Gerald Keddy

[Fisheries, March 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the NAFO states continue to ignore our request for stricter enforcement. They have accepted an increase in Greenland halibut against opposition from Canada and against the scientific evidence from NAFO's own scientific council. Yet they increased the quota. The increase was supported by Japan, Russia, the Baltic states, Ukraine and Poland, among other nations.

If we look at the record, in the early nineties there were about 45 foreign fishing violations each year. At least in those days we had some observers and we had some ships in the area. After 1995 there were almost none, because we had turned our head. We caught one ship, the Estai . We had a great little photo op down at the United Nations with the then minister of fisheries. While the country thought that something was really being done, nothing was being done because we were ignoring the issue totally. We continued to ignore it until yesterday.

It is a big responsibility for the new minister. I give him credit for at least looking at the issue, but he has to do more than that. He has to come up with a concrete plan to not only stop overfishing on the high seas, but to extend Canada's control outside the 200 mile limit where we can be in a custodial role and board ships. If that takes an international tribunal and we need to have other NAFO members, so be it. We can bring them over here and put them on our coast guard boats. We have to spend money. We cannot do enforcement without spending some money.

Since the year 2000, they say the numbers of infractions are about 27 per year. There are some things out on the North Atlantic that are just the same as those 27 infractions a year. Those things are called icebergs. About 10% of an iceberg sticks out of the water. About 10% of the infractions are actually being caught. I would say it is probably less. It is probably 1% or 2% of the infractions that are being caught. It is going on daily.

I am sorry, it is not adequate to simply tell the Faroese they cannot come ashore. It is a start but it is not adequate. My suggestion to this problem is to bring the NAFO countries together and have an international team of fisheries officers boarding boats on a regular basis on the high seas to check on the holds. It would not just be Canada's initiative, it would be a NAFO initiative with Canadians, Faroese, Icelanders, Norwegians and EU people. We should bring in fisheries people from all those countries and work in a co-ordinated effort. Maybe we could do something about it.

[Fisheries, March 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the comments and expertise my colleague from St. John's brings to the fisheries portfolio. I thank him on behalf of all Canadians, especially Atlantic Canadians for recognizing the importance of asking for this debate, and having the debate granted through going to the Speaker's office. It is an extremely timely and important debate.

What the debate comes down to is very simple. It is about overfishing on the Grand Banks, outside the 200 mile limit and the question of what we are doing about it. Unfortunately, my belief is we are doing very little about it. I do not expect we would have been doing anything about it today, tomorrow or yesterday had my colleague not asked the question in the House.

Why is it that we picked up a foreign trawler on a polluting offence and suddenly found moratorium cod in hold? There is something wrong. We are not doing our job on the Grand Banks. We do not have enough fisheries officers, patrol vessels, aircraft or helicopters. We have ignored it and the government has been especially guilty of ignoring it.

Members of the government have tried to say that there has not been a serious problem of overfishing on the Grand Banks and outside the 200 mile limit since 1995. I am sorry but that is a joke and it is not a very funny joke. Obviously there have been violations of overfishing and a lot of them, and we just have not been checking.

We were not checking yesterday. We caught them by accident. We were looking for something else. Do not think that a month, six months or a year ago they did not have the same moratorium cod in their holds because they did. Now we are going to shut the Faroe Islands out of Canadian ports. Excuse me. Did nobody in this place hear tell of St. Pierre and Miquelon? It is not like they cannot go to port on the east coast of North America. They can.

St. Pierre may not have the same freezer capability that Newfoundland has but it certainly has the capability to supply the boats. We need an important directive to put the fisheries officers, the ships and the coast guard vessels on the high seas to board these ships and check on their holds to see if they have moratorium species onboard.

NAFO is comprised of 18 countries. It is not just the Faroe Islands. It is Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Denmark, Estonia, the European Union, France, Iceland, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Ukraine and the United States. There are a lot more ships to check than just the ships from the Faroe Islands.

