Jean-Yves Roy

[Fisheries, May 15th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, how can the federal government believe that transferring money for labour market training is enough and that it can wash its hands of its responsibility in the fisheries dispute when it is sitting on a cushy $45 billion surplus in the EI fund? This money is supposed to be used for hard times like these.

[Fisheries, May 15th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the crisis in the fishery is the direct result of 30 years of mismanagement by the federal government. The regions of eastern Quebec and Canada are experiencing unprecedented social and economic upheaval. The Government of Quebec has done more than its share in helping the people affected and it is urgently calling on the federal government to provide the $200 million it has yet to transfer, which is Quebec's share of what the federal government has set aside for labour market training.

Does the federal government plan on following up as soon as possible on the request made by Quebec?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, May 12th, 2003]

Someone says it is nonsense.

The second element I want to emphasize—and after this, I will analyze the budget—is that there is absolutely nothing in it for regional development. Since 1993, this government has made huge cuts to services to regions, in all sectors.

We must also remember that the cuts announced in successive budgets over the years are still in effect. What is more, the current Minister of Finance announced new measures and asked for an additional effort by the departments, asking them to continue making cuts in their budgets.

I have a very good example. This very day, a television production company in my riding of Matapédia—Matane, Les Productions Vic Pelletier, risks watching a large part of its production disappear in the next year, because of the $25 million cut in the Canadian television fund, announced by the Minister of Finance.

To quote just one of the actors, Robert Tremblay—whose work is well known in Quebec and whose shows are very interesting—said simply the following, “All the work done in the regions in a highly competitive field is being threatened”. He is referring to the fact that a television production company in Matane is fighting for its life, due to the funding cuts announced in this budget.

In general, this budget was seen as one that threw money all over the place but that, for regions such as ours, lacked heart.

In the past few days and in the past two weeks, there have been two serious and successive crises in regions such as the Gaspé, the riding of Matapédia—Matane, or Haute-Gaspésie, and the south, in the Avignon region, the riding of Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok, as well as in all the provinces in eastern Canada.

There have been two serious crises. The first is the moratorium on cod. This moratorium speaks to the federal government's management of this resource over the past 30 or 40 years. This, because we stopped investing. We did not invest enough in research, especially to better understand the resource.

Last week, during our tour of the Maritimes, I met a researcher for Fisheries and Oceans who came to talk to us about budget cuts at Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

Today I would like to share with the House the image he gave me. He told me, “Today, when I think of what we know about the resource, I feel like a blind person driving a car in a white-out on a night that is pitch black”. He added: “The investments that have been taken away from us, the cuts for research at Fisheries and Oceans, have left us with insufficient knowledge of what is going on in the fisheries”.

The subject we were discussing at that time was crab, because that is what he specializes in. Imagine, then, what it is like in the groundfish or cod sector, or in the sectors where fisheries are affected. Since 1993 there have been drastic budget cuts at Fisheries and Oceans, and in particular at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography or the Maurice Lamontagne Institute, both of which are very important to us. Budgets have been frozen. Taking just the increase in the cost of living into consideration, this means a significant loss in terms of budget.

We have seen the problem of the crabbers. But who is paying for crab research? The crab fishers themselves, because Fisheries and Oceans has quit investing. The minister says, “Send me a cheque and then we'll investigate. If the crabbers do not send in money, there will be no research. That is more or less what the problem is. There will be so little funding that researchers will not succeed in learning enough about the resource.

There is one other element missing from the budget. Of course, it did reduce part of the airport security tax. But when there is no air service left in a region, this means nothing to us any more. Where investment should have gone was into air transportation, so that a proper system could be developed in our regions. Then there is the matter of the railways as well as the whole issue of employment insurance.

As for EI, I would like to touch on it again, because we are talking about the budget and we have also been talking about the $45 billion that have been pilfered from the EI fund. What is the government doing now for people who are having trouble making ends meet, workers and plant workers—most of them are women—who are affected by the moratorium on the Lower North Shore and the fishers throughout the Gaspé, the Magdalen Islands and across the maritime provinces? What is the government telling them? “We do not have the money needed to help you. We have already spent all the money we took from the EI fund. It either went to paying down the debt or we created new programs with it that interfere in the provinces' jurisdictions”. The government is telling these people that it cannot help them. It is telling the provinces that it is up to them to help these people.

Following a statement by the federal government saying, “We have invested; we sent $600 million to Quebec for manpower training”, Quebec's new minister responsible for the Lower Saint Lawrence and the North Shore, Mr. Béchard, answered back, “Yes, but we are short $200 million”.

