House of Commons photo

Crucial Fact

  • His favourite word was atlantic.

Last in Parliament September 2008, as Liberal MP for Egmont (P.E.I.)

Won his last election, in 2006, with 53% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Employment June 9th, 2006

Mr. Speaker, I will tell the hon. member what we did in Atlantic Canada over the past six years.

In 2000, the Liberal government launched the Atlantic investment partnership, a $700 million investment to support economic development in Atlantic Canada. In addition, $708 million was added to the last Liberal budget, building on the recognized success of the first phase. In the past six years remarkable success has been made. The region has more R and D activity, more opportunities in rural communities, more exports, more foreign investment and more skilled entrepreneurs.

Why does the government not commit itself to the Atlantic investment fund instead of one-way tickets for Atlantic Canadians out of the region?

Employment June 9th, 2006

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, at the human resources committee, the member for Fort McMurray--Athabasca, who has a massive number of Atlantic Canada voters in his riding, either knows nothing about his constituents or his country or else wants to transport everyone out of Atlantic Canada to work in his industries.

Instead of advocating the removal of families and the human infrastructure from Atlantic Canada, why is the government not doing more to provide support for the new and traditional industries in Atlantic Canada?

Hockeyville May 18th, 2006

Mr. Speaker, today I am proud to congratulate the O'Leary Netted Gems on cracking the top 25 in the Kraft Hockeyville competition. The local O'Leary committee is leading the campaign to crown its community Kraft Canada's Hockeyville, a distinction that goes to the Canadian community that displays exemplary community spirit and dedication to hockey.

It would be difficult to imagine a community with more involvement with the sport of hockey than O'Leary. From the early days of pickup games on frozen potato fields to the building of two community indoor arenas and the creation of the very successful minor hockey system, O'Leary has developed a reputation across P.E.I. and Atlantic Canada that is synonymous with the sport of hockey.

During its history, the warriors of the maroon and gold were also pioneers in the development of women's hockey. O'Leary recently won the 2006 male AAA Bantam championship backstopped by a female goaltender.

For decades, O'Leary and the surrounding districts of Unionvale, Knutsford, West Point, Bloomfield, Cape Wolfe and West Cape have prided themselves on producing three precious commodities: high quality potatoes and lobster and high calibre hockey players. I know this tradition will continue and I wish them the best of luck in the Hockeyville competition. I know that MPs from this House will join me in congratulating O'Leary for its hard work and dedication.

Canada's Commitment in Afghanistan May 17th, 2006

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member gave us numbers on the contributions Canada has made recently and the new contribution that his government is prepared to make over the next two years. How does that compare both militarily and domestically with what the Dutch and the Brits are bringing to solve the problems in Afghanistan? Are we the leaders in the area of retraining the domestic side in particular?

We see the military getting most of the headlines on what we are doing on that side, but on the other side is reconstructing the economy on the domestic and humanitarian side. How does our contribution compare to those of the other allies in Afghanistan?

The Budget May 10th, 2006

Or anywhere else.

The Budget May 10th, 2006

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member is getting confused between deficits and debts. The deficit was $43 billion annually. The debt they ran up was close to $400 billion. That was in addition to what was already there. It doubly accumulated.

In our last tenure we reduced that debt by $63 billion and we saved $3 billion annually on debt payments. That is the difference between what they did and what we did.

The Budget May 10th, 2006

Mr. Speaker, if he wants to go back to 1993, I would like to remind the member that the Canadian people returned two Progressive Conservative members to the House. That was the judgment of the Canadian people in 1993. That was the judgment of nine years of Conservative government. The Conservatives came back with two MPs. One is now the Liberal Premier of Quebec.

At the same time, the Conservatives created the party that was represented by the member who just spoke, the Bloc Québécois. That is what they did to our country in their nine years of mismanagement of our economy and country.

The Liberals may have lost a minority government after 13 years. We cannot stay in government forever. However, we came back with 104 seats, not 2 seats. We came back within striking distance of a minority government ourselves.

