Ryan Cleary

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, May 8th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member hit the nail on the head when he spoke about environmental legislation that is included in this omnibus bill. The Conservatives are trying to sneak this legislation through the back door. With everything in life, there has to be balance. The balance between economic development and the environment has been lost with the Conservative government. It is not being up front with the Canadian people.

If the government were doing things right, it would pull this environmental legislation out and we would debate it separately from this budget implementation bill. However, the Conservatives, more and more, have a tendency not to do things right.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, May 8th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I stand today in opposition to Bill C-38, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures.

Let me be clear from the get-go. Not only do I rise in opposition to the Conservative budget, which is a backward step in so many ways for Newfoundland and Labrador and all of Canada, or then again step is not the right word, backward leap seems more appropriate for Newfoundland and Labrador and all of Canada, I also rise in opposition to those “other measures”. The bill is an omnibus bill, a massive bill, 421 pages long. It not only contains the means to implement the 2012 budget, but contains dozens of other measures buried in its pages, hidden in its pages, measures that have nothing to do with the budget, measures that include everything but the kitchen sink, from increasing the age of eligibility for old age pension to 67 from 65, to gutting the federal Fisheries Act, to ripping apart environmental legislation that may leave our country, when the Conservative government is done with it, in a mess.

I take back what I said a second ago about the kitchen sink. The sink just may be in the bill somewhere. Maybe that is why the Conservatives are so set on limiting debate. Maybe that is why the Conservatives are so set on ramming legislation through this esteemed House so quickly, legislation that was not even hinted at in the 2011 federal election, as a means to sneak through their secret agenda and to sidestep democracy.

I can tell members that the Conservatives will have a hard time getting anything past my party, Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, try as they may. What is more, the Conservatives will have an even harder time getting anything past Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and Canadians.

The Canadian public is starting to get a pretty good idea of what the Conservative Party and the Prime Minister are about. They are about big business and the corporate agenda at the expense of average Canadians, at the expense of the environment and at the expense of real, meaningful jobs.

The irony is the budget is described as a job-creating budget at the same time that it kills more than 19,000 federal public sector jobs.

The face of Canada is changing, and I have heard this in my riding, and Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and Canadians do not like what they see in the Ottawa mirror. It is not who we are.

I have three perspectives on the Conservative budget implementation bill: the Newfoundland and Labrador perspective; the Atlantic perspective; and the national perspective.

I will speak about my own province first. Most people where I come from are Newfoundlanders and Labradorians first and Canadians second. They will tell people that to their face if they are asked and even if they are not.

Bill C-38 would have a huge negative impact on my province with regard to federal job cuts. More of the federal jobs in Newfoundland and Labrador that we have are being moved to Halifax. We will lose more jobs and we have few already. The mayor of St. John's, Dennis O'Keefe, has gone so far as to say, “If this continues, we'll end up being a colonial outpost — not of Ottawa, but of Halifax”. He further said, “Maybe it's happened [so] often, since 1949 with Confederation, that we're used to getting a kick in the rear end”. The final quote from the good mayor was, “I don't mind if we got our fair share, but we've never had our fair share of federal jobs in this province, period”.

There is no doubt that there is resentment in my home province toward the Government of Canada. Our fishery has been destroyed under Ottawa's watch. The federal presence in my province is but a faint shadow of the federal presence in other provinces. Not a single federal crown corporation is headquartered in my province.

There is resentment toward Ottawa, but there is particular resentment toward the Conservative Prime Minister who, to quote my people, “is no friend of Newfoundland and Labrador”.

Let me highlight some of the federal jobs that would be lost in my province as a result of the latest Conservative budget.

The Veterans Affairs office in Corner Brook will be gone. The Canada Border Services Agency is losing its director in my province. While the province of Newfoundland and Labrador is trying to build its cruise ship industry, the federal Conservatives are doing their best to stop it dead in the water. Border Services is also losing its only dog, trained to sniff out drugs and guns in Newfoundland and Labrador. Maybe we could get some psychics to step forward and volunteer their time.

Seafood inspection provided by the Food Inspection Agency will move to Prince Edward Island. I can see the sense in that, though. The federal Conservatives have written off the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery, so why not move food inspection to P.E.I.?

