Lost his last election, in 2006, with 30% of the vote.
The Budget March 2nd, 1999
Mr. Speaker, not too long ago, the Bloc Quebecois supported the unemployed in New Brunswick. This was a show of solidarity. We realize that the federal system is making people leave the Atlantic region in droves.
People from that region showed more common sense than Quebeckers. They got rid of them. They will take care of them at the next election.
The Budget March 2nd, 1999
Mr. Speaker, it is true that I paid particularly close attention to the issues of Quebec, but I know that all the provinces are penalized by the federal government's actions. I can see the concerns of my colleague from B.C.
Everyone knows the budget was unfair. Everyone understands that this government is centralizing. Everyone, except the federal Liberals, understands that this government makes a mockery of provincial jurisdictions. There is a problem. There are only some 150 people in Canada who do not understand that there was nothing for the provinces in this budget and that there was nothing to promote development.
I support my colleague, and the Bloc Quebecois supports any cause that defends provincial jurisdictions.
The Budget March 2nd, 1999
Mr. Speaker, it makes me laugh to hear the member saying the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs defends the interests of Quebeckers. It does not swell my confidence at all. We have a hard time understanding him, here in the House.
He landed in Quebec last week to try to explain the budget, when he has a hard time understanding the Canadian Constitution. It is clear. Education, health and municipalities are provincial. It is easy to give out figures, as the member for Beauce has just done. It is easy to treat us as separatists. I know no Quebeckers who do not want to become increasingly sovereignist in this province.
When we get taken, as was the case in the recent budget, when we see the social union, they can talk all they want about transparency. When were we consulted about investing only $150 million? The Prime Minister did not even honour his signature. And what about social union: a fine bit of blackmail. “We need you in the next election. We need you to fight the sovereignists. We will give you money. A million dollars in Ontario, a bit to B.C. and to Alberta”. Do people find that fair and equitable?
These people must be more responsible when they speak in the House of Commons.
The Budget March 2nd, 1999
Mr. Speaker, the member has just shown that information gets distorted when it goes from one side of the House to the other. There is a psychological barrier in the House, and the federal Liberals are unable to understand how unfair they have been to Quebec in the last budget.
The budget contained $1 billion in health transfer payments for Ontario as opposed to only $150 million for Quebec. Equalization payments were withheld for three years. With equalization, normally, if the federal government were fair and spread its research and development dollars around equitably, not only would we not have received a cheque, we would have given one to other provinces.
This government is reducing Quebec to poverty, and I hope that the members opposite, including Jean Chrétien's valiant Liberals, will realize it.
The Budget March 2nd, 1999
Relying on assumptions similar to those used by the minister in his budget, the chief actuary estimates that the annual surplus in 1999 will reach $6.22 billion. And the shocker: by the end of 1999, the surplus accumulated by this government in the last few years will have reached $26 billion, all of it lifted right out of the pockets of unemployed workers, SMEs and the most disadvantaged members of society.
I cannot say what I think of this Liberal government, Mr. Speaker, because it would be unparliamentary, but I am utterly disgusted with its arrogance and unfairness.
This government says we made no suggestions. That it does not know what to do about EI. I have news for it.
Here is what it would have been nice to hear from the Minister of Finance. There is nothing tricky about it, except that, if these fair social principles were observed, the Minister of Finance would lose his cash cow. He would no longer be able to pay down the deficit and meddle in the affairs of the provinces.
I will list what the Bloc Quebecois would have liked to have seen in this budget.
First of all, improved eligibility: abolition of the discrimination toward certain categories of unemployed persons based on their so-called presence in the labour force, such as the number of hours required for eligibility; reduction from the present 700 hours to 300 hours for eligibility for special sick, maternity and parental benefits.
Second, increase in maximum number of benefit weeks from 45 to 50.
Third, abolition of the so-called intensity rule which imposes a gradual decrease from 55% to 50% of the benefit level for claimants making regular use of employment insurance.
Fourth, transparency of the EI account: employment insurance account distinct from government operations and employment insurance rate determined solely by the employment insurance commission.
Fifth, reimbursement of EI contributions to those whose total insurable earnings are under $5,000.
Sixth, elimination of the rules reducing the amount of benefits: abolishing the freeze on maximum insurable earnings; restoring the 52 week base period; calculating benefits on the number of weeks required to qualify during which earnings were highest; and allowing people to earn 25% of maximum benefits weekly.
These suggestions have been incorporated into six bills tabled in this very House. This, in my opinion, would create an employment insurance program which would be fair and equitable for the people of Quebec and for all Canadians.
