Jean-Paul Marchand

[Supply, April 27th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I would like to propose to my colleague the position of the Bloc Quebecois, which has always favoured a diplomatic solution in order to protect the Kosovars and to do all within our power to enable the Kosovars to return home as soon as possible.

Does he not think that, in view of the way it started, with Mr. Milosevic trying to get rid the Kosovar people, he will continue so long as there are diplomatic relations? In other words, does he not think that diplomacy encourages Mr. Milosevic in his efforts at ethnic cleansing?

[Supply, April 27th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech.

The member expressed his sympathy for the devastation going on in Kosovo. The NDP clearly thinks this crisis could be settled without violence. However, does the member not acknowledge that Mr. Milosevic has violated every possible human principle and value and is one of the worst tyrants imaginable?

Does he also not recognize that extremely strong measures are needed to fight this head of state, who has no respect for people and denies their rights and is emptying Kosovo? Do they not understand that strong measures such as ground troops are needed in Kosovo to repulse the armies?

So long as the strongest measures are not taken against Milosevic and the Serbian government, this unfortunate conflict will remain unresolved.

[Division No. 386, April 26th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I am astonished at the hon. member's remarks. I wonder whether he is not in fact trying to mislead the public. I could point out many things he said that are really very far removed from the truth, one of them being that the minister sponsoring this bill is acting with open-mindedness.

There is no open-mindedness when a minister tries to impose the government's will, as is happening here, without establishing a committee where pension fund contributors would be represented. It is more like an abuse of power on the part of the government. I cannot see any open-mindedness in what the minister is doing.

He is also trying to make people think that the government is acting in the interests of pensioners and taxpayers. Making people pay twice, as this bill does, is robbery.

It is as if the people who have contributed to this pension fund, whose surplus is some $30 billion, were being made to pay twice, because the government is acting contrary to the interests of pensioners and the general public by grabbing huge amounts of money rather then turning them back to the people who paid into the fund.

This is double taxation. This is a hidden tax. That is the truth. My colleague was trying to convince people that he is working in the taxpayers' interests. That is a falsehood. Our colleague has made a deliberate and intentional error.

Basically, the government's intention is not to act in an open-minded way. It has even imposed a gag on debate, scarcely an hour ago, because it was so anxious to stifle the debate on this misappropriation of Canadians' pension money.

This is not being open-minded. This is not defending the interests of pensioners or taxpayers. It is making the taxpayers pay twice.

I would therefore call on my colleague to comment this. Does he still maintain that the minister who introduced this bill is showing open-mindedness, and is making the taxpayers pay twice for this pension fund really seeking to help them?

[Supply, April 19th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague for his speech and support for the motion. I would like to ask him a question regarding the vote.

Everyone agrees that what is going one in Kosovo is barbaric to an extent rarely seen throughout the history of mankind.

We are wondering whether to send in troops to push the Serbs out of Kosovo. I would like to ask my colleague this: would he vote in favour of sending troops to Kosovo to force the Serbs out?

[Canada Customs And Revenue Agency Act, December 8th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I had to laugh when I heard my colleague from Mississauga South mention that this new agency would be able to solve the long standing problems that have been plaguing Revenue Canada.

This is trying to fool people, especially when we see what the agency will have to offer. There is an old saying that “Taxation without representation is tyranny”. Others say that representation, now that we have it, is worse than tyranny.

The government wants to set up an agency whose decision-making powers are removed from the elected representatives. It will have many powers including the authority to administer and impose regulations that might take unfair advantage of taxpayers even more than now. The current government seems to turn a blind eye to the increasing poverty in this country. It seems bent on reducing taxes for the rich.

I would like to put a question to my colleague regarding clause 8 of the bill. This clause seems to grant limitless powers to the agency. I would like to ask the member for Mississauga South for his views on this clause.

I will now read the most significant sentence of this clause:

The Minister may authorize the Commissioner... subject to any terms and conditions that the minister specify, to exercise or perform on the Minister's behalf any power, duty or function of the Minister under any Act of Parliament or of a province.