Go back to Tobin who seemed to get a lot of publicity because he pulled one liner out of one Spanish trawler, the Estai , in 1995. The next day the Spaniards and Portuguese were overfishing and using liners and their nets on the Grand Banks. We ignored them and then we tried to buy them off with turbot. They would not go away and we got fined. That is not a plan. That is nothing. That is ridiculous.

At least he raised the issue and for that I give him credit. However, we cannot turn our backs on the issue for the next five years and say it is not going on. It is going on but we are not looking.

At the NAFO meeting in Denmark in January, we showed evidence of fishing infractions by Russia, Portugal and other European fleets. They included the use of small mesh nets, directed fishing of prohibited species like cod, excessive bycatch of species under moratorium, like cod, exceeding quota limits in groundfish and in the shrimp fisheries and the misreporting of catch information.

I would like to ask the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans what has been done about that. We know the infractions are occurring. What has been done? We are telling the Faroese that they cannot dock in Newfoundland or Nova Scotia. I am sure they will dock on St. Pierre and Miquelon or they will use freezer trawlers and they will freeze their species on the high seas. They can certainly take it back frozen.

We need a better plan than just simply reacting to circumstances. It is just not sufficient.

[Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, March 20th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I was particularly interested in a lot of the things that the member for Souris--Moose Mountain had to say. It would behoove the Liberal members opposite to be interested in what he had to say.

The bill clearly pits rural Canada against urban Canada. Unfortunately we have allowed the concerns of a few to dictate and prejudice the concerns of many.

Not only is the legislation ill-founded and ill-fated, both pieces of the bill, the cruelty to animal section and the gun registration section, makes criminals out of honest citizens. It is past time that we stopped doing that.

I do not think there is anyone in the House who is against modernizing the cruelty to animals legislation, but this legislation is not it. This is terrible legislation that would affect this nation from coast to coast and make criminals out of honest citizens.

The member for Souris--Moose Mountain spoke about farm practices that we do all the time, whether we are in Alberta, in western Canada, or in Nova Scotia. Castration and tail docking for lambs are farm practices carried out every day. They are not carried out with intentional cruelty. They are not done in some belligerent, cruel manner to cause undue harm to the animals. They are done for specific reasons. The bill could possibly make those practices criminal offences.

Under sections of the bill, hunters and trappers, honest men and women, honest citizens of Canada, who have never been arrested, who have never received even a traffic ticket in their lives and who have never gone through a stop sign, could be treated as criminals. It is incredible.

It is the view of the PC/DRC coalition that legislation is needed to punish those who intentionally abuse and neglect animals. We are not questioning that for a moment. However this legislation is not it.

Cruelty to animals is an issue that has received a lot of publicity in recent years, and deservedly so. We are looking at a poor attempt by the government to deal with that specific issue but Bill C-15B is not it.

If the government had been even remotely serious about doing something about cruelty to animals, it would not have put it together in an omnibus bill. It would have put together one bill, a stand on its own, cruelty against animals bill. Instead it has lumped it together with some firearms registration that was not well thought out either.

There is absolutely no way that any thinking member of parliament, or any sentient being, which I think is the wording for cruelty to animals, who feels pain can look at the legislation and not find something wrong with it. It is absolutely incredible.

We do want to support parts of the legislation, especially preventing cruelty against animals, but other parts of the legislation prevent us from supporting the good parts.

It is time for the government to get it right. It should put this to committee, find an answer to this serious question and do something about it.

I find it offensive that the propriety aspects of animal use in this legislation, and those aspects of this legislation have always been important to animal cruelty legislation and laws, the way that it is put into this legislation moves the animal cruelty provisions out of part IX of the criminal code and removes the protection that animal users had in section 429(2). This important section currently permits acts done with legal justification or excuse or with colour of right.