The St. John's food inspection lab is slated to close with transfers to other provinces. There are cuts to Marine Atlantic, which operates the Gulf of St. Lawrence ferry link, which will likely drive up the fares and the cost of everything. There are also cuts to Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, although not in the federal riding of Labrador, which a Conservative member represents. It is all good there for some reason.

Public Internet will be shut down at 96 provincial libraries around Newfoundland and Labrador. Parks Canada is also cutting back at national parks and historic sites in Newfoundland and Labrador. While the province of Newfoundland and Labrador spends millions of dollars on tourism campaigns to try to get Canadians and the world, to come to Newfoundland and Labrador, the Conservatives cut back on the amount of time the parks are open and they increase ferry rates. I do not get that.

Cuts to the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans will amount to nearly $80 million by 2015. DFO is closing the marine rescue sub-centre in St. John's, transferring the jobs to Halifax and Ontario.

I do not know if all Canadians realize this, but Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have a unique dialect, a lot worse than mine and a lot better than mine. A skipper from outport Newfoundland, with seconds to send off a mayday before abandoning ship, may not be understood by a mainlander. That is the simple truth of it. Here is a quote from Merv Wiseman who works at the marine rescue sub-centre, and retires today. He said, “We know as professionals that people will die and we've expressed that view right on up the line, right up to the ministers themselves — to no avail”.

People will die. What could possibly be more important than the lives of our mariners? The answer is the dollar. The answer is a desire to stamp out a culture of defeat, as the Prime Minister has described us. I can tell the Prime Minister this. There is fight yet where I come from, and he will see that in 2015.

On a national level, the Conservatives are pushing through their plan to raise the eligibility age for old age pension and guaranteed income supplement to 67 from 65. That is not on with Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. They say that Canada is in danger of losing its soul. They say that Canada is in danger of losing her social programs that separate our great country from so many others. They do not like what they see in the Ottawa mirror. The Conservative face is a frightening face.

The budget implementation act will also see the word “habitat” removed from the Federal Fisheries Act. Let me quote from Otto Langer, a renowned fisheries scientists who came out against the changes to the act. More than 600 scientists actually came out against changes to the act. He said, “This proposed move by the Harper government is a travesty for our fishery resources and the health of the entire ecosystem and it ignores the needs of our future generations”.

A full one-third of Bill C-38 is dedicated to the gutting of environmental legislation and protection.

Again, Bill C-38 is an absolutely massive bill. What do the Conservatives do to ensure the debate is a healthy debate and in the best interests of the country they look after? The Conservatives limit debate and that is not good enough.

[Immigration, April 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, last week, my Atlantic caucus colleagues and I had the pleasure of visiting Prince Edward Island. We met with people concerned about the Conservatives' total lack of transparency and their habit of making decisions with no local consultation, like the cuts to Veterans Affairs, like the possible elimination of fleet separation and owner-operator policies, or like the closure of Service Canada's claims centre in Montague, which has a severe impact on the local economy and was announced with no notice and no justification.

The people of P.E.I. deserve better. My question is, why is the government refusing to be accountable?

[Search and Rescue, April 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I stand with my colleague, the hon. member for St. John's East, in support of Motion No. 314.

Canada does indeed lag behind international search and rescue norms. That is an indisputable fact. I urge the federal government to do what it takes to achieve the international readiness standard of 30 minutes at all times, from tasking one of the military's Cormorant helicopters to becoming airborne. In other words, 30 minutes, wheels up, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, a search and rescue response time of 30 minutes around the clock.

As it stands, the wheels-up response time for the military's search and rescue helicopters, the Cormorants that operate across the country, including out of Gander in my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador, are twofold, as we have already heard. Between Monday and Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., the wheels up response time is 30 minutes, but after 4 p.m. and on weekends and during holidays, the wheels-up response time is 2 hours.

That is right, there is a search and rescue response time of two hours during evenings and on weekends and during holidays. Just imagine fire departments around the country operating with one response time during the day and another during evenings and on weekends. Canadians would not have it, because it would make no sense. Lives would be put at risk and people would most certainly die.

