House of Commons Hansard #131 of the 36th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was billion.

Topics

Economic PolicyGovernment Orders

5:30 p.m.

Some hon. members

No.

Economic PolicyGovernment Orders

5:30 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)

At this point I would seek unanimous consent of the House to see the clock as being 6.30 p.m. so that we can proceed immediately to the adjournment proceedings. Is that agreed?

Economic PolicyGovernment Orders

5:30 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

Economic PolicyAdjournment Proceedings

5:30 p.m.

Progressive Conservative

Greg Thompson Progressive Conservative Charlotte, NB

Madam Speaker, it is not very often that we have so many members here for the late show. It is simply deplorable what has happened in the House in the last couple of minutes.

The Minister of Finance presented his economic statement. That is fair. He is entitled to do that. The leaders of every party in the House of Commons had a chance to respond except our leader. He was denied that opportunity because the reform Party would not provide unanimous consent to hear from a former Prime Minister of Canada. That is deplorable.

Where is the respect? It is the same old party with a new name. It is a new paint job but no one will buy its philosophy or approach to government. It is the lowest of all political lows when a former Prime Minister of Canada is denied the right to stand in the House to present his point of view on behalf of Canadians and the party that he represents and has represented so well over the years.

Economic PolicyAdjournment Proceedings

5:30 p.m.

Reform

Leon Benoit Reform Lakeland, AB

What is the reform afraid of?

Economic PolicyAdjournment Proceedings

5:30 p.m.

Progressive Conservative

Greg Thompson Progressive Conservative Charlotte, NB

What is the reform party afraid of? I think it is afraid of truth, honesty and integrity. This is what the former Prime Minister personifies in his integrity and ability to speak the truth. I think Canadians are entitled to hear that on the floor of the House of Commons.

The question I put to the minister a number of weeks ago had to do with the health accord signed by the provinces. That was simply nothing more than a patchwork approach to the health care system.

Economic PolicyAdjournment Proceedings

5:35 p.m.

An hon. member

A post-dated cheque.

Economic PolicyAdjournment Proceedings

5:35 p.m.

Progressive Conservative

Greg Thompson Progressive Conservative Charlotte, NB

It was simply a post-dated cheque. The moneys will not flow for another 18 months. The government has no plan for the future and no guarantee that moneys will be there after the next election.

My leader would want to see established the sixth principle of health care: dependable, stable funding so that provinces would have a road map or plan for the future. The government is devoid of all planning in the health care field. Its record speaks to that. There is no plan and no ideas.

The headline in the next election should simply be no ideas, no votes. The Liberals have demonstrated that for seven years, seven years without leadership. What did they do when they balanced their books? They did it on the backs of the poor, the sick, the elderly and the unemployed. They took the most vulnerable in society and decided to balance the book on their backs.

They still do not have a plan. They certainly do not have a plan that Canadians will buy into. What is more deplorable is that in the last number of weeks they spent $8 million promoting their idea of health care. Not one cent of the billions that are coming in is going to sick people in hospitals who need it.

When this new money is all spent we will be back to 10 year levels—

Economic PolicyAdjournment Proceedings

5:35 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)

I am afraid I must interrupt at this point.

Economic PolicyAdjournment Proceedings

5:35 p.m.

Anjou—Rivière-Des-Prairies Québec

Liberal

Yvon Charbonneau LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Minister of Health

Madam Speaker, to answer the question put by our colleague from New Brunswick Southwest, I would remind him that on September 11 the Government of Canada signed a historical agreement with the provinces that will lead to the upgrading of the Canadian health care system so that it is better able to meet the needs of the population. It will mean timely and better quality health care for Canadians.

The first ministers are committed to this vision. They also agreed to an action plan with specific priorities for collaboration and action in eight key areas: access to health care, health promotion, primary health care, home care and community care, supply of doctors and nurses, pharmaceutical management, and investment in information technology.

These are very serious commitments on the part of the federal and provincial governments and they are being acted upon.

Moreover both levels of government agreed they have to be accountable to their people, Canadians as a whole and the inhabitants of each province.

Reporting will begin by September 2002 and each government is to decide how to best go about it

Also a significant reinvestment in federal funding was announced to support the first ministers agreement.

