Jean-Guy Chrétien

[Rail Transportation, October 20th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, last Monday in Thetford Mines there was a demonstration by several hundred people from Thetford Mines and Beauce in support of restoration of Québec Central train service between Lévis and Sherbrooke, via Beauce.

Almost all the economic and political stakeholders in our region support this project. Many jobs depend on it. If the branch line is restored, Prolab promises an investment of $48 million, which would create 75 direct jobs in our area.

Yet on two occasions the federal government has refused to support putting this line back in service. The government must stop turning a deaf ear, and must provide financial support for restoration of the Québec Central train. I invite it to lend an ear to this heartfelt cry from the people of this area, and those representing them.

What is the Secretary of State responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec waiting for before he acts?

[Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act, October 19th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I was going to say that I am rising on Bill C-54, but since the House was prorogued by the government leader, we have to redo our homework today. We also have to rename this legislation Bill C-6.

In spite of the three and a half months the government had to prepare an appalling Speech from the Throne, it begged for three more weeks, and this of course led to all the bills dying on the order paper; this is unfortunate since the consideration of these bills was, for the most part, quite advanced in the House.

Bill C-6 is sponsored by the Minister of Industry, the good member for Ottawa South in the federal capital region. When we watch this minister act, we sometimes ask ourselves if his judgment is failing him.

This is the same minister who, a few weeks ago, said of Quebec's minister Bernard Landry that it was stupid of him to have met the mayor of Boisbriand, where GM's plant is located. He said “Since there is a good dialogue between us, I will help you keep GM's plant”, when everyone knows full well that 95% of Canadian automobile plants are in Ontario.

Quebec only has 5% of them, one out of 15, and the minister would like to close it down. The Minister of Industry would not even help us keep our plant and he has the nerve to introduce Bill C-6, which will violate Quebecers' intimacy and confidentiality.

The title of Bill C-6 reads in part “an act to support and promote electronic commerce”—everything is fine so far—“by protecting personal information that is collected, used”, etc.

Members can see how twisted and dishonest the government is. They changed the name of unemployment insurance for employment insurance. It means that you pay insurance policy and if your house burns down, the insurance company indemnifies you. In the same way, workers pay part of their wages to have protection against unemployment or lay off. The name of the plan was changed. Employment insurance was so much nicer!

The hon. member for Drummond knows perfectly well that only 42% of people who pay employment insurance premiums qualify for benefits when they lose their job. Why? Because eligibility criteria were hardened.

The minister of Industry tells us that he will protect the privacy of Canadians. If he treats the confidentiality of personal data the same way he treats Canadian workers, there are reasons to worry. The way he treated Bernard Landry, the vice premier of Quebec, shows that the man does not have an ounce of judgement.

The minister is so deprived of judgement that he acted unilaterally when he introduced his bill on personal data protection without waiting for the report of the very consultation committee he had created. I wonder how a man like him can be member of the cabinet. He created a consultation committee, but one week later, he went ahead without even waiting for the report of that committee. Isn't that bright?

There is even worse. On September 21st 1998, 13 months ago, he consulted the provincial ministers. A few days later, on October 1, he went ahead and introduced his bill, Bill C-54.

I am not the only one, and the Bloc Quebecois is not the only one to object to the way the minister is behaving. In Quebec, his critics are unanimous.

There is the government of Quebec, the Conseil du patronat, the CSN, the Chambre des notaires, Options consommateurs, the Barreau du Québec-of which the member for Brome—Missisquoi was president. There was a by-election after Mr. Peloquin, who represented this riding, died. The member who has replaced him said: “I will go to Ottawa to defend the interests of Quebecers.” He was then president of the Quebec Bar. Five years later, his former association says: “Bill C-6 is garbage, it should be thrown out.”

Worse yet, a group of constitutional experts said that Bill C-6 was in violation of the constitution. A little while ago, the member for Drummond said that in 1994 Quebec had passed a bill protecting personal information. In Quebec, we already have an act. A few years later, the federal government is getting ready to destroy, ruin, put the axe to something which is working well in Quebec.