Therefore removing cruelty to animals provisions from this section is of particular concern to me as a hunter, a trapper and a farmer. I am guilty under this legislation and can probably expect to go in prison. It is unbelievable. The legislation would make a group of individuals, unwittingly and unjustly, in contravention of the law under section 182.2(1)(a) and 182.2(1)(b) of the proposed legislation.

I had this discussion with some Liberal members earlier. They told me there was nothing to be afraid of and nothing to worry about in the legislation. My NDP colleagues also said that it would be left up to the courts to decide. I am not willing to do that. I can tell members that when people go to court they are there for one reason: One of the parties in that courtroom has lied. One of the parties has unjustifiably defended something or accused the other party of something and the judge has to resolve it.

That is not how we need to resolve this. We need to resolve this in a fair and equitable manner that considers all the facts.

We share the concerns of Canadians about the definition of animal as being “any animal that has the capacity to feel pain”. I am forgetting a lot of my biology but I think it can be shown that animals, right down to multicelled creatures, feel pain and are actually affected by electrical shock or by acid. Certainly they are not sentient beings but they do have the ability to feel pain.

I do not know when the fishing season opens in the rest of the country, but come April 1 in Nova Scotia, when the fishing season begins, a lot of boys and girls will be put at risk when they put a worm on their hooks.

Someone may think that is incredulous but that is the way the bill reads and we will leave it up to some judge somewhere to make that decision. We can be sure the decision will be headed to the supreme court and we can be sure of what will happen there.

The legislation would place fishermen, farmers, hunters, trappers and all those good Liberals who want to boil a lobster, at risk. Forget the people who actually make a living in the country by raising livestock: cattle, hogs, chickens. Chicken farmers have to use euthanasia daily. Rather than have a sick bird infect the entire the flock, they put the chicken down as humanely as possible. However, that would be a deliberate act of violence under this legislation.

The PC/DRC coalition supports strengthening the laws to protect animals from undue cruelty. We certainly do not support this legislation and we cannot support it.

In the fishery in eastern and western Canada and in the Arctic, fish are caught in nets and caught on hooks. It is not some deliberate way to torture an animal but under the legislation those people would suddenly become criminals. It is unbelievable how poorly crafted the legislation is.

There has been $800 million already spent on the gun registry. Where is it headed? I have no idea.

[Supply, March 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, our future in energy and in greenhouse gases is inextricably linked to the future of the United States. Absolutely we need to find a way to move forward with our partners, in particular the United States. It may not be through Kyoto. Without question, we may have to find another avenue to do it.

[Supply, March 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, those are very good questions and the member guessed my answers before he asked them.

I do not have any confidence the government will bring out a report that is at all accountable.

Bill C-4, the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology Act, which most opposition parties voted against, was passed in the House by the government. It was supposed to reduce greenhouse gases. The sum of $100 million was put into an open-ended piece of legislation and the government is allowed to put more money in at any time. It is not accountable to the auditor general's office and the Access to Information Act is not applicable. The government talks about spending money, but we have no idea how it is doing it. There is no accountability in the legislation and there is no accountability from government ministers.

[Supply, March 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, that would be the purview of the Government of Canada.

What I find most interesting about what the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters Association had to say is in its executive summary which almost sounds like a mission statement. It expects to be part of a meaningful international strategy for limiting atmospheric greenhouse gases. I do not have a problem with that. It wants to lead in a genuine reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that are measurable, verifiable, practical and economically feasible. I do not have a problem with that. It also wants to make a real and meaningful contribution in controlling greenhouse gas emissions over a long period of time. I would suggest that is what the government should have been doing five years ago, not today.

[Supply, March 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, like my colleague from Fundy--Royal, let me say it is a pleasure to rise on debate on this supply day motion brought forth by the member from the Alliance Party.

Before I begin debate, I would like to reference some of the comments made by my colleague from Fundy--Royal which are extremely critical to the position we have taken on this supply day motion and extremely critical to the entire issue of whether the government ratifies the Kyoto accord or not.

