Paul Crête

[Canada Student Financial Assistance Act, May 24th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comment. I singled out two expressions that he used, because they set us apart dramatically. He mentioned a "central body" and "uniformity" as being responsibilities of the federal government. This is precisely what we disagree with.

Education development, in Quebec and in Canada, cannot be uniform from one end of the country to the other. If you take just one example, the Northwest Territories, where the loan and grant system is applied differently, certainly have situations which differ greatly from ours. As to uniformity, a province might consider-and Quebec just did it- extending the loan and grant program to vocational training, to people who enter the labour market after high school, because it makes sense in that province, while it may not be the case elsewhere.

Some provinces may wish to emphasize keeping their graduates at home. This is why we disagree on this subject and why we oppose the bill introduced by the government.

[Canada Student Financial Assistance Act, May 24th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his question, which gives me an opportunity to clarify my position. It is true that this bill is not satisfactory to us, because in the section that applies here, the provinces must satisfy the minister that their plan, in relation to the matter in question, will substantially have the same effect as the federal plan. Previously, this requirement only concerned the effects of the plan.

So there is a big difference between the two. Previously, they said: "What are the objectives of your plan for Quebec?" And the federal minister said they were in line with the federal objectives, and it was all right. However, as the bill stands now, it says that the plan will have to have the same effect in relation to the matter in question, which means that the provinces have lost the flexibility they had before in this respect, and everything will depend far more on the individual minister.

The person who is Minister of Human Resources Development today may not be there a few years from now. And we can expect bureaucratic inflation because when a bureaucracy is allowed to check the details of a program, you may be sure that this will make a lot of jobs for public servants.

Previously, the emphasis was more on political objectives, and so it was more up to the politicians to make a general evaluation. In fact, there have been no major problems with Quebec's opting out in this area for the past thirty years, but there were no reforms during the past thirty years either. We do not want the provisions of the new legislation, as it stands now, to add to bureaucratic constraints, at a time when we should be doing the exact opposite and giving the provinces as much leeway as possible.

I think this is a time for general legislation which allows for defining objectives and clearly identifying these objectives and not a time for setting up audit teams in Ottawa to audit Quebec and the territories concerned who have the same kind of situation and fighting about whether our plans have substantially the same effect. In this respect, the new legislation is not satisfactory to us, and that is one of the reasons why we object to the bill.

[Canada Student Financial Assistance Act, May 24th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this debate on Bill C-28 regarding student loans and other forms of financial assistance.

I would like to start with a brief historical background. In 1964, Quebec decided to opt out of the student loans legislation, and this has allowed us to develop a different model, more suited to the various regions of Quebec and the different forms of education we have. For example, at the college level, we have one extra year before entering university, something which does not exist in English provinces. We are proud of the model we have developed over the years and, even though there have been a few glitches from time to time, we have something which answers the needs of our students. This is particularly important in regions like the one I represent where we have two CEGEPs, one in La Pocatière and one in Rivière-du-Loup.

There is also one university, the Université du Québec à Rimouski , which serves the riding of Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup, and one vocational training centre which you enter after high school. They are all important for the region, not only from an economic point of view because of the students they attract from elsewhere, but also because once they graduate these people can contribute to the economic development of the region.

It is important that the provisions be an incentive to study. The example I was giving earlier to the hon. member is a case in point.

When you remove the possibility for students who have completed their studies to benefit from an exemption period should they fail to find employment, you introduce a disincentive to education. This is particularly so in areas where unemployment, especially seasonal unemployment, is high and where the likelihood of finding employment a few months after graduation is remote. We would have liked to see in this bill a more decentralized approach. Unfortunately, what we see instead is more of the same as in the UI reform where the Minister of Human Resources Development announced an increase in the number of insurable work weeks and a decrease of the benefit period, which is a direct attack against those economies which rely heavily on seasonal employment.

