Judy Foote

[Main Estimates, 2012-13, June 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals will be voting no.

[Main Estimates, 2012-13, June 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, Liberal members will be voting no.

[Main Estimates, 2012-13, June 6th, 2012]

We agree and we will be voting against.

[Business of Supply, June 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the problem with the decision the government has taken is that there was absolutely no consultation with those who have local knowledge and expertise. There was no consultation with the province. The premier was blindsided by this. How can the government possibly close down a search and rescue centre in a province like Newfoundland and Labrador, a portion of which is an island, and not understand the consequences or not want to know the consequences of doing that?

To suggest that co-location will work is suggesting that the search and rescue coordinators in Halifax and Trenton do not already have a heavy caseload, which is not my understanding. Now we are going to load even more work on them, putting at risk the time they can expend if they happen to get three or four calls instead of one looking for search and rescue.

[Business of Supply, June 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that the member, having been to the Atlantic provinces, has a sense of exactly how difficult the coastline with its many coves, harbours and bays is for the mariners and other people who are on the ocean, such as people on the oil platforms, and tourists travelling on Marine Atlantic. It is not just the coastline that is an issue in terms of safety. There are many bays.

For example, in the riding of Random—Burin—St. George's there are seven isolated communities. Those communities can only be accessed by ferry. There are those, of course, who get there by helicopter for medical services if care is needed, but by and large, people in isolated communities travel on ferries or use their own boats. If search and rescue is not available—

[Business of Supply, June 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in support of the NDP motion, presented by my colleague, the member for St. John's East. This is an issue that all of us from Newfoundland and Labrador have addressed on numerous occasions because of our knowledge of how important search and rescue is, not only to Newfoundland and Labrador, but to people who have a need to access search and rescue services when they travel on the ocean around our province.

The idea of closing down the maritime rescue sub-centre in St. John's, and the one in Quebec I might add, has been met with public outcry for a number of reasons, but certainly because of the impact it will have on safety. The work of MRSC St. John's and Quebec, when it closes in a year because Quebec has been given a one-year reprieve, will be consolidated and delivered by the joint rescue coordination centres in Halifax and Trenton. However, given their already heavy caseload and the small number of search and rescue coordinators at these centres, it is unlikely they will be able to handle the increased workload caused by the St. John's and Quebec City closures.

Let me just speak to the maritime rescue sub-centre in St. John's. On average the centre has overseen 500 calls a year, many of them distress calls, resulting in approximately 600 lives saved annually. We are talking about life and death situations. The parliamentary secretary suggested that this was one way to deal with the deficit, a deficit that I might add has been created by the government, not by ordinary Canadians from coast to coast to coast, the largest deficit in our country's history. Now this will be handled on the backs of Canadians from coast to coast to coast. The problem we have with that is the government is really putting safety on the back burner, while it tries to deal with the deficit.

The reality is that in Newfoundland and Labrador in particular, we have so many coves and harbours, places where local knowledge and expertise is really important. Local knowledge of a dialect is critical. We have had examples in fact where people have been out and have made a distress call and because their dialect is such that if one were not familiar with the place names, one would have a hard time recognizing where they are located in order to be rescued.

Therefore, we cannot just take the positions out of Newfoundland and Labrador and move them to Halifax or Trenton. Bear in mind none of the search and rescue coordinators who work at the centre in St. John's, Newfoundland will actually move to either Trenton or Halifax. Therefore, that local knowledge and expertise and appreciation and understanding of the dialect is not moving. It is not going to be in Halifax and it is not going to be in Quebec.

We have another issue in Quebec because we have the French language. My understanding is that at this point in time the people are having difficulty finding coordinators who can speak French. On another front, they are also downgrading the qualifications of people who would have been expected to come with very high qualifications prior to the closure of the maritime rescue sub-centre in St. John's and Quebec. They will now be employed with many fewer qualifications. This is a serious issue and one that I can speak to because I know the public outcry. I know that people are naturally nervous.

When I say it is the maritime rescue sub-centre in St. John's, Newfoundland, this does not only apply to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. Do not forget, Newfoundland is now an oil producing province. Off our shores we have oil platforms. There are people working on those platforms from every part of this world. Therefore, it is not just Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who we are speaking about here.

It is the same with tourists who are coming from all over the world. When we talk about safety, it is their safety that is being put in peril as well. People tend to think that it only applies to fishers. That is absolutely not true. Yes, of course our fishers need assistance when they get in trouble and yes they are the ones with the local dialect that when they need to be rescued, they really need to have that local knowledge there. However, when we have oil platforms off our coast, a vibrant tourism industry, then closing down research centres will impact dramatically those people as well. It will put their lives at risk.

