Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise and talk about this issue today because I have a history in the automotive business. That is how I earned my living for years. In fact I sold the Pontiac Firebirds produced in this factory from my own car dealership in Amherst, Nova Scotia, for several years.
I was interested while listening to the previous speaker and made a note that in my career as a car dealer I have sold Ford, General Motors and Fiat cars. My brother, who lives in Moncton and happens to be in town today, now sells Toyotas and Nissans and used to sell Mazdas. My other brother sold Honda motorcycles and my father sold Fords, Chryslers, Renaults, Volkswagens, Rolls-Royce, American Motors, Fiats, Peugeots, British Leyland, Jaguar and probably some others I have forgotten. I come from a long line of car dealers and our family is certainly steeped in the industry.
Today's motion raises an issue that is bigger than the car business or even the workers. It is the communities in Canada that will suffer because of federal government policies that help cause such things to happen. It is a big concern for me, especially since the last census came out and showed that there is an incredible migration from smaller communities to bigger communities, in fact to four specific communities: Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver.
When a plant like this closes the community really hurts. It affects everyone in the community. It affects small businesses. It affects the ability to maintain schools because the number of schoolchildren declines. When a large plant like this closes, it affects the ability to maintain health care and everything else. It has happened in my own riding several times. An international company closes a plant and leaves the community high and dry. The problem is that in the plant the workers quite often make $15, $25 or even $30 an hour and after the closing the replacement jobs pay perhaps $8 or $9 an hour.
In my province of Nova Scotia the amazing thing is that we often provide millions of dollars in incentives to bring in a call centre to replace a factory that we perhaps could have kept with a bit of effort. That effort is what should happen here. There should be some help to maintain this plant and make sure that it remains. It is a productive plant and it has built and builds a quality product. It is an international factory with internationally high standards.
Again, this issue really brings out the lack of long range thinking by the government in defending rural Canada as far as economic development goes and as far as other areas are concerned.
The last speaker from Acadie--Bathurst was very passionate in his speech. I looked up the last census. His riding has lost 5.3% of its population from 1996 to 2001. It is almost impossible to run a business when there is a population decline like that. It is very difficult for communities and municipalities to maintain infrastructure, schools and hospitals when there is such a decline.
What is amazing is that the province of Newfoundland has had an overall decline in population of 7%. Every single federal riding in Newfoundland has lost population, with declines in population as high as 12.1% in Burin--St. George's. The government is doing nothing to stop this incredible flow of people from the smaller communities to the major centres. If it does not do something there will be a huge price to pay, because eventually the transfer payments that some provinces do not like to make now will have to be a lot bigger.
The fact of the matter is that the people who are transferring around this country are usually younger people looking for opportunities when opportunities do not exist in areas of high unemployment. It is the young people, our future, who move from these communities to the major centres with big populations, like Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver.
The issue with this car plant in Quebec is just the tip of the iceberg as far as what is happening in the country is concerned and the government is doing nothing about it. The members on the other side are doing nothing about this. They are sitting there and allowing this to happen. There is no action.
The economic development programs have pretty much declined and disappeared. There are no clear economic development programs. There is no commitment to small communities. There is no commitment to economic development. There is no commitment to immigration, to an immigration policy that will provide immigration for all sectors of the country. There is no leadership on the government side. We will all pay a big price. The provinces that do not like making transfer payments now will be shocked when they see what happens in the future as our young people move away. These are the young people who would start small businesses. These are the young people who would end up hiring other people. These are the people who would buy houses and pay taxes. In many circumstances, they are gone now. That is what will happen in this city in Quebec where the plant is closing. People will leave and it will be very difficult for the community to maintain its significant position.
Again, in Nova Scotia, my home province, where we have had a significant decline in population in certain areas, within Nova Scotia the population drift is to the centre, Halifax, or the area around Halifax. The population in the riding of Bras d'Or--Cape Breton is down 7.6%. Young people are moving away to other areas, maybe Halifax, maybe Toronto or maybe Calgary. A lot of young people will not be there to maintain those communities in the future. They will not be there to build the houses, to pay the taxes, to buy the cars and to help the corner store operate. It will mean closure upon closure.
As well, the population in the constituency of Sydney--Victoria is down 6.2%. We can compare that to Alberta, which has had a population increase of 10%. People do not understand the impact of that population transfer. Again, it is young people. It is the best, strongest, most efficient, capable, productive people, the people who would raise families and start businesses. They are moving away from rural Canada and small communities to the major centres. These people are assets, huge assets, who are moving from small communities to major centres. It is a very scary situation.
In New Brunswick, only the centres around Fredericton and Moncton have not had a decrease in population. The rest are either very stagnant or the populations have decreased. Again, this is caused by a lack of economic development programs, a lack of any kind of a plan at all to help save a plant like the General Motors plant in Quebec that is about to close. The price will be enormous when that plant closes.
If the government is asked to intervene at the end of this process to try to provide some help, it will probably pour in $1 million or $2 million and try to get a call centre or something like that and replace the jobs with fewer jobs at half the wages. It is totally because of a lack of leadership by the Liberal government. It has allowed the economic development programs that were established over the years to dwindle, to be diluted and diminished and used for all kinds of other purposes, political and otherwise.
We certainly feel for the people in this community. It is not just the workers who will suffer. The entire community will suffer. I have seen this happen with my own eyes. The community will suffer. Small businesses in the area will suffer. The schools, the hospitals, the municipalities and everybody will have a hard time making ends meet when the plant closes because of the lack of that payroll going into the community and because of all of the other peripheral businesses that result from it.
I urge the government to rethink this whole thing, to look at the census that just came out which shows this incredible migration of young people to the major centres of our country and the major centres within our provinces. If we do not address this incredible migration, which is about economic opportunities, the young people cannot stay. If there are no economic opportunities, they will move. That is what we are talking about with this General Motors plant closing in Quebec. If those opportunities go, the young people will go with them.
I urge the government to rethink the whole issue of economic development and rethink the issue of how the migration of population will impact us as a country, us in the House, us as federal government. I urge the government to try to develop some innovative, imaginative, leadership thinking that will reduce the migration and keep the younger people in the small communities. Otherwise we will lose these small communities. They will dwindle and diminish and will not be able to survive.
