Fred Mifflin

[National Defence, October 5th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, if there is any demoralization of the Canadian forces I can assure you it is aided and abetted by the irrelevant questions that are put forward by the members of the third party.

[National Defence, October 4th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I ask the hon. member in asking questions to make sure he has his facts correct.

I remind the House of something that came out yesterday. Had he watched the press conference by the chief of the defence staff, he may have discovered that he was not entirely correct in his question.

The senior judge in the Canadian forces, the judge advocate general, on the recommendation of the chief of the defence staff and the commander of land forces, did a special inquiry and concluded that the officer in question did nothing illegal.

With respect to being open, I have to tell the hon. member who talked about destroyed tapes that these were copies. The original tape is now answering to our question and a previous question about transparency.

In addition to all the things the Prime Minister and I mentioned, the particular tape is also available to the commission of inquiry.

[National Defence, October 4th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the issue of promotion of the officer in question, I have to tell the hon. member and the House there is a system in place that has existed for 43 years.

That system essentially is that the chief of the defence staff is responsible for promoting officers and non-commissioned ranks up to the rank of colonel. The minister is responsible for all general officers' promotions.

The system is in place to prevent political interference. It works and it worked on this occasion. If the hon. member is suggesting that we politicize the system of promotion then I suggest he is suggesting the wrong thing. The Canadian forces would not agree. The House would not approve it and the Canadian public would be appalled.

He would be the first one to scream if this were the case and I would be there to join him.

[National Defence, October 4th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, in response to the hon. member, the critic for the third party, he is suggesting there have been cover-ups.

Let me just tell him, his party and the House that it was this government that commissioned the inquiry into the Somalia events and the deployment of the Canadian forces. It was this government that made all the documents, every single document related to that inquiry, open to the public. It was this government that made available and encouraged members of the Canadian forces to appear in front of the commission and to do everything they could to bring light to the commission.

This government has not just been open; it has been terribly open.

[Oceans Act, September 29th, 1995]

The Reform Party. Reform Party members have actually stood in this House and said that program should be scrapped. The only thing I have to say to the hon. member or other hon. members from that side of the House is if they believe this should be the case and they want to revisit Atlantic Canada I suggest they be really up front with Atlantic Canadians and make the point they are making here, that they do not agree with the TAGS program and that it should be scrapped.

I have another concern as an Atlantic Canadian which is related to oceans policy because it is related to the well-being of Atlantic Canadians: the Reform Party's attitude toward the regional program that we rely on so heavily, the ACOA program. Again, members of the other party-I am not sure about the member for Kindersley-Lloydminster-have been very vociferous in saying that we should scrap the ACOA program while naming some of the people that have benefited. What audacity.

I can give two examples of successes in my riding. For one example I have to quote the name and for the second example my constituent would prefer that I do not use his name but he will recognize the business of which I speak.

The White Hills in Clarenville is a world class skiing resort. Through the negotiation of $2.9 million, mostly ACOA money, it has been able to do with the resort what would not have been possible thereby bringing many people, not just from Newfoundland but from eastern Canada, St. Pierre et Miquelon to come visit that area and to spread their money in the distribution centre of Clarenville, thereby benefiting from it.

Second, I have a young man in my riding who without government help established a lumber business not many years ago. Through recent assistance by ACOA of not much money, he was able to develop the new piece of equipment which allowed him to export three times what he was exporting without this ACOA grant.

I do not need any lectures from the Reform Party about what we should be doing for Atlantic Canadians. One of the things that we are doing for Atlantic Canadians includes those factors which are contained in Bill C-98, oceans management.

Instead of decrying members on this side and decrying the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and his colleagues for trying to use of these programs beneficially through consolidation and more effective measures, they should be getting on their feet to congratulate them.

[Oceans Act, September 29th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I just heard the hon. member repeat himself. I am glad he did because members of his party have stood up in the House and suggested this program is no good and it should be scrapped.

[Oceans Act, September 29th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise and speak on this very important bill in Parliament today. I am very privileged to have the opportunity to do so.

I will very quickly cover the purposes of the bill as I see it. I will make a few comments with respect to the concern this party has for the people of the region that is most closely identified on the east coast with the ocean itself.

To begin, the bill is an excellent piece of work. It does what experts on the sea have been talking about. It should have been done a long time ago. Even before I get into the main objectives of the bill, it has to be looked at against the backdrop of the kind of country Canada is.

There is no question Canada is a maritime nation. We have three seas as our main borders. We have the longest navigable coastline in the world. We have the longest non-navigable coastline in the world.

If one adds up the water space not including the Great Lakes which themselves comprise a large percentage of the fresh water in the world, it is a pretty large piece of territory if one extends out to the 200-mile economic zone and follows the coast all along and includes the Arctic waters.