In the same vein, we find the kind of offensive you would normally not expect from a Liberal government, especially given its electoral promises. For instance, you will find that when a former student becomes disabled, for him to claim his permanent disability as a reason for not repaying his student loan, it has to occur within seven months of the end of his studies. Currently, this period is much longer.

Under the guise of making it easier for students to have access to the Canada Student Loans Program, in fact the government is setting stricter limits. It is making it more difficult to invoke conditions beyond someone's control. Becoming disabled is usually beyond one's control. If, for example, a student is disabled as a result of a car accident, during the winter, nine months after the end of his studies, the course of his life is altered forever, and on top of that he has to assume the burden of student loans and grants he was hoping to pay back as soon as he had a job, which he finds himself unable to do because of his new disability.

The hon. member for Vancouver Quadra was just talking about compassion. I think that the government should show more compassion and treat former students who are in a difficult situation more humanely instead of the opposite.

Another aspect of this bill that we representatives of Quebec find totally unacceptable is the departure from what used to be, that is allowing the appropriate authorities to act in the area of loans and bursaries since appointments were made by the provincial cabinet to the appropriate bodies. In the new bill, the Minister of Human Resources Development takes it upon himself to appoint these people. We think that this is unnecessary centralization that will hurt the practical application of this program in every province.

Secondly, before, provinces opting out as Quebec did had to show the federal minister that their own plan met the general conditions of the federal plan, which left them with some leeway to adjust their loans and bursaries programs to their own needs.

Now the new bill says that the province will have to show that the program which it wants to implement meets the requirements of the federal law in every area covered. Obviously, in the medium term, this will force provinces like Quebec that want to have their own loans and bursaries to comply more and more with federal standards and thus, on occasion, to diverge from their own provincial requirements.

On top of the massive centralization it will bring about, this bill also gives the minister too much leeway in defining the reform. We are moving from a system where most of the elements were provided in the legislation to a reform which will, in the end, be implemented through regulations we know nothing about.

This is like signing a contract without seeing it. Before the government signs the contract, we would like to know exactly in which kind of a regulatory framework this legislation will be implemented; we want to avoid any surprises, especially since the examples I gave earlier show these regulations may indeed contain surprises not altogether to the advantage of students.

Since the minister promises to submit the regulations to a committee, I believe it would be important that we get them at this stage so that we may analyze them globally and see if the program, as it will be when those regulations are implemented, will be beneficial for students and will in fact create an incentive for the youth of Quebec and Canada to study, to succeed and to get well-paying jobs that will enable them to contribute to the development of their community.

I think this bill should be improved in order that the reform meets all the requirements of the students and other stakeholders, that is educational institutions, banks and all other banking institutions, and that it results in a better system, more efficient than the one we have now but also more advantageous for future generations.

The cost of student grants and loans, and on that point I agree with the member who just spoke, must be regarded as an investment. It will allow us to see that the generations graduating in the year 2000 will have a maximum chance of finding jobs, leading decent lives and creating adequate family lives.

In the context of this International Year of the Family, I think that is exactly the attitude we should adopt regarding this situation.

In concluding, I would like to call the attention of the House particularly to the rather more difficult circumstances that could result from the fact that students will be asked to undertake a study program with very little assurance of being able afterwards to make use of the time needed to find appropriate jobs. For instance, a student who is presently in high school meets a professional training counsellor to discuss his future choices, and he tells him to get into a loan and bursary system that provides this and that, that he should get an education in order to have a better chance of ultimately making good money and leading a normal life. But if the conditions that are offered to him are less advantageous, we are encouraging these people to leave the system.

A bill such as this could, through changes that seem economically profitable in the short term, have a negative long-term effect in the sense that students, instead of getting into the education system in order to be the most competitive possible, would rather choose to quit school too early, thus not providing the manpower that Quebec and Canada will need in the coming years.

