George Baker

[Supply, October 23rd, 1997]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's comments but I simply brought forth these examples because the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party during his speech had laid blame.

Even today we are left in Canada with the decisions that governments made years ago. Today a blue fin tuna would get you about $30,000 yet we entered into agreements years ago during the period of time I was talking about in which another nation has five times the quota of the hon. member's riding for blue fin tuna inside the Canadian zone.

We have a ridiculous situation which again is a leftover from the early nineties. We have to slowly try to get out of these agreements because it is difficult to break them immediately. There were 11 Cuban trawlers off the hon. member's riding in Nova Scotia a couple of weeks ago. One of them had a national quota inside Canada's zone. The other 10 were hired by Canadian companies while our fishermen sit ashore with nothing to do.

The bottom line is that we have to try to correct the mistakes of the past. That is exactly what the Government of Canada is trying to do and what we are trying to do as a standing committee with members from each side of the Chamber. I think everybody is operating in unison to try to find the solutions just as the Government of Canada is trying to do.

[Supply, October 23rd, 1997]

Yes, the Tory leader has a selective memory.

That is four or five disasters. Let's go to another one. It is what we commonly refer to on the east coast as the Greenland halibut disaster.

When the codfish were disappearing the Government of Canada came into this chamber and announced the great find of the century. It was called an underutilized species. It was identified as a Greenland halibut. The government announced that there was so much of this Greenland halibut that it was going to allow foreigners to catch it.

The fishermen in the maritimes and Quebec were wondering what the Greenland halibut was until they saw a picture of it. The picture showed a flat fish called Greenland halibut, commonly referred to as blue halibut in Britain, black halibut in Germany, and a hellefisk in Denmark. Here it was with one of the eyes up this way and the other eye halfway around looking like a Cyclops and the fishermen said “Ah, that is a Newfoundland turbot”.

That turbot that was classified in 1991 by the very government of the leader of the Tory party became the catch-all for foreign nations. That fish was, it just so happens, the mainstay of the fishermen of eastern Canada.

In the early spring all of our fishermen would go out in the trap boat fishery for cod and then in the summer they would switch to turbot. And the great Canadian government here in Ottawa made the decision that there was so much of this species that now foreign nations could catch it. That was the year 1991.

Was it the Liberals who were in power in 1991? Who was in power in 1991? The Tories were in power, the very party that has moved this motion before the House of Commons today. The mistakes continued until the year 1992. It is a great thing that in 1993 the Liberal Party was elected so that we could try to clean up the mess.

[Supply, October 23rd, 1997]

It was the Tory Party of Canada.

The second biggest error that was made was for the other major food of the codfish. If you want to catch a codfish using bait, you first of all try squid. You would then go to a fish called capelin. The great capelin capture in Canada took place in 1991 when the Soviet Union was given a quota of 100,000 tonnes of capelin in Canadian waters, which is more than any recorded catch of capelin in Canadian history.

In 1991 was it the Liberals who were the Government of Canada? No. It was the Tory party of Canada.

The third greatest mistake that was made by the Government of Canada involved mackerel. The greatest spawning area for mackerel in the world is the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The mackerel enter the Gulf of St. Lawrence from the Atlantic Ocean at the end of May. Prior to 1957 when the causeway was built to Cape Breton Island they would come in between Cape Breton Island and Nova Scotia. Now they go up the coast of Cape Breton Island and in through Sydney Bight.

In 1990 three foreign nations were given what were called experimental quotas to catch mackerel in Sydney Bight. In 1991 five foreign nations were given so-called developmental quotas to catch mackerel as they entered Sydney Bight.

Was it the Liberals who were the Government of Canada in 1990 and 1991 when this was done? Who was the Government of Canada? The Tory party was the Government of Canada in 1990 and 1991.

What was the greatest error ever made as far as the spawning grounds for codfish are concerned? It just so happens that in 1990 an internationally recognized spawning ground for cod, commonly referred to as the Flemish Cap, had had international protection for 10 years. This great Canadian government in Ottawa went to international meetings and sat down with the international community under NAFO and decided to lift the moratorium on codfish on the Flemish Cap, on an internationally recognized spawning ground where a moratorium was in existence. That was the Canadian government in January 1991.

Was it the Liberals who were in power in 1991? No. The leader of the PC party forgets it was the Tories who were in power at that time.

[Supply, October 23rd, 1997]

No, Madam Speaker. Who was in power in 1990 when this was done?

[Supply, October 23rd, 1997]

Yes, the fishermen used to call it the panty hose zone. The fish plant workers called it the hair net zone. The federal government called it the small mesh gear zone at that time. Five foreign nations with licences to fish inside Canada's 200-mile zone interrupted the run of the squid.

