Peter Stoffer

[Shipbuilding Industry, February 8th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, first, I wish to praise the hon. member for Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière for being so passionate and caring for the shipbuilding industry in this country. There is no member of parliament who has worked harder on this issue for workers in the shipbuilding industry all across the country. He, his party and the Conservative Party should be congratulated for bringing this motion forward. I applaud their efforts in bringing this to the forefront and to debate in the House of Commons.

I will begin by saying that I am wearing the CAW/MWF pin from the Marine Workers' Federation. Mr. Les Holloway and all those wonderful people in Halifax, in Saint John and in other shipyards around the area have worked tirelessly on this issue to get the government to listen. What this nation needs is a shipbuilding policy. Holland, Italy, England and the United States have one but we do not. If we did, it would be working.

We constantly hear from the industry minister that there is an overcapacity in the industry, yet Canada only produces .4%. What the industry has been asking for is that the level be brought up to 1%, a .6% increase, in order to create and sustain thousands of jobs in Atlantic Canada, Ontario, Quebec and Vancouver.

It is incredible that the government will not listen. It is absolutely unbelievable. The reason it does not listen is because its focus is between Windsor and Quebec City in terms of central Canadian thinking.

We have a farming crisis and the recent fisheries crisis but the government refuses to listen to the extremities of the country.

I say, in all honesty, that any time we have a labour leader like Buzz Hargrove and the owner of one of the largest shipyards in the country, J.D. Irving, singing out of the same hymn book on this policy, one would think that the government would grab at that, but it does not. It absolutely ignores the issue.

I honestly believe the government does not understand the industry at all. It is completely blank. It is like a deer caught in the headlights of a car. It just cannot figure it out.

The member for Fundy—Royal mentioned the book Atlantic Canada: Catching Tomorrow's Wave . Unfortunately, the government missed the boat on this one. It is unbelievable.

We had the appointment of Senator Boudreau from Nova Scotia who is now in the Senate draining the taxpayers' purse promoting this red book wherever he goes. The problem is that he has absolutely no clout with the government. If he did, the government would be listening to everyone on the shipbuilding policy.

There was a great book written recently by a great author in Nova Scotia who lives in my riding, Mr. Lesley Choyce. He wrote a book entitled Nova Scotia: Shaped by the Sea: A Living History . In it, he describes how Nova Scotia was one of the finest and largest shipbuilding provinces in the 18th and 19th centuries. What has happened in this new millennium? The thing has fallen apart. Why? Because the government refuses to institute a policy of fairness so we can keep workers in this country.

As we speak, shipbuilding workers from the Saint John dockyards are being lured to the United States to build ships. It is unbelievable that the United States has such an overcapacity of work that it has to get Canadian workers, who are the best in the world when it comes to building ships, to build ships in the United States. We could easily be doing that in the yards of Saint John, Halifax, Marystown, Lévis and Vancouver.

It is amazing that the government cannot figure this out. Hundreds of workers are leaving this country and their families behind to build ships in the United States when the work could be easily done in this country. It is absolutely incredible that the government would ignore the needs of Atlantic Canadians, Quebecers and British Columbians when it comes to building a shipbuilding industry.

I find it scandalous, to the highest degree, when I hear where the finance minister, who has Canada Steamship Lines, has his ships built. Where does he have his ships built?

[Supply, February 8th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to give the hon. member an opportunity to respond to a couple of concerns. He talked about the private sector being the economic engine that creates jobs. There is a downturn to that as well. For example, the Royal Bank in my area made $1.76 billion this year and announced a layoff of 340 new jobs. Next year the bank plans to make $2 billion.

Yes, the private sector does create jobs, but there has to be some sort of corporate responsibility when it comes to economic opportunities in the outstretches, or what I call the extremities of Canada.

There is no question that what we need in the country is moral leadership, people who will stand on principle. My question is for the previous member who spoke, as well as for the member for Elk Island. If the minister is to resign, should not the previous minister resign as well?

[Supply, February 8th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, every time I hear the member for Elk Island talk about his window story, I get very nervous about the beautiful stained glass windows in the House. I hope he does not salivate over those beautiful windows.

I thank his party for bringing this very timely motion to the House today. It is very important. Throughout this country, we as politicians and members of parliament are held in low esteem regardless of this boondoggle. We need moral leadership that encourages people not only to become members of parliament but to run for elected office at all levels.

I ask the hon. member should the minister be asked to resign, which I suspect she should do to show leadership, but should not the previous minister of that department also resign? These problems are systemic. They did not just happen overnight.

It is interesting to hear the Conservative Party talk about accountability. When it was in power a lot of money went into areas and was not really accounted for. I am glad to see the Conservative Party has changed its tone and has seen the right way of doing things now.

Should not the previous minister resign as well for this boondoggle?

[Committees Of The House, February 8th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the first report of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, presented on Wednesday, December 15, 1999, be concurred in, which would allow the standing committee to travel to the west coast to discuss the Oceans Act, the aboriginal fisheries strategy and aquaculture studies.

