Rodger Cuzner

[Public Works and Government Services, May 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, today in Sydney, Nova Scotia, the Government of Canada in partnership with the province of Nova Scotia, announced a project to clean up the Sydney tar ponds.

Years of study and consultation culminated today in announcing a plan that is supported by all sectors of the community.

My question is for the Minister of Public Works and Government Services. Now that the cleanup technologies have been identified and the necessary money peeled out, when can the people of Sydney expect to see the clean up begin?

[Fisheries Act, May 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the intervention of my colleague from Yukon. A number of consultations took place among department officials and representatives from the minister's office with the various stakeholders and committee members. From all indications, the consultations have been ongoing. They started back probably a couple years ago. That is why we are this juncture, where Bill C-33 has come forward.

[Fisheries Act, May 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, my friend has alluded to the fact that the cultures, the training and skills have been passed down from generation to generation within a family enterprise. Obviously, from the aboriginal communities that I know, they have a communal nature and that enterprise lies within that aboriginal community.

First, we should know that Bill C-33 does not compromise any of the practices that are on the ground as we speak. What it does is allow for the flexibility and the respect within the aboriginal community that would allow the regulations from the fishery to be applied in its specific case.

[Fisheries Act, May 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, first, I will address a comment made by my hon. colleague at the outset, that not much progress had been made. Particularly in the wake of Marshall, much progress has been made. What we have now is an almost fully engaged native fishery. As was mentioned in the House before, over 1,250 jobs have been created as a result of the initiatives undertaken by the department to deal with the Supreme Court ruling of Marshall.

As I made note of in my remarks, it is the growth within the different fishing communities and the harbours that has been most rewarding. We cannot expect the aboriginal community to come in and take part and engage in a commercial fishery.

I grew up in the fishing community of Glace Bay and in Port Morien. I have married into the fishing community. Fishing is a livelihood that has been handed down from father to son, from generation to generation. The skills acquired are ones that have evolved over the years and traditions have come down over the years.

It is a bit much for us to accept and expect that the aboriginal community will come in and experience tremendous success from the outset without any type of mentoring and without any type of patience or understanding from the outset.

That is why I support in the legislation the ability to deal with the regulations. There is enough latitude within those regulations so we can deal with the aboriginal community on a basis where it can go forward as it continues to gain capacity and experience. As its fishing community continues to grow, hopefully the legislation or the regulations as they evolve from this bill will allow the DFO officials to factor in those types of provisions.

[Fisheries Act, May 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to enter into the debate here today on Bill C-33. It has been a very engaging debate and much has been said from the opposition benches and many concerns rendered on this particular bill about the fishery in general. With all the talk in the air, one might think that some of it might even be rhetorical. We are not above that in the House.

I myself have been around the harbours in the last number of weeks and have been able to speak with a great number of fishing groups. In my constituency of Bras d'Or--Cape Breton, we start in the harbour of Glace Bay and run through to Morien around the Louisbourg-Gabarus coast and up to Richmond county, up the Strait of Canso, and then back around the other side of the island, the west side, Port Hood, Mabou, Inverness and up to Chéticamp. Like most MPs from the Atlantic, I will say that the fishery is the engine that drives the economy in coastal communities in Atlantic Canada.

I have been speaking with those fishermen and there is a great deal of enthusiasm. There is excitement and there is anticipation at this time of year. We have had a number of meetings with harbour authorities. This is the time of the year where we have had great success with some of the investments we have made through many harbour authorities in my constituency. I look at the jobs that have been done in Glace Bay, Morien and Louisbourg. There has been a major investment in Petit-de-Grat where the aboriginal fishery is fishing hand in hand with the traditional fishery with great success.

Going up the other side of the island, again we have had investments in a number of harbours, investments that have made those harbours safe, effective and great places for my constituents to ply their trade. We are hopeful. I just spoke today with a group from Grand Etang. It is the first time in over 50 years that a dredging project was done in Grand Etang. Over 50 years since that harbour was dredged and we got that done last year. We were very fortunate. Obviously as we go forward here over the next while, I think that some of the anticipation is banking on further announcements in the coming weeks.