So, I believe it is important that, in the future, the minister not bring about, through his decisions, changes that would upset a system that took several years to develop, especially in Quebec, where the loan and bursary system has sometimes led to major discussions. The government should not, by interfering in an area of provincial jurisdiction, jeopardize advances made in that area.

We would like the minister to insure most of all the tabling of regulations to make sure that the package is an interesting and logical piece of work, rather than a series of scattered decisions or decisions that will make the life of students more difficult.

[Canada Student Financial Assistance Act, May 24th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I listened very carefully to the speech made by the hon. member, especially since she hails from the Maritimes. I would like to ask her a question about the decision to abolish the special 18-month deferral given to students who have graduated but have failed to find a job.

The previous legislation stipulated that any student who could not find work after graduation, something that happens often enough due to the current economic recovery situation, was given an 18-month deferral, which meant that the student could continue looking for some work without having to pay back his or her loan.

I wonder if the hon. member would be willing to suggest to her government to reinstate the deferral period in this bill, through an amendment, at committee stage or any other way, so that, given the economic situation, someone who is looking for work will not be penalized and thrown out in the streets merely because society cannot provide him or her with a job.

I am asking hon. members, and especially those from the Maritimes who will have to address unemployment issues, like the increase in eligible weeks and the reduction in benefit weeks following the social reform, would it not be possible to ease things up for students by maintaining the previous provisions which gave an 18-month deferral to unemployed graduates?

[Agriculture, May 10th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member is to be commended for her speech, especially when she stressed the need to ensure that our rural communities will have a satisfactory quality of life in the future. She said at the beginning of her speech that no Bloc member should assume that sovereignty is a fait accompli. During the election campaign, we told Quebecers that we were sovereigntists and that we were there to defend the interests of Quebec, and what we have been saying this morning is part of that approach because, surprisingly, Quebec rural communities were practically unanimous in voting for the Bloc to represent them in the House of Commons. So we can at least respect the opinions of the people who elected us.

I have the following question for the hon. member: Is she prepared to ask her government to include as part of its future policy on agriculture that farm products can be processed in the producing areas, so that for instance, if an area produces milk, beef and grain, first and second level processing can be done as much as possible in the area, and that it would provide programs to encourage this approach?

[Agriculture, May 10th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I hope that I will have the same amount of time as the Member took to ask his question.

I feel that in the whole range of trade between Quebec and the other provinces, be it in agriculture or other areas, it is very much in people's interest, especially in Ontario, to find out who the other's best customer is. Trade between Quebec and Ontario benefits both parties. The same holds true for the other provinces. When I say that we will have access in a sovereign Quebec to the North American market, I mean that Quebec will be a party to free trade agreements and the GATT as a sovereign state, as all other countries have done.

Canada will be the first state to have an interest in Quebec's being a party to such agreements, because as long as it cannot, we will have a difficult situation on our hands. I would like to conclude simply by saying that it is important to point out that in the past, we operated according to a given system. We are now in a state of transition, and in the future we will have to interact with foreign markets. It is in this context that our agriculture initiatives must be as flexible and as mobile as possible.

[Agriculture, May 10th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, that is a very good question. Quebec farmers began to think about this question some years ago. What has been undertaken in Quebec is a diversification of production.

There have been production increases, and I gave some examples of them in my speech, such as the diversification of production in the area of pork, for example. In the area of milk, there is also the issue of processing products better, as well as targeting specific niches.

I gave the example of Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, where there is plant that processes biological milk, but in North America there are possible niches for this type of product, which will mean that, instead of selling the traditional quart of 1 per cent or 2 per cent milk and trying to market it to all of North America, we will be able to offer a product like biological milk processed into milk, cheese, etc., to a niche of the population interested in that type of product.

The other factor aside from milk is that there are all the other kinds of changes. It is acknowledged, for example, that in the entire Lower St. Lawrence region, the whole St. Lawrence River region really, there is excellent land and production there can be diversified. I do not say that the federal system has "imprisoned" Quebecers in milk, and that they were not pleased by this, I say that the advent of the GATT, of the international system, has led to changes and that it is necessary to face them.

