Elsie Wayne

[National Defence, June 1st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, an RCMP source has informed us that the problems with the Delta Company go much deeper than with six soldiers. We have had a conspiracy. We have had confessions. I am now concerned we might have a cover-up.

Why is the Minister of National Defence afraid to do the right thing and launch a fully independent public inquiry into this scandal?

[Canada Labour Code, May 31st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member from St. John's, Newfoundland, for the opportunity to speak to the bill. I also compliment my colleague in the NDP from Winnipeg on his comments.

In today's society not too many people speak out for the men and women who work with their hands. I can relate to that. A number of workers come to see me back home. They are under tremendous stress in the workplace today because of the cutbacks that are taking place. Some of them have to work longer hours because of the cutbacks. They are having most difficult times and it is difficult for their families as well.

I know the Westray mine was referred to. That issue has tugged at the hearts of just about all of us. The wives of those miners have been to see me a number of times. Had there been proper legislation in place, possibly what happened in the Westray mine could have been prevented, and those men would still be with their families and their children.

My colleague spoke about ergonomics. He was absolutely correct. It sounds great when subsection 125(1) states that an employer shall:

—ensure that the machinery, equipment and tools used by the employees in the course of their employment meet prescribed health, safety and ergonomic standards—

It is a bit vague on detail, as was said by my colleague, and we have to look at it. We support the bill, but as my colleague from St. John's, Newfoundland, stated, there is a need to elaborate on different areas of it.

I could talk about stress and what has happened to some workers. I know of a gentleman with a wife and four children who was hurt at work. He is not an old man. He is in his late thirties. His wife brought him into my office because of what had happened to him. He was working on a piece of equipment way up in the air that broke off. He went flying through the air. He was in a wheelchair and all his body shook. His little children were crying about their dad. He could not work any more with his hands. Could he walk to work? Could he do anything? I was happy to have helped him to obtain a disability pension. He is a man in his thirties who was injured because the equipment he was working on to do his job was not safe.

I am concerned that a complaint made under this provision cannot be referred to arbitration or adjudication. Subsection 141(1) states that the minister can appoint an appeals officer to adjudicate a decision made through a local health and safety process. To some extent this is a political appointment. We have no guarantees that all ministers will be as circumspect as our current minister.

Subsection 146(3) says that the appeal officer's decision is final and cannot be reviewed by the court. I have big problems with any bill that consistently denies a citizen full access to due process.

Perhaps the minister could take a second look at it. We need that. The government should take a second look at it because it takes away the democratic process in Canada when people do not have the right to go to the court. The court is there for all Canadians. There is no process that should remove their right to go there for a final decision.

Subsection 135(1) indicates that a workplace with 20 or more employees must have a workplace health and safety committee. That is good. Yet subsection 135(2) exempts ship from being required to have such a committee. Be there 20 sailors or 200 sailors, it does not apply to ships. We have ferries. We have other ships out there. We have our coast guard. We should make sure that it applies to all of them.

Subsection 137(1) calls for the establishment of a coal mining safety commission. This commission is to be appointed by the minister. If the safety of coal miners deserves special attention, I am not sure ministerial appointments is the way to go, especially when their remuneration and expenses are to be set by cabinet.

We should take the politics out of health and safety and do what is right by putting the people in place who have the knowledge and the experience to do the job and do it right. That is what we should do for people. That is why people put us in the House of Commons. They want us to do what is right for all people. I would like to see that kind of respect for our men and women who have to work their hands.

They can make complaints to the board, which I assume means the Canadian Industrial Relations Board or the Public Service Staff Relations Board. I also assume that these boards are filled by order in council and as such are once again political appointments of the government in power. I hope the minister can provide us with the listing of the individuals involved so that we can judge for ourselves if they are appointed on the basis of merit or, heaven forbid, only on the basis of political affiliation.

As I stated before, we should do what is right. It does not matter which party is in power. It does not matter where we sit in the House of Commons. We should put in place the people who can do the job, the people who have the ability and knowledge to do it. We are talking about the lives of people who work in environments where there must be safety in order to protect them.

I thank the House for having the opportunity to say a few words with regard to our concerns. We will support the bill. It is on record how we feel about the bill and the changes we feel very strongly about that should be in place in order to make the bill the one and only bill that will protect men and women in the workplace.

[Atlantic Sugar Refinery, May 31st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, Atlantic Canada is about to lose its only sugar refining business with the closure of Atlantic Sugar Refinery in Saint John at the end of June. This will cost the region the loss of over 300 jobs and they will never be replaced.

