Suzanne Tremblay

[Regional Air Transportation, October 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the regions are now faced with the disastrous consequences of the monopoly given to Air Canada by the government. The minister even went so far as to ask Air Canada to leave small communities, because it is more profitable for a small company to provide services with smaller aircraft.

Will the government act on the request made by the common front in eastern Quebec, which is asking Air Canada Jazz to defer its decision to stop its Mont-Joli-Quebec City-Mont-Joli flights?

[Iraq, October 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am most pleased to be able to take part in this debate. Recently, one of the reasons that my constituents stop to talk to me, even while doing my groceries, has been to tell me “Mrs. Tremblay, we hope that you will not support a war, and that the government will not send our soldiers to Iraq, that the government of the member for Saint-Maurice will do everything within its power to prevent the president of the United States from declaring war”.

It is an issue that is worrying Canadians and Quebeckers, because when you get right down to it, if we were to do a poll, we would see that a large segment of the population would ask us to do everything in our power to ensure, as much as possible, peace in the world.

In this day and age, we have every means at our disposal: well-developed diplomatic structures, means of communication, means to train humans to be more understanding of different cultures and religions, which makes up what we call our civilization. We have so many tools at our disposal now to be able to benefit more from what we are doing right now.

As we speak, the Security Council is probably still meeting. Today, we learned that the United States and Great Britain have utterly rejected the agreement reached between the UN and Iraq on the return of inspectors to that country. Washington asked the negotiator, Mr. Blix, to delay his departure for Iraq.

I am under the impression that the President of the United States is using every possible means to get what he has wanted since the beginning: to go to war. Every time an agreement is reached between Iraq and the UN, he will come up with an additional requirement.

The United States and Great Britain insist that the UN Security Council must adopt a much more strongly worded resolution than the first one before inspectors can travel to Iraq.

The United States has proposed a draft resolution. This draft resolution was submitted to the Security Council and it seems that it really lacks clarity. It provides, among other things:

That the inspectors will have to have access to presidential sites in Iraq.

At first glance, this requirement by the United States to have access to all sites, including presidential sites, does not appear to be too compelling for Iraq. As we know, the Americans have been asking for this from the beginning. The fact that they insist on having access to these sites does not appear, in and of itself, to be an unreasonable demand. However, this requirement was not part of the initial demand that led to the agreements reached in Vienna by the UN and Iraq. This would be a new demand and, if the Security Council agreed to it, negotiations would have to resume between the UN and Iraq. The UN representative would have to go back to Vienna and resume negotiating to try to get Iraq to agree to this new concession.

Another demand that appeared in the last resolution presented to the Security Souncil, the draft resolution presented by the United States, was for inspectors to be accompanied by American soldiers.

This demand by Mr. Bush is completely unacceptable. Unacceptable for Iraq, of course. It is well known that what brought an end to the work of the inspectors in Iraq was the espionage done for the CIA, which damaged the impartial reputation of the inspectors who were in Iraq. To again seek to put them under the control of American soldiers is to doom to failure any work the inspectors might do. I think that this would lack transparency and might plunge us back into the same situation as before, with the new inspectors again working for the CIA. They would be much busier with espionage than with the inspecting they are being asked to do.

The important thing is that inspectors maintain their autonomy, so that they can be under the aegis of the United Nations. They must not represent their country of origin, but be detached from it and put under the protection, as it were, of the United Nations. This seems to meet with the approval of all the various countries.

There is also talk of any failure on the part of Iraq to implement the agreement they have just agreed to and provide full cooperation constituting a new flagrant violation. Such a violation would authorize member states to take all necessary means to restore peace. This wording would help decide whether Iraq was cooperating to their satisfaction and would give carte blanche for an armed intervention, without again involving the UN.

This last point from what we know to be the draft resolution before the Security Council is completely unacceptable to us. This must not be based on a judgment call. My colleague, who spoke before me, stated it very well. We cannot allow the United States to be both judge and jury, responsible for deciding every aspect of everything in order to make it easy for itself to declare war. There must be an organization that is completely independent from the United States to decide if Saddam Hussein has truly violated the agreement, and if it should thrust us into a war that will end up being very long, apparently.

Therefore, the Security Council must be responsible for making this type of call, as to whether or not there really has been a flagrant violation. We know that Mr. Blix, who was the negotiator in Vienna, met with the Security Council today to inform members of the content of the agreement reached with Iraq. He met with them in person, and they discussed the agreement. Following the meeting, he said that he would now begin planning a trip to Iraq. Obviously, however, he would be waiting for the Security Council to rule on whether or not he would be allowed to leave for Iraq.