[Fisheries, December 14th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, today marks the 50th day of a hunger strike by a fisherman by the name of Mr. Dan Edwards on the west coast of British Columbia.

Mr. Dan Edwards is on a hunger strike to symbolize the hunger and starvation thousands of west coast fishermen and their families are facing due to the Fraser River sockeye crisis which is happening right now. In fact, on Sunday they got together and formed a resolution which basically states that the committee make one more effort to bring all the governments to the table to develop a fair and open consultative process.

I was speaking to Mr. Edwards' doctor the other day. He said that if he continues on his hunger strike any longer, his body will suffer irreparable damage.

My statement to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans is for once to get off his high horse and speak directly to Mr. Edwards. He should open a consultative process so that all fishermen on the west coast can have fair and equal access to the salmon fishery.

[Division No. 659, December 13th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, for over two and a half years my party and I have been arguing with the Government of Canada that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is one of the most out of control departments in the entire country. Here are a few examples of where that department is completely out of control.

Recently the amalgamation of the coast guard resulted in one of the coast guard vessels going into Saint John harbour to hold a gala party for correctional officers. Also, since 1988 $4.2 billion has been spent restructuring the east coast fishery to no avail.

When the Marshall decision came down, it was quite obvious that DFO did not have a plan. We said from the beginning when the decision came down that DFO and the Government of Canada should have been prepared. Now we know from internal documents acquired through access to information by reporter Kevin Carmichael that the government had a plan but it did not want to present it to anyone because it did not want to affect, fear or shame anyone in its decision.

It is quite obvious that the government abrogated its responsibility and abrogated its duty to the people of Canada and the aboriginal people of Atlantic Canada.

The current Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has constantly stated in the House that it is better to negotiate than it is to litigate. After the Sparrow decision, the Delgamuukw decision and now the Marshall decision, it seems the only recourse that aboriginal people have is constantly to go to the courts to meet their end means.

If the government truly believed in the fact that it is better to negotiate than to litigate, then I tell the government right now that it had better deal with the issue of non-status aboriginal people when it comes to status aboriginal people, especially in my home province of Nova Scotia. The non-status aboriginals believe quite firmly that the Marshall decision applies to them. There is legal opinion that says it may very well apply to them as well.

As well, the government is focusing on just the inshore aspects of the Marshall decision. We put it quite clearly to the government, and we wish it would stand up in the House and speak to the fact that the Marshall decision should apply to the inshore, the midshore and the offshore sectors. It should not be just one sector of the fishing community that bears the brunt of the decision. It should be a more co-operative approach toward all the fishing regimes so that the aboriginal people can feel like full partners in this industry with fisheries and oceans.

It was no surprise when the former Minister of Fisheries and Oceans left the department fairly quickly. I have said it before and I will say it again that if DFO was on the stock exchange, one could almost accuse the former Minister of Fisheries and Oceans of insider trading because he seemed to leave in such a hurry. We know very well that the former minister, who is now the Minister of the Environment, was fully aware of how the Marshall decision may have come about for the people of Nova Scotia and especially the aboriginal communities of Atlantic Canada.

Because the government was not showing leadership or foresight in the decision making process, there were incidents in West Nova. There were incidents down in Miramichi at Burnt Church. People threatened one another. Boats were burned. It was a really ugly scene in the maritime provinces.

It all could have been avoided had the government only shown some leadership. We have asked time and time again for the government, especially the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, to show leadership when it comes to fishing concerns in Atlantic Canada, especially when it comes to the integration of aboriginal and non-aboriginal people and a common property resource.

We have many ideas on this side of the House on how it should go. We only wish that the government would listen to what we are saying so that all people in Atlantic Canada could share in a common property resource.

[Committees Of The House, December 13th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. With all due respect to my friend from the Bloc Party, as a former airline employee for over 18 years I wish he would get back to the subject of the airline industry so that it can know where the Bloc stands on this very important subject.

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, December 13th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I respect the right of the hon. gentleman from Skeena to give his point of view, but to indicate in any way, shape or form that our party would call him or his party racist in a public forum would be completely out of line. I would like him to retract that statement, please.

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, December 6th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I beg to contradict the hon. member from Selkirk. We do not just applaud the Liberals on every piece of legislation they have.

[Fisheries, December 6th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, October 26 Mr. Dan Edwards, a Ucluelet west coast fisherman, began a hunger strike to protest the unwillingness of the federal government to negotiate a fair and transparent process to deal with the 1999 Fraser River sockeye crisis.

This desperate action was initiated after two months of due process when one of the largest alliances in the B.C. fishing community tried to move the federal government to establish a proper consultative process to deal with the disaster surrounding the worst collapse of the Fraser River sockeye in its 100 years of recorded history.

Mr. Edwards' concerns are consistent with the recent report of the auditor general and they are consistent with native and non-native fishermen in Nova Scotia. His concerns are founded on the fundamental struggle to achieve a fair, inclusive and accountable process for multi-stakeholder decision making.

The people in the communities he represents are already suffering from massive unemployment, almost total disenfranchisement from the nearby resources, and social and economic infrastructure collapse. Much of it is caused by—