Another reason for some of the anticipation and excitement is the FRCC's proposal coming forward to the minister. Today in the House the Minister of Fisheries responded to a question from the member for St. John's West. He is currently in receipt of the recommendations coming forward from the FRCC. Of course the FRCC is an independent body. The Fisheries Resource Conservation Council is primarily responsible for the science that surrounds the resource.

The minister will accept that report and study the recommendations put forward from the FRCC. He in turn will make allocations of the resource as we go forward into the season. Of course, the bottom line with the minister, when those decisions are made, is that the conservation of the resource and the orderly management of the fishery remain the priorities of not just the minister but the department. Certainly what we hope is that he will study the recommendations closely.

The decisions have to be science based, but the anecdotal information in our conversations with fishermen and fisheries groups is that the stocks on the east coast are subtly starting to grow. There are some very positive signs. I am not trying to dismiss the state of the fishery there. I am not trying to make light or say that we have fully recovered the cod stocks on the east coast, not at all. I would not want to mislead the House in that regard, but if we speak to the individual fishermen and to the crews that are on those boats, they will tell us that a lot of the signs have been encouraging. Some of the tows and some of the catches have been very surprising at times and very encouraging at the least. I would hope that the minister, as he goes forward to make his recommendations on this year's quotas, weighs these factors as well.

Of course there is a lot of excitement and anticipation. I have fishermen friends who are looking out at the pack ice each day hoping for a good wind to move the ice off so the crabbers and the lobster fishermen can get going. There are some very positive early indications that in several of the areas catches will be strong. This is a tribute to the conservation efforts that have been undertaken in some of the management areas. There has been a great deal of sacrifice in some of those areas over the last number of years. Looking at just outside of Glace Bay, for example, they have increased the carapace size over the last four years. They are in a four or five year management plan. They think this might be a year where they will see the benefit from that sacrifice and from those years of increased conservation. The price is still a little low, but that will come as the season progresses.

The other thing in speaking with the various fishermen from the different harbours is that what I have seen over the last number of years is the growth in acceptance, understanding and cooperation between our aboriginal and traditional fishers. I know that it varies from harbour to harbour. Experiences change from harbour to harbour, but overall I think we are starting to see through this. It has been much more accepted and it is very positive and encouraging to see these people fishing side by side as fishermen. I think we have come a long way and I think there is still a ways to go. Again, it varies from harbour to harbour, but overall we have made significant progress in the last number of years.

That brings us to one of the main reasons why we are speaking today, which is Bill C-33. As I have said, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-33, an act to amend the Fisheries Act.

The Government of Canada has been clear in its desire to increase the participation of citizens in the nation's business and to re-establish confidence in the federal government and in those who represent Canadians.

The bill being debated today is one example of how the government and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans is reaching out to members of Parliament and, by extension, to Canadians.

By introducing Bill C-33, the government is responding to concerns raised by the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations. I know that the hon. Minister of Fisheries and Oceans appreciates the hard work of the committee. The issues are complex and the committee felt that they were important and worth studying.

Over the past few years, hon. members from both sides of the House and the Senate have spoken about the need for greater clarity on matters addressed in the bill. The Fisheries Act is a general piece of legislation that is used to conserve and protect the fisheries and to govern the way our government manages fishing. The amendments proposed add more detail to the broad general authorities in the Fisheries Act and address issues raised by the committee.

While the bill is limited in scope, it offers a range of changes that will provide greater clarity and certainty on matters of legislative authority. Quite simply, it is aimed at clarifying existing authorities.

For instance, the bill is intended to clarify the authority of the minister and aboriginal organizations to designate persons who may fish under the authority of a licence and vessels that may be used to fish. It will define what is meant by the term “aboriginal organization” and, to the extent that there may be inconsistency, provide the authority for licence conditions issued to an aboriginal organization to prevail over regulations.