I cannot say it enough. What we are talking about here is safety. While we need to deal with the deficit as the government has said, there are so many other avenues it can go down to deal with the deficit, one being the F-35, another being the megaprisons it is looking at building. However, to even draw a comparison between those and search and rescue safety issues does not make sense.

I have to question the government's understanding of and appreciation for exactly what it is doing here. I cannot believe that it would do this with a full understanding and appreciation of what it would mean .

I want to quote the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke when she commented on the use of search and rescue by mariners on the Atlantic. She said that in Ontario they would never ever think of calling the Coast Guard for help if they found themselves in trouble on the Ottawa River. Can anyone imagine comparing being on the Ottawa River with being on the Atlantic Ocean?

That is why I have to question whether or not the government really understands what it is doing here. If the example is that people on the Ottawa River would never think of calling the Coast Guard, that they would help themselves, I would love to see the member out in the middle of the North Atlantic needing to be rescued, but saying, “No, we're not going to call the Coast Guard. We're going to help ourselves”.

There is no understanding, no appreciation of the volatility of the weather. It can change in a minute. This is what people are exposed to when they are on the North Atlantic. This is what people experience when they are out fishing. This is what people experience when they are out on the oil platforms. This is what people experience sometimes when they are travelling on Marine Atlantic and are stuck trying to get into port, or they cannot leave North Sydney to go to Newfoundland and Labrador because the weather conditions are such that they cannot cross. They can be out in the middle of the ocean and they will have to stop because of the weather conditions.

It does not make sense to me. When I hear a quote like that from a member of the government, I have to wonder where the advice is coming from. Then maybe that is where it is coming from. Maybe there are others in the government who think that way, who have no idea of the role of search and rescue, who have no understanding of what it is like to be in distress, who have no idea of what it is like to travel on the Atlantic Ocean.

I am making a plea to whoever is making the decisions in the government. Even though it has closed the maritime rescue sub-centre in St. John's, even though the SAR coordinators, who have done a wonderful job, who are so experienced, who have given so much, who have devoted their lives to this, who know exactly what is required when someone gets in trouble, have been laid off, I am asking the government to reconsider. This has to be one of the worst decisions it has ever made because this will, without a doubt, result in the loss of life. Nobody, but nobody, would want that to be the outcome of this particular decision.

The SAR coordinators know exactly what they are doing. My fear is that because the government or the centre in Halifax or the one in Trenton is having difficulty attracting those with the qualifications necessary to do the work that is required in the search and rescue centre, they will downgrade those qualifications. That will make it even more difficult. That means that people on the ocean will not be able to have that sense of comfort that there will be someone there if they should be in distress and need to be rescued.

This is such an important issue. This decision needs to be reconsidered, because loss of life is imminent if this decision is not changed.

[Citizenship and Immigration, June 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, politicizing bureaucrats is bad enough, but now we learn the government was deceiving Canadians about the fake citizenship ceremony. The whole mess began when the minister ordered bureaucrats to stage the event, ignoring their advice to simply film an existing ceremony.

It now turns out that the minister's line that bureaucrats deceived the network was not true, and they knew all along these were not real new citizens.

Why did the minister deceive Canadians and try to make public servants take the blame for this fiasco?

[Petitions, June 4th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to a petition signed by people in the riding of Random—Burin—St. George's.

The petitioners take great exception to the government's decision to raise the age of eligibility for old age security from 67 to 67. They point out, as many others have, that the most vulnerable in our society will be affected by this change. We are talking about a two-year delay that will cost our lowest income seniors over $30,000 in benefits. Single women will be disproportionately affected by this change as they tend to rely more heavily on OAS and GIS payments. Low-income Canadians rely more heavily on OAS and GIS.

Therefore, the petitioners ask the government to reconsider this decision, recognizing that the most vulnerable in our society need government support, not anything that will do them harm.

[Fisheries and Oceans, May 31st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government's assault on all things important continues, but it is the most recent actions by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans that is the most disturbing.

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians were shocked to learn that the minister was looting 20 jobs from the St. John's DFO office and moving them to his own riding where no DFO office presently exists. It is a move that will cost Canadian taxpayers millions of dollars.

Does the minister not understand that the misuse of power is inappropriate and will he commit to keep those jobs in St. John's?

[Business of Supply, May 31st, 2012]

Madam Speaker, clearly, the member has a real appreciation for what these changes will mean. We live it day in and day out with our constituents. We know only too well what they are up against when they are expected to take on a job for which they are not qualified, the stress associated with that and with the salary probably being less than what they would make for a job in which they have a particular skill set. Then we expect them to move. It just does not make a lot of sense.

Again, it shows how out of touch the Conservative government is with Canadians from coast to coast to coast.