Wayne Easter

[Questions On The Order Paper, March 18th, 1994]

Who were the members of the Canadian government's GATT negotiating team from June 1992 through to January 1994, what are their backgrounds and the positions they held prior to becoming members of the team and the dates of their appointments?

[Fisheries, February 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to welcome the announcement made yesterday in Brussels by the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization that a moratorium on cod fishing in international waters off Newfoundland will take place immediately.

This ban was called for by our party during the last election and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has worked hard for its implementation.

As a member from Atlantic Canada where so many fishermen and the fishery itself are affected by foreign overfishing, this moratorium is welcome news. A small ray of hope now glimmers at the end of the tunnel for the fishery off the east coast.

I appreciate as well that the Canadian proposal to extend until the end of 1994 the pilot on board program that places observers on vessels to ensure the moratorium is maintained has been implemented. The minister should be complimented for his efforts.

However we must continue to be vigilant in everything we do nationally and internationally to ensure that the Atlantic cod fishery survives to be a viable economic industry in the future.

[Prince Edward Island Fixed Link, February 15th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I will just make a comment on that. Certainly we are familiar with the ice delays to ferries these days. As I mentioned earlier this afternoon, truckers at the moment are having anywhere from a three-hour to five-hour extra wait due to a slowdown in ferry movement because of ice congestion at the terminal and so many trucks moving. Under the current scenario with the ferries and the ice it becomes an extremely difficult situation in terms of getting product to market on time and in an efficient way.

[Prince Edward Island Fixed Link, February 15th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, in Prince Edward Island we look at the investment and economic activity of this link project in the very short term.

The minister outlined creating jobs this morning. He talked about 70 per cent procurement expenditures in the Atlantic area. Ninety-six per cent of the jobs will go to that area so there will be an economic boost in the initial stages of the project as a result of the expenditure of funds.

Our concern in the study on ice was what ice could do to the bridge. We were assured by all the experts that the bridge will be able to withstand the pressure of that ice.

The fishermen have another real concern: if the bridge delays the ice moving out of the strait it would have an impact on the lobster fishery in terms of the waters remaining cooler and the lobsters therefore remaining dormant for a longer period of time. It would have an impact on lobsters.

Studies have clearly shown that the ice delay would be very limited and would have minimal effect, if any, on the lobster fishery.

[Prince Edward Island Fixed Link, February 15th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I rise to speak in favour of this constitutional amendment which allows the federal government to live up to the terms of the constitutional agreement with Prince Edward Island with a mode of transportation infrastructure that is geared to the year 2000 and beyond.

I want to make it clear at the beginning that the legislative assembly in Prince Edward Island unanimously adopted the necessary constitutional amendment in June of last year with the full understanding the Parliament of Canada would proceed with an amendment as soon as possible. Parliament is living up to its commitment and I am pleased by the amount of support from both sides of the House.

Part of the reason for the support is that a lot of Canadians off-island want to link up with us rather than the other way around. I encourage all members of Parliament to come to Prince Edward Island before and after the fixed link is in place, spend a few of their hard earned dollars, have some of the best potatoes grown in Canada; see some of scenery and have some of our lobster. I am getting a little off track blowing up the merits of our wonderful isle. We certainly want it to remain that.

This new bridge enters my riding at the community of Borden. I am well aware of the controversy past and present that surrounds the project. The impact of the construction and the completion of the fixed link will be felt first by the people in my riding and most directly by the people in the community of Borden.

The issue of the fixed link connecting P.E.I. has been under consideration at one time or another since 1885 when the possibility of a tunnel connecting the island was first considered. I do not mind admitting up front that first I favoured a tunnel and I had to be convinced to favour a bridge. I will say that the evidence and public opinion now in Prince Edward Island is very strongly supportive of the bridge.

I have had a considerable amount of indirect involvement with the Borden-Cape Tormentine ferry crossing. My father worked for CN Rail, later Marine Atlantic, as a deck hand and eventually a quartermaster for 32 years on that crossing. From age 12, as many youth did, we would drive back and forth on the car ferries. I have had first hand experience of the delays, of being stuck in the ice for as long as 18 hours. As a result of that experience I recognize the uniqueness of that particular area. Nowhere else in the world will one find the combination of wind, tides and ice there is where this bridge is going to be built.