These proposed amendments address very specific issues that were the subject of a commitment by the Government of Canada to the standing joint committee.

I think it is important to note at this point that these amendments will not change existing practices on the ground. Rather, they will provide greater clarity and certainty on matters of legislative authority with respect to regulations that govern Canada's fisheries.

As the February Speech from the Throne made clear, the Government of Canada is committed to helping aboriginal Canadians attain greater economic self-reliance and a better quality of life.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has been a key contributor to this long term, government-wide goal. For example, DFO's response to the 1999 Supreme Court of Canada Marshall decision served to increase opportunities for Canada's first nations to participate in the fisheries. I think the comment that was made by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans earlier today in the House recognized that over 1,200 jobs have evolved as a result of this decision.

Every member of this House can be proud of the achievements realized through the Marshall response initiative. Today we have an orderly, regulated fishery, where hundreds of aboriginal fishers are learning new fishing skills, learning how to run a business and assuming their new role in the fishery. While there is still a great deal of work ahead, there has been measurable progress over the last four years. To build on this, the minister announced two new initiatives in February.

The new at-sea mentoring initiative, with total funding of $6 million over the next four years, will help the Mi'kmaq and Maliseet first nations in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and the Gaspé region of Quebec further develop skills to fish safely and effectively in various fisheries.

Trial and error is one way of learning, but trial and error is an inefficient and unsafe way to learn new skills. Mistakes at sea can be costly. They can be costly in loss of gear, costly in loss of revenue and, in extreme cases, costly in the loss of life.

I think the mentorship program will go a long way in continuing to bring the aboriginal community along. It will also assist first nations in diversifying the catch in these inshore fisheries and improving overall fishing skills in the midshore fishery as well as learning vessel maintenance.

The fisheries operations management initiative, with total funding of $1 million over the next four years, will support these first nations in learning more advanced skills to manage their communal fisheries assets with the objective of maximizing benefits for fishers and their communities.

DFO seeks to manage fisheries in a manner consistent with constitutional protection provided to aboriginal and treaty rights. Policies such as the aboriginal fisheries strategy and the Marshall response initiative, together with a legislative framework that includes the aboriginal communal fishing licence regulations, provide a flexible framework that assists DFO in this regard.

It is important to note that the minister will continue to issue communal licences to aboriginal organizations under the regulations should this bill pass. The aboriginal communal fishing licences regulations will continue to serve as an essential tool in the effective management of fishing by aboriginal groups while conserving the resource on behalf of all Canadians.

The minister and indeed the Government of Canada are committed to working cooperatively with aboriginal groups in the management of the fisheries. This is the best way to achieve the department's priorities of conservation and an orderly managed fishery.

Bill C-33 will provide clarity and certainty on matters of legislative authorities while supporting our government's ongoing work to improve the quality of life of aboriginal Canadians. This is why I encourage all my colleagues in the House to support these amendments.

[Trade, April 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, earlier this week I had the pleasure of joining my colleague, the Minister of Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, and 27 businesses from across Atlantic Canada on the Team Canada Atlantic trade mission to Washington, D.C.

Trade missions such as these help Atlantic companies increase their contacts, and lead to new relationships and new sales. The mission also provided the opportunity for us to highlight to the greater Washington business community that Atlantic Canada is a great place to do business.

This is the ninth such trade mission for Team Canada Atlantic. These missions have enabled more than 300 Atlantic Canadian firms to meet with over 2,300 buyers, agents and business owners from across the U.S., generating over $100 million in short and long term sales.

I want to congratulate all those who participated in this recent mission. The reports I received on the ground were that this trade mission will bring further good news for companies from around the region.

[Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, April 22nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, chronic fatigue syndrome is a debilitating disorder characterized by profound fatigue that is not improved by bed rest and may be worsened by physical activity.

People with CFS can be so tired that they do not have the energy to get out of bed for more than a few hours a day. In addition to fatigue, sufferers report various non-specific symptoms, including weakness, muscle pain, impaired memory and concentration and insomnia. In some cases, CFS can persist for years.