A two-tier response time would not cut it in terms of fire on land, and a two-tier response time does not cut it in the North Atlantic where the survival time in the absence of a survival suit is measured in minutes.

Let us make no mistake and let there be no doubt, the Canadian military's two-tier search and rescue response time, inadequate search and rescue response time, has cost lives. It has cost the lives of Newfoundland and Labrador mariners and will cost even more lives if the search and rescue response time is not changed.

I might add that the Canadian Coast Guard has a 24-hour response time for its vessels of 30 minutes around the clock.

Before I became a member of Parliament, about one year ago today, I was a journalist. I was a reporter, a columnist and a newspaper editor. I know my way around a news story.

In September 2005, I was the editor in chief of a weekly provincial newspaper called The Independent, when a fishing boat went down, which happens, I am sorry to report, quite often where I come from. The Melina & Keith II, as the hon. member for St. John's East mentioned earlier, sank off Cape Bonavista on September 12, 2005, while fishing for turbot and shrimp. What struck me about the story from the get-go, what set off my spider sense as a newspaper editor, was the search and rescue response time. Therefore, I assigned a team of reporters to the story of the Melina & Keith II.

What we learned, after weeks of investigation, was shocking. Cutting to the chase, it took the National Defence Cormorant helicopters operating out of Gander's 103 Search and Rescue squadron approximately three hours and eight minutes, after the capsized vessel was located, to arrive on scene. In that three hours and eight minutes, four of the eight fishermen who were reportedly alive when the fishing boat went down had died. Four men, half the crew, died because search and rescue did not get there quickly enough.

I am not sure if Canadians watching CPAC know this, but we are not allowed to use props when we give speeches in the House of Commons, which is too bad. I would like to show Canadians the front page picture, published in The Independent newspaper, of one of the survivors of the Melina & Keith II. The picture was of survivor Bernard Dyke, who was 17 years old at the time when the ship went down. It was only his third trip to sea at that point. He was the youngest crewman on board. He is as fresh-faced in that picture, as can be imagined. He was just a teenager to look at, but with a vacant look in his eyes, a vacant look that the photographer for The Independent captured in that front page picture.

Bernard Dyke of Eastport, Bonavista Bay survived after spending more than four hours in the North Atlantic waiting to be rescued. As the hon. member for St. John's East mentioned, four others were lost: Ivan Dyke, Justin Ralph, Anthony Malloy and Joshua Williams. Dressed only in a T-shirt and underwear, Dyke survived by clinging to an overturned boat. He held tightly to a piece of rope, ready to lash himself to the boat if need be, so his mother would at least have his body. This is what went through his mind.

Bernard Dyke told his story to The Independent. The boat went down in under a minute, just enough time to get out a mayday, but the search and rescue did not come nearly quickly enough. All eight crewmen were reportedly alive when the boat went down, although only the captain had on a survival suit. The men survived the first couple of hours sitting on the bottom of the overturned vessel. When the boat finally went down, the men survived in the water for another two hours or so by holding onto the overturned aluminum boat, but they did not all survive. Bernard Dyke watched as his friends and crewmen slowly floated away, as he described it, because the search and rescue did not come quickly enough.

A policy of a 30 minute wheels up during the day and a 2 hour wheel sup on evenings, weekends and holidays is not good enough, no matter what the Conservatives say. It is it not good enough for Bernard Dyke, not good enough for the four crewmen of the Melina & Keith II who were lost and not good enough for provinces like mine, Newfoundland and Labrador, where people live and die by the sea. The sinking of the Melina & Keith II is but one example of the inadequacies of the military search and rescue response.

The CBC's The Fifth Estate carried out a recent investigation into the death of 14-year-old Burton Winters of Makkovik, Labrador. The search and rescue did not come quickly enough for young Burton either, but that is another heart-wrenching story about another needless death, the death of a teenager who walked 19 kilometres before he lay down on the ice and died because help did not come soon enough.

According to The Fifth Estate's investigation, Newfoundland and Labrador is ground zero for search and rescue in Atlantic Canada. Most times, there are happy endings, but not all times. Each year, there are new examples of search and rescue gone wrong. Each year there are new example of people who perished, while waiting for search and rescue that never came. According to The Fifth Estate, there have been nine cases in the last eight years alone where people died waiting for search and rescue. How many lost lives will it take for the Conservative government to accept the fact that search and rescue response as it stands is not good enough? We will probably get to that number soon enough, the number of people who die because of inadequate search and rescue response.