Does this not mean that the agency has total freedom to do whatever it wants at the expense of Canadian taxpayers and their elected representatives?

[Parliamentary Interns' Food Drive, November 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, some 120,000 people in the Ottawa area have incomes below the poverty line and some 35,000 of them obtain food aid monthly. Nearly half the people receiving food aid are children.

To provide help to these people over the holidays, the parliamentary interns have decided to organize a food drive. Between November 30 and December 11, boxes for non-perishable items will be placed in the cafeterias of the Centre, East and West blocks and the Wellington and Confederation buildings.

The parliamentary interns will also be visiting office staff to remind them of their drive and to collect food and money for the Outaouais and Ottawa-Carleton food banks.

Many families are counting on our generosity.

[Francophone Communities, November 20th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Supreme Court of Canada agreed to hear the case of the parents of Summerside, who are trying to obtain a French school in their region under section 23 of the charter of rights and freedoms.

Right now, the children of Summerside are obliged to spend an hour on the bus to get to school in the Évangéline region.

This case reveals once again the courage and tenacity of francophones, who, surrounded by an anglophone majority in Canada, are forced to fight provincial governments to be able to exercise their most fundamental right to education.

The Minister of Canadian Heritage should recognize their strength and give them real support. She should substantially increase support to francophone groups across Canada and give effect to the commitment made in this House to increase the budget for the court challenges program.

The Bloc Quebecois recognizes the work done by all parents in all the primarily anglophone provinces who are struggling for their children's rights—

[Personal Information And Electronic Documents Act, November 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today especially as I have not seen you in a while.

For those watching us on TV, I am the member for Québec East. My riding is close to Quebec City. One of the most beautiful ridings in Quebec, it encompasses L'Ancienne-Lorette, Duberger, Les Saules, Vanier, Saint-Odile, Lebourgneuf, Neufchâtel, Les Méandres, Loretteville and the Huron village. I invite anyone following this debate and recognizing me as the member for Quebec East to write to or even call me if they have any comment regarding what is being said in the House today on Bill C-54.

As my colleagues said repeatedly, this bill is weak and does not meet the population's needs. I have grave concerns regarding this bill because times are changing. We are living at a time when communications are very quick. My old communications professor, Marshall McLuhan, coined the phrase “the global village” to stress the extent to which we are increasingly close to one another.

This is not the only problem. Today, in the late 1990s, on the eve of the 21st century, there are significant changes in the way trade is being conducted around the world. This morning in the Quebec daily Le Soleil , I read that there was less competition among Canadian firms. For instance, Loblaws is in the process of buying Provigo, a Quebec company. There are also the proposed bank mergers. Several of these developments are a sign of things to come that might not necessarily be good as mergers reduce competition and choice, often resulting in more expensive services and products.

Moreover, when companies such as banks and multinationals become very powerful in today's electronic era, they might use personal information in a way that might be harmful to individuals. This is a real danger and the thrust of the debate surrounding Bill C-54.

We wish the federal government were aware of its responsibilities. Unfortunately, such is not the case, as the labour minister and members across the way readily acknowledge. The way Mr. Chrétien has been behaving during the “Peppergate” events in Vancouver, showing a total lack of respect for the most basic democratic principles, is a case in point.

It is not surprising that the current government is putting forward a personal information protection bill that is, for all intents and purposes, weak, inefficient and contrary to another right which has become fundamental these days, the protection of personal information.

This is in fact becoming an urgent and important right given the changing world economy. It has also been recognized by the privacy commissioner, Bruce Phillips, who used to be a reporter for CTV, if I am not mistaken.

Let me quote what he had to say about some of the elements of personal information:

<“The myriad of transactions that involve personal information about identifiable individuals that take place without their informed consent constitute the disregard and destruction of a treasured human right on a massive scale. These are good descriptions”.