The way that can be done in a sovereign Quebec will be to have total control over the way in which we want to conduct our agriculture in the future and thereby reach the right markets, without being caught in a federal system that would have to defend not only our interests but the interests of the West, which is quite natural, and the interests of the Atlantic provinces, whereas for Quebec, those interests, in the future, will coincide less and less with those of the rest of Canada.

[Agriculture, May 10th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I will not use the words "bad faith" because I believe they are not acceptable here.

I have always maintained that, right now, the Quebec farm industry is ready to compete on international markets. That includes the Canadian market and the American market. And with the appropriate tools, we will be able to compete in the world market. However, to achieve this goal, we must be able to diversify our production and to go from a protected economy to a market economy where we will have more freedom.

As far as our trade activities with Western Canada are concerned, I see no problem with that, but I hope that we will be able to improve the Canadian system which has often impeded on the marketing of Quebec products on foreign markets, because the networks needed to achieve the expected results were not in place.

[Agriculture, May 10th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I think I will have to start over again, because the hon. member does not seem to have understood very well. I referred to what the future holds, because we have to look to the future, not to the past. And if the government thinks otherwise, it will have to make some adjustments. In the future, the markets for our agricultural products, whether it is milk or anything else, will be the North American and international markets.

There is no doubt that markets are necessary for these products. We approved the free trade agreement and insisted on having acceptable conditions precisely to have access to the largest possible markets. I never said that we did not want to sell milk in Western Canada. I said that the old system, which protected production, is being replaced by a new global market in which we will have to compete.

The major part of my speech had to do with suggestions I made to the government concerning what, in the years to come, should be put in place in the agricultural sector. I only referred to the issue of sovereignty at the end of my speech, and I did so to clearly indicate that small economies such as Norway, Sweden and other countries with a population of less than ten million people can do better than the current federal system, which was not able to adjust over the years. I gave the example of vocational training where, again, the federal system was not able to adjust and avoid creating a situation in which there are about 1.5 million unemployed for 500,000 jobs available. Any system which gives such results deserves to be changed.

[Agriculture, May 10th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I am honoured to speak to you about agriculture today. I am very pleased to see that the Government has followed the example that the Official Opposition set for it by focussing the debates on agriculture. I feel that this subject is very important and goes beyond partisan matters.

The Official Opposition's first day this year was devoted to agriculture, and we now have another opportunity to make our views known. This is rather the way I see it, an opportunity to say what we feel the government should do with respect to agriculture in the years to come.

I will be speaking about this issue as a representative of the riding of Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup, whose long agricultural tradition makes people very proud. This can be seen in the dairy industry, where producers have made their mark and have distinguished themselves among organizations across Canada as being very competent; the same is true in other production sectors. There is also a riding where there are institutions such as the Institut de technologie agricole and the federal government's experimental farm in La Pocatière, which certainly played a role in the development of agriculture in our region in the past.

However, I feel we should draw attention in the House to the fact that agriculture in Quebec reflects to a certain extent the situation elsewhere. We have gone from a protectionist system, a Canada-wide protected system in which Quebec's production was concentrated more in the dairy industry, and the West had certain other advantages. Now we have moved to an open system in which we will compete with the rest of North America, the Americas and the entire world. In this open system, the divergent interests that can be found in the various regions of Canada will be even more present than in the past. In a closed system, there were certain rules within which we were able to interact, but now, we will no longer be in control and we will have to ensure that each region is able to find its place in the scheme of things.

Another point is that we had a centralized system under which milk was trucked in to be processed near the markets. Under the new system, the open system, we will have to maintain a centralized approach for mass production, but at the same time, we should allow for something that does not exist today, namely, decentralizing milk supplies to small processors of agricultural products.