Will the minister tell us what steps he is going to take to correct this injustice that has been brought about with the agreement he has entered into with the U.S.A. with regard to sugar.

[Canadian Forces, May 31st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, we all feel the way the minister feels about this situation. This type of conduct is unacceptable in Canada and is scandalous in the Canadian forces.

We have soldiers who have confessed to putting poison in their superior's coffee. We have evidence that medical documents have been taken from files and we have serious breakdowns in the chain of command.

It has been seven years since this information was brought to the attention of the government. Why will the minister not cut the red tape and immediately call for a public inquiry?

[Canadian Forces, May 31st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday morning the sensitive investigation task force reported on four areas of horrible conduct on the part of the Canadian forces.

The Minister of National Defence told reporters that he felt strongly that action had to be taken.

Will the Minister of National Defence inform the House what action he has personally taken on this file since this information was brought to his attention?

[Supply, May 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I have risen 28 times in the House of Commons with regard to shipbuilding and I have received the same reply each time from the Minister of Industry. The reply is “We have a national shipbuilding policy”.

The national shipbuilding policy that we have dates back to the early 1980s when all the countries in the OECD entered into an agreement. However, we are the only country adhering to that agreement.

When we talk about what is required, there are only three or four things that are required in order to make us competitive. We must become competitive. It is estimated that for every shipyard worker's job there are at least two others created in the support industry. It is not just us, it is the industries out there as well.

I had an opportunity to speak to the Canadian Construction Association in Ottawa a couple of weeks ago. At the present time the Canadian Construction Association pays out $31 billion in wages. Of the $31 billion, $16 billion in taxes goes back to Ottawa so we can create more jobs in other industries.

We must have a national shipbuilding policy. When we do, we will see what will happen to the people in the maritime provinces. It tugs at my heart when I hear people say that they are sitting there with their hands out. No, they are not sitting there with their hands out. We have been exporting grains from central and western Canada to other countries for centuries. We want to keep our people. We want them and their families to stay, and we can do that if we get a national shipbuilding policy.

[Supply, May 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from St. John's East, Newfoundland for sharing his time with me.

This morning we heard the hon. Minister of Transport state that I was not going to lose my airport in Saint John. I want him to know that I have a few questions and I wish he were in the House. I would like to know why the minister has made a deal whereby I have to pay $800 and only get a muffin when I fly to Ottawa. If I was to fly out of Moncton, I would pay $300 and I would get a full course meal. I have not figured this one out yet. I will speak to the Minister of Transport to see if he can get me a little more than a muffin.

If the government wants the economy to boom, there is a need for all modes of transportation. If the government wants the economy in the maritime provinces and Newfoundland to boom, give us all our modes of transportation, which we had before the Liberal government came into power. We had all modes of transportation. We had VIA Rail. A brand new train station was built. Then, Mr. Young, who was the minister of transport, came to Saint John and closed the brand new train station that was built just six months before the 1993 election.

We have the most modern shipyard there is in Canada. When it comes to the shipbuilding industry, let me say that we would like to have built a ferry for Newfoundland. Why was the government going all around the world looking for a ferry? We could build a ferry. My understanding was that there was some sort of agreement that if the government needed ferries they would be built in Canada.

On October 8, 1999, Frank McKenna, the previous premier of the province of New Brunswick, openly criticized the federal government's lack of vision for Atlantic Canada. He is quoted as saying that the Liberal record is terrible and that the government exhibits total ignorance when it comes to shipbuilding. This is from Frank McKenna, who the government just asked to run as a Liberal in the next election. I have to say that he knew what it was doing was wrong for Atlantic Canada.

My understanding is that a report was presented by the members of the Atlantic Liberal caucus which states that the Atlantic Canadian economy is hitting an all time low and that part of the solution to the problem is to bring the shipbuilding industry back up to its potential and proven strength by adopting a new national shipbuilding policy. This is the Liberal's Atlantic caucus making this statement.

However, the Minister of Industry, with whom I have spoken, has told me that I also have to deal with the Minister of Transport. I want to know what we can do about shipbuilding. As everyone knows, we need ships if we are going out on the water. We are not going to swim across the Bay of Fundy, that is for sure.

We have been asking for a national shipbuilding policy. All we have been asking for is to make us equal with all the other countries around the world. The contents of a shipbuilding policy would be the provision of an improved export financing and loan guarantee program, similar to the title 11 program in the United States.