I would remind our colleague from New Brunswick Southwest that the finance minister reiterated this commitment this afternoon in his economic statement.

This very significant new investment will result in a 35% increase in the level of health care funding over the next few years.

Economic PolicyAdjournment Proceedings

5:35 p.m.

Progressive Conservative

Joe Clark Progressive Conservative Kings—Hants, NS

Madam Speaker, I express my appreciation to members of the four parties in the House, other than the reform party alliance, who respect democracy and would have allowed me to speak on extended hours on the budget speech.

I say to the members of the reform alliance that they are not going to be able to get away from me that easily in the next 20 days.

I want to speak in relation to questions I put with regard to the HRDC file. Yesterday, as hon. members know, the auditor general pulled the mask off the government's attempts to convince Canadians that it has the means and the ability to properly manage their money. He uncovered a litany of errors and mismanagement and he confirmed the House's worst fears about the problems in the human resources development department.

The auditor general said “It was more than just sloppy paperwork. We found that controls had broken down, putting public funds at unacceptable risk”. He went on to say “This is serious, because taxpayers have a right to expect that the government will follow due process when it spends public money”.

The auditor general studied the same four programs as the now infamous internal audit of the department. These included the transitional jobs fund and Canada jobs fund, the youth internship Canada program, the sectoral partnership initiatives program and the social development partnerships program. He concluded that there were widespread deficiencies in the management control of all four programs.

“We found breaches of authority, payments made improperly, very limited monitoring of finances and activities, and approvals not based on established processes.”

He concluded that many practices were not acceptable. I quote: “Proceeding without required approvals, relying on oral contracts and paying for ineligible expenses.”

Further, he adds: “Inappropriate practices had become the routine, accepted by management.”

While almost all attention revolved around job grants last year, this year we learned that while $25 million was poured into the Youth Internship program over three years only 5% of the files were properly assessed.

In contrast to the findings of the auditor general, the minister repeatedly defended the success of her programs. She stood in the House and said that everything was fine within HRDC. Yesterday she admitted in the House “we did not document appropriately the data that would support the numbers employed”.

The auditor general stated “We could not support the department's findings on the effectiveness of the transitional jobs fund”.

These problems did not happen overnight. They were warning signs that a vigilant minister should have acted upon. In 1998 an internal audit of the Atlantic groundfish strategy found serious weaknesses in all aspects of the project's life cycle. Why was corrective action not taken then? Why was a major overhaul of all grants and programs not initiated at that point? Why did the department under two different ministers wait until a crisis erupted?

HRDC has put forward a six point action plan which it claims will deal with the issues. That is not the judgment of the Auditor General of Canada. That is not the judgment of the House. The administration of this program has been a scandal and it is a scandal that continues.

Economic PolicyAdjournment Proceedings

5:40 p.m.

Laval West Québec

Liberal

Raymonde Folco LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Minister of Human Resources Development

Madam Speaker, in response to a comment made by the hon. member for Kings—Hants I would like to remind him that the auditor general's report was tabled yesterday.

As the member knows full well, this report treats mainly the same concerns as those we have been examining since the HRDC minister published in January the results of an internal audit conducted by her department.

I would like, and allow me to do it in English, to show how the auditor general, in his report, sees the way things are done in the department. I would like to remind the hon. member for Kings—Hants of these quotes.

The auditor general said “HRDC has initiated quite extraordinary corrective action to address these serious problems. We concluded that the department is on the right track”.

He says further:

—we did in fact spend a fair bit of effort to assess the adequacy of their implementation or corrective action plan and we found that the plan is serious, is working, is going in the right direction.

He says further:

We have not in the past had too much difficulty obtaining information that we wanted. Certainly, in the audits on which we are reporting today, we're not reporting any such difficulty...I think the main factor was that was there was an imbalance between the desire of the Department to provide fast service to the applicants and the need to have sound control over the spending of public funds.

He then said that he thought, and I am still quoting the auditor general:

...we believe that the department's plan to address the deficiencies that were identified is acceptable.

I would simply like to remind the hon. member—

Economic PolicyAdjournment Proceedings

5:45 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)

I regret to interrupt the hon. parliamentary secretary but her time has expired.

Economic PolicyAdjournment Proceedings

5:45 p.m.