I will now address another issue relating to employment insurance, fiddling with zones. This is the greatest invention yet of the federal government for depriving people of a program to which they are entitled and for creating an awful mess, like the one we have in my own riding of Lotbinière.
The Lotbinière county municipality is part of a zone where the unemployment rate is at 7.2%. As a result, a worker has to have worked a minimum of 630 hours to qualify for 17 weeks of benefits. In another region or zone right next to it, and still within the riding of Lotbinière, that same person would have to work only 490 hours to qualify for 23 weeks. The Lotbinière county municipality is at a considerable disadvantage because of this regional rate and is deprived of any possibility of access to active job creation measures such as the job creation fund and the short weeks program.
When the employment insurance plan was created, it was supposed to help everyone without restriction and regardless of region. This government found a way to fiddle with the zones and to make sure that, in Quebec, as in my riding, no one understands. A person comes to me saying he lives in a certain municipality and has the right to draw 23 weeks of benefits. In another, he would be entitled to only 17 weeks. Try to explain that.
This plan is impossible. In this regard, I announce my intention to launch a vast operation to mobilize all the socio-economic and community stakeholders in the RCM of Lotbinière, the community decision makers, to get the Minister of Human Resources Development to correct his department's officials.
I will be tabling here in the next few months a complete file for the Minister of Human Resources Development. I hope he does not consider it a political action, an action by the Bloc Quebecois. It will be an action by the entire population of the RCM of Lotbinière, which is part of the riding of Lotbinière, a follow-up operation, a necessary operation. It will be an operation intended to break this longstanding social inequity.
I would now like to speak about the agriculture section of this budget: a big improvement over last year. The Minister of Finance devoted a tiny paragraph to agriculture in his voluminous 276 page propaganda document. Last year, there was not a single line, so it is a vast improvement. He announced, once again, the disaster program the minister of agriculture announced hastily before Christmas.
This government has had two specialities of late: it announces programs during recesses and organizes leaks of the deliberations of parliamentary committees to the media.
For example, last week the Minister of Agriculture announced his program when all the members of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food were in Washington to take part in information sessions organized with American officials and politicians to prepare future WTO negotiations. What a nice show of transparency on the minister's part.
Let us hope that, in its dealings with the provinces, this government will be fair and equitable toward Quebec, particularly hog farmers, who were saved by the intervention of the Lucien Bouchard government. If the recent social union agreement is any indication, we should expect the worst.
Let us now turn our attention to the future WTO negotiations. Agriculture is the first item on the agenda. These negotiations are under the supervision of the Minister for International Trade, who is an Ontarian, with the help of the Minister of Agriculture, another Ontarian, and of the Minister of Industry, another Ontarian. It is these three ministers who will represent Quebec's interests.
Needless to say I am concerned. I am even distressed by the fact that these Ontarians will make decisions for us Quebeckers. The social union tells the tale: one billion for beautiful Ontario, where the vast majority of federal Liberal members come from.
It is time we talk about sovereignty. To the people of Lotbinière and of Quebec I say we have to mobilize. We must talk more and more about this blueprint for our society, this project for the future, this project that gives hope to our young people, that will ensure Quebeckers' full development, that will give us the international prominence that we deserve, and that will finally liberate all Quebeckers from the yoke of the federal government. That project is Quebec's sovereignty.
The Budget March 2nd, 1999
In the 1999 budget, the government confirms that it misappropriated the $7 billion EI surplus in 1998-99 and that it intends to repeat the performance with the anticipated $5 billion surplus in 1999-2000. This surplus is still being underestimated.
In his 1998 report, the chief actuary, who is a credible individual, far more so than the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Human Resources Development—
The Budget March 2nd, 1999
Yes, indeed.
On February 19, in Plessisville, which is located in my riding, the Minister of Human Resources Development hastily met the local media. He did not meet the unemployed, but the media. The minister clearly remembered his experience of last year, when he tried to make fun of the BC mine workers, in Thetford Mines.
Let us talk about what the Liberals have done to help Quebec's health sector. They just approved the establishment of a medical police whose sole purpose will be to spy on our health system and to recommend to federal Liberals a more centralizing strategy, in order to bring Quebec's health sector under federal control.
As for employment insurance or, rather, poverty insurance, only 36% of those who contributed now qualify for benefits. Three out of every four young people have been excluded, while seasonal workers remain the most affected.