What he is describing in rather complex terms is the right to the protection of personal information.

<“In the new information age we will respect each other as individual human beings”.

This is what the commissioner had to say. Basically, he wants the government to respect the individual. This is elementary, but we found nothing comforting in Bill C-54 as introduced by the Liberal government.

In fact, this is a bill Jean Charest, in Quebec, could very well support, because it puts corporate interests before the public interest. Jean Charest has recommended to Quebeckers changes that would give priority to corporate interests over public interest, that would destroy much of the work done by the current government at the expense of individuals. Bill C-54 is the kind of legislation Mr. Charest would support.

The Liberal government's Bill C-54 even undermines Quebec's existing legislation. It must be recognized that Quebec has been a leader in a number of areas. For instance, our elections act is among the best in the world. We have passed farming legislation.

We have even carried out an enviable reform in the health sector that is a tribute to the courage of the present provincial government. Well I remember watching Marc-Yvan Côté, the health minister in 1990, as he introduced his proposed health reform on television. The bill for this reform would have been $650,000. Ultimately, nothing was done, for the other government took over.

The present provincial government has passed a number of laws, including one on the protection of personal information. Quebec passed this law in 1994. It is just one of many examples.

It proves that the present government in Quebec, with its open-minded and progressive bills, is on top of things. This particular law is one of the best, if not the only one, of its kind in North America, requiring that personal information be protected in the private sector. The federal government's Bill C-54 would be a step backward from the legislation passed by Quebec in 1994.

In other words, Bill C-54 is, once again, a step backward. One of many. The Prime Minister and this backward-looking Liberal government really lack the strength to bring in any forward-looking bills.

Perhaps we should support those who are calling for the Prime Minister's head. For instance, this week, La Presse wrote that it was time for the Prime Minister to make his exit. The Toronto Star has also called for his resignation, as have the Globe and Mail the Gazette and the Edmonton Journal .

Last week, there was a chorus from numerous English-language dailies—not known for their separatist views—all after the Prime Minister's head because he does not respect fundamental rights in this country. One good example of this lack of respect is Peppergate, but there was also the Somalia scandal and the ensuing attempted cover-up.

It is not therefore surprising that Bill C-54 is so wishy-washy, weak and contrary to the interests of Canadians.

[Sisters Of Charity Of Quebec, September 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, 150 years ago, Sister Marcelle Mallette and her companions arrived in Quebec City to establish the charitable institutions they ran with their colleagues, the Sisters of Charity of Quebec.

The Saint-Sacrement, Civique, Laval and Saint-Michel-Archange hospitals, the Nazareth and Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes homes for the aged, the Institut Saint-Joseph de la Délivrance, the Saint-Sauveur and d'Youville children's orphanages and the Maison Mère-Mallette providing food and clothing for the disadvantaged all bear witness to the devotion and solicitude of these Sisters of Charity.

I join with my colleagues from the Quebec City area in congratulating and thanking these devoted nuns and in expressing the hope that their work with the disadvantaged in our society will continue revitalized. On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the founding of the congregation of the Sisters of Charity, the public wishes to express its gratitude for all they have done.

[City Of L'Ancienne-Lorette, June 10th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I live in the city of L'Ancienne-Lorette, in the riding of Québec East, which I represent.

In 1650, the Hurons, driven out by the Iroquois, left my home town of Penetanguishene to come and settle in L'Ancienne-Lorette, which Father Chaumonot, a Jesuit, founded in 1673.

Our city is celebrating this year the 325th anniversary of its founding, a historical event that took place under the French regime.

Throughout the month of June, a number of activities will be held to give the residents of L'Ancienne-Lorette the opportunity to celebrate this 325th anniversary. People can have fun and learn about the past by visiting an exhibition of old photographs, finding out about the life of Father Chaumonot and participating in other activities.

I congratulate everyone who helped organize these celebrations and wish a happy 325th anniversary to all the residents of L'Ancienne-Lorette.