The cause of CFS has not been identified and no specific diagnostic tests or cure are available. Over time it can cause injury to the brain, the immune system and muscles of the people who suffer from it.

Canadians who suffer from CFS often feel overlooked as there is no treatment or cure for their condition. I feel it is important to raise awareness of this debilitating disease so we can one day find an effective way to treat CFS and allow its suffers to enjoy a normal and active life.

[The Budget, March 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. I guess we have a tendency to not refer to the workers in those industries as seasonal workers. We see them as full time workers in seasonal industries, and our constituencies would probably share a considerable number of similarities in that.

We have those who work in tourism, in the fishery, and in forestry. We have agriculture on Cape Breton Island and for the most part these are very specific. If one is a deckhand on a crab boat, that is a very specific skill and it is needed each year.

On the government side we have appointed a panel that will go across the country and hold hearings. We hope to draw more information, speak with those involved, and put together a piece of legislation that will best address seasonal industries and the workers involved in those seasonal industries.

[The Budget, March 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Elk Island. I think that is a fair question. It is probably one that is on the minds of a number of people across the country because most Canadians recognize the significance of the Sydney tar ponds. It is a problem that is the result of over 100 years of steel making. It is a complex problem.

There have been attempts to clean it up before and those attempts have been unsuccessful. Recently, through the joint action group, there was a tremendous amount of community consultation and involvement. One thing it has done is to identify the toxic brew and the potential technologies that can resolve it.

Coming into the tar ponds, there are other factors that impact it as well. There was a municipal landfill site, for example, that allowed water to go into the tar ponds. We have capped that site. It has been totally contained with backhoes and trucking. That is sealed now. We are monitoring the water at the outsource of the Muggah Creek. That water is being tested. Even better, we can see the improvements in that water from the leaching in the landfill.

Structures have been removed from the coke oven sites. The whole perimeter is fenced and contained. Now we are moving to where the actual brew is, where the toxic material is, to see how we can best deal with it.

Again, to my colleague, we are a funding player. We are at the table. We have three government departments at the table, but we have to appreciate the fact that the provincial government is the lead on it. That complicates things. It is the lead and we are there in a supporting role, an advisory role and a funding role.

There has been work done on it and we are looking forward to a final decision as to how we go forward and complete that job.

[The Budget, March 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to rise and contribute to this debate on the budget. The budget does have its critics. When we have critics on the left saying we have not spent enough and critics on the right saying we have spent too much, it indicates to me that we have hit the sweet spot. We have hit the balance that Canadians have come to expect between fiscal prudence and responsibility in fiscal management and our commitment to people, our commitment to health care, education and to communities. I think that when it comes to this debate, the Canadian people are far beyond where the opposition parties are on this one.

The opposition parties believe that there is a magic wand that can come in and address all the fiscal challenges we face as a country. I think the Canadian people know that it is a steady and committed progression we take, a commitment to debt retirement, to continue to pay down the debt that has been such a burden to the operation of the government, one that has been accrued over a number of years. We have kept our eye on that ball and will continue to keep working toward that.

I would like to speak about a number of things. I will get to as many as I can. First, my colleague from Edmonton—Strathcona made some comments about coming up somewhat short on the learning agenda. I think there are some significant components to the budget that we have to celebrate. I think the learning bond is one that is going to pay dividends to young learners for years to come. The increase for low income families in the Canada education savings grant is significant, from 20% to 40%. As well, there are the new grants of up to $3,000 for first year tuition for members of low income families. I think that is to be commended. That is a significant commitment.

The member also made a comment on the millennium grants. I think that we here in the House have to respect the fact that aspects of education are the jurisdiction of the provinces. We did enter into the millennium program with the provinces and some provinces were more successful than others.

I know that in my home province of Nova Scotia we did not get the traction that we wanted with the students in Nova Scotia because the provincial government deemed that its key responsibility was capital investment in its post-secondary institutions, so that is where the millennium moneys ended up going, and not into the hands of the students. We have addressed that problem with the province's education department and we think that going forward it will be best served.