It is for those reasons that I had to be convinced and looked so seriously at this project with a very critical eye. I have looked at the studies concerning the environment, the ice conditions, the fisheries, the socioeconomic impact and so on. This morning the minister outlined the number and breadth of the studies. I can tell the House of the very extensive public consultations on Prince Edward Island of those studies and of the bridge.

During the election campaign I found a sense of optimism as a result of the project, due to the fact that there would be an expected increase in economic activity during construction and improved transportation infrastructure following construction. There were concerns, and I do not think we can sweep those under the rug, from the ferry workers, from the fishermen and from the people of Borden. We cannot brush them off. They are very real concerns in the minds of those people and must be addressed. As a result of the studies, government has moved to address them in a number of areas. I want to put on the record the way they will be addressed.

As a result of the environmental review the government determined that the construction and the presence of the bridge will result in no significant impact on the environment and the fishery. In order to overcome the difficulty the developer has been required to set aside $10 million as a compensation fund. This fund will be administered according to the terms and process currently being developed by a fisheries liaison committee composed of a majority of fishermen.

Quite a number of Marine Atlantic ferry workers will lose their jobs. That is reality. The government has made the commitment that these employees will be treated fairly and equitably. They will have first right of refusal for the bridge operation and maintenance jobs. A fair severance package will be negotiated between the workers union and Marine Atlantic. The government will provide opportunities for retraining, and relocation assistance will be made available if necessary. A joint consultative committee has been set up to co-ordinate the activities dealing with the ferry workers.

As well, we have to address the concerns of the community of Borden. That is happening on an ongoing basis. One of the last studies done looked at the specifics of the project relating to SCI's bridge proposal and it passed the test. Justice Cullen of the Federal Court stated the following in his ruling with respect to the efforts of Friends of the Island to prevent the project from proceeding with respect to scientific studies and I think it is important to put that statement on the record: "The scientific evidence relied on by Public Works Canada declared all environmental impacts or potential environmental impacts were insignificant.

The respondent SCI and Public Works accepted those findings, were correct in doing so and thus the decision of Public Works was correct in law and certainly not made in a vacuum".

Other members have spoken of the economic impact and spin-off so I will not repeat those facts and figures. However in the long term after 1997 completion there should be economic benefits, savings to transportation costs in the trucking industry and more reliable product delivery for our agriculture, fisheries and manufacturing products. After all transportation is necessary in the delivery of goods to market. We have four years to go. I mentioned in a question to a speaker earlier this afternoon there are major concerns at the moment and major delays in getting our products to the marketplace.

The government has committed itself to ensuring that the risks to the environment and the fishery are minimized. It has committed itself to ensuring that any of Marine Atlantic's work force displaced by the completion of the bridge will be assisted through retraining, relocation assistance and early retirement programs.

I want to touch on one final point. It is the growing sense among some islanders that the link, combined with the possible loss of air traffic control service on the island, could lead progressively toward a diminishing sense of full provincial status. We may need at some point a full review of the transportation infrastucture throughout the Atlantic region, one that will allow all the stakeholders to participate in developing a system that will benefit the region going into the next century.

In conclusion, this project is an investment in our future. This amendment is part of the process to allow that to happen.

[Prince Edward Island Fixed Link, February 15th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, the member mentioned that maybe it is time to move to a first class ferry service. I do not know if he is familiar with Prince Edward Island and the amount of physical goods and products we move off the island. Our experience with the ferry service in recent years has been fairly poor.

In fact, talking about economic efficiency, I spoke with some truckers today. The wait at the ferry for truckers is anywhere from three to five hours. As many as 50 to 80 trucks at a time are sometimes waiting in line for the car ferries. One can only handle 13 and the other at maximum can handle 45. The hon. member has to understand that that is just not good enough. We believe a link will change that.

When we look at the truckers, the fuel they are burning, the hours, taking a day longer to get to market in terms of scheduling and so on, it is a disaster for them and for the agricultural industry as well.