We know that France, among others, has made a proposal that the Security Council is examining at the present time. We do not know what the details of it are, but we do know that it would do away with the systematic use of force. This is a bit of a guarantee for Canada, because the Prime Minister assures us that he will do nothing without the United Nations. I trust that our Prime Minister will stick to that position, because we have the assurance of France that it will defend its position before the Security Council. I believe that the nature of this stand is reassuring to Canadians.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the first thing that should have been done the Speech from the Throne was for the government to finally recognize that the problem is seasonal work, and not the workers.

Before, workers could work on a farm, fish, chop wood and do other things they wanted to do. Now, everything has become specialized. Now you need a card to do jobs. So, people are forced into one seasonal job. We should help make things easier for people, and if we are going to recognize the concept of seasonal work, then we should allow those who become prisoners to it to do other work.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, in reply to my kind colleague, the member for Bourassa, I would say that, of course, there has been an announcement regarding highway 175. I am not impressed. What I want to see is trucks on the side of the highway, I want to see asphalt, I want to see the work being done. Unfortunately, in 20 years time, I will not be here to remind you that the work on highway 175 has yet to be done.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, since 1993, I have often heard this government say that it wants to connect everyone—it wants us to be connected to a highway—so that we are all connected with one another. However, I have never seen a government so disconnected from the needs of the regions, whether it is softwood lumber or air transportation.

If another scandal surfaces, it will be in air transportation. The government gave Air Canada a monopoly. What did Air Canada do? It announced that, on October 6, I will no longer be able to fly to Ottawa. I will have to hitchhike to get here. The hon. member for Gaspé will also no longer be able to fly home. He will no longer be able to fly from the Magdalen Islands and stop in Mont-Joli, if he wishes to do so. Everything is going to Montreal. It is a disgrace that the government should care so little about the regions.

As for softwood lumber, the fact that this issue is still not settled is a disgrace. This is an urgent matter. It is a critical issue for many regions in the country. But the government is doing nothing. The minister responsible is smiling. He is sporting a fine suntan, and he gives us answers that do not lead to anything. This is unfortunate.

We could also mention agriculture, which is another critical issue in our country. The government is disconnected and is not even aware of the problem. The fact is that the Liberals are connected to Ottawa, they are connected to the Ontario highway. They know the Ontario highways, but that is it: as far as they are concerned, the rest of Canada can travel on dirt roads or whatever.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Rimouski-Neigette-et-la Mitis for her welcoming message. I am absolutely delighted to be back here and I am in fighting shape, let me warn you.

The hon. member refers to consensus. My view of a consensus is a lot broader than hers. When 49% of the population wants something and 51% wants something else, we are far from consensus. This is very nearly the majority of 50% plus one, a majority with which we are enormously pleased and one which we defend.

We are far from having a consensus in Quebec as far as our future is concerned. Quebecers still say, at least 46% of them, according to the latest survey, that they are in favour of having our own country one day.

The young man who seems to be an up and comer in Quebec and appears to have some chance of being in a position of power some day, himself said in 1995 that there would be no referendum for ten years. So that means 2005, three years from now. The deadline the premier of Quebec has set is for us to have our own country when we sit down and negotiate the conditions for the FTAA for ourselves. We will have our own country.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am terribly sorry. I seem to have lost the hang of it, because I have not been around for six months now. I was trying to refer to the member who cannot be referred to as a backbench member, because he is in the front row, the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard. Everyone knows who I am talking about: the former Minister of Finance in the government of the hon. member for Saint-Maurice. There you go, I got it all right this time, Mr. Speaker. Thankfully, no one ever died from embarrassment.

The member in question said that there was a fiscal imbalance when one level of government has more revenues than another, and when one has less spending.

Clearly, when one government has the revenues, and the other level of government has to do the spending, you do not have to be Einstein—and I know for a fact that there are no members here with that name, so I am safe— to understand that this means that there is a fiscal imbalance.

When the hon. member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville says that there is no fiscal imbalance, it seems to me that he should redo his economics 101 course in order to understand; this is a very basic concept.

There is a consensus in Quebec on this issue. This consensus is now spreading to all the provinces. There is a huge fiscal imbalance between the federal government and the provincial and territorial governments. The federal government is collecting too much money in taxes, considering its expenditures and responsibilities. It arbitrarily made cuts and now it is reluctant to go back to the levels that existed before these cuts were made, in 1994 and 1995. This is a serious mistake.

