Peter Stoffer

[Business of Supply, June 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it is quite obvious, by some of the comments of our Conservative colleagues, that they have not even read the accord. That is why they divert the discussion to other aspects of the budget . If they want to get into the budget, there are many things that have been left out of that budget. However, I sure the Conservatives would not want to hear about all those things.

There is one thing I would like to ask my hon. colleague from Cape Breton—Canso. I have lived in Nova Scotia since 1988, having been born somewhere else but raised in Vancouver and Yukon. One of the things that I learned right away, and anybody who goes to Atlantic Canada will also learn this, is when maritimers or an Atlantic Canadians gives us their word, we can take that to the bank.

When the hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency stood in the House to answer a question from a gentleman from West Nova, he said, “We will not kick anybody out of our caucus for voting their conscience. We will not flip or flop on the budget”. Basically, what he said very clearly to the people of Canada and to the people of the Conservative Party, was they could vote their conscience on the budget and their would be no reprimand in any regard.

What does my colleague, the member for Cape Breton—Canso, think about a maritimer going back on his word and betraying the people of Atlantic Canada?

[Business of Supply, June 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it would be comical if it were not so sad. The hon. member accuses one of the Liberal members for not reading the budget. I doubt the hon. member even read the Atlantic accord. He did not sit in on the meetings.

He talks about the budget, so I will talk about what is not in the budget. There was a motion passed in the House for veterans first to help injured soldiers, widows and veterans. The motion was passed by the House and not a word nor a penny of it is in the budget. A promise was made by the Prime Minister to a widow of a veteran that a VIP program would be extended immediately, but there is not a word on that in the budget.

I will get back to the point of the accord. There are many things the government left out of the budget, but it will not speak about those parts. An hon. member from the Conservative caucus was unceremoniously booted out, even after the Minister of Foreign Affairs said, “We do not and will not kick people out of the Conservative caucus for voting their conscience”.

I will ask the hon. member a very simple question. Does the hon. member support what the Minister of Foreign Affairs said, or does he support booting out one of his own colleagues from the Conservative Party?

[Business of Supply, June 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I truly respect the words of the hon. member for Kings—Hants. He was a cabinet minister when these deals with the Atlantic accord were being made. He is correct. It was not easy. There was no unanimity saying that we were absolutely going to do this right away. It was tough slogging and they were tough negotiations.

As the hon. member knows, the NDP, the Liberal Party and Premier Hamm worked toward a conclusion to do exactly what the hon. member for Kings—Hants said, to give Atlantic Canadians that step up, similar to what Alberta received, so we could get out of the economic doldrums.

Some people call it the have not provinces. I do not like to use that term. “Have not” reflects upon the people of the area, and we are not in a have not province at all. There are certain developments and policies that need to happen among ourselves and with the assistance of the federal government to get us going again. We have some tremendous opportunities in Atlantic Canada to move forward so our young people do not have to move away.

The hon. member knows very well that when a promise is made repeatedly and broken repeatedly, it has a serious affect on all politicians in this place and across the country. The problem can be fixed.

Could the hon. member tell the House how it should and can be fixed?

[Business of Supply, June 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague knows the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans probably better than any of us, but the reality is the minister is the individual who represents in cabinet the good people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

We heard his speech in the House which was simply a litany of deception. The fact is he is the same Minister of Fisheries and Oceans who said to us that there was broad consultation with fishermen and their families across the country on the new Fisheries Act, Bill C-45.

I remind my hon. colleague that at the Maritime Fishermen's Union conference the minister stood there and said that exact same thing to all the fishermen in the room, that there was broad consultation. I stood up right after the minister and asked the MFU if any of them in the room had been consulted on the new Fisheries Act before it was tabled on December 13. I asked them to put up their hands. I asked the question twice and not one person put up their hand.

If the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans can mislead a whole group of fishermen at their convention, misleading an entire province is just one rung up the ladder of deception. Would the member not agree?

[Business of Supply, June 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, there is an old saying that says, “If you're going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance”.

The Conservatives are backtracking, flipping and flopping like a flounder on an open deck in the open seas. They simply do not even know the truth themselves anymore.

They have misled the people of Atlantic Canada so much. By the way, the analyses of the accord are done by Conservative premiers, Conservative analysts, economists and legal experts. They all say that the accord has been broken.

Now we have the foreign affairs minister saying, maybe we will do this, maybe we will not. We simply cannot trust the foreign affairs minister or his government to deliver on the promises that they made for the good people of Atlantic Canada, Saskatchewan, and for that matter, the rest of our country.