He commented that there was no provincial consensus. The job of the federal government is to go out and get provincial consensus. It has had five years to do it. Where has it been? Where has it been on a lot of other issues, which I will bring into my speech later?

The other point is there has been absolutely no sector by sector impact analysis. This is on the verge of the asinine. This is ridiculous. The government has a certain responsibility here. We are trying to point out that responsibility to it. It should not be something done at the last minute in great haste to satisfy some whim with which the Prime Minister woke up one morning. We are talking about a comprehensive, detailed, organized plan of how this could even remotely begin to be implemented. It is not there.

I noticed there was one thing that all opposition parties agreed upon, which is a point worth repeating. We did not all agree to support the motion but we did agree that the government had shown zero leadership on this file. That is absolutely true. It has been five years since Kyoto. Where is the plan and how will it be implemented?

The government itself is not singing from the same song sheet. Its own ministers are contradicting one another. Regarding Kyoto, the Minister of Natural Resources, as early as March 15, stated in Calgary:

We have to make sure we do it right and that's what the government's intention is, to make sure we have all the information, have an analysis and work with the provinces and then make a decision on whether we can ratify or not

I like that position. That is halfway responsible. On the same day, reported in the same paper, was a quote from the Minister of the Environment, who stated “We'd like to ratify and our aim is to ratify”.

One person is saying that the government plans to ratify, apparently at all costs, and the other minister is saying that maybe it should take a second look at this because there are costs.

Let us take a look at what is being discussed here. For example, we are talking about a government that is prepared to ratify an accord without a number of issues being clearly defined. Canadian negotiators are still pushing for clean energy credits. We have not defined clearly whether or not we will be able to use our carbon sinks, and we really have not defined clearly how emissions trading might or might not work. However those are more clearly defined than clean energy credits, which are not defined at all.

For example, Canadian negotiators who currently are pressing for this, and are not expected in the short term to succeed, are arguing that we should get credit for being a large producer and exporter of relatively clean natural gas and hydroelectricity.

It is a good argument. The Canadian government argues this can be used to displace energy sources, such as coal, which produce higher levels of greenhouse gases.

Let us back up to the emissions trading that is at least quasi recognized under the Kyoto protocol. This allows countries or individual companies with higher emissions of greenhouse gases to accumulate credits by investing in projects internationally that would reduce emissions. This may allow a country to continue to emit levels of greenhouse gases above its own targets without penalty. This is being seriously discussed and allowed in the protocol. I will say it again however that we are not being given any credit for the thousands of megawatts of clean energy exported from Canada every year in hydroelectricity and natural gas. The federal government has a lot of homework to do on this file, as it has a lot of homework to do on other files.

What are the facts? The Kyoto protocol which was signed by 186 nations in December 1997 committed Canada to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 6% from 1990 levels by 2012. We are 10 years away from target, five years away from the original meeting in Kyoto and there has been very little done, and what has been done does not have an ounce of accountability from the government, not even a wee bit.

The government does not even have real numbers to discuss. It has said it has committed $1.5 billion to combat climate change. From its own numbers it has committed $4.2 billion over the next five, six or seven years. Most of that is completely unaccountable to the general public, the auditor general and the Access to Information Act.

Much of Canadian industry and most of the provinces are worried that they will be at a competitive disadvantage if Canada ratifies the accord, especially since our largest trading partner, the United States, which happens to represent 25% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide has stated that it will not ratify the accord. Canada is looking for recognition of its clean energy exports. I have already discussed natural gas and hydroelectricity. Even if we did get recognition of those clean energy exports, as long as the United States does not sign on to the accord we do not get recognition from it. It is a veritable Pandora's box. We are worse than the dog chasing its tail. The government says one thing but on investigating what it has been saying, there is nothing to back it up.

