In my travels as an MP I meet literally hundreds of Newfoundland and Labrador men (yes, the vast majority are men) in airports or on planes flying to work all over the world, but mostly Alberta.  They slog it out for two- or three-week rotations, and then beat it back home.  Their lives are hard on their families, on the women and children left behind.  I can relate. My father commuted to the far north for work on a string of radar bases known as the Distant Early Warning Line for almost 20 years.  He worked away for six to nine months at a time, and then came home for six weeks.  My mother held the family together when he was gone — from the banking to the baking, from the cleaning to the scolding.  My father's sacrifice was incredible — to support his family he had to leave his family.  But my mother's sacrifice was equally as brutal — to support her family she had to forfeit her husband.  We moved to this house...

I posed the following question in the House of Commons on Friday, May 10th. Mr. Speaker, People have been shaking their heads in disbelief with the news that the source of an ongoing oil spill off Newfoundland's northeast coast is a ship that sank in the 1980s. For decades, successive federal governments knew this ship was below the waves — a potential environmental hazard — and did nothing to clean out the oil. Now, slicks are appearing as the ship's tanks begin to leak. Mr. Speaker, where is the government's plan to clean up this environmental hazard permanently?

I posed the above question in the House of Commons on Thursday, May 10th.

May 9, 2013   Ottawa – MP Ryan Cleary, St. John’s South-Mount Pearl, today requested the appointment of an independent mediator to help resolve the labour dispute between the St. John’s International Airport Authority and 85 striking workers, members of the Union of Canadian Transportation Employees (UCTE), a component of the Public Service Alliance of Canada from the Honorable Lisa Raitt, Minister of Labour. “St. John’s is about to enter its busiest travel and tourism season and this matter needs to be resolved for the safety of travelers and for the benefit of the economy of the northeast Avalon, and, indeed, all of Newfoundland and Labrador,” Cleary said from his Ottawa office. In mid-February a federal mediator (Barney Dobbin) was called in to bring both sides back to the table (the strike began on Sept. 11, 2012), but has been unsuccessful in resolving the dispute. “We need a fresh face at the table. We need to revitalize a process that has grown stale. We need a...

I gave the following 10-minute speech today in the House of Commons on Bill C-60, the so-called Budget Implementation Act.  Mr. Speaker,  The last speaker, the Conservative speaker (Pierre Poilievre, representing the suburban Ottawa riding of Nepean-Carleton), began his speech with talk of kings and queens and crowns.  My speech will focus more on mere mortals – ordinary Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and Canadians. The people the Conservatives forgot.  I had a public meeting in my riding of St. John’s South-Mount Pearl just this past Sunday.  To start the meeting, a woman, aged 65, approached me.  She pulled me aside, wanting to speak to me privately about her problem. The woman, who’s single, rents an apartment and the company that owns the apartment just raised her rent by $45 every two weeks.  That’s $90 a month.  Or $1,080 a year.   Mr. Speaker, here’s the problem: she’s retired and on a fixed income, a smal...

I posed the following question today (May 2nd) in the House of Commons. The minister's announcement is clearly too little, too late - the lives of Canadian mariners are still at risk. Mr. Speaker, under the Conservative watch search and rescue has deteriorated for years - years. Now - only now - they're scrambling to pick up the pieces. The search and rescue volunteer association represents thousands of volunteers, but is now facing collapse. Yet this minister didn't even bother to respond to their calls. Why is the minister giving the cold shoulder to stakeholders? Mr. Speaker, Why is search and rescue such a low priority for this government?