[Business of Supply, June 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, here is the truth, if he wants to hear it.

In March, in the federal budget, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland were given a choice. That is the problem. There was not supposed to be a choice. They would have retained the Atlantic accords plus the equalization. There was supposed to be no choice at all between the provincial accords and the old equalization system called the O'Brien formula with a cap on offshore revenues. That is what the member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley indicated.

The finance minister said that is not on the table. There was not supposed to be “either, or”. That is the problem. I wonder when the hon. member from Edmonton, who I happen to like by the way, will finally get it into his head that it is a broken promise.

[Business of Supply, June 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, you know, that hon. member from Edmonton just cannot handle the truth.

At the end of my speech, I will give him the letter that his Prime Minister wrote to a widow of a veteran and then I would like him to stand up in the House and apologize to the House for accusing me of telling something that is not true.

I cannot believe these Conservatives. They stood in opposition on their hind heels and went absolutely crazy on the previous government over this. The reality is it is time for them to go. We cannot trust them any more.

The sad thing is there are some very good people in that Conservative Party whom I would love to call my neighbour. They are decent and honest people, but it is that front bench all centred around the PMO that is being corrupted and absolutely saying anything they can to get elected, to try to get their majority, and betray the promises of Atlantic Canada, Saskatchewan and for that matter as the hon. member for Labrador said, “If they can do it to her, they can do it to you”.

The trust is gone now. It is completely gone. The Conservatives can say and do whatever they please. It simply does not hold any water.

Let me refer to something that is in the Daily News today written by a gentleman named Mr. David Rodenheiser who is a well known columnist of the Daily News. Mr. Rodenheiser is certainly not a New Democrat. I do not think we could accuse him of being a Liberal. Here is what he said about the Prime Minister and the Conservative Party, “The Prime Minister's Conservatives area vicious, vindictive—, and I cannot say the last word because it is unparliamentary, but it starts with an l and ends with an r and there are two vowels in the middle.

The fact is this is what their own commentators are saying now about the Conservatives. It is most unfortunate. We had hoped that there would be openness and transparency, and they would honestly keep their promises. The income trusts promise, gone; VIP promises for widows of veterans, gone; assisted deduction problem for injured soldiers, gone; the excise fuel tax not to raise it above a certain amount, gone; the Atlantic accord, gone.

I have one word to say to the Conservatives from Atlantic Canada especially, they are about to be “gone”. I can assure the House that election cannot happen fast enough. If it was not for the support of the separatists on the budget, they would be gone already today.

The people of Atlantic Canada deserve better. They can only go by what the ministers and the Prime Minister say to them which are on record in Hansard. Just a few weeks ago the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the minister for ACOA, who himself has betrayed many promises.

We will never forget the one he made to David Orchard, and I think David Orchard's comments are absolutely correct, “That is the party that was conceived in deception and born in betrayal”. The Minister of Foreign Affairs from Central Nova said very clearly “We do not kick out people of our party for voting their conscience. There will be no flipping or flopping on budget votes. If people vote their conscience, we will not kick them out”. No sooner than the good member of Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley sat down, he was gone.

Then they eradicated all his personal files of his constituents that he was trying to work with. What kind of party is that? What else are the Conservatives going to do to hurt the people of Atlantic Canada?

We say to them quite clearly. The hon. member for Halifax is correct. It is not too late to fix the problem. Go back to the deal that we had before. There should not be any further deals happening. There should not be any last minute conversations and rushing around.

We had a deal, a deal written in stone. Now the Conservatives want to break that stone and turn it into little pebbles and scatter it across. Their word simply cannot be trusted.

It is unfortunate because when the Government of Canada misleads Canadians, it looks bad on all politicians in the House and across the country.

[Business of Supply, June 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I regret having to speak to this today because we could have moved on to other issues. However, when the government of the day breaks another promise, especially to the people of Atlantic Canada, we have no other choice but to rise up in opposition to what it is doing.

The hon. member from Alberta, who refuses to keep his mouth quiet, says that there were no broken promises. If that is the case, is he then saying that Premier Williams, a Conservative; Premier MacDonald, a Conservative; the former minister, Mr. Crosbie, a Conservative; and the member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, a Conservative; are not telling the truth? Is that what he is saying? If he is, then he should stand in this place and say it.