The Minister of Natural Resources has stated that natural gas and electricity come from Canada but the environmental benefits occur elsewhere. Yes, and what are we doing about that? The bottom line is global emissions are lower because of our exports. We need to find a way to encourage and recognize that trade and the use of cleaner energy produced in exporting countries like Canada should not be unfairly and unduly penalized as it will be if we sign on to the accord.

Ten minutes is not a very long time to debate this subject. To quickly sum up, the point I take issue with the most is the cost. I challenge the government to do its math. It has all kinds of different cost estimates out there, from $1.5 billion to $300 million to $3.3 billion. We are talking huge numbers of dollars.

I think most members here have read “Pain Without Gain: Canada's Kyoto Challenge” by the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters Association. This is a matter of having faith in the ability of the government to meet this challenge.

[Ten Cent Coin, March 18th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, again I would like to take a few moments to thank the members of the House for their support of the motion and my colleagues who spoke to it.

Certainly there is one point I would like to stress in closing, that is, this is not about the March of Dimes. This is about the schooner Bluenose . I would like to illuminate, to show more clearly if possible, my position that the Bluenose should remain on the dime. In no way, shape or form is it about having anything against the accomplishments of the women, the volunteers, with the March of Dimes. Certainly I understand the Mint's position in wanting to put the volunteers and the women who founded the March of Dimes on the ten cent coin. I would, however, disagree with the Mint that there is no better way to do this.

If we had wanted to mint commemorative coins such as the dime for the March of Dimes, there is no reason we could not have minted them simultaneously with the regular Bluenose dime. We bring out commemorative coinage every year. I would suggest that since we use the silver dollar all the time as commemorative coinage it may have been a better symbol. Also it would have more closely and truly represented the value of the dime received by the women who marched for the March of Dimes in the early 1950s. A dime was worth something in the 1950s. Quite frankly, the dime is not worth a whole lot today. Perhaps the silver dollar would more truly represent that.

The symbolic rendition of the marching mothers who went door to door in the 1950s to raise money for polio in the March of Dimes campaign is not what this discussion is about. Certainly the March of Dimes has played an important role in Canada, and we recognize that, not only with its inaugural task of funding research that helped develop a vaccine against the disease but also its development into an organization for the disabled.

Once again I want to make it very clear that this is not in any way, shape or form against the celebration of the work that those volunteers did with the March of Dimes. This is about restoring and maintaining the Bluenose on the dime and at the same time finding other ways to recognize the valuable contribution that the March of Dimes has brought to all of us.

The other point I would like to make is in recognition of some of the work done by the Bluenose II Preservation Trust to have the Mint itself recognize a fact that all of us knew all along: that the image of the sailing schooner on the ten cent coin is in fact the Bluenose . Quite frankly, the Royal Canadian Mint resisted that recognition for many years. It was only on March 15 that it finally admitted it actually was on the dime. I realize we are not allowed to name colleagues in this place or in the Senate, but I also would like to recognize the work of a senator who helped to bring that about. It was extremely important to get that recognition from the Royal Canadian Mint.

Our lives, heritage and history are represented by the Bluenose , as well as our long association with wooden ships in eastern Canada and in the country as a whole. Certainly there were thousands of wooden ships built in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, P.E.I., Newfoundland and Quebec, probably tens of thousands. Our shipbuilding in Nova Scotia actually peaked in 1875, but even after that there were hundreds and hundreds of schooners built from the 1900s to the 1930s.

In closing, to show how important wooden boats were to the east coast of Canada, it was not until 1965 that the first totally metal fishing boat was built in Nova Scotia. We are indeed, without question, a land of wooden ships and iron men.

[Ten Cent Coin, March 18th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, before engaging in debate I would like to thank my colleagues from all the parties in the House for agreeing to change my motion. For the public who are listening I will read my original motion so they may understand why I wanted it changed. As most Canadians are aware the schooner Bluenose was taken off the ten cent coin in 2001. My original motion read:

That, in the opinion of this House, the Royal Canadian Mint should restore the schooner Bluenose to the Canadian ten-cent coin immediately in the year 2001 as an uninterrupted commemoration of our seafaring and fisheries heritage.