Bloc

Antoine Dubé Bloc Lévis, QC

Mr. Speaker, on May 12 I asked the Minister of Transport whether he realized that his decision to purchase a used ferry for an additional ferry service between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia instead of buying a new one was wrong and totally unacceptable, and all the more so because it was not in line with the so-called preferential procurement policy of the Canadian government.

Here is what the minister answered:

—perhaps the hon. member knows something more about shipbuilding than most other people in Canada but to say that we could have had a ship designed and constructed within the last 18 months to put in service in the next couple of weeks on the gulf between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland just defies any logic.

Newfoundlanders have been demanding this ferry for years. The minister cannot say he was taken by surprise. The minister has been aware for a long time of the need for this ferry.

It bears repeating that the federal government did the same thing in the case of the ferry between Newfoundland and the Madgalen Islands. The minister hinted that he could implement the procurement policy in the future. He had two opportunities to do so and one more this year but he did not.

In the meantime, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans agrees to have coast guard patrol vessels built from American plans. Quite a recognition for Canadian engineers.

This is not the first time the Liberal government ignores its own policies. It was reminded of that last week by the official languages commissioner. The government does not even comply with the Official Languages Act.

This week, the information commissioner said that the government does not even honour the spirit of the Access to Information Act.

I tried many times to have my bill passed by the House this week, but in vain. On Monday a Liberal member objected to the idea of adding one hour to our sitting even though, in the end, our sitting was 20 minutes shorter than usual that day.

Again today a member could not be here for private members' business. I asked the unanimous consent of the House to replace him, not to extend our sitting, but just to replace him I had his permission. That request was denied.

This leads me to conclude that even though the Liberals voted in favour of the principle of the bill on March 29 of this year and even though in committee all the members including Liberal members, voted unanimously in favour of the bill in the clause by clause study, this is a terribly hypocritical approach. While we had the opportunity to pass this bill before an election is called, it will simply be left to die on the order paper.

I am very frustrated with this situation. Tomorrow I will go to Newfoundland where I was invited by the former premier of that province, who is now our Minister of Industry.

He will be called upon to give advice to the government with regard to shipbuilding. I hope that in his new role he will be consistent with the position he supported as a premier. On two occasions at federal-provincial conferences he and the other premiers asked the federal government to implement a national shipbuilding policy. I hope he will be consistent and tell us before the election what he intends to do to help workers in the shipbuilding industry.

There are only 3,000 of them left compared to more than 10,000 when the Liberals took office in 1993. It is unacceptable and I deplore the fact that—

Economic PolicyAdjournment Proceedings

5:50 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development has the floor.

Economic PolicyAdjournment Proceedings

5:50 p.m.

Oxford Ontario

Liberal

John Finlay LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière for giving me the opportunity to speak to the subject of consultations on the shipbuilding issue. I am pleased to be able to respond to the hon. member this evening because in fact a great deal has been accomplished over past months.

I am pleased to note that the former Minister of Industry and his officials conducted extensive consultations with a broad representation of shipbuilding and repair industry stakeholders over the past several months. The consultations revealed both convergent and divergent views. Most stakeholders felt the need for action to capture emerging opportunities in the offshore oil and gas market, the Great Lakes fleet replacement market and other niche markets.

The shipbuilding and repair industry is very diverse. The interests of those businesses and workers sometimes are at variance with other stakeholders such as shippers, shipowners and shipping companies.

Stakeholders generally agreed on the current state of the industry and on the main issues. The key issues clearly are foreign subsidies, which distort the markets, trade barriers, global and domestic overcapacity, and the need to refocus traditional approaches to capture and exploit best market opportunities.

Despite these challenges there are many examples of innovative approaches and success stories in Canadian shipbuilding and repair. In general, smaller yards are co-operating at a higher capacity by pursuing new niche markets, while the larger yards are having a more difficult time, especially with the new markets.

The shipbuilding forum is being held in Newfoundland this Friday. Therefore the federal government is still listening and learning—

Economic PolicyAdjournment Proceedings

5:50 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)

I must interrupt at this point. There is no more time.

Economic PolicyAdjournment Proceedings

5:50 p.m.