He talked about the $1 billion boondoggle. It turned out, after all the accountants went through it and after spending millions of dollars to get to the bottom of the so-called boondoggle, that $70,000 were unaccounted for. The Conservatives created the situation where Canadian taxpayers spent millions of dollars trying to find out what was there when there was nothing there at all. For any financial institution in Canada, that would have been a banner year for handling any kind of money.

The member, who came in here as a Reform Party member, has no legs to stand on right now.

The Budget May 10th, 2006

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's comments damning regional economic programs as nothing more than ineffective corporate welfare and his current preoccupation with satisfying other regions of Canada, I am concerned that he was conveniently ignoring economic development in the Atlantic region.

Without sufficient investments in this area, the region will never again achieve the economic success it enjoyed when it joined Confederation. This does not seem to bother the Prime Minister. A true commitment to regional development of Canada would have been demonstrated by some mention of it in the budget. Obviously Atlantic Canada is not a priority of the new government.

To conclude, the Conservative Party came to the plate in 2006 and it cannot seem to get the ball out of the infield. It is positioned with a world-leading economy, the best fiscal record in Canadian history. Despite the boons blessed upon it, left by the previous Liberal government, we discover the Conservatives cannot make it to home plate. Nowhere do we see the commitment to a national vision articulated and implemented by the previous Liberal government and nowhere do we see the fiscal commitment continuing the prosperity trend established by the previous Liberal government.

The Budget May 10th, 2006

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to address the budget today. It is also a pleasure to share my time with the member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, which is a very large riding with a very long name.

I would like to begin, lest we forget, by recalling that when the Liberal government came to power in 1993, we faced a tremendous task, thanks to nine years of Conservative fiscal mismanagement. Mr. Speaker, I do not know if you would agree with me, but I am sure that the NDP would never have left the country in the shape that the Conservative government did in 1993.

We inherited a $43 billion annual deficit. Our national debt equalled 70% of our gross domestic product. Deficit financing had become a budgetary mainstay. Interest rates were skyrocketing, job creation was negative and unemployment reached double digits. However, a change was wrought under the Liberal regime over the last 13 years and that is the reason the member for Battlefords—Lloydminster could make the speech that he just did.

We were left with the daunting task of setting Canada's financial books straight, and we did just that. We did what the Conservatives could not or would not do. We took on the required difficult task. It was painful, but the Canadian people stuck with us in our decision making and it amounted to short term pain for long term gain. In just four short years the finances of this country began to turn around. We brought the government out of the red and restored our fiscal sovereignty.

Over the next eight years we brought down eight consecutive surpluses and projected at least five more. We reduced the national debt by more than $63 billion, thereby saving $3 billion in interest rates. We brought the unemployment rate to a 32 year low. Inflation was lowered and interest rates were at the lowest for decades. We renewed the federal government's capacity to increase the standard of living of every Canadian. We did this through investing in social programs, through economic development programs, skills training and job creation, low interest rates, regional development programs, new municipal infrastructure programs and tax reduction. To be succinct, we successfully orchestrated the maple leaf miracle, the envy of every G-7 country.

When the present government came to power with just 36% of popular support across Canada, to use a baseball analogy, we were sitting on third base financially with nobody out and the Conservatives scratched at one single and, coming out of the bushes after 13 years, they came in with a very, very disappointing budget.

Never in the history of Canada has an incoming government inherited such a tremendous record of surpluses. Certainly, in the history of Canada, no outgoing Conservative government has ever left such a tremendous record.

We worked to ensure that all Canadians held on to their hard-earned money. We lowered the income tax rate. We reduced more than $100 billion in federal taxes since 2000. Just last year we initiated a six year tax cut that would have seen savings of over $50 billion to Canadian taxpayers.

We lowered the employment insurance rates for the 11th consecutive year to half of what they were in 1993. In 1993 the EI rate was $3.07 per $100. It was going up to $3.30 per $100. Today it is $1.87 per $100. In this budget it was never mentioned. An EI rate reduction was not mentioned for employers and employees. We were being accused of accumulating huge surpluses. Apparently these huge surpluses are now welcomed by the present government.