Where is the $200 million which the federal government was supposed to transfer to Quebec for manpower training and other things? We could ask the same question New Brunswick did last week. Both the Government of New Brunswick and the Government of Newfoundland are demanding the same thing.

As to the programs that have been announced, especially in manpower training, we know very well that the provincial governments have their hands tied. They can spend that money on training only. How could we train the fish plant workers in two, three or four weeks, when they do not need training at this time, actually? What they need is a real form of assistance, a real assistance plan. What this government is providing now is not an assistance plan.

To conclude, this whole budget is a complete intrusion into provincial jurisdictions, and it misses its target in many ways. On top of that, its measures are spread out over a long period of time. Should we get a new Minister of Finance and a new Prime Minister, this budget would disappear completely.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It was a pleasure to speak about this.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, May 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the first time I spoke in this budget debate, in February, I noted two facts about the budget before us.

The first was the impressive number of measures that stretched out over long periods of time; there was even one that lasted 10 years. We might mention the child tax benefit. A significant increase in the child tax benefit was announced, but this significant increase will not actually be complete until the end of 2007.

An impressive number of measures have been stretched out, so many that we could say it is a budget of illusions. In fact, any new Minister of Finance, any new Prime Minister, could come in tomorrow morning and modify the budget, change it, erase everything that was proposed, and start over again. In fact, the budget before us appears totally impossible to implement, given the circumstances, knowing there is a leadership race, knowing there will be a new Prime Minister, and also knowing that the budget will not match the orientation of the new Prime Minister. We can forget the budget as it stands.

[Fisheries, May 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, Quebec's minister of employment has done his part to help fishery workers, but the federal government has refused to change the EI rules to do its share.

How can a government that is fully responsible for the current mess in the fisheries, following 30 years of bad decision-making, sit back and let Quebec take exceptional measures to solve the fisheries problem, and do nothing to help? It was the federal government that created the problem; they should fix it.

[Fisheries, May 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the federal government eliminated the two week waiting period for employment insurance during the SARS outbreak in Toronto, which was the right decision.

Is the fishery crisis in the Gaspé, the Magdalen Islands, along the North Shore and in the eastern provinces not as serious for the economy of these regions to warrant the government making a decision like the one made for Toronto, and modifying the employment insurance rules to help the fishery?

[Fisheries, May 5th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, why does the government continue to refuse to help fishers in eastern Quebec with special measures under the EI program such as the POWA for older workers and the extension of benefits for workers who are unable to work as much because of the lower quotas?

[Fisheries, May 5th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the sad incidents opposing fishers and the federal government in New Brunswick should be eye-openers for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and make him realize that regions like the Gaspé and the Lower North Shore are going through equally difficult times.

To avoid many problems on the Lower North Shore, why does the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans not quickly grant these communities the seal quota they are demanding, which would allow the immediate opening of a processing plant?

[Cod Fishery, April 29th, 2003]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As my hon. friend from Delta—South Richmond said, it is definitely not with great pleasure that I rise here today to speak about the moratorium that has been announced.

As a great and well-known historian said, history repeats itself, but never looks the same. Unfortunately, the impression we are getting here from the government is that history does repeat itself and looks much the same as before.

We can look and look for the reasons behind the moratorium— because of climate change, as some scientists have said; or because of the never-ending growth of the seal herds; or because of foreign overfishing—it does not change the fact that the real reason we are in this mess today, along with all the fishermen in Gaspé, the Lower North Shore, western Newfoundland and Labrador, is the federal government's mismanagement of the resources.

Let us ask ourselves the question quite simply. If there had been proper management, would we be facing a moratorium today? The answer is no. If the resource had been well managed, we would not have a moratorium today. No one has mentioned resource management since 1990 or 1992, except for imposing the moratorium. You can talk about the resource for 50 years, or 250 years. In Gaspé, as in Newfoundland, it is a 250-year-old tradition that is disappearing today.

There are communities, fish plants, businesses, women and men who are going to find themselves without work because the plants are going to close their doors. These are the people who get sent directly to social assistance. Because, despite official statements, the assistance plan offered to the people is shamefully small, does not meet the real needs of the people, and leads nowhere.

The announcement to the plant workers led, in my view, to a great deal of frustration. It had already been strongly rumoured in November or early December that there would be a total moratorium on cod fishing. I criticized the minister for this and I am going to do so again. At the time, he caused families and workers in the Gaspé Peninsula to panic, a month before the Christmas holidays.

I think that, from that moment on, serious consideration should have been given to developing an assistance plan so that, as soon as a moratorium was announced, we would have been ready to take action and offer assistance to these people.