We saw the same thing in the throne speech we heard two weeks ago. In Quebec we have a drug plan which is working well. The federal government now wants to create it own. Once again it is going to cause trouble in Quebec.

The Minister of Industry knows full well that in Quebec we have what we call civil law and in the rest of Canada they have common law. I would like to read section 3 of the Civil Code. It is very short:

“Every person is the holder of personality rights, such as the right to life

Everyone agrees

, the right to the inviolability and integrity of his person, and the right to the respect of his name, reputation

That is, not saying anything against someone

and privacy”.

This is section 3 of the Civil Code and it is from the latest volume that was just published.

Bill C-6 should be put in file 13, shelved and simply be cancelled. We, in the Bloc Quebecois, want that Bill-6 be simply withdrawn for a number of reasons.

First of all, the Minister of Industry has tabled it without consulting the provinces. The bill would interfere with provincial jurisdictions. It would force Quebec to go backwards with respect to the protection of personal information, as the hon. member for Drummond argued so well earlier, because its enforcement in Quebec would produce confusion and because it is lacking on the legal level.

Finally, it uses electronic commerce as an excuse to invade the civil right of Quebecers and of all Canadians.

In conclusion, I wished that the Prime Minister, the hon. member for Saint-Maurice, would try to make the minister see reason, although I sometimes question his intellectual abilities, as he demonstrated about a week and a half ago. If he is not able to do so, he should get rid of him as Minister of Industry and kick him out of the cabinet.

[Speech From The Throne, October 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it will soon be four months since the House of Commons recessed so that the Prime Minister and his Cabinet could put together the throne speech. The President of the Treasury Board must certainly be pleased with what her leader had to say.

First of all, she mentioned the quality of life of all Canadians. I have read and reread the throne speech, and was even present when the Governor General read it, but I found no short-term solutions to serious problems such as the fisheries dispute, which is worsening daily in the Atlantic provinces.

There is nothing to put an end to the arrival of boatloads of immigrants on the west coast. Nor is there any clarification of the government's position with respect to Onex, which would like to buy and merge Air Canada and Canadian Airlines, or anything to repair the grievous damage this government has done to health care, social services and postsecondary education. There is nothing to put right the terrible unfairness in EI, for which barely 42% of unemployed workers who pay premiums qualify when they lose their job.

There is nothing to narrow the gap between rich and poor, which grows wider with each passing year. I wonder whether the minister, the President of the Treasury Board, was one of the 500 people who marched in Montreal yesterday to try to make people, especially rich people, aware of the terrible straits in which several hundreds of thousands of Canadians find themselves. With many, many children coming to school hungry every day, donations must now be sought so that they can be provided with breakfast and lunch.

When the minister talks about the quality of life and the environment of Canadians and Quebecers, can the minister tell us whether or not she intends to do something about these oversights in last week's throne speech? I await her comments.

[Gilles Dostie, June 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, last Friday the Société national des Québécois de L'Amiante paid a rousing tribute to Gilles Dostie, a true nationalist of unshakeable convictions, who has remained a simple and modest man while being involved in all manner of humanitarian causes.

The ceremony, held before over 400 people at Club Aramis, with Guy Bouthillier as the honorary chairman, afforded the people of L'Amiante an opportunity to say thank you to this man who has committed his life to serving his community.

Gilles Dostie will leave his mark on our region, among other things as a co-founder of the Comptoir familial de Thetford and the Centre communautaire Marie-Agnès-Desrosiers.

I join with all the people of L'Amiante in congratulating and thanking Gilles Dostie, who is and will continue to be a source of inspiration for the entire population.

Thanks are also due to his wife, Pierrette Gagnon, for her unfailing support over the years.

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, June 1st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is very uplifting to hear from a member of the Liberal government. They love to spout fine rhetoric such as “This is groundbreaking legislation. This bill includes the most effective processes. It is the best environmental legislation in the world”.

