Michael Savage

[Business of Supply, May 16th, 2007]

Mr. Chair, according to the website, the minister filed a disclosure statement for January 1 to March 1, which is two months, but not quite a quarter, which is three months.

In those two months, her speeches included speeches in Montreal, North York and Richmond Hill, but no expenses are filed. Did she walk to those places?

[Business of Supply, May 16th, 2007]

Mr. Chair, I would like to talk with the minister about her expenses. Treasury Board guidelines indicate:

Ministers are required to post on their respective departmental Web sites all travel expenses incurred on program-related business. All travel expenses must be posted on a quarterly basis within 30 days....

Did the minister file a disclosure statement for the first quarter of 2007?

[Summer Career Placements Program, May 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, FANE is a francophone organization.

What can the minister possibly have against the YWCA, the Canadian Diabetes Association, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Elizabeth Fry Society, and arts groups, all of which are non-partisan, non-profit organizations across Canada?

Last year the Autism Society of Nova Scotia had seven positions. This year? Nothing.

Organizations like these have a question for the government: “Why is the government shutting us out?”

When will the minister restore full funding to this program? When will he do what is right for these organizations across Canada?

[Summer Career Placements Program, May 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the government has slashed the summer career placements program. Organizations across Canada that for years have depended on funding to hire students are getting the bad news in the mail this week, just like thousands of students have.

Contrary to what the minister says, these jobs were going not to MPs' friends but to students and outstanding non-profit organizations. They are getting nothing and they are rightly outraged at the government.

Status of Women, literacy groups, the court challenges program and now students: who is next on the government's hit list?

[Hershey Plant Closure, May 10th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, today is a very sad day for the workers at the Dartmouth Hershey plant. It was announced yesterday that Hershey will close operations resulting in the loss of almost 600 jobs as part of an international restructuring plan.

Each of us can imagine the effect this will have on families in our community. Employees, many of whom dedicated their entire working life to Hershey and Moirs, now find themselves looking for work.

This is a time for our community to come together and help. I will work with the union and management to ensure fairness for workers. I will work with other elected officials from all parties to provide a common effort and work with government departments like Service Canada to ensure the transition for the workers is as smooth as possible.

I offer my heartfelt sympathies to the workers being displaced, some of whom I know. I know my colleagues in the House from the Dartmouth-Halifax region feel the same way.

Let us all do everything possible to work for a positive outcome for the loyal workers of the Hershey Moirs plant in Dartmouth.

[Student Employment, May 9th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are playing games with the hugely successful summer grants program, which has provided hundreds of thousands of jobs for students and assisted community organizations.

Last fall they announced a $55 million cut, but no details. They wait until March to re-gift it, but change the program and, guess what, less money.

Students are confused. Community organizations are shaking their heads. Cuts, changes, less money; why is the minister treating this program like a game of three card Monte? Why stack the deck against our students?

[Senate Appointment Consultations Act, May 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague. That was a very good speech, informative with some very good points.

I agree with him on the general thrust, which may come as a surprise to some, that the government is one that likes to bash the Senate, that likes to say the Senate does not have any role, and it brings back and forth into the House things that the Conservatives think brings the Senate into disrepute, yet are quite happy to use the Senate when they want to.

The appointment of Mr. Fortier to the Senate just after the last election being obviously a case in point. The Conservatives said they needed this guy. He did not run. He did not want to inconvenience himself to run, but wanted to be in the Senate and take that position, so they did that.

The government leader in the Senate, Senator LeBreton, is one of the chief attack dogs on issues. She is often out in the media talking about issues and occasionally making up stuff. That is how the Conservatives use the Senate on occasion. I think that is kind of wrong.

One of the things I found out when I came here, and I will be very honest, was that most Canadians do not know that actually there is some very good work done at the Senate. Anybody who has seen the Kirby report on health care or more recently on mental health, that is incredibly valuable work. The work the Senate has done on defence, for example, and the report on CIDA about international assistance is some great work.

I may be a little partial. I have a great senator, Senator Cordy, who comes from my community of Dartmouth.

I have had a lot of discussions with people about the Senate. Like my colleague, I am very open to reforms to the Senate that make sense, that take into account consultations.

The province of New Brunswick has also indicated that it does not want to go along with this kind of piecemeal, ad hoc approach to Senate reform.

My colleague talked about minority populations and how this might impact them. I am not sure if he mentioned Nova Scotia, but if he did, I would like to ask him what the implications might be for piecemeal Senate reform on a francophone population, a minority population. We have had francophone senators from Nova Scotia. It is very possible we might not if reform of the Senate goes on as the government might see it. I would like to ask him his view on what might happen in a province like Nova Scotia.

[Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, May 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the motion presented by my colleague from West Nova. As we all know, he is a very dedicated member of Parliament committed to his region and is a valuable member of the Liberal caucus. He is respected by all members. He was also an excellent minister for ACOA and the fisheries in the previous Liberal government.

It is unfortunate that he has had to present this motion today. As other speakers have indicated, at a time when peacekeeping and international diplomacy are so necessary, the government seems to be in the process of phasing out the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia.

The Lester B. Pearson Canadian International Peacekeeping Training Centre, the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, was established in 1994 with a goal to be a world leader in peacekeeping. It is appropriately named after Prime Minister Pearson. Among Lester Pearson's many achievements were the introduction of student loans, universal health care in Canada, the Canadian pension fund and the Canadian flag. His efforts in defusing the Suez Canal crisis stand out as a crowning achievement and earned him the Nobel Prize.

