Ryan Cleary

[Business of Supply, February 2nd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the motion we are debating calls on the Conservative government to honour a promise made to Newfoundland and Labrador on the Canada-EU trade deal.

The Conservative government, under this Prime Minister, broke that promise. The member for Halifax described what happened as bait and switch, which I thought was a little better than what another hon. colleague said when he described it as a crab walk.

Why does the member think that the Conservative government has betrayed Newfoundland and Labrador a second time? Why does the Conservative government keep betraying my province?

[Intergovernmental Affairs, February 2nd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister thinks Atlantic Canadians have a defeatist attitude, but if he thinks New Democrats are going to stop fighting for Newfoundland and Labrador, he has another thing coming.

We know the promise the government made. There are documents to prove it. I have put a motion on the floor calling for the Conservatives to honour that promise. Will the Conservatives stand in their places and honour the promise they made, or will they once again betray Newfoundland and Labrador?

[Business of Supply, February 2nd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member from British Columbia for the excellent speech. He made some good points, but his main point is that this is the second time that the federal Conservatives have disrespected my province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

I do not know if the word “betrayed” is against parliamentary decorum, but people back home in Newfoundland and Labrador would categorize what has happened here as a betrayal.

The first betrayal, as pointed out by the member from British Columbia, was in 2006. It was on a promise from the current Conservative government to remove non-renewable natural resource revenue from the equalization formula. That promise was made, but that promise was not kept, as the member so rightly pointed out.

The second time is right now. The Province of Newfoundland and Labrador gave up MPRs for a transition fund for development and renewal, and according to the documentation, that is clear.

The hon. member has been in this House for some years and knows his way around. My question to him is simple. Why does he think that the current Conservative government has betrayed Newfoundland and Labrador for a second time? Why?

[Business of Supply, February 2nd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member made a very good point about relationship-building. Of course, the Conservative government has no relationship with Newfoundland and Labrador, but then, two betrayals do not make for a good relationship.

This dispute comes down to two sides of the story. On the one hand, the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador said that the fisheries fund was all about transition, development, and renewal. That is what the $400 million fund was for. That is the province's take on this.

The federal Conservatives say that this fisheries fund is compensation for losses as a result of the province's giving up minimum processing requirements. In other words, it is compensation for losses incurred by giving up this major fisheries policy. This is a $400 million fund and if the Conservatives are right, the fund is to compensate for losses. The Conservatives are contributing $280 million and the provincial government is contributing $120 million.

Why would the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador contribute $120 million to a fund to compensate itself? Does that itself not raise questions about the Conservatives' side of the story?

[Business of Supply, February 2nd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, we agree on most of the points the minister just outlined. The benefits, for example, are absolutely undeniable. The seafood market in the European Union is worth $25 billion a year, and we want a piece of that. It is also undeniable that the fishing industry, the Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union, and the Progressive Conservative government of Newfoundland and Labrador all want in to CETA. That is not the question. That is not why this debate is happening right now. The minister did not address why the motion is before the House.

I have two questions.

The former Progressive Conservative government of Kathy Dunderdale in Newfoundland and Labrador announced details of what this fisheries fund of $400 million, with $280 million from the federal government and $180 million from the provincial government, would be used for. Her government announced details more than a year ago, but this Conservative government did not raise a word of objection about what the Progressive Conservative government of Newfoundland and Labrador said the fund would be used for. It was not to be used for losses. The government did not have to demonstrate losses. This was about transition, renewal, and industry development.

Why did the Conservative government wait more than a year to raise an objection to the way the PC government of Newfoundland and Labrador framed this? If this fund is all about losses, why is the Newfoundland and Labrador--

[Business of Supply, February 2nd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know what to say. I shake my head. The hon. member knows that is not true. He knows it beyond the shadow of a doubt. The New Democratic Party of Canada has yet to take a stand on the CETA agreement. He knows that. We did not say yes immediately, like the Liberals; we wanted to read the text. We are still speaking with groups right across the country about how they feel about the wording of an agreement that would be in place for perpetuity. We are taking our time with that.

The minister knows that statement is not true. He knows it is not true.

[Business of Supply, February 2nd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I mentioned in my speech that Newfoundland and Labrador is being hit from two ends when it comes to the downturn in the price of oil. We are being hit from the western end in that literally thousands of workers from Newfoundland and Labrador travel back and forth to Alberta for work. The average salary of each of those workers is $100,000 a year, and it comes back to Newfoundland and Labrador. Then from the eastern end, off the east coast of Newfoundland, from the offshore on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, our revenues from our oil industry are down severely. The Newfoundland and Labrador government faces a deficit this year alone of $916 million, almost $1 billion, in a small province of just over a half million people. We need to diversify. The country needs to diversify.