Yesterday, when we voted at report stage, the most involved members of the Liberal caucus, who sit on the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development, including the chairman himself, the hon. member for Davenport, who was Minister of the Environment in the Turner cabinet, voted against the bill.

The hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis, a former Quebec environment minister under Robert Bourassa in the 1970s, voted against the bill. He also sits on the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.

The hon. member for York North, in Ontario, who is an environmentalist and a member of the same committee, voted against the bill.

The parliamentary secretary does not have the courage to admit that this bill was killed by the Minister of Industry himself and the various ministers who gravitate around him.

Everything is a power struggle in that party. The bill, which was originally acceptable, has been watered down to the point where it does not even have 1% of true quality left.

This is why Bloc Quebecois members and many others will vote against it. The squandering of public money and duplication that will result from this legislation are the reasons why my colleague, the hon. member for Jonquière, recommended that we vote against Bill C-32.

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, June 1st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-32 is undoubtedly a major bill, but it is very disappointing.

It is disappointing to Bloc Quebecois members and to those Liberal members who are most involved in the environmental field. I can think of the hon. member for Davenport, who is also the chairman of the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development, the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis and former Quebec environment minister, who also voted against the bill, and the hon. member for York North, who also sits on the committee.

If those Liberal members who are most involved in the environmental field voted against Bill C-32, as was the case yesterday, does it mean that all Liberal members who have some common sense should follow suit? These are members who have put a great deal of time into studying the bill clause by clause, and now they are voting against it.

[Asbestos, June 1st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, since France's ban on asbestos was announced, Quebec has been trying in every possible way to save this major industry and the numerous jobs that are at stake.

The Bloc Quebecois has done the same by inviting diplomats posted here in Ottawa to visit the asbestos region, and by asking the federal government to lodge a complaint with the WTO, something it took over two years to do.

Recently, the Quebec government asked the federal government to allow Quebec officials to plead the case of the Quebec asbestos industry before the WTO. This is a legitimate request, since the case was prepared by Quebec officials.

Why and in the name of what logic did this government decide to exclude the Quebec government from this case, if not to put partisan politics before the interests of Quebecers?

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, May 31st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, in the context of Bill C-32, the motions in Group No. 6 contain major amendments to the original version of bill.

I do not want to reiterate all that my colleagues have said before me, especially my colleagues in the Bloc Quebecois, inspired here by our environment critic, the member for Jonquière.

I would like to take a closer look at this government's lack of environmental responsibility since 1993 and discuss waste.

In 1993, when the Prime Minister, the member for Saint-Maurice, formed his cabinet, he appointed the member for Hamilton, at the time, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Environment. We agree that the environment is the most important department, especially in an election. Non-living and living elements must be respected.

A few months later, she was obliged to leave her post for failing to honour an election promise on the GST. We lost our Minister of the Environment, because she resigned. The Prime Minister appointed another Minister of the Environment, and, according to our evaluation and that of the public at large, quality continued to drop. Following the 1997 election, we were given a third Minister of the Environment. Clearly there is a lack of responsibility.

The good member for Davenport, an environmentalist and an ecologist of renown, served as Minister of the Environment under John Turner. He was, with Lucien Bouchard, one of the best Ministers of the Environment. I would like to salute him in this House. The member for Davenport, chairman of the standing committee on the environment, is surely not proud of his government.

First of all, as the member for Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île-d'Orléans put it so well, there was a record number of amendments. A total of 580 amendments have been introduced. It took 60 sessions to study Bill C-32 clause by clause. Finally, the committee managed to pass some 160 amendments.

This morning in Le Devoir , there is an article by Manon Cornellier, under the heading “A Little Breathing Space”. She supports the rebellion among the Liberal Party backbenchers, in particular the six who dared to vote against their party line last week. The government, with its 156 members, does not enjoy a huge majority. So when six members form a separate group, it puts the good Liberal government we have before us at some risk.