What I find frustrating about all this, is obviously how badly this resource has been managed. It is obvious. Perhaps the current minister cannot be blamed for this bad management, but perhaps his government can be. There has been a moratorium on cod for ten years, and for ten years people have known that this stock is not being rebuilt. Therein lies my criticism of this government.

Consider what other countries do in similar situations, such as Iceland, for example. Iceland has managed to solve this kind of problem and, today, it has an abundant resource. But how? It is because the Government of Iceland took action when it was needed, even against the UK. Remember when Great Britain threatened to send in its war ships so that fishers in the UK could continue to fish inside Iceland's zone. Thanks to the resolve of its government, Iceland, which is a very small country, managed to protect its resources. It managed to ensure that this resource has prospered, and today people are making a good living off this fishery.

I understand the frustration of people in Newfoundland and Labrador, and I also understand the frustration of people in the riding of my hon. colleague from the North Shore. These people live exclusively off this resource. Entire communities may disappear, and the message they are being sent is “leave”. People in the Gaspé Peninsula are being told to leave. About 1,400 people are affected, and some observers say it is 2,000.

They are telling people to leave. People are being told they have no future in the Gaspé, that they have no future in Newfoundland or on the Lower North Shore.

We know perfectly well that the moratorium that has just been declared will not last for only two, three or four years. We know that the resource has not come back since the early 1990s, and that it will probably not come back in the affected zones because of a whole host of factors.

One of the factors people talk about, and I will come back to it, is the ever increasing numbers of seal herds, especially the grey seal. According to some observers, a seal consumes one tonne of fish per year, on average. Do you know what that means when there are five million seals? It means five million tonnes of fish.

When they say five million tonnes, it does not mean five million tonnes of whole fish. As some of our colleagues explained, or maybe they did not have enough time, the seal is a predator. The seal prefers the liver. What does the seal eat? It only eats a very small part of the fish. What do five million seals represent when we are talking about one million pounds? That is a lot more destruction, and a whole lot of destruction when you consider a herd of five million seals.

This is another good example of poor resource management. The seal is a resource that we could have started developing ten years ago. In fact, we could have started harnessing this resource or encouraging certain companies to adapt and move toward processing seal products.

I asked questions in the House about the seal industry. I was told, “Yes, there are markets”. There are markets but we cannot make it work, even with quotas of 350,000. Last year, 312,000 seals were harvested. The industry was not encouraged. The federal government had not invested in research and development to develop a valid industry that could have gradually replaced the ground stocks industry, knowing perfectly well that the resource was not coming back.

We have known for the last seven, eight or nine years that the resource is not coming back. There was another resource that we could have harnessed and we did not react accordingly. As for the assistance plan now being proposed, we need to consider the option of changing over plants. We need to start processing seal products and to start developing other markets that are different from those that we already have.

As I was saying, I have asked questions of the Minister for International Trade, among others, about why the negotiations, especially those with the Americans, are not getting anywhere. How is it that it is still banned today when there is a seal herd busy destroying the resource in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and off the shores of Newfoundland? How is it that they have not made it an urgent matter to negotiate the opening of a new market with the United States involving seal products, among other things?

The answer we are given is that negotiations are under way. If this is anything like the way things are usually done with international trade, if it is anything like the softwood lumber situation, we can wait a long time and cannot take the outcome for granted. If we depend on the Minister for International Trade to open up new markets in the U.S. we will be waiting a long time. As hon. members can see from that situation, results are a long time coming. Not only a long time, there just are not any results.

I would like to come back to the assistance package being offered. It has a strange resemblance to the plan offered in connection with softwood lumber. It has such a similarity to that situation, where the sawmills continue to shut down. Thousands of jobs have been lost and people have had no assistance. None whatsoever. There is supposedly a program in place for softwood lumber to help the communities but it has not necessarily helped the softwood lumber workers.

What I am calling for when I speak about a true assistance plan—and this is one of the things i have been saying since the moratorium was announced, and even before that, and on which I have asked many questions of the minister in this House—is a plan that will help the people affected by the moratorium. It is a plan that will help the affected workers. These are the ones that need to be helped now. Some in the Gaspé, as some of my colleagues have already pointed out, are already in those gaps as far as EI is concerned. It would have been necessary to extend EI benefits for these people so that they can, even if it takes three, four or five years, get training, change direction, make a decent life for themselves. This would have been important in the assistance plan.

Another important aspect of this aid package would be to provide assistance to the industry, to the businesses.

In our region, when we look at dried, salted fish, several businesses are jeopardized and are at risk of disappearing. We are talking about people who dedicated their whole life to developing these businesses and, all of a sudden, they are told, “You are going to close down; the business will no longer exist, and you will lose everything you have worked for”.