Obviously 2001 has come and gone. My original motion was put forward on September 13, 2001. Since it is 2002 it would seem more timely and make more sense to everyone, including myself and the people who support the motion, that the wording was changed. Once again I thank my colleagues for allowing me to change the wording.

The reason for Motion No. 385 to restore the schooner Bluenose to the ten cent coin is that it should be recognized that it was in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the March of Dimes that the Royal Canada Mint chose to change the image of the ten cent coin.

I agree that was a worthy cause and a worthy celebration particularly since it was in 2001, the International Year of the Volunteer. I do not have any problem in recognizing the March of Dimes. I understand the Royal Canadian Mint's predicament that it was an apt way to recognize the March of Dimes via a celebratory dime.

However the Bluenose was on the dime since 1937. Canada has the longest uninterrupted coastline in the entire world with three oceans on all sides, east, north and west. For those unfortunate not to have a coastline I suggest that they come to Nova Scotia, in particular the town of Lunenburg, and visit ours at any time. It is always a treat.

Seafaring, sailing, the fishery, back to the days of the explorers and whalers who opened up much of the Canadian north and eastern Canada, is a part of our history and heritage. Most Canadians have some link to that part of our heritage.

I believe the Bluenose should remain on the dime as a reminder of that heritage, that history and the long association not only with the ocean but with wooden boats. All Canadians have heard the comment “iron men in wooden ships”. Literally those were the days of iron men and wooden ships. Individuals who have a bit of seafaring blood in their veins and a bit of knowledge of history understand the terms and conditions that those men worked under. It was very often not only the skill of the skippers, the seamen and the fishermen but it was the seaworthiness of the boat itself that allowed those individuals to make it home to port under times of great duress. They survived absolutely horrific storms. They saw their comrades lost in dories for days at time in fog. Some never returned. It was the skill of the skipper and the seaworthiness of the schooners built at the time that brought our men back to shore.

For many of those reasons and others which I will state, I believe the Bluenose should remain on the dime. As Ziner says in Bluenose, Queen of the Grand Banks :

She represented not only beauty, speed and love of craft; she represented those indispensable ingredients of all great lives--hard work, modesty, and endurance.

These are lasting qualities that aptly represent what the Bluenose meant to Canadians and why this symbol has an enduring connection to what it is to be Canadian. I remind members of the House who may not be aware that the Bluenose is the first non-human to be inducted into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame.

The Bluenose was a famous racing boat. We always knew that the depiction on the dime was the Bluenose . We would have no problem causing quite a row in any part of Nova Scotia by saying that some other ship was on the dime. It has been recognized for years. The mint itself has submitted as late as last Friday, March 15, that the Bluenose is the image on the dime. That bodes well for the surviving crew members of the Bluenose and certainly for all the skippers who sailed her down through the years.

There are some great quotes, legends, and stories that come from the Bluenose . I do not know how many members in the House have had the good fortune and pleasure to read the write-up on the Bluenose in the National Post on the weekend. Clem Hiltz was interviewed. I have the honour of saying that Clem Hiltz is a friend of mine. He sailed and worked on the deck of the original Bluenose when he was 13, 14 and 15 years old. Clem has been a stalwart in his fight to have the Bluenose put back on the dime and to have the real recognition that the Bluenose deserves as a permanent image on the dime.

We should consider and understand the conditions people worked under in those days. They left towns all along the shore of Nova Scotia. I referenced Lunenburg because the Bluenose was built in Lunenburg by James Roue, a naval architect out of Halifax. There is a long list of wooden boats that Roue had built.

The Bluenose was built for the Grand Banks but she was built specifically for another reason. The international schooner races were introduced in 1920. The Americans won the first year. Canadians thought that they would be able to win that race. I do not want to this to be taken in any way, shape or form the wrong way but there was a real competition between the pleasure boaters, the blue water sailors and the fishermen of the day. The international races often did not happen if there was foul weather or if a big storm come up. A lot of the racing boats from around the world would be towed back to shore. There was a certain amount of disdain on the part of the real fishermen out there and people who made their living on the water . They felt that there was no need of this.

