Bill Casey

[Canadian Heritage, February 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, a chart obtained from Canadian Heritage outlines a very unfair distribution formula for the federal museums assistance plan. For instance, last year, one province, Quebec, got 37% of all federal museum funding. Nova Scotia, in comparison, got 1.3%. Quebec got 59 individual grants. Nova Scotia got 4.

Will the minister explain this unfairness and inequity, and adopt a formula so all provinces will be treated fairly?

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police, February 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the media in Nova Scotia are full of rumours that the Northeast Nova drug section in Nova Scotia will be shut down at a time when drug related crimes are at an all-time increase. Also the RCMP has confirmed that it has 8 or 10 positions it cannot fill because it simply does not have the money.

Will the Solicitor General provide the money to fill those vacancies to provide an appropriate level of law enforcement in Nova Scotia? Will she confirm that the drug section will not be closed?

[Main Estimates, 2004-05, December 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, when I listen to the talk about the Governor General is a thorn in my side. The hon. member said a minute ago that Rideau Hall is a showcase for Canada's best art. That may be true. However, it is not a showcase for Canada's best people. When the Governor General wants to hire someone, she hires them by postal codes. She would not hire someone from the member's riding. She would not hire someone from your riding, Mr. Speaker. She would not hire someone from my riding. She puts restrictions on by postal code.

A person can only apply for a job in her office if he or she has a postal code around Ottawa. When I complained about that, she wrote me back to say that we must do this in the interest of several factors, such as efficiency and cost control. Here is the same person that spends $5 million on a trip to Europe. Yet she will not spend a few dollars going through resumes from Nova Scotia or from any other province other than this little bunch of postal codes around Ottawa.

Would the member explain why people in his riding cannot work in the Governor General's office because it costs too much to go--

[Employment Insurance Act, December 8th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health for telling everybody about the three calves born to a single cow. I suppose if one is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health, one would follow these issues very closely.

Again, I am pleased to hear that the three year scientific fishery will be done by an independent organization. If the parliamentary secretary has that information, could he tell us what independent organization will be monitoring this fishery?

Even though the parliamentary secretary says that he does not want to go back, would he go back to the fisheries regulation or designation that was there before on the 25 fathom line and at least acknowledge that DFO did make a mistake and then did not fix it right, which is what caused this rift between P.E.I. and New Brunswick? I am not saying that is the entire issue now, but by not correcting that problem when it happened, it created hard feelings and raised the level of antagonism between the fishermen of P.E.I. and New Brunswick to a high level. Could he just address those two issues for me?

[Employment Insurance Act, December 8th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and ask another question further to an issue I raised on November 5. There is quite a controversy between the fishermen in New Brunswick and P.E.I. in particular about the herring fishery between the two jurisdictions in the Northumberland Strait.

At the time, I asked if the minister would acknowledge that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans failed to correct a very obvious error in the description of a fishing zone off Prince Edward Island. The minister responded to me and he did acknowledge that it was a very hot issue between Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. He said it was important that we act in a responsible way.

He then went on to say that the fact is the herring stocks are very healthy, so healthy that according to the department's science the total allowable catch was increased to 10,000 tonnes. However, I was talking to some very knowledgeable fishermen today, people in the fishing industry in P.E.I., who tell me that there is a problem with the fisheries department science.

Although the scientists are saying it is the biggest biomass in a long time, there was hardly any spring herring fishery off P.E.I., the mid-season was very weak, the inshore did not catch their allowable catch, and the seiners did not catch their total allowable catch either. It hardly matters that they increased the total allowable catch if the fish are not there and they are not catching them.

Basically what I was told today by this very knowledgeable person in the P.E.I. fishing industry is that the people in the fishing industry do not have confidence in this DFO science that is saying the herring fishery is the best it has been in decades. They would like DFO to enlist the services of independent science and independent scientists to analyze this and give an independent assessment of the biomass for the herring. This was a concern of theirs.

They still do not have their answer as to why the correction was not made in the herring fishing zone off P.E.I. originally, but now the answer from the minister indicates that there is all of this herring there and the fishermen say they are not there.

Just between us, Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of faith in the opinion of the fishermen because they have turned out to be right every time.

I would like to ask the very distinguished parliamentary secretary who is going to answer the question why they have not corrected that obvious error they made when they changed the coordinates of the 25-fathom line off P.E.I. It was so obvious. There was one description in English and one description in French.