For instance, in Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, in my riding, we have a factory that processes organic milk. Near Trois-Pistoles, a small cheese factory, the Fromagerie Petit Loup, has started producing cheese for local markets.

In the maple syrup sector, there has been a substantial increase in exports, but there is still room for expansion. I think the minister should realize it is important to leave room for new players on our export markets. A number of large co-operatives have been involved in exporting maple syrup for a long time, but there could be room for small operators as well. In my own riding, la Cuvée de l'érable would like to develop the equivalent of an "appellation contrôlée" which already exists for wine.

These people have good ideas. They do not have much money, but they manage. What they need is some help in reaching those export markets. Right now, they are not always in a position to take advantage of these markets, and it would therefore be useful to have programs to help these small operators.

It has been said repeatedly, and I heard this at the Bélanger-Campeau Commission from the present Minister of Foreign Affairs, that in the future, we will no longer enjoy the same protection for milk production in Canada. What happens if Quebec becomes sovereign? GATT and the free trade agreements have changed the rules. The answer is, of course, that we will have to manage on our own, because we no longer have any protection. When time comes, we will have to be able to compete and face foreign markets.

In this connection, it will be very important for Quebec to diversify its products. I am thinking, for instance, of fresh lamb which has increased market share but should be able to take an even larger share of the market. This market would require Canada to look at what New Zealand, among others, is doing in that area, so that we could take a larger share of the market. This would have a beneficial impact on stabilization payments. At the present time, because we cannot sell our production in a more effective way, there are stabilization costs that could be avoided.

Beef production is another sector where production diversification should take place. Quebec does not have its share of the Canadian production and now that the Canadian system I was mentioning earlier has collapsed under international pressure to open markets, we will have to find ways to have more beef processing in Quebec.

There could also be a debate on hog production. There is a very hot environmental controversy in this area, because environment protection organizations want a production method that is not harmful to the environment. However, we know that production could be increased in Quebec and Canada, as we have developed a very enviable reputation in hog production. We should have the possibility, in the future, to intervene more adequately in that field. We should inform the whole population, because the debate around hog production is a very emotional one. The government has the responsibility to provide information where needed to ensure that people understand the situation.

What I would like to say is that in the future-because we are really talking about the agriculture of the future-we should have flexible, focused and supportive structures, capable of reacting rapidly to changing signals in the market place. In the past, since we were in a protected system, we did not have to watch markets so closely.

In the next few years, if we do not watch how the markets evolve, we may find ourselves in situations where we will produce things that consumers do not want. We are going to have to adjust very quickly, and it is very important for the government to understand that, in this area, its huge bureaucracy does not always respond with the necessary speed and that the impact on the economy could be disastrous, especially if we do not adopt adequate policies in that respect.

The main criticism I have regarding today's motion is not so much the use of the words "pro-active work", but the fact that we are still in the consultation mode. Agriculture is a sector in which the government is going to have to stop consulting and quickly implement a global intervention strategy.

It is all very well to say that we support producers, that we have a good relationship with all the organizations, but if we miss the boat, it will not solve our problems. We need an interesting global strategy.

This strategy should first promote export assistance programs. We should pave the way for new players and, since they will no longer be protected, we should help those farmers who saw themselves only as producers, play an increasingly larger role in the food chain as a whole.

Regional research and development is another issue dear to my heart. We already have the facilities. I mentioned the experimental farm in La Pocatière, but I believe that in the future, it will be important to establish adequate research and development institutions in regional areas to provide direct service to local stakeholders. We will have to avoid making the mistake of concentrating research and development establishments near major centres because, by so doing, we would prevent research and development from meeting the needs of local producers.

