House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2000, with 67% of the vote.
Prince Edward Island Fixed Link February 15th, 1994
I am not aware that in the programs of the Bloc Quebecois before the election, all members of the party had taken a position in favour of building the bridge. But if such a position was indeed taken, I would be very glad to see it, if the member wants to show it to me one of these days.
Prince Edward Island Fixed Link February 15th, 1994
Madam Speaker, I am surprised that the hon. member feels somewhat confused or does not understand that the Liberal Party, in keeping with a tradition of allowing freedom of thought and opinion, has agreed to an open, honest debate on an issue of public importance such as this one. I would hope that the same spirit of openness prevails within his party. Certain members of the Bloc, notably the distinguished environment critic, had the opportunity and were able to express their opinion freely this afternoon, particularly on such issues as sustainable development and environmental protection.
I listened with a great deal of interest to the hon. member whose position is similar, if you will, to my own. The views he has expressed will enrich the debate taking place in the House this afternoon.
Prince Edward Island Fixed Link February 15th, 1994
Madam Speaker, to improve the movement of people to and from beautiful Prince Edward Island it seems to me there is an alternative which is safer, environmentally preferable and less expensive than the proposed bridge. It is an alternative that would create more jobs in the long term. That alternative is an improved ferry service.
Let me outline the advantages of improving the ferry service versus building a bridge 14 kilometres long which in winter and early spring would mean keeping a passage open under very difficult climatic conditions.
An improved ferry service would cost an estimated $36 million a year. That includes the continual replacement of vessels and building a capital fund for making the ferry replacement fund sustainable.
By contrast, the proposed bridge would cost $42 million a year for 35 years which, if my mathematics are correct, would amount to $1.47 billion. The difference between the two approaches amounts to a saving of some $210 million over 35 years in favour of the improved ferry service.
Also there is the question of additional road construction. The improved ferry service will not require such expenditures. However, by contrast, the bridge will require an expenditure of some $41 million. That is another saving amounting to $41 million.
Then there is the compensation to the towns of Borden and Cape Tormentine. The improved ferry service would not require such compensation but, by contrast, the bridge requires an estimated $20 million for the link. The continued ferry service does not require compensation to municipalities. This is another saving amounting to the $20 million I just mentioned.
If we add all these items the ferry option would result in saving some $271 million without taking into account cost overruns estimated to be as high as $550 million and without taking into account unemployment insurance plus training and relocation of ferry workers for an estimated total of some $25 million.
Having compared the financial aspect let me briefly compare the question of jobs. During the next 35 years, in the case of the improved ferry system there are likely to be some 8,200 person years in jobs that could be created in the form of refitting and building new ferries. By contrast, during that same period the bridge would generate only 2,400 person years in terms of construction jobs.
After the 35-year period and once the bridge has been completed the job picture would be as follows. The improved ferry service would provide an estimated 400 year-round jobs and an additional 325 summer operating jobs. These figures were provided by the union. By contrast, the bridge after completion would provide only an estimated 60 to 80 operating jobs. In essence the emerging employment picture is very much in favour of the improved ferries alternative because it would provide more jobs than the proposed bridge, namely 5,800 more person years during the next 35 years, an estimated 340 more jobs in winter and an estimated 645 more jobs thereafter in summer.
On the democratic process used in arriving at the decision to build the bridge, the public was consulted on a link which many understood to mean a tunnel or a bridge. A consultation on the construction of the bridge did not take place. Actually my understanding is that the vote on this consultation was considerably close: 51 per cent voted in favour, 46 per cent voted for the improved ferry service, and 3 per cent expressed an undecided position.
Before concluding it is important to make a brief reference to studies related to environmental impacts. The studies that have been quoted and used were conducted by the proposing department, namely the Department of Public Works. When an environmental assessment panel was formed and reported it recommended against the idea of the bridge. Its recommendations were disregarded.
Those of us here today who believe in the increasing importance of environmental impact assessment believe it incumbent that at least a panel be appointed to examine the whole proposal again, to point out the weaknesses of the bridge and to determine whether the feasibility of the proposal is such to warrant it proceeding.
What worries me considerably about this proposal is what will happen 35 years after the completion of the construction of the bridge when the private consortium will retire and the bridge will become public property. Obviously the structure will be eroded; salt water has that effect. The public will inherit a structure to maintain which most likely will require considerable repairs, and that after the public having spent or invested some $1.47 billion over the next 35 years for the construction of the bridge. A corroded structure is what the next generation of politicians and decision makers is likely to inherit and what the Canadian public is likely to have to cope with.
For all these reasons I believe the alternative of an improved ferry system would be more desirable and in the public interest.
Prince Edward Island Fixed Link February 15th, 1994
No, Madam Speaker, I would like to make a speech.
The Environment February 15th, 1994
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister of energy and natural resources.
As she knows carbon dioxide is a primary cause of climate change and poses a threat as a greenhouse gas.
In view of the fact that there is a firm commitment to reduce carbon dioxide levels by 20 per cent by the year 2005, can the minister indicate to the House when she will be in a position to announce a federal-provincial plan for reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent?
The Environment February 11th, 1994
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of the Environment and Deputy Prime Minister. It has to do with the presence of chlorine and chlorine related substances in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River.
Does the government intend to regulate chlorine discharges into the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River and, if so, will the government urge the United States government to do the same?
Interparliamentary Delegations February 9th, 1994
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34, I am honoured to present, in both official languages, the report of the Nordic Council's Parliamentary Conference on the Arctic held in Reykjavik, Iceland, on August 16 and August 17 last year.
In this report the delegation to the council recommended and found acceptance to a number of recommendations which I will not read in their entirety. I will select from them the most important, namely the importance of co-operation among Arctic states and other parties engaged in the Rovaniemi process and the elaboration of an Arctic environmental protection strategy in accordance with agenda 21 of the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development.