We worked with the provinces and territories to establish a $5 billion deal that would ensure that every Canadian from coast to coast regardless of age, income, gender or race could access quality public child care.

We concluded a $41 billion agreement on health care.

We worked to build a consensus around a new equalization agreement, a $33 billion 10 year agreement which implemented a constitutional commitment to the equality of Canadians across the country regardless of region.

We developed an unprecedented agreement with first nations across Canada, through the Kelowna accord, which heralded a new era of cooperation and commitment to increasing the quality of life of aboriginal peoples. Alas, I do not believe that agreement is any longer in effect.

These are just a few of the previous Liberal government's successes.

In my time remaining, I want to discuss two issues of particular importance.

First, I want to point the lack of vision for Atlantic Canada, particularly there was no mention of an immigration policy for our region. The demographics for Atlantic Canada are very disturbing. With our out-migration, our aging population and low birth rates, Atlantic Canada will not have the number of people required to not only grow the economy in the future but to fill the jobs that are there now. Yet each province in Atlantic Canada knows these numbers. They know that an immigration policy has to be put in place in cooperation with the immigration department of the federal government.

Under the ACOA program we made some initial starts on that, working with the provinces to create a fund. We are not used to going out looking for immigrants. Immigrants, who come into our country, go to Toronto, Calgary and the large cities. Many of the immigrants who do come to Atlantic Canada only stay for a short time and they migrate to places of better opportunity. We no longer have the ability to look at this in a lax way. We must address it because the future of Atlantic Canada is in the balance if we do not get serious about an immigration policy that will not only attract immigrants to the region but to retain them for the future economic development of our region.

I do not have to tell anyone here of the importance of the economic development of the outlying regions of our country. Each region as a part contributes to the success of Canada as a whole.

Although it was not mentioned once in the budget, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency is critical to the development of the Atlantic region. Its programs fund small and medium sized business by providing repayable loans and providing risk capital. It also encourages job creation through enterprise development and it promotes community development. It has a proven track record of success in lowering unemployment, creating jobs and generating value for money outcomes. In the first decade, since its creation, each ACOA dollar invested created $5 in the GDP of Atlantic Canada.

As well, over the past decade, the Atlantic Canada Liberal caucus has been very active in developing a plan that has focused on strategic investments that make good business sense and help the region. These politicians know that proper economic development planning takes time and requires sustained commitment. They cannot simply follow the short term time span offered in the calendar year.

That is why the Liberal government five years ago responded with a $700 million Atlantic investment partnership and a renewed investment of $708 million in 2005. Although still being implemented, these strategic investments have already begun to yield positive results with the Atlantic economy. Funding to support research and development has attracted over $800 million worth of investment in the region. Investments in community economic development boast a leveraging percentage of over 100% or more. More than $36 million in sales have been directly attributed to trade missions funded through this initiative.

Strengthening economic and community development is key to reversing current trends of underdevelopment and out-migration. However, keeping in mind Prime Minister Harper's comments damning regional--

Norad May 3rd, 2006

Mr. Speaker, maybe it is only the Minister of National Defence who can remember the situation back in 1958 at the height of the Cold War. I know his career was probably just beginning then.

At that time, the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia was at its height. There was tremendous fear in the free world of what the Russians were capable of doing. In fact, they demonstrated it many times with their testing of hydrogen bombs, et cetera. At that time, it was imperative that not only North America but the free world would bind themselves together in treaties to protect themselves from the incursion of the Russian threat.

Those times are now gone, but there is a new threat, as was demonstrated on September 11, which was a reminder that we still have to cooperate as a free world, as a portion of North America, to continue to demonstrate our willingness to participate and to cooperate with the United States for the protection of our continent. The original reasons for the development of Norad and the present reasons are very similar, and I think most welcome by the citizens of both countries.