I think there is a liability and it rests with the federal government. Everyone recognizes that the federal government has the sole control and management of the resource and that we are in the position we are in today because of its management.

Had I been here in 1992, I would have said the exact same thing. Successive federal governments, regardless of stripe, have all totally mismanaged the fisheries.

One can wonder if the fisheries are important at all to the federal government. Does the government really care about the thousands of jobs at stake? Is it really important that the region and the people in the east can continue to have a decent living? This is not obvious to us in the east.

The resource has been mismanaged for years. For years we have been paying the price. Today, again, in a region where the unemployment rate is over 20%, we are being told, “1,400 jobs will be lost”. Do you know what that represents for us? That is roughly the equivalent of 30,000 jobs in Montreal. It would be a catastrophe on a national scale if Montreal were to lose 30,000 jobs, but it is not a national catastrophe because the jobs are only being lost in the Gaspé, along the Lower North Shore and in Newfoundland. That is the difference.

The east has never been given a fair shake by the federal government. This government has never acted intelligently to develop a new economy in our regions.

Here is another example. In 2000, during the election campaign, the Liberals came in and announced a plan to spend some $30 million, supposedly through Canada Economic Development, to help develop the Gaspé. Do you know what it was for? It was solely for loans and there was almost nothing for business. It was the Government of Quebec, with what little money it had at the time, that contributed.

I am convinced that the government that was just elected in Quebec City will continue to do the same thing. If we want to develop the regions, we have to rely on ourselves alone and not on the government, which only collects taxes from us and gives us nothing back in return.

For another example, take the case of air transportation in our regions. If ever a government has abandoned the regions when it comes to air transportation, it is this government. I could give all kinds of examples. postal services, land transportation, transportation systems in general. How are we supposed to develop a region if it is impossible to have an air transportation system that works properly? This is one of the problems we are currently experiencing.

Again, we are being told that the private sector will develop, but that is not true. Without government intervention in regions like ours, it is absolutely impossible.

I want to come back to the assistance plan announced for us concerning Canada Economic Development. If Canada Economic Development added $7 million in the Gaspé every year, that would be $14 million. However, if Canada Economic Development used the same criteria as previously announced, then it is useless.

It is a totally useless assistance plan because, in a region where the economy is in trouble and where the unemployment rate is 22 or 23%, development cannot happen the same way it could in Toronto or in Vancouver. The criteria have to be changed and adapted so that very small businesses can create one, two or three jobs, and slightly larger businesses, small and medium size businesses, can also have access to the Canada Economic Development program. However, for the time being, the criteria are such that each time or nearly each time a business person submits a project, he or she is told that it does not qualify. I have good examples of that.

Last week, a business from Pointe-à-la-Croix came knocking on the door of the Canada Economic Development office in Gaspé. It was told that its project was stupid, or almost. That is what these people were told, even though their project is very good and is supported by the Quebec government. Among its sponsors is the Liberal member who was just re-elected in the riding of Bonaventure.

The federal government, through Canada Economic Development, told these people that it could not help them with this project. We see that constantly in our regions, particularly in the Gaspé peninsula.

Yet the riding of Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok is well represented by a Liberal member. That should change things, but it does not. Day after day, people will realize that because both he and I are told the same thing each and every time, namely that the projects do not meet the criteria, that they are not good, and so on.

This is what we heard when we went to Newfoundland with the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans not too long ago. There was an assistance program in 1992, but every time a project was submitted, the answer was that it did not meet the criteria. This is what the officials were telling people and, in some areas, the money was not even spent entirely. It is as simple as that. No project by these people could meet the criteria of Economic Development Canada. It is impossible for our regions to do what is done in Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver.

In conclusion, I will say that the seal, among others, has been often targeted, and there are several reasons for that, but the most fundamental reason is the mismanagement by the federal government, its inability to manage the resource. Things have to change, and quickly.

Right now, there is pressure on other resources, for example, crab, lobster and shrimp; further resources are not being developed in an efficient manner. We cannot let the moratorium be extended to other species, because we will find ourselves in the same situation.

I ask the government to undertake, for once, to really manage the resource with a vision for the future. This must not be a vision for a week or a year, but a vision for the future, over a 10, 15 or 20 year period. This is the only way to manage this resource.

[Fisheries, April 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the federal government, through negligence and poor decisions, is directly responsible for the serious problems now affecting the eastern fishery.

Since the resumption of activity in the fisheries may be a long time coming, does the federal government not realize that it has a duty and responsibility to set up measures directly adapted to fishers, fish plant workers and boat owners?

It was the government that created the problem; now it has to solve it.