Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in my place and participate in this debate. May I at the earliest opportunity on my feet with you in the chair express my congratulations to you on taking up these most important responsibilities.
In beginning my remarks I cannot help but say to my colleague opposite who in giving his remarks on this budget debate said "if we were masters of our own destinies" that we are as Canadians in a free and democratic society masters of our own destiny. Quebecers are masters of their own destiny. Every time Quebecers have been asked to chart a course, to fasten a sail and to be captains of their own ship they have decided that their fate and their course lies in parallel with Canada, not as a separate entity and not as a separate ship.
I am confident that Quebecers, if they are again given the opportunity to cast a judgment, will again choose to contribute to this great experiment on the northern half of the North American continent called Canada.
Canadians on October 25 gave a very clear mandate to a new government to attempt to come to grips with age old problems. I submit that never in modern times has a party laid so clearly before the people of Canada, fully a month in advance of an election, a detailed blueprint for the government's policy and plan of action. I am referring now to the Liberal red book.
Each of the major initiatives outlined in the red book were outlined weeks in advance of the election, something which heretofore has been considered to be a politically silly thing to do; to actually tell the people in detail, not days, not hours, not weeks but a month before an election, to lay it out and say: "Here is what we will do if charged with the responsibility to govern". That is something we did.
I am proud to say that I belong to a party that not only laid out its program but has scrupulously, item by item by item, sought to fulfil the contract, which is what it is, that we made with the people of Canada when they signed on the bottom line, marked their x and gave Liberal members of Parliament a majority and the opportunity and responsibility to govern.
In Atlantic Canada Canadians by an overwhelming majority expressed confidence in the platform of the Liberal Party. Atlantic Canadians did not express that confidence because they had some kind of simple belief that just by voting Liberal all of the social challenges that confront us would suddenly disappear or held some simple belief that just by voting for change that unemployment would disappear. No.
The people of Atlantic Canada marked an x for a party and for a program fully aware that the structural problems of Atlantic Canada could not be dismissed with the introduction of one budget, could not be eliminated just by an expression of good will of a new government, but that our chronic levels of unemployment and our structural problems required real change, not slogans but substantive change.
One of the areas we committed ourselves to change and one of the areas where Atlantic Canadians lock arms with us in marching forward to accomplish that change is in the area of the fishery.
We said that we would make two substantive changes in fisheries policy, two sea changes in fisheries policy. On the one hand we said we would not walk away and turn our backs on those in crisis, those dislocated and those out of a job because of the closure of fisheries and because of the moratorium on Atlantic groundfish stocks. There are now a total of 14 moratoriums in place. There are 14 groundfish stocks in which there is no fishery for the first time in 500 years.
We now have a situation for those people who live in rural Newfoundland on the tip of the great northern peninsula in a small rural isolated community where the average income is among the lowest in the country and where the capacity to take some wild game or jig a few cod is an important component of the food basket where I, as Minister of Fisheries and as a native Newfoundlander, have had to take away the right even to jig with a hook and line, the most basic biblical kind of tool, to go out and draw a few fish from the sea. I have had to take away that right in the name of conservation.
Incredibly, for the first time in 500 years that right was removed. There is not a protest. There is not a revolution. There certainly is not a celebration. However, there is acceptance. There is a bearing down, a gritting of teeth, a desire to pay the price that is required to rebuild those cod stocks even if that price is to take the fish and the protein out of the sea, right out of the cupboards, the freezers and off the tables of the very people who have relied on it for 500 years.
We said to the people of Atlantic Canada and to the people of my province of Newfoundland and Labrador that we will take the tough decisions. We have begun the process of taking them. We put in place in the budget $1.9 billion to ensure that people can retrain where appropriate, that people can be sustained in the core fishery where appropriate as the rebuilding process goes on.
We have publicly identified the need to reduce capacity on the harvesting and processing side of the fishery by as much as 50 per cent. Imagine, standing up in a public place, in a land where people for generations have eked out a living on the edge of the north Atlantic, drawing the resource from the sea, and publicly saying: "Half of you cannot be sustained. Half of you cannot
carry on. Half of you must move on to other industries and other jobs".
If a decade ago someone had even whispered that thought there would have been riots. A decade ago if someone had stood in a public place and suggested that people would be separated from not just the means of making a living but the way of life that generations of forefathers had carved out, he would have been run out of town. However, today there is a steely determination to bear whatever cost has to be borne, to bear whatever pain has to be experienced, to rebuild these cod stocks.
I want to take this opportunity to say that all of those who sit in steel and glass and ivory towers, in the editorial boards of the nation from their vantage point 25 or 30 floors above the concrete below, to those who say that Atlantic Canada is finished, that the back of the economy has been broken, that the spirit of the people has been crushed or broken, those who say the solution is simple resettlement, should be moved to Toronto, Montreal or Calgary or Vancouver or to somewhere else where there is a job. I want to say to those who in their own mind when faced with such a challenge as that being faced by the people of Atlantic Canada who would fall down and give up that that is not the mood, that is not the spirit, that is not the disposition and that is not the character of Atlantic Canada.
The people of Atlantic Canada and of Newfoundland and Labrador do not feel desperation or hopelessness but are reaching down and uncovering a wellspring of courage and conviction to carry on. We are going to rebuild the industry. We are going to restore a new conservation ethic. We are going to stand up and ensure that the last fish out there is maintained to rebuild that important historical sector.
We will pay any price in the name of conservation. We will impose 14 groundfish moratoriums. We will impose a moratorium on the food fishery. We will take 35,000 people and have them park their boats and close their plants.