Instead of having a rectangle off P.E.I. that was a protected area, it was a triangle. It made absolutely no sense and anybody with any common sense would have known that it was not right. Even the parliamentary secretary would know it was not right if he looked at this, so I wonder if he could explain why it was not corrected, and then could he answer to the fishermen of P.E.I. about their request to have independent scientists rather than just DFO scientists?

[Sable Island, December 8th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, since Confederation, Sable Island has been the total responsibility of the Government of Canada, but in the mid-1990s, the Liberals abandoned their responsibility and turned it over to a preservation trust. The preservation trust has now said it can no longer manage the island, though horses, migratory birds and the safety station are at risk.

A multi-departmental working group has just made a recommendation to the government that the government retake possession of the island and resume management.

Will the government announce today that it has accepted that recommendation to take full responsibility for Sable Island again?

[Foreign Affairs, December 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I just sent over a copy of a letter that I received from the Russian prosecutor general regarding the illegally confiscated hotel in Moscow, owned by a Canadian investors, I.M.P., in Halifax. In that letter, it says that the prosecutor general of the Russian Federation “is ready to initiate dialogue and cooperation” in this matter.

Would the Minister of Foreign Affairs confirm that he will put the full weight of his department behind this exercise to get justice for this company and take advantage of this new opening by the prosecutor general of the Russian Federation?

[Nappan Experimental Farm, December 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, recent comments coming from the Nappan Experimental Farm have raised concerns about the future of this facility.

In discussions with the Minister of Agriculture I have told him about the employees who are saying that the farm does not even have the resources to fix broken essential equipment. In another case, one of the researchers has resigned and is going to work in Australia for the government there because he feels there is no future working at the Nappan Experimental Farm.

This farm has served the farmers and the agricultural community in Nova Scotia since before Confederation. Now is not the time to abandon farmers. Now is the time to reach out to help them.

In a time when farmers are fighting for survival, the Department of Agriculture should be enhancing the services at this farm in order to help the farmers survive and prosper and find new products and markets.

I urge the Minister of Agriculture to ensure that the level of operation at this facility is maintained and enhanced. I urge the Minister of Agriculture to maintain this facility to serve the farmers in Nova Scotia.

[Public Service, November 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the Governor General of Canada recently advertised for two job openings in her office, but again she restricted those applicants to only those people with postal codes immediately around Ottawa. When I previously complained about this, she blamed it on the President of the Treasury Board and said that he was trying to cut costs and work in an efficient manner.

However, we now know that he gave her $6 million to travel around the world the equivalent of 16 times. If he can give her that much money to travel around the world with her friends, surely he can give her some money to go through some resumes from western Canada and from Atlantic Canada, and stop this discrimination by postal code.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, November 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the very distinguished member for New Brunswick Southwest who was recently elected co-chair of the Canada-U.S. Committee. We are all very honoured to be in his midst. He is a very distinguished member. We are pleased that he shares this House with us.

We agree with the direction and concept of Bill C-24. We certainly agree with the concept and principle of equalization. As this country's fortunes shift from province to province and region to region, it will always be an important part of our being and our whole essence that parts of our country that are more prosperous and have more resources share some of their resources with areas that are not so prosperous.

I think it was the member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl who told us how Newfoundland and Nova Scotia used to send salt cod to Alberta. I am sure it appreciated that at the time. I do not know if Alberta would appreciate it now or not, but it appreciated it then. However, it just goes to show how fortunes have changed. That proves the point that this equalization formula is fair and is necessary for our country.

It is not a figment of our imagination either. People should know that it is in our Constitution. Subsection 36(2) reads:

Parliament and the government of Canada are committed to the principle of making equalization payments to ensure that provincial governments have sufficient revenues to provide reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation.

I think that is a fair assessment of what we are talking about here today. Another part of this whole concept of equalization that we have been pushing in the Conservative Party is the concept of removing the natural resources revenues from the equalization payments. Basically a province that has a defined quantity of a natural resource would have a very short window of opportunity to pull ahead and become a have province rather than a have not province.

It is such a shame to see a province like Newfoundland or Nova Scotia that has a resource which is defined and will be gone some day. It is a shame to see all those revenues clawed back by the federal government and at the end of the day when the resource is gone, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia or another province, that has a resource that has been totally exhausted, is right back where it started. The resource did no good for the province or for the region.