This is another interesting fact. The survival odds in the North Atlantic are better for an offshore oil worker than for a fisherman. It is true. Cougar Helicopters, which service the oil industry off Newfoundland and Labrador, recently implemented a wheels up search and rescue response time of 20 minutes around the clock. As I have mentioned before in the House of Commons, when it comes to survival time in the North Atlantic, there is no difference between a fisherman and an offshore oil worker. The survival time is the same. Why then the two-tier response? It is not good enough.

How does the Canadian military's search and rescue response compare to other countries? The member for St. John's East mentioned this earlier as well. It is far behind. According to a report prepared for a House of Commons Standing Committee on Defence, Canada's SAR response posture places last in comparison to Australia, Ireland, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States. That is not good enough and it has to change, no matter what we hear from the Conservatives.

[Search and Rescue, April 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it has now been 67 days since Burton Winters went missing and his family is still waiting for answers. After 67 days, rhetoric does not cut it.

From day one we have had nothing but contradiction and blame from the government. It is time for some facts. The Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador expects a full explanation by today for why our Cormorant helicopter was not sent to help in this search. Will she get that explanation?

If weather was not an issue and there were no protocols, why were the Cormorants not deployed?

[Search and Rescue, April 2nd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the government's spin is not going to bring back Burton Winters or prevent future tragedies.

There are serious problems with Canada's search and rescue, and this minister has presented nothing but empty excuses. First bad weather, then imaginary protocols, and finally broken equipment were to blame, when all along it seems to be a question of misplaced priorities.

When will the government commit to a full and independent inquiry to find out what happened to Burton Winters and to investigate the state of Canadian search and rescue?

[Search and Rescue, March 27th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, this is a newsflash: too much spin makes people sick.

First the military blamed the weather for failing to send a search and rescue helicopter to find Burton Winters, only the weather was not bad enough to keep a chopper on the ground. Then it blamed communication protocol, only no one had ever even heard of a callback protocol. What stopped the search and rescue for the 14-year-old boy was broken equipment and misplaced priorities.

When will the government take responsibility and establish a full and independent inquiry into Canada's search and rescue system?

[Sealing Industry, February 28th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it has been more than two months since Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan informed the WTO that they would no longer import seal pelts, a ban they backdated to August. The loss of Canada's biggest market for seal products is a huge problem for Newfoundland and Labrador communities and the government has done nothing to show its supposed support for a humane and sustainable seal harvest.

Why has the government failed to end the Russian ban of Canadian seal products? Why has it failed the communities that rely on the sealing industry?

[Ocean Ranger, February 14th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, my statement begins with a question. “And whose wish never fails to find my vacant heart on Valentine’s?” That question was written by the great Newfoundland songwriter, Ron Hynes, in his song, Atlantic Blue. The song is a tribute to the 84 men who went down with the Ocean Ranger. It is their wishes that never fail to find vacant hearts on Valentine's.

In the early morning hours of February 15, 30 years ago this evening, the indestructible Ocean Ranger went down off the coast of Newfoundland in a vicious storm. The sinking of the Ocean Ranger resonates to this day among the family and friends of those who were lost among people who were strangers to them.

Marine tragedies are a reality of life for people who live and die by the sea, but the Ocean Ranger is a reminder of the danger of lax regulation, of the danger of assuming the unthinkable could never happen, a reminder of the importance of search and rescue because, 30 years later, needless tragedies continue to mount off our coast.

I end with a quote from another great Canadian songwriter, Gordon Lightfoot, “Does any one know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?”

[Search and Rescue, February 9th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, that is cold comfort for Newfoundland and Labrador mariners. That is no comfort. It is one thing for National Defence to state it met its own standards. It is another to say the response to Makkovik was satisfactory and the equipment adequate.

Yesterday's press conference raised more questions than it answered. First we learned weather delays prevented the rescue. Now we learn the helicopters in the region were out of commission. What is the real story?

Will the government finally fix search and rescue? Will the government finally fix what is broken?