Elsie Wayne

[Municipal Grants Act, November 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I have grave concerns about Bill C-10 and I will explain why.

Having been the mayor of Saint John for four terms, I always stated and still do that the local government was the government of the people. The grassroots people are there. Always, as far as I am concerned, the federal government should pay its taxes as well as all of the others in the private sector.

I look at what we have in our port. The federal government cut back on its taxes and it was going to give us a grant in lieu of them. The grant was going down, not going up. Taxes were going up for everyone else but the federal government.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities, of which I sat on the board of directors, was very upset with the bill. It was upset at the speed at which the bill was being rammed through the House. It was not given any advance notice that the bill would be introduced.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities represents all municipalities across the country. It is the one that does the research to see what should be the priorities, where we should be going, whether it is the provincial government or the federal government, and in which direction. It has not been adequately briefed on the bill and it was not sent a copy of the bill or the background briefing materials. It has also not had time to consult with its members across the country.

I cannot believe that we have really done this. The local governments and all the municipal governments represent all their people at the grassroots. They should have input and they should have had input into this bill.

When I look at the proposed new intent clause, clause 4 of the bill, I say to myself that this is a meaningless piece of propaganda and adds nothing of value to the bill. We have two major difficulties with clause 14 of the bill, the proposed new dispute advisory panel, its composition and fairness.

I think it is great that we are talking about setting up a new panel of a minimum of two members from each province and territory. However, it should be the Federation of Canadian Municipalities that decide on who the members will be because it does not play politics. It keeps politics out of it. The president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities should come in and give the minister two names from each province and the territories. Not one of those people would want $125 an hour.

[National Defence, November 24th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas. The lights are up, the trees are decorated and the Minister of National Defence has visions of sugar plums dancing in his head. It is becoming very clear that the minister is relying on Santa Claus to visit and hopefully bring the minister that shining new maritime helicopter replacement program we have all been asking for.

Will the minister confirm that the Sea King replacement program will be in place before this House rises for Christmas, or will the minister continue to play Scrooge to our Canadian air force again this year?

[Shipbuilding Act, 1999, November 23rd, 1999]

Yes, except us. The old OECD agreement was entered into by this country. All countries that built ships entered into it many years ago. The only country adhering to it is which one? Canada. We are the only country adhering to it. That is why we cannot compete. None of the others are adhering to it.

Yes, we hear that the Liberals will be going to the WTO meetings down in Seattle and that this will be a priority. We have heard all that rhetoric before. They do not have to go to the WTO. They can come in here this week and bring in a national shipbuilding policy. There is absolutely no reason in the world for our men and our women who built frigates, which are the best ships to be found anywhere in the world, to have to wait until they go to the WTO.

European countries are so concerned right now with what has been happening with the dollars from the IMF supporting Asian shipyards that they have initiated a court action against the Daewoo shipyard. This Korean shipyard is over $350 million in the red, continues to take orders and build ships below cost and, we have been told, allegedly uses some IMF money which includes Canadian tax dollars.

We need a shipbuilding policy with provisions for an improved export financing and loan guarantee program similar to the title 11 program in the United States. Yes, it took over our sugar refinery. It is taking over our shipbuilding. It is taking over everything, and we are sitting back and letting it happen here in Canada.

There should be an exclusion of the newly constructed ships built in Canadian shipyards from the present Revenue Canada leasing regulations, provisions for a refundable tax credit to Canadian shipowners or shipbuilders that contract to build a ship or contract for conversions with change of mission, mid-life refit or major refit in Canadian shipyards.

We have to say that there should be an elimination of the one sided aspect of NAFTA which allows the U.S. to sell new or used ships duty free in Canada yet absolutely prohibits Canadian access to the U.S. market.