He placed Canada on the map as an important middle power, a power that sought peaceful solutions to difficult and complex issues in the world. In subsequent years, Canada became known as a nation of peacekeepers, a distinction that is reflective of Canadian values.

The Pearson Peacekeeping Centre located in Cornwallis seeks to continue his legacy. The centre teaches and trains those who serve in conflict zones around the world. They bring together military, civilian and police personnel for the purpose of learning to resolve conflict through peace and security.

For the people of Cornwallis the establishment of this centre followed a painful closure of CFB Cornwallis in the early 1990s. I am familiar with that from the closure of Shearwater, which is very near Dartmouth and closed at around the same time. It took some innovation and creativity for local people to spur the economic activity that followed those difficult times.

Now we have the Annapolis Basin Conference Centre. We have Acadian Seaplants, a huge international success story, operated by Louis Deveau and now his son J.P. Deveau, with an office and plant in Cornwallis, plants around rural Nova Scotia and an office in my own constituency of Dartmouth. They have leveraged Canadian knowledge in a previously underexploited resource and are doing very well. We also have the Lifeplex.

At this point in time when we have a successful entity, why is this happening? It is not a financial crisis. Is the government in deficit? No. The Liberals solved the $42 billion financial crisis left by the last Conservative government. Why in an era of surpluses does the government continue to cut back on important areas like the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre? Unfortunately, it is a pattern with the government and it is a pattern that is not good for the province of Nova Scotia. Would this centre be closed if it were named after Preston Manning, one wonders. I doubt it.

The lack of support for the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre is another assault on Nova Scotia. I do not want to go through the Atlantic accords. My colleague mentioned them and has been through them, but there are changing stories on the Atlantic accords. First, we were told not to worry, that the accords were still there, and then no, they are not there, but it is actually a better deal. Then we were told it is not really a better deal but we would get a choice of two deals. Now the government is negotiating to save face in some way.

There are lots of things needed in Nova Scotia. The Atlantic gateway is very important. Again it should not be a choice of that or the Atlantic accord. They should both be judged on their merits. One should not be penalized for the other.

Most recently there was the moving of two Coast Guard vessels, two icebreakers, from Dartmouth in my riding to Newfoundland. Conveniently, one ship straddles one riding held by two Conservative members and the other ship has gone to another constituency held by a Conservative. My colleague from South Shore—St. Margaret's said that this had been in the planning since 1997 and asked who was upset about it. A number of people are.

In fact, Mr. Stewart Klebert went public. He happens to be the commanding officer of one of the icebreakers. In a letter to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, he said among other things:

The recent announcement that both the CCGS Terry Fox and the CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent will be transferred to Newfoundland Region has hit this region like a ton of bricks. It was completely unexpected and the justification for this move is supported by extremely weak rationale. I would venture to say that there has been no impact study for the vessel, the people or the region--

Another letter that showed up in The Chronicle Herald is from David Marsh, a retired superintendent of the Coast Guard, who said among other things:

This move would not show any enhancement in coast guard operations....when operating icebreakers, the fuel saving is minimal when considering transit in open waters as compared to icebreaking activities.

He closed by saying:

I would ask the minister to reconsider his decision to redeploy [the icebreakers]...considering the “facts” are flawed and the damage is...irreparable.

Somebody else was caught by surprise, too. Although the member for South Shore—St. Margaret's said everybody was surprised, the following week he said, “When I first heard that the boats were going I had some concerns”. He did not know about it either, and he is the chair of the fisheries committee. However, he is not the only one who did not know. The workers and the union did not know. Even regional management of the Coast Guard was not considered.

On April 1, a draft business plan for the next three years for the Coast Guard was put forward. There was no mention of the redeployment. Even today, when I was coming here this morning, I noticed in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald a letter from an L.G. Meisner, captain Coast Guard, retired, Lunenburg. He says, among other things:

This move is a disaster on a purely operational basis and only the next federal polls will determine if it was an acceptable political one.

It is a pattern. Nova Scotia has not done well under the government. Is Nova Scotia being penalized? I do not know.

The member for South Shore—St. Margaret's is a good enough guy. The member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley is a great guy, but he is a little out of step with the government. I do not think they have even been considered. The federal minister responsible should be standing up for Nova Scotia on the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre as well as the Coast Guard and the abject betrayal of the Atlantic accord.

The Pearson Peacekeeping Centre in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, in the riding of the very hon. member for West Nova, provides a valuable service to Canadian peacekeepers at a time in our history when we need to enhance and ensure that our image as peacekeepers is real and maintained around the world. When we are doing work that could be enhanced by the work of people who could be trained in Cornwallis, it is a shame, it is unconscionable and it is unacceptable. I urge all members of the House to support my colleague and this motion today.

[Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, May 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his motion and for standing up for his community.

He mentioned the Coast Guard situation. He is a former Minister of Fisheries responsible for the Coast Guard. I noted with interest that the strategic business plan for the next number of years for the Coast Guard, dated April 1, had no mention of the move of icebreakers from Dartmouth to Newfoundland. Does the member have any thoughts as to why that might not have been in the business plan?

[Equalization, May 4th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is not listening to his fellow Nova Scotians. They know the Atlantic accord was torched. Conservative premiers acknowledge it, economists have validated it, Conservative candidates are running for cover, and Conservative MPs have gone underground. The finance minister is scurrying around trying to contain the damage.

There is no question that the accord was betrayed. The only question is whether the government will stop changing stories every day, stop trying to go around the deal, and honour the deal.