House of Commons photo

Crucial Fact

  • His favourite word was conservative.

Last in Parliament October 2015, as NDP MP for St. John's South—Mount Pearl (Newfoundland & Labrador)

Lost his last election, in 2015, with 37% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Fisheries and Oceans December 14th, 2011

Mr. Speaker, the answer to the minister's question is, “Yes sir, your department and you, sir, are a bully”.

Government Appointments December 13th, 2011

Mr. Speaker, yet another well-connected Conservative has received a patronage appointment. This time it is Reginald Bowers who is heading to the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board.

The board is responsible for resource management, environmental protection and safety concerns in the industry. Here is the rub: Mr. Bowers has little to no experience in the offshore oil and gas industry. Apparently managing a successful Conservative campaign is experience enough.

When will the Conservatives start taking the development of Newfoundland and Labrador's offshore resources seriously and stop appointing their friends?

Search and Rescue December 9th, 2011

Mr. Speaker, if indeed this is the only time the minister was hoisted in a basket by a helicopter and taxied to his next destination, how in the world can it be considered routine?

A minister takes a joyride in a search and rescue helicopter, then he makes up a story, then he changes the story, then he threatens to sue the people who question him.

My question today is simple. How can the minister explain the use of a search and rescue helicopter for a personal trip, and after all this, how can Canadians expect to have confidence in the Minister of National Defence?

Search and Rescue December 9th, 2011

Mr. Speaker, yesterday in this House, the Associate Minister of National Defence described a flight on a search and rescue helicopter from a fishing camp as “a very routine endeavour indeed”.

“Routine” is taking a taxi to an airport. “Routine” is taking a taxi to work.

I would like to ask the associate minister exactly what he means by “routine”. How frequently does the minister use a search and rescue helicopter to get back from vacation?

Newfoundland and Labrador Fishery Rebuilding Act December 8th, 2011

Mr. Speaker, there has been a major breakthrough in the fisheries since the introduction of my private member's Bill C-308, the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery rebuilding act. The breakthrough took almost 20 years. It took tens of thousands of job losses, the biggest layoff in Canadian history. The breakthrough took unparalleled out-migration from the outports of Newfoundland and Labrador. The breakthrough came after untold suffering and hardship and a devastating blow to our heritage, a blow that still threatens our culture. The breakthrough is the long-awaited acknowledgement that the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery is broken.

The word “broken” has been used in recent weeks to describe the state of our fisheries. The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has used the word “broken”, as has the CEO of Ocean Choice International, one of the largest fish companies in Newfoundland and Labrador left standing.

Now that the acknowledgement has been made that the fishery is broken, the question now is: How do we fix it? The cracks in the broken fishery begin at the very foundation, the management. With Confederation, part of our dowry to Canada was the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, one of the richest fishing grounds on the face of the planet. Sixty-two years later and commercial stocks such as cod and flounder have been virtually wiped out. Stock after stock has failed under the current management regime.

The management has not worked, and it cannot be trusted to fix what has been broken. Twenty years and there has been no recovery plan. Shameful. Our future is too important to leave in the hands of the bureaucracy and the system that brought our fishery to its knees in the first place.

One of the only reports that has been carried out in recent decades on the state of fisheries management was written in 2005 by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. The report is entitled, “Northern Cod: A Failure of Canadian Fisheries Management”, the key word being “failure”.

The report took DFO to task for failing to recognize mismanagement as one of the reasons for the stock collapse, describing DFO's lack of long-term vision as astonishing.

On September 12 of this year, I held a news conference in St. John's to announce my private member's bill calling for an inquiry into the Newfoundland and Labrador fisheries. The news conference was made in the same hotel room where then federal fisheries minister, John Crosbie, shut down the northern cod fishery in 1992.

Within hours of that news conference, Canada's current Minister of Fisheries and Oceans announced there would be no inquiry. His reasoning: the minister pointed out that some areas of the eastern Scotian shelf have seen some stock improvement. The ignorance is astonishing. The Scotian shelf is off Nova Scotia, not Newfoundland and Labrador.

When the Conservative government says no to my bill before the Conservative government has even seen my bill, that is a testament to the importance it gives to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. When the Conservative government says no to my bill, it is saying no to the future of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is saying no to the future of our culture and the sustainability of our heritage.

The Prime Minister once said that the Atlantic provinces have a culture of defeat. Saying no to an inquiry will ensure that defeat. How can the Conservative government say yes to an inquiry into the disappearance of British Columbia salmon stocks and no to an inquiry into the Newfoundland and Labrador cod stocks? Are our fish, our cod fish, are we any less important?

John Crosbie once asked, “Who hears the fishes when they cry?” My question for the Conservative government is this: Who hears the fishermen when they cry?

Ocean Choice International December 7th, 2011

Mr. Speaker, it seems that under the Conservative government's watch, ACOA has been throwing money away. It gave a million dollar loan to Ocean Choice International to process yellowtail flounder in Newfoundland and Labrador. At the same time, that company inked a deal to send the same fish to China for processing.

Why would ACOA approve a loan to a company that creates fish processing jobs in China? Why is it not funding those jobs here at home?

Search and Rescue December 7th, 2011

Mr. Speaker, there is public contempt over the defence minister's use of a search and rescue helicopter as a personal taxi. There is real contempt back home in Newfoundland and Labrador, not so much over the misuse of a government aircraft, which is almost routine, not even because the defence minister misled Parliament. What is most unforgivable about the minister's embarrassing actions is that they take away from the real story, that being the search and rescue response time of the Cormorants, which is 30 minutes during working hours, 2 hours during evenings and on weekends.

Can members imagine a fire department operating with one response time during the day and another during the night?

The emergency response times of the Cougar helicopters that service the offshore oil industry will soon be 20 minutes around the clock.

I can tell members that the survival time of an offshore oil worker in the North Atlantic is the exact same as the survival time for a fisherman. There should be one universal response time for the offshore. That is where the contempt originates.

Safe Streets and Communities Act November 29th, 2011

Mr. Speaker, the justice minister of my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador has said that if the omnibus crime bill passes, our prison capability within Her Majesty's penitentiary in St. John's South—Mount Pearl cannot handle the increase in prisoners. The system cannot handle an influx of more prisoners.

On the one hand, we have been after the Conservative government for years for a new prison for Newfoundland and Labrador. The answer has been no. On the other hand, the government is pushing through an omnibus crime bill that is going to increase the number of prisoners in Newfoundland and Labrador's prison system. That makes no sense.

Is my province going to find it hard to pay for this? Of course. My province does not know where the money is going to come from. That is the question the Conservative government has yet to answer.

Safe Streets and Communities Act November 29th, 2011

I do not agree with that, Mr. Speaker. Removing pardon is the wrong way to go.

I believe in judicial discretion. This omnibus crime bill would take away judicial discretion. That is the wrong way to go. What this omnibus crime bill is missing is common sense. There is no common sense.

Safe Streets and Communities Act November 29th, 2011

Mr. Speaker, the member's question was in two parts. I will not have time to answer both parts so I will answer the first part.

The member mentioned the committee that travelled to Oxford. My recommendation is that a Conservative committee should travel to Newfoundland and Labrador. I quoted from the Newfoundland and Labrador justice minister and I repeated it a second time. I am not sure if the hon. member actually listened, so I will read it a third time and maybe a bit slower. He said:

Most groups, most experts and most witnesses who have given presentations on this bill would advocate that the federal government is proceeding in the wrong direction, and that this procedure has been tried in other areas before and has proven to be a failure...Incarcerating more people is not the answer.