We would like to see the natural resources revenues removed from the equalization payments because these are finite amounts of resources. They come and go.

In the case of Newfoundland, I understand that 40% of its gas or oil resources, I am not sure which it is, has already been exhausted. It will not be long before all its resources are exhausted, a matter of a decade or two, whatever, and then it will be right back where it started. It needs that money now. It needs that money from these natural resources to build alternatives, to build economies, and to build infrastructure so that it can compete with the rest of the country. It is critical that these natural resources be removed from the equalization formula. It is not in Bill C-24. However, it is something we would like to see in Bill C-24.

This brings us to the promise that was made during the election, that all offshore gas and oil resources revenues would go to the provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. We now know that the provinces are trying to negotiate to get this deal back. The way I look at it, the Prime Minister went to Newfoundland and said--he obviously knew they would lose seats in Newfoundland--that if Newfoundlanders voted Liberal, he would give them 100% of the gas and oil revenues. Newfoundlanders, to a great extent, kept their end of the bargain. However, as soon as the election was over, the Prime Minister said that we have to negotiate.

It is interesting that today the Prime Minister said how much better his offer was than the opposition's offer. I am not sure which offer he is talking about. I am not sure if he is talking about the offer made during the election or the offer he is trying to slam through now.

Newfoundlanders and Nova Scotians will stand their ground and insist to get the deal that was made during the election because that affected a lot of votes. The Liberals said, “You vote for us, we will give you 100% of the revenues. No time limits. No caps. No nothing”.

Now of course we know that they are trying to negotiate another deal. The Prime Minister refers to their offer as a good deal. Perhaps it is better than what was there before, but it is not the deal that we were promised during the election. In my view, the Prime Minister has a verbal contract with the people of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and he must honour that deal.

I find it interesting that in the debate tonight the Liberal members are talking about a lot of numbers and I cannot even follow them. I cannot follow all the tos-and-fros and the complex arguments they are making when it is really quite simple.

It is about keeping commitments and keeping one's word, and helping provinces that need help. When Liberals stand up to make a speech, I cannot follow them. When we make a point about keeping our offshore gas and oil revenues in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, they stand up and say we are not talking about Bill C-24. What is the point of talking about anything if they do not keep their word in the first place.

The commitment by the government to allow Nova Scotia and Newfoundland to keep 100% of their gas and oil revenues is very much a part of the debate tonight. It may not be actually written in Bill C-24, but it is the word of the government that is at stake. If the government makes promises and does not keep them, then Bill C-24 or any other commitments are really not worth a lot anyway.

We are very much of the opinion that gas and oil revenues should be taken out of the equalization payments. I go back to 2001 when Premier John Hamm from Nova Scotia started this debate with the campaign for fairness. The fairness component referred to when Alberta was starting to realize it had gas and oil revenues and started to realize the benefits. It was allowed to keep its resource revenues from those resources 100%, no clawback, no caps, no limits, no nothing.

Premier Hamm's position was that Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and the other provinces on the coast should have exactly the same deal. He called it the campaign of fairness. He waged that war for a long time all by himself. It turns out now that the groundwork he laid was very effective. Newfoundland got involved with it during the campaign.

Premier Danny Williams, another Conservative premier, asked the Prime Minister if he would match the opposition's proposal to remove gas and oil revenues from the equalization formula and the Prime Minister agreed. He said yes publicly, on camera and on the record, that Newfoundland and Nova Scotia can keep 100% of their resource revenues and it will not be part of the equalization formula.

We know what happened since the election. The government tried to negotiate a much different deal. That goes to the point of credibility of the government. We can talk about Bill C-24 and equalization payments, but if the will is not there to keep its commitments and its word, then it hardly matters what we do in the House, unless the government will honour its commitments.

That is our position. We support Bill C-24. We would like to see the gas and oil resource revenues removed from the equalization payments. We want to see the minimum amount of money that the Liberals have committed to the programs stay in so there are no giant fluctuations. However, we should all understand that the concept is solid and valuable, and the circumstances of today will certainly not be the circumstances of tomorrow. Wealthy areas of Canada that are experiencing good times now may some day not have those good times and this money may shift around.