I ask the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party who introduced this motion, were the Liberals in power in 1990 when this was done?

[Supply, October 23rd, 1997]

Madam Speaker, after listening to the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party introduce this motion in the House and listening to what he said were the disaster points in the Canadian fishing industry, I only wish he had listened to the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore this morning or the MP from Îles-de-la-Madeleine yesterday before the committee because he might have learned something.

Let us set the record straight on one thing. The major mistakes in the destruction of the northern cod were made when the Government of Canada decided to destroy the food of the cod. The first action it took was in 1990 off the coast of the hon. member's riding, Sackville—Eastern Shore.

The squid caught on the Quebec coast and the coast of Nova Scotia and the coast of New Brunswick and the Gaspé coast and the coast of Newfoundland are actually born in Florida. They travel up the coast of the United States in a thin black line. The fishermen call it the trans-Canada highway of the squid. They go up the coast of Nova Scotia and into the gulf and around Quebec and P.E.I. and up around the coast of Newfoundland.

In 1990, the federal government approved five foreign nations using factory freezer trawlers to put down nets with one-half inch mesh—

[Committee Of The House, April 23rd, 1997]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member on the excellent speech she gave and want to ask her a question. Quel est le problème avec le Bloc?

Why would the Bloc totally confuse the situation? Why would the Bloc talk about 1971? The Liberals brought in the 21-year rule which stated that at the end of 21 years the rich would pay. The Tories extended the 21-year rule indefinitely when they came to power. When the Liberals came back into power they closed it off completely. To add further to the confusion, could it be that Bloc members are just as interested as the Tories were in giving tax breaks to the rich?

Why would the Bloc on October 18, 1996 in the House of Commons refer to the tax agreement the Tories negotiated to change the estate tax and say that it supported a Senate bill? It supported entering into an agreement with the United States on estate taxes. It realized that some Americans were penalized by differences in legislation. It indicated that the bill did not specify how many millions or billions of dollars were at stake. It did not know which country, Canada or the U.S., would benefit the most from tax liberalization.

Why would the Bloc be supporting tax breaks that the Tories negotiated for the rich?

Why does the Bloc want to protect the rich? What is the problem with the Bloc?

[Privilege, December 12th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting question and I suppose you would have to rule whether or not it is a question of personal privilege, but certainly it is a question regarding the privileges of members of the House of Commons who keep the government accountable to the people of Canada.

Having said that, the rules of this Chamber, as all members should realize, and the hon. member who just spoke should realize, are rules that have come to us by custom, that have come to us by precedent.

Those very precedents on question period evolved over a long period of time and changed, Mr. Speaker, as you well know, very drastically in the past 10 years to the point where the major political parties do have assigned periods during question period. The role of the Speaker also has evolved to the point where the Speaker must follow those precedents and those customs as have evolved here in this Chamber, not in any other chamber under the so-called British parliamentary system, because each system is

different and each system has its own system of changing the rules of procedure for question period, as the Speaker so well knows.

I am very surprised that the hon. member would rise in the Chamber and bring this up as a point of personal privilege. It was approximately seven years ago that we adopted as a custom in this Chamber the point of respecting designated questioners by the major political parties in this House. It was so left up to the Speaker that if the person designated for that political party did not stand, the Speaker was free to choose, as is stated in the rules, the person who catches the Speaker's eye who rises first. The Speaker has to follow those customs.

The hon. member is perfectly correct. Perhaps we should take it under advisement and appoint a committee of people from outside the Chamber to examine the rules and to bring in some of the changes that are necessary to bring back the power of the individuals in the House of Commons. However, it is very surprising that the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party should be objecting to the very rules that were brought in while the Tories were the administration in power in this House.

[Excise Tax Act, December 10th, 1996]

We now have the country with the best economic growth according to the OECD and the IMF of any of the industrialized democracies in the world. We now have, as well, Canada leading every other industrialized democracy in the world in the deficit to GDP ratio.

The IMF made an interesting statement the other day. It said that the best record for interest rates was guess which country? Canada.

These opposition parties that stand in this Chamber together with the Tories who try to hide, the Tories who have a policy to do away with medicare, do away with the Canada pension plan, to put taxes on groceries and prescription drugs, who want to put on additional taxes so they can build highways. They want to put toll gates on our roads to pay for them. Then they stand in the Chamber and say no to the great Liberal response to the problems in our economy. They stand and say no. We want to tax ordinary Canadians. We want to give tax breaks to the rich.

However, we want to reduce the deficit more, while at the same time have a government that has the best record of any industrialized, democratic economy in the world. That is why Canadians are going to say no to these opposition parties and yes to the Liberal government.

[Excise Tax Act, December 10th, 1996]

Is it Canada?