Bloc

Paul Crête Bloc Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC

Madam Speaker, on September 18 in a question I put to the minister I talked about her insensitivity to the terrible consequences our seasonal workers and their families are faced with.

Nothing in the budget update that was brought down today would correct the inequities of the current Employment Insurance Act. Let me give the House the most dramatic example I can think of.

Between July 9 and September 17, 2000, workers in the lower St. Lawrence and the North Shore regions had to work 525 hours to be entitled to 21 weeks of EI benefits. Following pressures exerted by various stakeholders, it was decided that on September 21 we were going back to 420 hours of work for 32 weeks of benefits. But that left a huge void. During a month and a half a second class of citizens, of workers, was created and this winter these people will be entitled to only 21 weeks of benefits instead of 32.

Since I asked this question the minister introduced Bill C-44 amending the Employment Insurance Act. Why did she not correct this inequity? Why does she not take the opportunity to add a clause eliminating this infamous provision that is totally unacceptable in a society like ours?

Today the government talked about distributing billions of dollars and it is not even able to give back to seasonal workers the ten weeks of benefits that are rightfully theirs.

In today's budget speech there is a lot of money for people who earn $150,000 and more. They will get an $8,000 tax cut. Do hon. members know that someone who is currently on employment insurance and earned $400 a week when he was working receives $220 in benefits? If he had been given 60% instead of 55%, he would receive $240. When one lives on $240 a week an extra $20 is a lot of money because it can put bread and butter on the family table. These are people who make $20,000 a year.

Will the government not be more sensitive and show greater respect for what seasonal workers are going through?

The message in today's budget is that if you are in the new economy, if you have technical, professional or university training in a specialized field, the government will help you. Fine. But the others who do not fall into that group are left to fend for themselves.

Will the parliamentary secretary to the minister tell us today that, yes, the government will amend Bill C-44, yes, it will treat with justice and fairness those who were penalized in July, and yes, it will give the same status to seasonal workers across the country?

Seasonal work has nothing to do with economic activity as such. In the forestry, agriculture and tourism industries, it is often possible to work for 18 or 20 weeks. But even if the economy is running at full speed, even if we enjoy strong economic growth, there are not necessarily more jobs for these workers.

Could the government not pay more attention so that these citizens can feel they are getting some respect from it? These people helped eliminate the deficit and they funded the $32 billion surplus in the employment insurance fund. Could these people not get part of that surplus? Could the government not stop making a mockery of their plight, as it just did with Bill C-44, which provides only $500 million, when the employment insurance surplus is $32 billion?

Today, the government is telling us that these billions will be used to help people earning $150,000 or more. This is revolting. But I expect that in the end the government will budge. There is still time to do so before the next election.

Economic PolicyAdjournment Proceedings

5:55 p.m.

Liberal

Raymonde Folco Liberal Laval West, QC

Madam Speaker, I would remind the member for Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques that the Liberal government has in fact done many things and intends to do many more as the Minister of Finance has said.

The Minister of Finance announced a few minutes ago in the House, at a cost of $1.3 billion, a one time relief of $125 per individual or $250 per family to assist low and modest income Canadians in dealing with their home heating expenses.

This is a one time item, a clear and specific item the Minister of Finance has just provided. There are others. This is one I could find very quickly.

I say to the member opposite that we are continuing to take our inspiration from the principles which guided the 1996 reform and which were responsible for the creation of employment insurance.

These principles are to make the program fairer, to encourage greater participation in the labour market, and to help people find jobs.

We are well aware that seasonal industries underpin the economies of a great many communities throughout the country. We feel, however, that EI is only a partial solution and that local economies must be stimulated to provide alternatives to seasonal work.

What is required to improve the lot of these seasonal workers is a concerted effort by governments and we are there to make that effort, with our partners, businesses, local leaders and individuals, in order to increase the number of jobs available.

We are working locally, provincially and territorially in order to come up with long term solutions that will improve the situation. How? By ensuring, for instance, that seasonal workers have access to education and training opportunities and—

Economic PolicyAdjournment Proceedings

5:55 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)

Unfortunately, I must interrupt the parliamentary secretary. Her time is up.

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 9 a.m., pursuant to order made on Tuesday, October 17, 2000.

(The House adjourned at 5.59 p.m.)