Our newly appointed industry minister in 1993 was given a gloomy report from Ernst & Young on the future of shipbuilding in Canada. The report entitled “International Competitiveness of the Canadian Shipbuilding Industry” was commissioned by the previous Tory government and concluded that the industry was in very serious trouble. That was 1993, and this minister and this Liberal government have done nothing to make Canadian shipbuilding competitive with the international shipbuilding sector in countries that subsidize their shipbuilding.

That 119 page report stated that if the government did nothing to help the industry become more competitive, an estimated 15,000 jobs would be lost by the turn of the century. We only have a month to go. I beg my colleagues over there to take a serious look at what is happening. There are about 25,000 people, some of whom are on welfare and some of whom had to go to the United States to find work.

People have come up from Louisiana to Saint John, New Brunswick, to interview our shipyard workers and said they were the best trained people they have ever interviewed. They offered them jobs down in the United States. We have the most modern shipyards in Quebec, back home in Saint John, New Brunswick, in Newfoundland and right through to Vancouver, and what happens? We have a government that does not care.

I plead tonight like never before for the government to put our people back to work. Let them have their dignity. Let them feed their families. They do not want to be on welfare. They do not want to be on unemployment. We can do that by working together and getting a national shipbuilding policy which makes us competitive.

[Shipbuilding Act, 1999, November 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Lévis for his bill. I am so pleased to be able to get up and support his bill and his comments.

I heard some comments about how the Conservative Party, when it was in power, did not do things for the shipbuilding industry. Let me tell the members that the Conservative Party gave the single largest contract in the history of Canada to Quebec and, yes, indeed, to Saint John, New Brunswick, my shipyard. It injected billions and billions of dollars into the economy.

I sit in the House of Commons week after week. I got up in the last session 27 times to ask the Minister of Industry to bring in a national shipbuilding policy to make us equals and competitive. All we ever heard was “We have a national shipbuilding policy right now”. Well, we cannot compete with the national shipbuilding policy that the the Minister of Industry says we have. He should take a look around the world.

I am in favour of the International Monetary Fund helping those countries that are poor and having a difficult time. However, right now money from the International Monetary Fund is going into Korea and Japan to help subsidize shipbuilding. Here we are and we cannot subsidize our shipyards. “No, no, we cannot do that”, says the Minister of Industry.

Back on October 29, 1990, Mr. Holloway, the secretary treasurer of the Marine Workers' Federation, wrote to the now Prime Minister of Canada, when he was seated on the other side in the opposition, asking about the state of shipbuilding in Canada. The the present Prime Minister replied by saying that while the Conservative government may indeed have recognized that there was a problem, because things were winding down in the shipbuilding industry, that it had done absolutely nothing to foster the development of a Canadian merchant marine. He said that it was safe to say that most people recognized that something needed to be done to create a much more competitive shipbuilding industry, and that the government should have, as it should have done long ago and as it had promised to do, taken steps to alleviate this problem.

That was what the Prime Minister said when he was in opposition. Well, he is in government now and he says that there is no problem whatsoever to bring it in. The government has the power to bring it in, but where is it? It has not done anything. The silence from Ottawa is deafening as other jurisdictions continue to announce further support for shipbuilding in their countries. Why are we not seeing the same level of competence and responsiveness from our government?

The Minister of Industry talks about high technology. Shipbuilding is high technology, very high technology. We used to have thousands and thousands of people working in the shipbuilding industry. For every job that was created in the shipbuilding industry, there were two or three other jobs in the community that were created as well. When I am talking about shipbuilding I am talking about a national policy that goes right from Newfoundland to British Columbia. It is not just two shipyards.

Let us look at what happened recently. The United States came in and wanted to buy MIL Davie because it wanted to take over. There is no question United States has invested. We know that and we are worried about it because the United States has the Jones Act and the Jones Act protects the United States.

The United States can do all kinds of things, but we cannot go into the United States and bid on its tenders. We cannot go in and do what Americans can do in Canada. They can come here and bid on our shipyards. They can bid on our contracts. They can do everything because they have protection. We cannot because we do not have that protection in Canada.