We as a nation will pay the price to maintain, sustain and retrain them. We will demand no less of foreign nations that fish on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks. We will demand no less. We say to France, Portugal, Spain, Japan and Russia, with our palms outstretched in the realm of generosity, with our hands stretched out seeking understanding, that we can do no more than we have already done in the name of conservation and that they can do no less than to join us in respecting these important cod moratoriums.
We have said that we will not catch a pound of fish this year on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks, the breeding grounds of what once was the world's greatest protein resource. Not a pound. At a time when we have an agreement in Brussels through NAFO, when Canadians have agreed not to fish and when our NAFO partners have agreed not to fish, we will not allow pirate vessels flying flags of convenience to come in and make a mockery out of the sacrifice that Canadians and indeed others around the world are prepared to undertake this year to rebuild those cod stocks.
Monday next I will be in New York. On behalf of Canada I will speak to the UN conference on high seas fishing. I will make it clear that we want to resolve this matter by agreement. I will equally make it clear that we will resolve it by unilateral action if necessary.
Two years ago when the government of the day came before Parliament seeking authority for an assistance program for Atlantic fishermen, the then minister stood in his place and pointed out that a northern cod stock had collapsed.
The minister said against a backdrop of a $30 billion national deficit that he needed assistance for 17,000 displaced people. He said that assistance would be required for two years. I am back two years later. The deficit is not $30 billion, it is $46 billion. The number of people requiring assistance is not 17,000, it is now 35,000. The timeframe is not two years, it is now five years. The scope of the crisis has broadened dramatically.
As I said, we want to do all we can to rebuild the fishery by restructuring at home, by enforcing reasonable conservation measures inside and outside the 200-mile limit. We also know that we must rebuild the economy. We have to diversity the economy of Atlantic Canada.
Let me speak of my own province, Newfoundland and Labrador. I know it is not enough to ask my fellow Canadians to stand with us, to stay with us during this downturn in the fishery. I know we have to demonstrate that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are prepared to go out and to compete, to develop their skills and to win in a global economy.
That is also a direction we are moving in. I want to share with some of my colleagues elsewhere in the country what is happening in Newfoundland, where the new opportunities lie and where the new leadership is coming from.
I submit to members that one of the areas in which we can be competitive, where 90 miles of water is not a disadvantage, is in the area of the new information and knowledge based industries, in high tech, in research and development. That is where the future lies and that is where the future is being carved out.
In the province today we are seeing the development of new companies in the engineering services field. Last year, RDS Engineering of Newfoundland won out over national and international competition for a $6 million contract on Hibernia. A new company, Instrumar, has developed a clean wind detection system now being used all across the country, technology to develop the presence and thickness of ice, snow and other substances on aircraft wings. This company recently formed a
strategic alliance with Allied Aerospace Canada to commercialize both nationally and internationally this new system.
Ultima East Data Communications Ltd. has developed a range of hardware and software products for communications applications, including access to current satellite technology. Together with a sister company, Sea Link Ltd., Ultima East has been marketing automatic high frequency radio systems world-wide. Eighty per cent of the product of this company is being marketed not in Canada but internationally and the vast majority of its export product is going into Asia. All of the software development has occurred in Newfoundland and Labrador. That is the kind of future we have to carve out for ourselves.
Compusult Limited, a St. John's company, recently completed a $1 million contract to develop a system for Environment Canada to receive and to store ice data. It is now in the process of commercializing that technology. EJE Trans-Lite, a Newfoundland company, was established in 1988 to design and market specialized safety lighting products for the marine and aviation industries. One of its products, a personal rescue light, has sold already in a short period of time more than 200,000 units and over 80 per cent of that product is being exported around the world.
Another company, Nautical Data International, recently formed a joint venture between two high technology companies, one based in Newfoundland and the other in Vancouver. Both these companies have put their resources together and are digitalizing the data from the department of hydrography in my department. It is a unique development. We have privatized the information available. We have digitalized that information and both the Vancouver and Newfoundland based firms working in tandem are marketing that product around the world and around North America. It is another new high tech development.
I mention these companies because I am not naive. I have been here 14 years. I understand that for many Canadians who have not had the opportunity to visit Newfoundland and Labrador and certain parts of Atlantic Canada, there is a perception that the economy is built entirely on the fishery, as some Canadians falsely perceive that the economy of Alberta is entirely built on red beef. Of course nothing could be further from the truth.
It is a modern, thriving economy showing great leadership in the high tech field, the petrochemical field, the engineering field, and so on. A new economy is evolving in Newfoundland. Some of it is spinning out from around the offshore oil and gas sector.
We understand on this side of the House that we have to create the environment to allow that new technology, that new leadership, that spirit of entrepreneurship to flourish. We have to give people the circumstances and the conditions under which they can, as a people and as a province dependent too long upon a single resource, sprout their entrepreneurial wings and fly, successfully compete in a global economy. That initiative is under way today in Newfoundland and Labrador.
In the meantime we must never forget, Atlantic Canada must never forget, that Newfoundland and Labrador has a historical attachment to the ocean, a historical attachment to the sea and to the resources of the sea.
We must begin to understand that the desecration, the destruction of cod resources, northern cod all throughout the Atlantic, the destruction of offshore resources is the environmental equivalent of the destruction of the rain forest. When we take away that resource we take away not an opportunity for an income or a livelihood from people in the particular region but a resource that is part of the world's food basket, a rich source of protein for the planet.
We have to begin to understand that the crisis on the east coast is not a Newfoundland crisis. It is not an Atlantic crisis. It is not a regional issue. It is a question of sovereignty for a nation.
If we as a country cannot commit ourselves to rebuilding the great Atlantic resource, if we are not prepared to commit ourselves to take action to rebuild that resource, to flex our will, not only at home but beyond 200 miles, then we have to call into question how mature this nation is and how willing and how ready we are to stand up and call ourselves a mature and modern nation in 1994.