Here we are with the Jones act. What do we do? The U.S. is allowed to bid on ship repairs throughout Canada. It can also bid on shipbuilding contracts if the ships are needed in Canada. Can we do that down in the United States? No we cannot. It is now time for the government to take the stand it must take to correct this.

There is the exclusion of new construction ships built in Canadian shipyards from the present Revenue Canada leasing regulations, and also a provisional refundable tax credit to Canadian shipowners or shipbuilders who contract to build a ship or contract for conversion with change of mission, mid-life refit or major refit in a Canadian shipyard.

We could put our shipyards to work in Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and right out to B.C., right across the country. I am talking about 25,000 people. They have to get the parts and the equipment and it is all produced right here in our own country. Why are we not doing this? Why has the government not done this?

There was an Ernst & Young report that was done in 1993 for the government on the future of shipbuilding in Canada. On page 119 of that report it stated that if the government did nothing to help the industry become more competitive, then an estimated 5,000 jobs would be lost just in the shipyards.

Right now 4,000 jobs have been lost in Saint John, New Brunswick. They came up from Louisiana, U.S.A. and interviewed our people. They said that they were the best shipbuilders they had ever interviewed and they offered them jobs down in the U.S. Why would we train and put our people to work building the best ships in the world and then turn around and see them going to the United States or to other parts of the world building ships because we have not done anything?

Earlier today I mentioned that I had never seen Canada's first incorporated city by royal charter, which is mine and which had its 215th anniversary two weeks ago, like this. Our city was booming in 1993. The young people who went to Bishop's University used VIA Rail. When the last VIA Rail passenger service came into my city I went down to meet with the passengers and there were tears in their eyes. They said “Mrs. Wayne, we have to do something”.

We tried. I have to say that if we want to put the people to work, where the men and women can feed their families, if we want to give them dignity, educate them and look after them, we must make sure they can go to work each day and have money in their pockets to do that. The only way this can be done, the only way jobs will be created and the only way industry will move is to provide all modes of transportation. We need to get the politics out of this.

I talked earlier about what has been happening to us back home. I look at our sugar industry. Do members know that our sugar refinery was upgraded by the previous government? What did this government do with Canada's oldest sugar refinery when it came to power? It went to the United States and worked out a deal for it to ship in by truck, by ship and everything, over 100,000 tonnes into Canada and we lowered our quota to 8,000. This put the truckers out of work, the shippers out of work and even the airplanes, everything.

There has not been a good vision for the future. I am really concerned about what will happen to us in the maritime provinces. The Ernst & Young report definitely stated that there was a need for a shipbuilding policy. Of the 68 shipbuilding nations on the planet today, 67 of them have a national shipbuilding policy. We are the only country that does shipbuilding that does not have one.

The issue of IMF money supporting Asian shipyards is cause for concern. The bottom line is that tax dollars from our own shipyard workers are potentially being used to put them out of work by unfairly subsidizing the competition through the IMF.

I want our people to have their dignity. I want our people to be treated fairly. I want the House of Commons to have a better understanding of the Atlantic region, for there has not and it has hurt the people dramatically. I will continue to fight for our people until we get all modes of transportation back where they should be.

[Supply, May 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. minister mentioned airports and one large airport. I want him to know that I have the largest city in the province of New Brunswick. It is Saint John, New Brunswick, not Moncton. That is the largest city.

When our party was in government we had 4,000 men working at the shipyard. What has happened? No one is working at the shipyard. We had 325 people working at the sugar refinery. What has happened? The sugar refinery, which dates back to 1903, closes down today. We had VIA Rail and a brand new train station built. What has happened? Mr. Doug Young closed down the train station and took away VIA Rail.

It is time the government sat down to look at what this means to the economy. The minister should come to Saint John. For the first time in the history of Saint John, New Brunswick, he will find paper bags on windows in the business sector of our city. This has never happened before. We need this turned around. If we are to have one airport, it better be in Saint John, New Brunswick, the industrial and business centre for the province of New Brunswick.

[National Defence, May 18th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence has had the statement of requirement for the Sea Kings on his desk for almost a full year. Why has the Prime Minister not called for industry bids? What reason does he have for not doing it today? Why the delay?

[National Defence, May 18th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, industry sources are expressing grave concern at reports that the government is preparing to announce a sole source contract for the Sea King replacement.

Will the Prime Minister guarantee to the House that the Sea King replacement will go through a fair and competitive public tender process and not a private political one?