The Bluenose was built specifically to race in the international competition. In order to qualify she had to fish for a year on the Grand Banks. She had to be a Grand Banks schooner. The Bluenose made the trip to the Grand Banks, filled her hold with the largest catch taken on the Grand Banks and returned to Lunenburg. The reason we had many schooners out of Lunenburg and towns like Lockeport, Barrington, Shelburne, up and down the length of Nova Scotia, was their speed.

They were able to get to the Grand Banks when the fishing season opened and salt their catch of cod. The first boat to dock often received the most money for its catch so there were a few more cents a pound to be gained. The first boat to port would benefit from that. There was terrific competition not only among the skippers and the men on board to see who had the best crew and the fastest boat but the fastest boat and the best crew also got to represent Canada at the international races. The Bluenose never lost. That is a record that bodes well and stands well for the skippers.

I would like to read the names of the skippers of the original Bluenose I . They were: Angus James Walters, who was the master of the maiden voyage, had been fishing for a number of years and was the Bluenose skipper during all of the races; John Sonny Walters; Lavinus Wentzell; James Eddy Whynacht; Abraham Miles; Harry Demone; Moyle Crouse; Amplias Berringer; James Meisner; Henry Burke; George Corkum; Lawrence Allen; and Wilson Berringer. These were great skippers who were able to sail a great ship.

There are some additional points that I would like to make about the stories and legends that grew up around the schooner Bluenose . The original skipper, Captain Angus Walters, stated many years ago that the wood that would be cut to build the ship that would defeat the Bluenose was still growing. I predict that it is growing still.

We must imagine life's hard times before the rain gear as we have it today. The men worked with wool socks and mittens. Most of the sailors could knit and would knit their own mitts while at sea. There was no such thing as rubber gloves to keep the cold ocean off their hands. They wore the original oil gear, which was simply cloth soaked in linseed oil. It repelled the rain but did not do the job that our rain gear does today.

These people invented the sou'wester. For anyone who has ever had to work in rain gear the sou'wester is a salvation. People can actually see out the end of it and the back comes down to cover the neck keeping the rain from running down the back of the neck. In the Christmas tree industry I grew up in we worked in a lot of foul weather, including rain and snow. Those of us who were fortunate enough to have sou'westers certainly used them.

The wives, families and women of the men who waited at home and supported them lived a life that really came from another time. Many of us cannot imagine the conditions they lived under. The men left their home ports for a month to six weeks at a time, many of whom were mere boys,11, 12, 13, 14 years of age.

I would like to quote Clem Hiltz about the feeling that all Nova Scotians, especially those of us from Lunenburg county, have toward the dime. He stated in the National Post :

They used to say it was just any old ship on the dime. They wouldn't even admit it was the Bluenose. It wasn't right. She's a famous ship. She has done a lot for this country of ours. She was a great ambassador for our country, known all over the world, and she is something that should never be forgotten.

We should all remember those words. The Bluenose is more than a wooden ship. She is part of our heritage, background and tradition. Every school child in Canada knows that the ship on the dime is the Bluenose . We now admit that amongst ourselves and it would be my wish that the Bluenose always remain on the dime.

[Ten Cent Coin, March 18th, 2002]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the Royal Canadian Mint should restore the schooner Bluenose to the Canadian ten-cent coin immediately in the year 2001 as an uninterrupted commemoration of our seafaring and fisheries heritage.

Mr. Speaker, when I originally put this motion in private member's business it was timely but I would now like to amend the wording of the motion. I move:

That, in the opinion of this House the Canadian Mint should make the schooner Bluenose the permanent image on the Canadian ten-cent coin as a commemoration of our seafaring and fisheries heritage.