This government is also making another big mistake, but it may be able to correct things. I am referring to the infamous parental leave. While the government is providing a child tax benefit to help poor children, if there are poor children, it means that there are poor families. If we do not help poor families, we will never achieve our objectives, even if we have measures that specifically target poor children.

Yesterday evening, I read an article saying that the United Nations recognized that, in a way, the lack of concern of rich governments was the reason why we were losing the battle against poverty. Poverty is on the rise, and there is an increasing number of poor children and families. The government came up with a parental leave that is tied to the employment insurance program, as if working women were the only ones with children.

What about all the women who do not qualify for employment insurance and who also have babies, take leave and get poorer because they do not qualify for the parental leave designed by the federal government? I wonder when the minister will understand. I wonder when the government will understand.

I have here a clipping from yesterday's paper, which reads “After the budget deficit...”. I cannot quote the article verbatim, because it refers to the Prime Minister by name. The article says that the Prime Minister “wants to eliminate social deficits”.

One way to eliminate one of the social deficits in Quebec is to change his policy on parental leave. This is parental leave that is all wrong. Nobody—well, not many people take it. I should not say nobody, because some people do. However, everyone I met who was eligible told me “Mrs. Tremblay, I cannot afford to take parental leave. I simply cannot afford to receive only 55% of my salary for a year. We would probably lose our home”.

Some people might not be able to keep up with the mortgage payments on their house because their income has dropped. This government has to get it into its head that this parental leave is not good enough. If the Prime Minister really wants to do something, he should look at parental leave.

Another thing he should look at is employment insurance for seasonal workers. It is not the workers who are seasonal, but the jobs. It is the work that is seasonal. If the minister could also understand this—I do not think it is a difficult thing to understand—that it is our work which is seasonal, appropriate measures will be taken and there will be an end to the discrimination against so-called seasonal workers.

There is another consensus in Quebec which the government is doing absolutely nothing about, and when we hear the answers from the Minister for International Trade, we could die laughing, if something this terrible were funny. I am talking about softwood lumber. How many times have we won our case before the WTO tribunal? How many times have our businesses been cheated?

Before my leave, I myself rose in the House to ask the minister to do something about the problem, to tell him that it was urgent, that the agreement was about to expire. The problem is still not sorted out. The deal he cut is even worse than what we had before.

I see that my time is up. I had much more to say and I hope that we will have a chance to come back to this in other debates.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs does not seem to be very good in economics.

Mr. Martin, who proved that he was able to administer a budget, recognized that there was a fiscal imbalance.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I think you will need to keep the name of my riding in mind in future. Having not used it for a long time, it is perfectly understandable that you have lost sight of it, but I think you will remember it in future.

I am very pleased to be able to speak within this debate on the address in response to the Speech from the Throne, which was delivered on Monday afternoon. I have heard a number of these speeches since coming here, but this was really the one I had the greatest hope for, and unfortunately the one that has been the greatest disappointment to me. I was expecting a throne speech with some perspective for Canada's future, one in which we would see what future policies would be, how we could move forward in the 21st century with as much harmony as possible and how we could solve the problems facing us.

I must admit, however, that of all the throne speeches we have had to date, this is the weakest I have ever had occasion to read.

I would like to begin with several points that, on first reading, strike me as positive. It is, however, very obvious that we will have to wait for the concrete measures arising out of the fine words we heard when the speech was read. One of these points is ratification of the Kyoto protocol.

The Prime Minister has promised that a resolution would tabled in the House. We will have a debate on the Kyoto protocol, and it appears that we will be able to vote on this resolution, to honour the commitments we made regarding the Kyoto accord. However, since the beginning of the session, we have already noticed that this issue seems to be creating problems within cabinet itself. So, even though we view this as a rather positive step, we have concerns: what will the apparent dissension in cabinet lead to?

Considering the Minister of Health's election results, the province she lives in and the position of the government in her province, whose premier said he is even prepared to separate from Canada if the Kyoto protocol is implemented, I can understand why she is trying her best, first to save her seat, second to ensure that her province does not separate, and third to play for time on the Kyoto accord. This is the first thing.