The result of this policy is that people are leaving some of Quebec's most scenic regions. Members should look at what is happening in the Gaspé and North Shore areas. The Bloc Quebecois has made numerous appeals in this House, urging the government to correct the flaws of the employment insurance reform. What did the Minister of Finance announce to the unemployed? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The minister continues to pump money out of the employment insurance surpluses and he keeps asking more from his servant, the Minister of Human Resources Development.
The latter answered the call by setting up a harassment scheme designed to target Quebec's unemployed. This quest to get money from the jobless is taking place in the Quebec riding of Lotbinière, where the minister went and got $6 million. In Quebec, over a period of just eight months, the minister got $144 million, all this for the benefit of beautiful Ontario, and also to provide money for the federal government, so that it can interfere in areas of provincial jurisdiction. This is the reality.
Let us take a look at the social and economic impacts of that reform. A very good study done by the Canadian Labour Congress shows that, from 1993 to 1997, my riding suffered a shortfall of $12 million. This hurts regional development and it results in people leaving the regions.
The Minister of Human Resources Development has the nerve to keep telling us, in the House, that the employment insurance reform is fair and equitable for Quebeckers.
I have a suggestion. From now on, so as to better describe what he has been doing since he was first appointed, the minister should call himself not the Minister of Human Resources Development, but the minister of human misery development. Unemployment is a cash cow for the Liberal government, true or false?
The Budget March 2nd, 1999
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased, as a Bloc Quebecois member, and as the sovereignist member for Lotbinière in particular, to speak today in this debate on the federal Ontario Liberal budget.
The Paul Martin budget of last February 16 was a slap in the face to the people of Quebec, a painful one. It is a purely political budget, as Alain Dubuc, editorial writer for La Presse , wrote the day after what I would call the worst possible social injustice toward the Quebec people.
Alain Dubuc is, as hon. members know, not the most sovereignist editorial writer at La Presse . He was, however, very clear in describing it as follows “The budget tabled by the Canadian Minister of Finance is purely political”.
He went on to say “The budgetary approach in this sixth Martin budget wallowed in the same quagmire as most actions by the Chrétien government, the difficulty of making choices and setting priorities, the lack of focus, concern with the short term, and political calculation”.
What Mr. Dubuc neglected to say is that this government has already made up its mind, and that its choice is to promote a unitary country, a centralizing country, which has been concentrating its efforts ever since October 1995 on weakening Quebec.
Quebec is in mourning. Our unemployed are weeping. Our sick people are in despair, and the middle class is up in arms against the way this government is acting.
Ontario, however, is jubilant, with Mike Harris heading things up, because he got the fine sum of $1 billion out of this government under the social union framework agreement, a centralizing union that skims off the provinces' powers, which they have enjoyed since the start of Confederation.
This centralizing union suits to a “T” the current Prime Minister, who, in the course of his career, has become an expert in reneging on his word and his signature.
The masks of the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Health and the Prime Minister fell on February 16. The Liberal plot was revealed, it was a plot against Quebec.
The meeting on February 4 was another example of the repeated offensives by the Prime Minister against Quebec. We will recall the patriation of the Constitution in 1982 and the Meech Lake accord, which was scuttled by this politician, a loyal apostle of the Trudeauism of the 1970s. And what about the failed supreme court attempt by the famous chameleon Guy Bertrand.
Before going on about the budget, I would like to talk about the fine parade of federal ministers in Quebec last week. This government was so aware that this budget concerned Quebeckers that last week it sent two fake Santas in red suits. The people of Quebec could see, despite the costumes, that what was coming out of the mouths of these fake Santas was false.
Members should imagine the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs trying to talk about figures. Just as here in the House, no one understood him. And the Minister of Finance had the gall to say that his budget was transparent. Something slipped his mind when he came to meet Quebeckers last week and that something was Bill C-28. Fine little bit of tampering to protect his shipping business. In particular, he forgot to say how he was robbing the employment insurance fund. There is a word for that, but I cannot say it.
Equalization Payments February 19th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, equalization payments vary a lot from one year to the next according to the state of the economy. Does the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs realize that, while he guarantees Mike Harris $5.5 billion to organize health care, he is saying to Bernard Landry “Good luck with your budget. That is about what you are going to get in equalization payments”?
Equalization Payments February 19th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, the government gave Quebec $1.4 billion in equalization payments to get Quebeckers to swallow the fact that they will get only $1 billion of the $11.5 billion the federal government will be investing in health, when Ontario will be getting five times more.
My question is for the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. Can the minister finally admit that the sum of $1.4 billion is a one-time payment covering the past five years and that it is in no way a guarantee of the future for Quebec?