Jean-Yves Roy

[Canadian Coast Guard, February 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, as my hon. colleague indicated earlier, it is important to remember that the initiative announced today by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans follows the loss of five lives on August 13, 2002, when the Cap Rouge II capsized off the coast of British Columbia.

It is indeed a good initiative, but it is unfortunate that a tragic accident had to happen before the department took action and the Government of Canada decided to invest in a training program for divers. This program will help respond to this kind of emergency in the future.

We will recall that, in November, we had a take note debate on the Canadian Coast Guard. Its underfunding was widely commented on at the time.

I feel that this organization has deficiencies, not because of the services its provides—services the people of Quebec and Canada know little about, I might add—but because of its underfunding, which is chronic. Because of the cuts made over time, the Canadian Coast Guard has become an organization with problems that need to be addressed urgently.

What happened on September 11, while it was a tragedy, was a wake up call for Canada, bringing home the important role played by the Canadian Coast Guard. Canada realized that this is an essential organization and that it is underfunded.

I congratulate the minister on the initiative he has put forward today, but I should point out that this initiative is not providing any new money to the Canadian Coast Guard. The funding earmarked for the new program, that is $300,000 now and $1 million a year thereafter, does not represent new money. It means that the CCG will have to shoulder additional costs of $1 million without money being added to its budget.

I would like to support the minister in his initiative. I hope that the Minister of Finance will invest more in the Canadian Coast Guard. This would ensure that this organization is well structured, will have the resources to operate and will be able to respond to emergencies and to the needs of the public in Canada and Quebec.

[Seal Hunt, February 3rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, because of its geographic location, it is difficult for the people of the Lower North Shore to access a sufficient share of the quota. Will the minister agree to setting aside 10% for the exclusive use of the Lower North Shore?

[Seal Hunt, February 3rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans just announced that the seal hunt quota will allow for a significant number of seals to be caught, a decision that we have been awaiting for a long time now.

Does the minister plan on distributing this 350,000 annual seal quota fairly across the eastern regions of Canada?

[Shipping Industry, January 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Coast Guard is delaying releasing its decision on marine service fees for navigation and icebreaking. The shipping industry has been waiting for an answer since October 2001. This is an important financial issue, because the Treasury Board is threatening to double the bill from $7 million to $14 million.

Does the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans intend to accelerate negotiations with the industry, in order to avoid a very substantial potential increase in shipping service fees?

[Committees of the House, December 11th, 2002]

Perhaps they do not know how to read. I thank the hon. member. He may be right.

What the Auditor General says is simple. Premium rates are too high. They are unusually high, since the employment insurance fund is designed to provide insurance for workers, not pay down the debt.

The fund stood at $42 billion on March 31, 2002, and it may be $44 billion or $45 billion now. The report says that the maximum amount needed to maintain and operate the employment insurance fund, even during an economic crisis, is $15 billion.

This means that this money was stolen from workers and small businesses, because not even 40% of the unemployed qualify for employment insurance. Yet, it was for them that this fund was created.

This was not a question; it was a comment.

[Committees of the House, December 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I think that members opposite did not read the report. They did not see it. Either they cannot read it, or else they cannot understand it.

[Fisheries, December 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, in its April 2002 report, the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council states that the main cause of the depleted fish stocks in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is too large a seal population.

What is the minister waiting for to give a clear to the industry and raise the seal hunting quotas so that ground fish stocks have a chance to recover?

[Nuclear Safety and Control Act, December 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I think the debate has turned a bit political. I did not find the discussion particularly useful.

As my hon. colleague said, the bill absolves the private sector of any responsibility. I want to come back to what she said, because I totally agree with her.

One of the reasons, and there are many, why we are not going to support this bill is that we hope the government will invest more in alternate energies.

I understand the member for Athabasca's reaction. They were given billions of dollars to develop the tar sands. Since 1970, the federal government has invested $66 billion dollars in the oil industry, but not one penny in Quebec for hydroelectricity, needless to say. The federal government put $6 billion into nuclear energy.

I would like to know if my hon. colleague agrees with the Minister of Finance's suggestion to invest $15 million a year over 15 years to develop the wind energy sector. That is not even enough to set up five imported wind generators, not to mention developing new technology. That is what the government is proposing in terms of wind energy development.

Does she agree with the Minister of Finance's suggestion to toss us a mere $15 million a year over 15 years to develop clean energy sources.

[Nuclear Safety and Control Act, December 4th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I touched on it a little in my remarks. In fact, I talked briefly about how much money would be needed for investment. It is not a large sum. We are talking about $700 million that could be invested according to the Bloc Quebecois' proposal. This would create 15,000 jobs. It would allow for the development of our own technology. However, it is $700 million over five years. In my view, this is not a large amount compared to what has been invested in nuclear energy and the oil industry.

I provided the numbers earlier: $66 billion in petroleum energy and $6 billion in atomic energy, for a total of $72 billion. What we are asking for is not even 10% of what has been invested in these two energy sectors, 10% to create 15,000 jobs and to develop new technology and alternative energy. That is what we are asking for to develop a country like ours--that is pretty simple--and to give it hope for the future in terms of new technology and energy.

[Nuclear Safety and Control Act, December 4th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I fully agree with the hon. member and I thank him for his comments.

Of course, we could develop tidal energy in those regions where there is no ice, as in the gulf during the winter. The ice forms a little more upstream. So, it would be possible to build windmills on platforms, including around Anticosti Island and in that area, because this is where the winds are strongest.

Just like we had offshore oil-drilling rigs, we could set up windmills on platforms, right where the winds are strongest. This is a technology that we could develop, because it is currently not being developed elsewhere in the world.

I want to tell the hon. member what wind energy represents in terms of jobs. In Europe, it is expected that, by the year 2010, there will be 960,000 jobs that will depend on wind energy. Imagine what we could create by investing here, by having a true program to develop wind energy. In 1996, there were 72,000 jobs related to wind energy in Europe. By the year 2000, 512,000 jobs related to wind energy had been created.

Imagine if the government had invested anything like the $6 billion that was invested in atomic energy, a form of energy that we know we have to leave behind Certainly we cannot manage its waste.

Even if some may claim that it is a clean form of energy that does not release greenhouse gases, the fact is that nuclear waste is a source of problems and will remain so until we develop an adequate technology to process this waste.

But we do not have this technology. Therefore, what is the point of spending money to develop nuclear energy, to continue to develop this type of energy? It is pointless. It will only create additional environmental problems when the time comes to process the waste.

Wind energy, on the other hand, does not produce waste. We should invest more in this type of energy and, as the hon. member suggested, in tidal energy.