I was not even born in Canada. I was raised in Vancouver and in Yukon but after moving to Nova Scotia I quickly learned one thing about the people in Atlantic Canada. This is no reflection on the people in the rest of Canada. Our former colleague, Mr. Gordon Earle, who was an MP for Halifax West from 1997 to 2000, the first black African Nova Scotian to be elected as a member of Parliament to this chamber, said it very well when he said that a people have their word. The thing I learned was that I could take a Maritimer or an Atlantic Canadian at his word. When an Atlantic Canadian gives his or her word it can be taken to the bank.

I was with the hon. member for Halifax and the former premier of Nova Scotia, Mr. John Hamm, who was a Conservative. I did not agree with everything Premier Hamm did but the one thing I have always admired him for and is his grace, his dignity and his ability to work with the official opposition leader, Daryl Dexter, and the NDP, and other people to build the province of Nova Scotia.

When Premier Hamm came to Ottawa I remember being in the parliamentary restaurant with senators and MPs from all parties listening to the proposal by John Hamm. In my case it was the first time that I had heard it.

However, knowing the man himself, from the Stanfield tradition of a Progressive Conservative, that we could trust him in what he was saying. After careful reflection afterward and listening to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and their representatives, we in the NDP very quickly said that this was something we would work with and support the Conservative premiers in achieving the Atlantic accord to give us that leg up, to allow Atlantic Canadians to develop their natural resources, in this case the offshore resources, for the betterment of all people in Atlantic Canada. What is good for Atlantic Canada is also good for the rest of the country.

After being an MP in this place for 10 years I can list the litany of broken promises from the Liberals when they were the government but, hopefully, they have learned from that.

We then had the sanctimonious Conservatives, while in opposition, saying that they would bring Canadians a clean government, an open government, an honest government and a transparent government.

Let me isolate the Conservatives' broken promise in one very simple little letter that was written on June 28, 2005 to Mrs. Joyce Carter, a widow of one of our heroes, a World War II veteran. Her request was quite dignified, quite right and quite affordable. Her request would actually save the taxpayer money. She asked that all widows and veterans would received the veterans independence program regardless of the time of death or regardless of application.

The opposition leader at that time, who is now the Prime Minister, wrote in that letter on June 28, 2005, that if the Conservatives form a government, she could be assured that as a Conservative government it would immediately extend the veterans independence program to all veterans and all widows, regardless of application or time of death.

There were no ifs, ands or buts, no reviews, nothing. It was crystal clear in black and white, a written promise to a widow of a veteran.

This is the party that says “support the troops”. We all support the troops. I would like to ask the Conservatives, where is that commitment and support when they take the uniform off? What about their families? If they can deliberately mislead and betray a promise to a widow of a veteran, can we imagine the broken promise to Nova Scotia—

[Business of Supply, June 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the broken promises just keep on coming. Today we have the hon. Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency in Halifax announcing the Conservatives' attempt at a shipbuilding policy, with financing called SFF. The reality is that their announcement comes absolutely nowhere near what the industry has been asking for.

The hon. member from Quebec knows very well that this particular industry is vital to Quebec, Atlantic Canada and the rest of the country. We know about the continually broken promises of the Conservatives on the Atlantic accord. We know about their continually broken promises to widows of veterans. But now they are actually about to break the back of the shipbuilding industry, which is so vital in this country.

Does the hon. member not notice a disturbing trend among these Conservatives, which is that when it comes to actually assisting the regions of our country they fail every single time?

[Business of Supply, June 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the coincidence is that the foreign affairs minister said that he expects all Atlantic Conservative MPs to vote for the budget because the budget is good for Atlantic Canada. That is what he said.

We know what happened to the member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley. Only seconds before the vote, all kinds of people came up to him, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the member from St. John's pointing at him and saying, “Look, we have a deal. We have something going on. Just vote for the budget”. In desperation they tried everything they could to keep him in the party. The fact is that the hon. member knew better.

The hon. Minister of Fisheries and Oceans said that they are working on a deal, that they are working on something. The fact is they had a deal two years ago. If the budget is so good for Atlantic Canada, why is there deal making going on now?

The reality is that if economists say that the accord was broken, if legal experts say that the accord was broken, if Conservative premiers say that the accord was broken, if a former minister responsible for Newfoundland and Labrador, John Crosbie, says that the accord is broken, if opposition parties say that the accord has been betrayed, why is it then that there is deal making going on after the budget?

Why is it that only that minister and the government cannot seem to see the forest for the trees? The Conservatives will simply not admit that they broke a promise to the good people of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. It is a shame for them to stand up in this House and try to defend the defenceless.