In answer to the hon. member's question, that $400 million fund would be used by the Newfoundland and Labrador government to position itself to capitalize on and to seize the business opportunity of the opening of the 500-million-person European Union market. If we do not have that, it means we do not capitalize. If we do not have that, it means we do not diversify. If we do not have it, it means the Conservative government has failed Newfoundland and Labrador—again.

[Business of Supply, February 2nd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I remember, in 1992, when the then Conservative government of Brian Mulroney shut down the northern cod fishery. I was the fisheries reporter with the daily newspaper in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, and I was there on the day, in that hotel room in downtown St. John's, when Crosbie shut down the fishery. I was there when the fishermen from Petty Harbour, Newfoundland tried to break into the room. They were pissed off because Crosbie did not make the announcement to their faces. He did it in another room, and it was televised to the room where the fishermen were.

The hon. member brings up the word “trust”. There is no trust. When Danny Williams was premier, the Prime Minister made a promise to Newfoundland and Labrador about equalization, about resource revenues, but he did not follow through. This is the second example of a promise made and a promise not kept. How can we in Newfoundland and Labrador trust a prime minister and a government who do not live up to a promise? My sons watched CBC. They watched his speech and asked me why the government does not live up to its promises, which they have to live up to when they make promises. I do not know the answer to that question.

[Business of Supply, February 2nd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians always feel welcome in this Confederation. We often feel like the screws are being put to our province.

However, I will give a little lesson on how to pronounce Newfoundland: “Newfoundland understand; understand Newfoundland”. If the member practises that a few times, he will have the pronunciation down pat.

[Business of Supply, February 2nd, 2015]

moved:

That, in the opinion of the House, the federal government must respect its promise to Newfoundland and Labrador of $400 million for development and renewal, based on a 70/30 federal/provincial cost-share model, through the province’s Fisheries Investment Fund, in exchange for lifting minimum processing requirements as part of the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement.

Mr. Speaker, it is no small feat for Newfoundland and Labrador to seize the country's attention, the national spotlight. It is no small feat to turn the eyes of all of Canada to the eastern-most province, even though we are the youngest province, the coolest province, and the most beautiful province. It is no small feat for our issues, our agenda, to capture the national or international stage. It is no small feat because we are a small province, with just over half a million people, about the size of Hamilton or Quebec City. We only have 7 members of Parliament out of what will soon be 338 members of Parliament across the country.

How do we do it? We do it with flair, Newfoundland and Labrador flair. We do it with confidence, a confidence that comes from incredible pride of place. We do it with drive. We do it with determination. We do it with fight. It is always a fight for Newfoundland and Labrador. We are always having to punch above our weight.

Former federal Liberal cabinet minister Brian Tobin seized the country's attention, the world's attention, by firing a shot across the bow of a Spanish trawler during the turbot wars of the 1990s. Tobin took the 16-storey long illegal net that the Spanish trawler had been dragging on the floor of the Grand Banks, with mesh so undersized it could catch fish the size of someone's palm, and hung it from a crane on the New York city waterfront near the United Nations. Point taken.

This is the 20th anniversary of the turbot war and our fisheries are still in shambles, in a state of perpetual crisis. Not much came from Tobin's theatrics, besides the theatrics themselves and his becoming premier.

Another former premier, Danny Williams, made another point, another national statement, when he removed Canadian flags from the front of all provincial government buildings back in 2004. The move turned heads across the country. There were gasps of outrage from one coast to the next coast to the next. Danny removed the maple leaf in retaliation for the actions of the Conservative Prime Minister. The Prime Minister had reneged on a promise to honour a deal excluding offshore resource revenues, oil revenues, from the equalization formula. Danny Williams went to war. He accused the Prime Minister of betraying Newfoundland and Labrador. He called the Prime Minister a fraud. He questioned the Prime Minister's character, and said that the Prime Minister could not be trusted. Danny Williams launched the ABC campaign, anybody but Conservative, during the 2008 federal election. Not a single Conservative MP, not one, was elected from Newfoundland and Labrador.

There are times that we in Newfoundland and Labrador do not feel like we belong or are welcome in this Confederation. There are times when we feel that we are not important, that we are expendable even, and not high on the national agenda.

That brings us to today. The Prime Minister is accused yet again of betraying Newfoundland and Labrador, betraying the Progressive Conservative Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, reneging on a deal or engaging in a doublecross, breaking a promise and failing to honour an agreement.