Law Of The Sea February 2nd, 1994
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the most distinguished Minister of Foreign Affairs. It has to do with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea which, if implemented, would go a long way in protecting oceans, in improving fisheries and in reducing the dangers of pollution.
Ratification by 60 nations is needed to make the law of the sea operative. So far some 57 nations have ratified this important document.
Will the minister inform the House when Canada, after nine years of inaction, will ratify the law of the sea?
Cruise Missile Testing January 26th, 1994
Madam Speaker, I would be glad to answer the question by the member for Medicine Hat.
If the cruise missile were a weapon of interception, he would have a valid question. But the cruise missile is not a weapon of interception, it is a weapon of attack, it is a weapon to deliver, if necessary, warheads. Therefore his question is invalid because he is addressing the wrong weapon.
As to intercepting weapons which come into our Canadian space, we would have to use other weapons but certainly not a cruise missile because that is not the intent or the qualification of that weapon. It is used to attack and deliver nuclear warheads to certain specific targets in other countries.
The member for Medicine Hat failed to demonstrate to us that this is the weapon he would rely on in order to intercept, but more importantly he failed to identify the enemy for us. He very vaguely mentioned that there could be an attack. I urge him to identify the enemy for us. I submit to him that collectively the enemy is us and our fear. It is time to stop talking like cold war cavemen and cavewomen because we are living in another decade.
The agenda has shifted very rapidly. It is no longer the agenda on how to prevent a strike or an attack that we should be concentrating our time and energy on. It is how to prevent the elements in the global community that have to do with, as I mentioned, poverty and environmental degradation, that have to be addressed and the energies of governments need to be focused on that agenda.
Cruise Missile Testing January 26th, 1994
Madam Speaker, when this proposition surfaced for the first time in 1981 within the restrictions imposed by cabinet solidarity I opposed it tooth and nail. I still oppose it. I appreciate very much the opportunity the government is offering us to debate the matter on the floor of the House today.
The reason for opposing comes from two beliefs. One is that Canada is committed to arms control, to disarmament, and as a peace loving and peace promoting nation it should not lend its territory for the testing of weapons which could carry nuclear warheads and which could launch a disarming nuclear strike against another country.
We all know that Canada has a fine record in the world for opposing any form of nuclear warfare. We voluntarily refrained from using nuclear weapons. We eliminated from Canadian territory the stationing of nuclear weapons. Canada was among
the first nations to sign the non-proliferation treaty and the nuclear testing ban treaty.
Considering this record how can Canada lend itself to allowing the testing of a weapon which could be used to deliver nuclear warheads? In addition, now that the cold war is over the question must be asked who is the enemy, as I asked earlier the member for Beaver River. Why should such a weapon be used?
It is somehow ironic this debate should take place today when last night President Clinton said in his speech: "Russia's strategic nuclear missiles soon will no longer be pointed at the United States. Nor will we point ours at them". He went on to say: "Instead of building weapons in space Russian scientists will help us build the international space station". Mr. Clinton stressed last night that ultimately the best strategy to ensure security and to build a durable peace was to support the advance of democracy elsewhere.
I submit that cruise missile testing is a relic of the past. It is a relic of the cold war. It is from the days when there were potential threats to security from nuclear weapons in other countries, when Canada's terrain was considered a facsimile of Soviet Union geography. However today the political situation has changed considerably as other speakers have said before me.
My second reason relates to security in the nineties. The concept of security must change from an exclusive stress on national security to a much greater stress on the concept of people security as was indicated in the 1993 UNDP report on human development.
I suggest the real threat to security comes from other quarters. It comes from unsustainable management of natural resources, fisheries, forestry, water shortages, desertification, climate change, ozone layer deterioration, decrease of arable land and reduction of forest covers.
It comes from population explosion in some parts of the world at the total rate of 92 million people per year, with resulting pressures on finite resources coupled with increased insecurity of food production. It comes from lack of support for international proposed legislation such as the Law of the Sea. It comes from megaprojects in parts of the world which are launched without proper environmental impact assessment. Last but not least, it comes from chronic poverty in Africa, Central America, South America and so on.
It seems that rather than spending time and resources on testing missiles in 1994 national governments should devote energies to the agenda of our times, namely how to apply our energies against hunger, ignorance and poverty on planet earth.
Peace is not threatened by the lack of cruise missiles. Today global peace is threatened when governments pay attention to the wrong agenda, and this item today is part of that wrong agenda.
The agenda we should be paying attention to consists of how to achieve food security, how to achieve family planning in the developing world, how to achieve sustainable natural resources exploitation, how to achieve safe management of toxic waste, how to achieve the prevention of climate change and the concomitant consequences in many regions of the world, how to achieve the restoration of water quality, how to achieve the protection of biodiversity, and how to achieve the elimination of poverty in many nations of the world community and a better distribution of wealth. All these factors together could lead or contribute to global insecurity, to global instability, and possibly to conflict.
I repeat that global peace is not threatened by the lack of updated cruise missiles. That is not the issue. We must worry about the threats I mentioned a moment ago. In that report on human development of 1993 by the UNDP, you will find a quotation which I think is quite relevant to this overall discussion: "That preventive diplomacy is needed to defuse tensions around the globe before there are blow-ups".
It means that instead of lending support to archaic solutions and outdated agendas, the developed industrial world should instead invest its time and energies in eradicating the causes of potential conflict.
Therefore, in conclusion, I urge the Government of Canada to deal with the potential threats to peace. They have nothing to do with military hardware, but everything to do with environmental damage and social economic disorders which stem from increasing poverty, increasing dislocation and which could lead increasingly to threats to global security.