What does the hon. member mean by first class ferry service? I hope this is not an example.

[Trade, February 8th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to raise concerns with respect to the free trade agreement with the United States. That is the continued use by the United States of its export enhancement program, specifically with respect to agricultural exports impacting on Canadian farmers and Canadian markets.

The U.S. is currently providing an export subsidy under the EEP of $3 to $40 per tonne into Mexico and of $65 per tonne into China.

Article 701(4) of the CUSFTA states the United States is obligated to take into consideration the negative impact its export subsidies will have upon Canadian exporters of agricultural products into a third country.

The United States is failing now and has failed repeatedly to respect this provision. This is unacceptable.

It is time for the federal government to call for a formal binational dispute settlement panel to examine the issue and determine the extent of the injury caused to Canadian farmers and force the U.S. to cease the use of EEP.

[Social Security System, February 3rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the question. I happened to be in New Zealand when the value added tax was brought in and I saw first hand the destruction of many of the rural communities as a result of doing away with the subsidies to the farm community.

The subsidy question has become a misnomer in that during the GATT talks the whole thrust of the negotiations was how to do away with subsidies. Subsidies became the issue when really subsidies are the symptom of a greater problem globally, low farm income, which is causing the destruction and the deterioration of rural communities and a loss of farms world wide.

Instead of just targeting subsidies we must look at the real problem which is a global agricultural policy creating lots of profits for the global corporations in terms of trade issues as they try and have farmers in one nation compete against another in order to access cheap supply to undermine producers in another area and profit in the process.

Therefore we have to look at this much differently globally in terms of looking at actually returning the cost of production to farmers for the products they produce wherever they produce them around the world. Certainly there are lots of hungry people around the world.

The other point the hon. member makes is with regard to farmers marketing their products. We have some great examples of that in this country. In fact farmers are doing that.

One of the best examples is the Canadian Wheat Board. Canagrex was a good agency which would use market intelligence and go out to sell farm products in the interests of the country and producers, but the previous administration canned it.

The Canadian Wheat Board is a tremendous agency in terms of pooling the resources of producers, acting as a single seller of export wheat and barley, accessing the marketplace in other countries, setting the delivery system in place and returning to producers the best return for the product available in that international marketplace.

[Social Security System, February 3rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I might say in the beginning that embarking on this major comprehensive change to the social safety net is a bold and much needed move by the new government. I pleased with the process that the Minister of Human Resources Development has established which will involve people in terms of those discussions.

As well I might point out that in this initiative, along with the first budget of the new Liberal government, we must demonstrate to all Canadians this is a new government with a new agenda which places jobs and opportunities for all Canadians first and foremost.

While taking control over the deficit and debt is critical, we must not fall victim to the neo-conservative obsession of the past nine years which has directly contributed to the current crisis in Canada in terms of job losses, social unrest, increased poverty and disillusionment throughout the country.

It will be important for this government to outline to Canadians the limits within which we as government can work with respect to developing new made in and for Canada economic and social policies, especially so given the various trade agreements in which we now find ourselves.

For example, we have to address the issue in the very near future of the kind of federal provincial transfer system which will provide the critical social infrastructures for most provinces. As a nation and as a government we must ensure that all Canadians have equal access to programs under those economic and social policies that we implement.

Professor Tom Courchesne, a proponent of free trade, pointed out that an east-west transfer system does not square well with north-south economic integration. If Courchesne is correct, the future of our ability to provide for the means of our critical social programs throughout Canada could be at risk.

Our economy is still having to adjust to the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement and is now faced with both NAFTA and GATT. Canadians do not want this government to merely administer trade policies negotiated by the previous government, they want a proactive government which will ensure that policies emerging from these trade deals reflect Canadian needs, not just the economic and foreign interests of our neighbour to the south.

The Prime Minister has stated clearly that he will operate on these deals in the interests of Canadians.

As members in this House, we must be forever vigilant that economic trade agreements do not force us to the lowest common denominators in social programs under the guise of economic competition. We must work toward bringing up the social, labour and environmental standards of the United States and Mexico, our trading partners, and not buckle under to the pressure of reducing our own programs.