It certainly looks that way. The facts point in the direction of a betrayal. That seems to be a trend with the Prime Minister, the same Prime Minister who once said that Atlantic Canada had a culture of defeat. The actions of this Prime Minister towards Newfoundland and Labrador, to put it mildly, do not foster warmth and trust.

The federal Conservative brand back home is dirt. The Prime Minister's surname is almost a swear word. It is a bad word; it is not repeated in public. However, there is still time for the current Prime Minister and his government to do the right thing by Newfoundland and Labrador for a change. There is still time for the current Prime Minister to keep his word to the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. More than that, there is time for the Prime Minister to help position Newfoundland and Labrador for that elusive success with our fisheries. There is still time for the current Prime Minister to abandon his defeatist attitude toward Atlantic Canada.

The motion centres on the Canada-European Union free trade deal, CETA, the comprehensive economic and trade agreement. Unlike any other province, Newfoundland and Labrador was asked to give something up. To make the trade deal happen, the current Conservative government asked my province to surrender its most fundamental fisheries policy, called “minimum processing requirements”. Those requirements protect fish plant jobs on land by ensuring that fish caught off our shores is processed in fish plants on our shores.

The Newfoundland and Labrador government thought long and hard about what it wanted in exchange for surrendering those minimum processing requirements, and the current Conservative government asked the province to think outside the box. In the end, the two levels of government decided to create a $400 million fisheries investment fund: $280 million was to come from the current Conservative government, and the remaining $120 million was to come from the provincial government, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Correspondence from the current government clearly outlines that the fisheries fund was for a transitional program to address development and renewal in the seafood industry.

The opposition motion before the House today calls upon the Conservative government to respect and honour its commitment to Newfoundland and Labrador, a deal that was first struck in June 2013. There was no grey area. It was clearly a deal between two levels of government.

Former Progressive Conservative Premier Kathy Dunderdale held a news conference in October 2013 to announce details of the agreement it had struck with the federal Conservative government. The current government did not say a peep about the agreement, about the $400 million fisheries fund. It did not raise a single objection, not one. Not one word was said in objection to anything announced by the Newfoundland and Labrador government for 17 months. There were 17 months for the current Conservative government to raise a single objection to any of the points announced by the Progressive Conservative government of Newfoundland and Labrador. Not a word was said, not a whisper.

I even posed a question on the order paper last April that asked the President of the Treasury Board for details of the fisheries fund, including the purpose and any stipulations on the funding. In response, the treasury board president refused to answer, applying the Privacy Act on the grounds that the information was a “confidence of cabinet”.

I clearly asked if there were stipulations on the funding, and the Conservatives refused to answer. Why? Why did they do that? Why did they wait almost a year and a half to raise a single objection to the details announced by the Newfoundland and Labrador government? Why did they wait almost a year and a half to change the terms of the deal? Was it to keep Newfoundland and Labrador quiet? Was it to shut up the province until the CETA deal was done? It certainly appears that way.

The Conservatives now say that the fisheries fund was only created to compensate for losses from the removal of minimum processing requirements. In other words, the province must now show direct losses before it is compensated from the fisheries fund. However, that was not the deal. That is an excuse. I see that as the Prime Minister essentially giving Newfoundland and Labrador the finger.

The Conservatives now say that their $280 contribution is not a blank cheque. The Minister of Justice even had the gall a few weeks ago to visit St. John's and criticize Newfoundland and Labrador for wanting a “slush fund”. That is the same minister who used a military search and rescue helicopter for a taxi from a fishing lodge on the Gander River. That minister has no credibility.

Another Conservative told me that the province was after yet another handout, a welfare cheque. He said that to my face. He only said it once, and he was dead wrong. We want the ability to stand on our own. We want the ability to do for ourselves.

If the $400-million fisheries fund is for compensation for losses as a result of CETA, why is the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador kicking in $120 million of its own money? Is it to compensate itself? That makes no sense. Why was ACOA tasked with administering the fund? If the $400 million was straight-up compensation, why go through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency? Pay the province. Pay the companies directly.

Another point is that it could be another five years before minimum processing requirements are officially eliminated as part of CETA. According to Conservative rationale, that means five years before Newfoundland and Labrador would receive any funds to help it with the marketing and development needed to capitalize on the 500-million people in the EU market. Again, that makes no sense. It is not smart. It does not add up. The transition fund was for us to capitalize on the EU trade deal. It was to position ourselves, to position the fishery for renewal for maximum benefit. We cannot do that with the Conservative double-cross.