Why are we not seeing the same level of confidence and responsiveness from our own government? We want to know why we are not. Highlights of the shipbuilding industry supported by other jurisdictions in the last two to three weeks include the week of November 10 when the United Kingdom announced new support for ship repair whereby two and a quarter of the value of the repair is given as a subsidy.

Norway has increased its subsidy from 7% to 9%. Norway has also stated its intention to provide a special new subsidy to support the building of fishing vessels. Germany has reintroduced subsidies to the level of 9%. Of the 68 shipbuilding nations on the planet today, 67 of them have national shipbuilding policies.

[National Defence, November 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, on pages 46 and 47, the 1994 defence white paper states:

The Sea Kings are rapidly approaching the end of their operational life. Work will, therefore, begin immediately to identify options and plans to put into service new affordable replacement helicopters by the end of the decade.

With only weeks left in the decade, does the Prime Minister have a secret hangar somewhere in Canada containing replacement helicopters? If not, will the Prime Minister finally give the House a firm date as to when he will initiate the maritime helicopter replacement program?

[National Defence, November 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, in 1994 the government produced a guideline document which outlined in some detail its defence policy. Is is known more commonly as the 1994 defence white paper. Since that time the government has repeatedly and recently indicated that the success of DND could be measured by how much of the white paper was being or had been implemented.

Will the Prime Minister confirm for the House that the 1994 defence white paper continues to be the authoritative document on the government's defence policy? Yes or no?

[Remembrance Day, November 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the Progressive Conservative Party to pay our respects to all of our men and women who, in World War I, World War II, Korea and through peacekeeping, have laid down their lives and have served to make this the most wonderful country in which to live.

Next Thursday, November 11, all Canadians will be called upon to pause for not one minute but a two minute silence. I trust that we will have a lot of our young people at the cenotaphs so that they will understand the sacrifices that were made.

My hon. colleague from Charlotte County and I were flown down to Grand Manan. We were asked to go there for a special ceremony.

The young scouts in that little town did a lot of research, along with the Royal Canadian Legion and the veterans association, to find all of the graves in Grand Manan that were there for the veterans. The scouts laid little Canadian flags. It was truly very moving. It was beautiful to see those young men and young girls as they stood and showed their respect for some of their relatives and others who were not related to them who had made the tremendous sacrifice.

I also had the privilege along with some of my colleagues from both sides of the House to go to Dieppe, France. I will never forget it. We looked at the promenade and there was a Canadian flag at the top of every one of the buildings. Children came up to us and pointed to the little Canada pins we were wearing.

Mr. Speaker, I will never forget the sacrifices that our people made for you and me and for everyone in the House. We went into the harbour and I could not believe that our men and women had gone on boats into that harbour. It was like a mountain on each side and there was nowhere for them to go. Of course, Mr. Speaker, as you and I and everyone here knows, tremendous sacrifices were made.

Yes, I recognize these gentlemen who are in the gallery today, our merchant mariners. I praise and thank God that they are finally recognized as the fourth arm of the armed forces, our army, navy, air force and merchant mariners. They laid down their lives. Many of them never came back.

I ask all my colleagues when we leave here this week to go back to our communities that we make sure all of our people understand that they must get out and show the respect, that they bow their heads and that they hold that two minute silence to show the respect that all of our veterans deserve in this wonderful country of ours.

We shall always remember them.

[Veterans Affairs, November 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, knowing that they have an enormous surplus, which was announced just this week, would the Prime Minister please assure these wonderful gentlemen who are in the gallery that he and his cabinet will look positively upon a compensation package for them and show them justice and respect once and for all?

[Veterans Affairs, November 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Knowing that we have to have—

[Veterans Affairs, November 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Veterans Affairs met today with the representatives of the merchant navy veterans, the brave gentlemen who are in the gallery today.

Will the minister outline for the House and all those outside as well exactly what he is planning to do starting today to bring about a fair and just compensation package for these Canadian heroes?