I would like to quote a short paragraph about the dissident members:

Liberal members have also targeted a number of bills. The first one, Bill C-32, deals with the prevention of pollution by toxic substances. The Standing Committee on the Environment, including the Liberal members, has decided to provide real means of action. The ministers that are more responsive—

Listen to that. This is really not serious, and we do not have a very capable environment minister.

The ministers that are more responsive to the concerns of industry did not appreciate that. They have forced the environment minister to block the committee through a series of amendments. As a result, 233 amendments of all kinds have been introduced.

They have twisted the arm of the hon. member for Davenport, a former environment minister.

We cannot help but conclude that the environment is not a priority for the government of the hon. member for Saint-Maurice. Our environment has four non-living elements: air, water, soil, and light. When we speak about our children and their future, we should at least pass on to them clean water, uncontaminated soil, air that will not cause cancer to 5 or 6-year old children, something that does occur in certain areas of this country.

The soil is under provincial jurisdiction. With respect to the environment, Quebec is well ahead of even the federal government, and of course all the other provinces. Quebec is a leader on environmental matters.

In this regard the member for Lac-Saint-Louis, who headed the environment ministry under Robert Bourassa in the 70s did a pretty good job, I must admit, with the resources and the budget he was allocated. He did a good job, and it must be said that in Quebec we look after our land, not only sceptic tanks. We look after our environment.

When we talk about the air and the water, we know we all breathe the same air. We drink water. We also know water flows downhill, not uphill.

If we could have a responsible world government that would deal with water and air pollution, things might be better. Light comes from the sun. We will deal with smog later on.

With regard to water, let us take the most visible example, the St. Lawrence River. It is shared not only by two provinces, but by two countries. The United States are largely contributing to the pollution of the St. Lawrence River. It flows through Montreal and the Gaspé. The effects of pollution on the food chain are increasing visible as the member for Saint-Jean mentioned. The fish we eat might make us very sick because of the heavy metals, especially mercury, it contains.

We doubt the government is very serious about the environment. The federal government is trampling over this field as it did with the millennium scholarships. It was outside its jurisdiction, but it got in through its spending power. They even wanted to force our education minister to negotiate with Jean Monty.

We told Jean Monty “Look after your employees instead”. Look after you company, Bell Canada. If you have some spare time left, go play golf, engage in PR activities, but do not get involved in things in which you have no business, such as the scholarships”. As members know, this is a provincial jurisdiction.

Now, the government is duplicating structures in the environmental sector. When the Canadian Constitution was signed in 1867, the environment was not a priority. The 1867 Constitution is totally silent on jurisdictions, on the sharing of powers regarding the environment. An agreement was reached over the years.

Under that agreement, when specific issues concern more than one province, the federal government is in charge, such as in the case of hunting permits.

If a person wants to go duck hunting, he or she will need to get a permit from the post office. I know members are well aware of that since migrating birds come under federal jurisdiction. However, if a person wants to go partridge hunting, he or she will need a provincial permit, because partridges stick to a very small area.

Once again, the federal government is about to duplicate existing structures, and the taxpayer always ends up paying double. It is like the example I gave last week in the House, with two agriculture ministers being responsible for the same milk cow. If the milk is processed or consumed locally, there are two jurisdictions, but it is the same cow and the same producer. The situation is similar here.

[Questions On The Order Paper, May 28th, 1999]

With regard to the shutdown of operations at La Nationale mine in the Thetford Mines, Quebec, area in November 1985; ( a ) what kind of assistance was granted to the workers affected by the closure; ( b ) what was the name of the program put in place; ( c ) what was the amount of money put into the program by the federal government; and ( d ) what conditions did the workers have to meet in order to benefit from the program?

[Public Sector Pension Investment Board Act, May 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I would simply suggest to the Prime Minister that he dismiss his Minister responsible for the Francophonie right away. She has done a disservice to Acadians and to all Francophones, especially Quebecers in Canada. She has not represented us well, she does not deserve her position. She must be dismissed immediately. Hats off to Jacques Roy, who set things straight. Fortunately he was there.