The former Progressive Conservative government, under Kathy Dunderdale, held a news conference in 2013, which I mentioned earlier, to announce the deal with the federal Conservatives: the elimination of minimum processing requirements for a $400-million fisheries fund. The PCs were criticized because there were no federal Conservatives in the room. At the same time, the federal Conservatives held a Canada–EU summit reception in September. They spent more than $160,000 on that reception, when the final trade deal has yet to be ratified by the European Union nations.

The deal to surrender minimum processing requirements for a $400-million fisheries fund has been lauded by all quarters in the Newfoundland and Labrador fishing industry. The union likes it, and industry is on side, and the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador is behind it. The most obvious benefit of the trade deal is duty-free access to the world's most lucrative fish and seafood market, which imports more than $25 billion in products annually. That is more than $25 billion a year, and make no mistake, we want a piece of that market.

CETA would eliminate 95% of all fish and seafood tariffs when the deal comes into force, with all remaining tariffs going to zero within three, five, or seven years. Again, the elimination of tariffs is seen as a great thing for our fishing industry. Everybody is in favour, on all sides, but there are still voices of concern.

There are voices of concern from the offshore oil industry that oil companies would no longer have to charter Canadian-flagged vessels with Canadian crews. Instead, the concern is that CETA would open up the shipping industry so foreign-flagged vessels could operate in Canadian waters. These are foreign vessels with much lower working standards and salaries than Canadian ships.

Likewise, there is concern in some quarters of Newfoundland and Labrador that CETA would allow foreign ownership of Canadian fish quotas. Of course, that can happen right now. There is also concern that foreign trawlers with lower-paid foreign fishing crews would be chartered to catch Canadian fish and sail them to the European Union for processing.

Could there come a day when the fish off of our shores is not caught or processed by Canadians? That is a question that I have been asked. It is a concern that has been raised. What is the answer?

I will now say a few words about the Liberals. The CETA deal was barely out of the mouth of the Prime Minister when the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada jumped to his feet in the House to endorse it. The Liberal leader had not read the deal; the wording was not out then. He did not know the terms for Newfoundland and Labrador either. Would anyone buy a car or house without reading the contract or the fine print? The answer is no. A person who did that would be irresponsible. However, the Liberals supported the deal without even reading it. That is shameful.

Now the Liberal leader has written a letter to the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador in support of the $400-million fisheries fund. That is all well and good. Newfoundland and Labrador is being nailed to the wall, and the Liberal leader blindly trusted the Prime Minister. Here was this monster trade deal, and, at the most, the Liberal leader gave it all of 10 seconds of consideration.

As it stands, the collapse in world oil prices is slamming Newfoundland and Labrador from both ends. To the east, revenues from the province's oil play on the Grand Banks are down substantially, to the point that this year's provincial deficit is pegged at $916 million. That is a deficit of almost $1 billion for a small province with just over a half million people. To the west, thousands of layoffs in the Alberta oil sands will have a devastating impact on our migratory workforce. Thousands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians travel west, every day, month, year, for work in the oil sands. Alberta oil money has been propping up our fishing outports for years. The fishery has not returned since the early 1990s when the northern cod moratorium was introduced. It has not returned even close to its historic days, and that is because of federal mismanagement.

The problem with the Progressive Conservative government is the same as with the federal Conservative government. To our peril, it has been focused solely on the oil industry. I have called it economic tunnel vision. Diversification to renewable resources is critical. For example, fish is key. Oil and gas will run out. That is an absolute given; it is a certainty. If not managed under the current Conservative government but managed properly for a change, and if given a chance to reproduce, fish will be around forever.

Of all the things I can say with absolute certainty about the Prime Minister, I will say this: He is not stupid. He is the first person to praise the benefits and opportunities of this latest free trade deal, and so he should. It is his government that is bringing it in. Surely the Prime Minister can see the direct benefit of Newfoundland and Labrador using the $400-million fisheries fund to poise itself for tariff-free access to the European Union market, to prepare in terms of marketing and industry renewal.

Unlike any other province, Newfoundland and Labrador is giving up minimum processing requirements. We are surrendering a constitutional right over our greatest industry and resource. We are the only province that has been asked to surrender anything. My province made a deal in good faith with a Conservative government, and a Conservative Prime Minister, who has been accused of betrayal before. As the saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me”. Newfoundland and Labrador should perhaps be ashamed of itself for putting faith in the Conservative government.

I am again appealing to the Prime Minister to surrender his defeatist attitude toward Atlantic Canada, surrender his war on Newfoundland and Labrador, to stand by his word, do the honourable and right thing for Canada and Newfoundland and Labrador. I ask that he honour his promise and stand by his word.