The responsibility for the management of that piece of property, sea property and the resources beneath, is tremendous. It involves close co-ordination to ensure we are getting the most effective management we can.

Canada has had many departments involved with the management of the seas. We have the Canadian forces, with the navy; the solicitor general with the marine aspects of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; the old DFO as it was before this bill was conceived. Environment Canada has been doing surveys off the coast. The coast guard has been responsible for navigation and safety and keeping the sea routes open. Other departments have had peripheral concerns and interests.

The main purpose of this bill is to establish a framework to support the new oceans management regime for Canada and to consolidate the federal responsibility for Canada's oceans. The key word here is consolidation.

The other aspect of this bill that is very important is that it recognizes in domestic law Canada's jurisdiction over its maritime zones. That has been a very long time in coming.

Without wanting to sound partisan about this, the actions that were taken by the government with respect to the extension of jurisdiction beyond the 200-mile limit out to the nose and tail of the bank, which was not ours by accident of geography, is now in effect ours. Bill C-29 was passed in the House last year very quickly with the unanimous support of all parties, passed quickly by the Senate and subsequently recognized in the United Nations as being right, valid and proper.

One other thing the bill does is develop a new approach to managing the oceans and their resources. In that regard I want to pick one example. On the east coast of Newfoundland, Memorial University has what is considered by all those in the field of oceanography and marine sciences not just in Canada, not just in North America but throughout the world as being truly a centre of excellence.

It has scientific laboratories. It has the venue, the Logy Bay Research Station, the sea tunnel to test various sea foils, excellence again not just in Canada but throughout the world. It is one of the few resources of that nature that exists. It contains the pilotage training simulator which I had the opportunity, with some of the members of the defence committee, to witness. Certainly the reality factor was so high that one would find it difficult not believing one was not at sea.

These are a few examples of the elements of the Centres of Excellence that exist at Memorial University in St. John's, Newfoundland. I am very proud to have been associated with that over the years with some of my other colleagues and would hopefully continue to do so.

I want to address another aspect of this which is under the purview of ocean management and is certainly very much involved. This has to do with a statement made earlier by the member for Kindersley-Lloydminster, I think half in jest but I know with an element of seriousness. Because of that I felt constrained to respond to the concerns he raised in all seriousness.

I remind the House that in 1992 the cod fishery, after a bad year in 1991 because of ice that persisted all year, essentially had to be declared a failure. The previous government implemented a program called the northern cod assistance and recovery program to last for two years from 1992 with the hope that the northern cod stock would return. Regrettably, as we all know in the House, this has not happened.

This is a matter of fact. It is generally not known that the previous government-I make this point to make another point-had made no allowance for a replacement for that program in the

event the northern cod had not recovered and said so. The minister of the day in St. John's indicated to the Evening Telegram that the government could not really be expected to continue to provide the kind of compensation that was involved should the NCARP program not succeed.

When we became government we found that the budget and the books did not account for any money in the program to look after the failure of that program should the northern code not return. It was through the compassion of this government and the work of many of us in Atlantic Canada, spearheaded by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and many of his colleagues in cabinet that only new money was found in the first budget: $1.9 billion for the Atlantic strategy program, TAGS, as it is referred to. That program is not a perfect program but there are 39,000 people who depend on TAGS in the hopes the cod fishery will return.

[Somalia Inquiry, September 29th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. I believe he is aware that the commission has taken this decision not to grant standing before the inquiry for Private Mark Boland. He is also aware that the authority to grant standing rests with the commission of inquiry which is constituted under the rules of Canada and their ruling on this is publicly available for all to know.

He is also aware that because the commission is an independent, properly constituted inquiry, it would be totally inappropriate for me to comment on it and for the minister to interfere.

[Yugoslavia, September 29th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I remind the hon. member his colleague, then the defence critic, as a member of the standing committee, agreed to a report that in essence said that with respect to the committal of peacekeeping troops in mandates such as the one under discussion, under normal circumstances the House would have a debate. He agreed, somewhat reluctantly, that there were occasions when a debate could not take place. This may be one of them.

[Yugoslavia, September 29th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member refers to a debate in the House, and I remember the position of the Reform Party. It was actively encouraging the government not to keep our troops in ex-Yugoslavia for the reason that progress was not being made.

I think the hon. member, with his experience, would very much appreciate that in Croatia our troops were withdrawn when the job was done, with no further ado.

Right now I think the House is entirely aware of the progress that has been made in Bosnia and how close we are to the peace process. To suggest that progress has not been made I think was wrong in the spring and it is wrong now.

Specifically, the United Nations mandate will expire on November 30. The Canadian rotation for the troops is due in mid-November. In view of the progress that has been made, the government will decide by the end of October on the future of Canadian participation.