Let me turn for a moment to what is perhaps one of the greatest social tragedies in this country over the last nine to twelve years, the farm financial crisis.

I want to try and put that in some kind of context in terms of where we are coming from and where we are going and what we have to do to offer some hope for the future.

I maintain it is a real serious social tragedy in our rural areas. The farm crisis, to a great extent for political and global trade reasons, has become accepted to a great extent around the world. It has become almost normal in our society to hear of farmers going broke and governments really not doing much about it. This acceptance ignores the reality in personal terms in which farmers and farm families and farm communities find themselves.

Let me put that into perspective. In 1988, after eight years of farm crisis in this country, the House of Commons in its agricultural committee report talked about a debt of $22 billion. After implementing the Farm Debt Review Board, farm adjustment program and other subsidies, in 1992 we found ourselves after the loss of thousands of farmers still in debt to the tune of $23.9 billion.

How serious is this? It is very serious. It means that if we were farmers in this room, if you looked one person to your left and one person to your right, one of you would be in serious financial trouble, faced with the possibility of losing your farm. That is the kind of situation we find ourselves in today.

In my province of Prince Edward Island in 1991, according to census figures, we had 2,361 farmers, a decline of 16.7 per cent since 1986 and a 48 per cent decline of farmers since 1971. Are we any better off today because we have lost these farmers? No, we are not. We have deteriorating communities, a deteriorating base on which to base community programs, rinks, social affairs, educational systems and so on, a very serious matter.

How do we put a human face on these figures in terms of social problems? It is an issue that you really cannot understand unless you have experienced it. I call it economic violence, a loss of pride in terms of those farmers affected, a feeling of failure, increasing farm suicides, increasing family split-ups as a result of this very serious economic problem at the farm gate.

Even with these facts and figures we continue to see over the last nine years, coming out of Agriculture Canada and the Government of Canada, an acceptance that we must follow the trend that the market should make all decisions. We are seeing that increasingly so in the new era of globalization.

There are some who would say on the other side of the House that the free market should decide all things. I disagree very strongly with that and I hope we do as a government.

Some people will say let us be competitive. Let us look a little deeper into this competitive approach for a moment. What is the nature of competition? Basically, the nature of competition is that you get into an economic game and your objective is to destroy the competitor. In the current kind of trade and economic policy that we are moving toward in terms of these globalized trade agreements, the object of the game is to pit farmer against farmer in communities, between countries, between provinces, across borders, in a game of trying to lower your prices in order to access the market and in the process destroy that farmer in that other area.

That is not the answer. We must move forward with economic and social programs that bring in regulatory control, put in place marketing programs like the Canadian Dairy Commission, the Poultry Marketing Board, the Canadian Wheat Board, to implement agricultural policy in the interests of rural Canada and farmers.

The approach that has been going on for the last nine or ten years is leading to greater and greater exploitation and I believe to competitive poverty.

I do not believe it has to be this way. We must restore, as a new government, a sense of direction and a sense of purpose. As I mentioned a moment ago, we can introduce marketing programs. We can, through our power as a federal government, expand and strengthen farm debt review boards to deal with these cases that are in serious financial trouble.

This is one member who is going to work toward those objectives.

I do not believe we can allow the pressure to adapt and adjust to the blind blameless free market on a global basis to deter us from doing what is right in terms of the social and economic future of rural Canada and Canadians.

There are a number of other areas that I had hoped to speak on for a moment but I see that I am out of time so I will sit down and receive questions.

[Air Safety, January 31st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that the Department of Transport under the previous administration initiated a study into air transport navigation systems across Canada.

One of the outcomes will be the possible replacement of air traffic control operators at a number of airports with flight service stations. My concern is that Charlottetown is one airport so targeted. Any reduction in essential services at airports is often perceived as a safety factor. The government must demonstrate that cost reduction will not impact upon safety.

I am therefore calling upon the Minister of Transport to ensure that before any action is taken as a result of this review all stakeholders on the island will be consulted. After all, we should not be following the agenda of the previous government but correcting the mistakes it made.

Therefore it is an absolute must that we consult with all parties affected before government decisions.