying that just for the sake of saying it. But I question the department. I have to ask if it is really capable of dealing with the complex problems in the east and the west. I do not take great comfort that it has the ability to deal with it.
I guess I am running out of time but I want to repeat the problems in the west for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. I plead with the minister and the government to get more involved than they have already been in the Pacific salmon issue. There is a direct parallel, an identical situation brewing in British Columbia as is now taking place in the east. If the minister and the Prime Minister do not roll up their sleeves and get more involved in the issue, we will be here in the not too distant future talking about the Pacific salmon crisis and the people affected just as we are talking about Atlantic Canada and TAGS.
It does no good just to pay lip service. Why is the Prime Minister not more involved in the issue in the west? Why is the federal government more preoccupied with attacking Premier Glen Clark? Why have Glen Clark and British Columbians become the enemies? The Americans, the Alaskans are the problem. They are the ones who have consistently overfished. The Alaskans are still fishing at pre-1994 catch rates, yet the British Columbians are targeted as the bad guys.
I say to the minister that if he had gone to the troubled areas of British Columbia we would not have had that altercation with the blockade of the ferry. If he had gone there and talked to those people, we would not have had the problem. We would not have had the blockade.
Supply October 23rd, 1997
Yes, and people from the west who happened to be in the cabinet who did not know a fish from that mace—
Supply October 23rd, 1997
Yes, I say to the hon. member from the Reform Party, I am here in Ottawa. But my life is not dictated to by Ottawa, I say to him and others. My life is dictated to by the people I was sent here to represent and they are in Atlantic Canada.
If there was a legitimate need in the west which there is in British Columbia, I can say to members I will stand here, highlight it and support it. I will support the people of British Columbia because there is an identified problem.
I only ask that those immediately to my left would recognize and identify the legitimate problem in the east that was not created by the people in the east. It was created by people who sat here in successive governments—
Supply October 23rd, 1997
Madam Speaker, I thank the members for their concurrence. Now I have forgotten where I was. I know where I am, but I have forgotten where I was.