Another concern about Kyoto is the fact that the protocol will be implemented over a 10-year period. We wonder to what extent all the efforts that have been made by Quebec, for example, over the past 10 years will be taken into consideration when the time comes to define everyone's share of the burden. We will also have to see to what extent we will truly be able to allocate the necessary funds to fully implement Kyoto. Will the Prime Minister's successor decide to change things and postpone its implementation? These are some of the questions that we have, even though we believe the ratification of the Kyoto protocol is a very good idea.

There is a second point that I found interesting in the announcements made by the Prime Minister, particularly in the speech that he delivered the day after the Speech from the Throne. He said he would double Canada's aid to developing and poor countries, particularly in Africa. As such, this is good news. However, there is a catch.

The pledge that we made was to invest 0.7% of our GDP. Even if we were to double the amount invested this year, we would still be very far from the real commitment that we made.

We would still be at less than half of what we promised, to invest 0.7% of GDP. Even by doubling the current levels, we would still not catch up to the 1993 levels of aid to developing countries. Ours is a country that is rich, that wants to do so much and that wants to share. Even the Prime Minister said that he felt there could be a link between terrorism and poverty; and if this link can be established, then it seems to me that we should invest more in poor countries in order to help them help themselves.

There was also an announcement that there would be a review of our policies on defence and international affairs. What was strange about the announcement, about the way it was expressed in the Speech from the Throne, is that it would have been preferable to hear that we would first establish our policy in foreign affairs, and then decide what to do for defence.

If we establish defence policy first and foreign policy second, it is like putting the horse before the cart. I think that the government should first decide on our foreign policy before dealing with defence and military policy.

This is obvious to us every day, as we read what forces members tell us; as an army, we do not look well equipped. We do not have enough men. We do not have enough money. We do not have enough weapons, and we do not have enough equipment. It would therefore be extremely difficult to think that we could do something with our army if we had to establish our defence policy ahead of our foreign policy. I think it would be wiser to do the opposite and then see, looking at our needs at home and the needs of poorer nations. The army can wait, because I do not think that we are going to make the world a better place by fighting wars.

Of course, the constructive measures announced in this throne speech include some to raise aboriginals' standard of living. Once again, this is very disappointing, because it is taken almost word for word from the 2001 throne speech.

The final good piece of news is that we are apparently going to be asked to consider decriminalizing pot. This will probably be quite an interesting discussion. It is legislation that would probably reassure many people, given the pointlessness of criminalizing something that is extremely important for some and insignificant for others. It would help ease the backlog of court cases.

Now let us take a look at the troubling aspects of the throne speech. Once again, I am referring to all the jurisdictional intrusion that is in store for us. From the beginning, the government of the member for Saint-Maurice has persistently intruded whenever possible, and it would seem on purpose sometimes, into provincial jurisdictions.

Sometimes it would seem that it deliberately intrudes into areas of provincial jurisdiction, so that it can then turn around and hold federal-provincial conferences, try to settle the differences, and have a policy of confrontation rather than a true policy of partnership. Although the speech contains the term partnership, it is easily seen that this is just a word, and not a concept that is truly part of the profound philosophy of the person who leads the government. His is an attitude of belligerency, of picking fights, looking for confrontation, rather than one of looking for any real partnership. This is rather a pity, because he could have, after all this time as Prime Minister, finished his political career on a rather positive note.

Once again, we have a prime minister who will be remembered, as was his mentor, as someone who wanted to put Quebec in its place, who has succeeded in impoverishing his home province even further, leaving it in a worse situation than it was when he took over.

Another aspect totally ignored by the throne speech is the famous fiscal imbalance. Mr. Dion does have, I acknowledge, much knowledge in certain areas of his speciality, that is political science.

[Ronald Duhamel, October 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Duhamel and I fought the same battle at around the same time, a fight that brought us together. He lost his fight, and left us too soon. However, the memory of his kindness will remain in our memories forever.

Born in Saint Boniface, Mr. Duhamel obtained his Ph.D. in 1973 from the University of Toronto. Before entering into active politics, he was a teacher, school principal, professor at the University of Manitoba, assistant deputy minister of education, and then deputy minister of education in Manitoba.

He was first elected to the House of Commons in 1988, then re-elected in 1993 and 1997. He held a number of cabinet positions, including Secretary of State for Science, Research and Development, for Western Economic Diversification, and for the Francophonie as well as Minister of Veterans Affairs.

The driving force in his life was sharing his knowledge and commitment to democracy. The Francophonie has lost a tireless champion.

The Bloc Quebecois offers its sincere condolences to his wife Carolyn and his daughters Kathy, Nathalie and Karine.