More specifically, what I want to identify is what was talked about in the House earlier today and that is this government's commitment to environmental remediation at contaminated sites. The amount of money that has been invested in this last budget is significant. It is $3.5 billion over 10 years to clean up contaminated sites. That is the single largest parcel of money that has ever been identified for environmental investments in Canada.

I speak first hand to this because my constituency borders on the riding of Sydney—Victoria. Every Canadian, I am sure, is aware of remediation of the Sydney tar ponds. My colleague from Elk Island posed the question of when we are going to get at the Sydney tar ponds. It is a question that my colleague from Sydney—Victoria and I have worked on continuously since we arrived here in Ottawa.

Last year it was identified in the budget. This year it was identified in the throne speech and in the budget and that money is being peeled out. Yes, there has to be an agreement struck with the province of Nova Scotia, the lead agency on the remediation, but we are working toward that.

Members should know that I live in a constituency where it is like having two Cape Bretons, one of which we know was just recently identified as the second most popular tourist destination in the world. Anyone who has driven along Highway 19 up the west coast of Cape Breton or toured the Cabot Trail or the Bras d'Or lakes knows the beauty of our island and our culture. It is a great destination for tourists. The other Cape Breton is what we have to deal with as elected officials and as a community, that is, the remnants of centuries. We have to deal with the remediation of what was left behind by our resource based industries, the coal and steel industries. The Sydney tar ponds problem is one of those remnants.

There has been work done. We have had successes. I think we have a great grasp of the extent of the damage and the remediation that has to be done. This has been studied, and some say studied to death. Technologies have been identified that can do the job and clean the site. We have them short-listed and are ready to select them now.

Some of the projects have been done. The capping of the landfill site has been completed. We are seeing evidence of that now in some of the testing of the surface water and groundwater. It is making a difference and it is a significant difference.

We fully understand this challenge. We are so pleased with the success we have achieved and the support we have received from our caucus colleagues, the members on the government side, in getting us over the goal line. We know that before we can grow economically and socially as a community the problem with the tar ponds has to be addressed.

The Government of Nova Scotia is in the midst of its budget deliberations. It is ready to present a budget. There is some jockeying going on with the final agreement, but let us be realistic. The province operated the site for 30 years and was the regulator over the site for years beyond that, so it is time that the province buckled down and got the job done. The money is there from the federal government. We recognize that the Province of Nova Scotia cannot do the heavy lifting by itself. We are there for the province, but let us sit down and get it done.

There are a couple of other things I want to touch on that come right back to our community. We now are seeing the benefits within our community of some of the investments that have been made through the universities in knowledge and commercialization of knowledge.

We have some great research going on right now at the University College of Cape Breton in conjunction with the National Research Council. The Government of Canada, through its three federal granting councils, will invest $90 million this year. As well, $20 million per year will help cover indirect costs of university research.

When we speak to the presidents of the universities from Atlantic Canada, they come to us with the following. They say yes, they want to engage in the research. They see the benefit of engaging in the research and they see the potential it holds for our economy, but they also see the costs of engaging in that research. We think this money is going to pay dividends and encourage those institutions to partner with private sector companies to allow that research to come forward through commercialization.

Currently the research being done at UCCB and with the National Research Council is in wireless communications. The specific project is the remote and wireless application of that communication on oil rigs and how switch boxes can be handled through wireless communication as opposed to a hard ground feed.

There are another couple of aspects of the budget that I think are worth noting. One is the acceleration of the infrastructure program. We have seen some great green projects since the Government of Canada has invested in infrastructure: the Glace Bay water treatment plant, the Port Hawkesbury and Port Hastings water and sewer project, sewage treatment in St. Peter, and the water project at Arichat. They are typical of the programs on which we have been able to partner with the province and the municipalities.

We think that by accelerating this program the benefit will be to the municipal units. It is an investment in economic development. There are a lot of dollars changing hands. We are very pleased with that aspect of the budget as well.