There is a slightly more touchy issue I would like to raise regarding the government motion, namely the fact that the government should not forget the Quebec industry. Allow me to quote what Agriculture Canada said about the Quebec agri-food industry in its corporate intervention strategy. Page 5 contains a few words about the human and cultural side of the industry and they read as follows: "Despite the efforts of the Canadian government to provide services in both languages, many Quebec entrepreneurs make too little use of the national development tools available to all Canadians. Canadian associations often have trouble adjusting to this reality. As a result, Quebec's industry often tends to withdraw into its francophone environment, a situation which presents an additional challenge for regional departmental authorities".

Mind you, these words were not written by nasty sovereigntists, but by Agriculture Canada's regional management committee for the Quebec region. We on this side are truly

concerned that in the future, language will not prevent Quebec farmers and stakeholders from getting the credit they deserve.

I would also like to mention new areas such as big game and cattle production, backgrounding, ethanol production which has already been mentioned by other members from other regions, and feed exportation.

These are areas in which we need to expand, something which was not necessarily done in the past, perhaps in light of the protectionist system in place. I mentioned the response to environmental challenges. I think it is rather obvious that if agriculture is to retain its favoured status with Quebecers and Canadians, it must meet the environmental challenges of the 21st century. This is an important consideration.

Human resources development is another important intervention sector where the Canadian government is much weaker, not because of the individuals in the system but because of the system itself. Perhaps more than other sectors, agriculture is one area that reflects the Canadian federal system's paralysis and inability to adequately meet human resources development needs.

While Canada is one of the countries that spend the most on job training, it is also one of the countries that spend the least on the person being trained in the end. In an open system like we have today, it can be said that, at the end of the day, human resources are a country's only competitive advantage.

Therefore, we have to give our agricultural labour force the training it needs to adjust to new crops and new market demands, to ensure that our people can deal with the changes. I think we must recognize our shortcomings in this respect.

The current Canadian educational structure is very out of date and does not allow us to meet needs quickly, especially in agriculture where this type of adjustment will be needed in the next few years.

I also think it is important to have an intervention tool flexible enough to accommodate various sectors such as dairy products, pork, horticulture, grain and maple syrup production, which all need their own intervention strategies. Our good old bureaucratic dinosaur may find it difficult to meet the needs of each sector and we must find adequate and effective ways to spend the money in the right places and to delegate to the right entities to avoid losing money in the bureaucratic channels and to give much more to the producers, the processors and those who put their products on the domestic and international markets.

In conclusion, Canadian agriculture as it now stands gives me the impression that it will be very difficult if not impossible to have a Canada-wide balanced policy that would not put one of Canada's regions at a disadvantage. Access to markets to the South, North-South markets, whether in British Columbia, the Western provinces, Ontario, Quebec or Atlantic Canada, will necessitate a number of very well-structured actions, and definitely not competition between provinces by which one part of Canada would gain something over another because of it has more political weight.

In that area, we have reached the same point as with the rest of the free trade issue. In the 19th century, we used to need large government structures to create vast markets, with the political market and the economic market being one and the same. We have moved beyond that now. We no longer need these big political markets to create economic markets. This happens to be one of the reasons why Quebec as a whole has supported free trade, because the concept, the essence of free trade -not the transition phases but the very principle of free trade- would be beneficial to Quebec in that it would promote increased trade with other countries, the United States in particular, as well as a return to the direction development should always have had in North America, that is to say from the North to the South, as opposed to the more artificial East-West direction established by the Canadian confederation, which does not really meet the needs of the continent in terms of development.

So, this is one thing we have to contend with in the agricultural industry, but I bet you that with their drive, farmers will manage to get by in the future. It would be important however that the governments support them appropriately. Whether you look at the future from a federalist standpoint for Canada or from a sovereigntist one like I do for Quebec, in either case, an extremely decentralized approach is called for. The centralized approach some may have known in the past will no doubt rebound on those who chose that particular approach.

We need a different approach for the various regions of Quebec.

We need a body that can make decisions quickly and we need integrated regional development. I will give an example from our area. A milk-processing plant in Trois-Pistoles closed. Now all we see are milk trucks going to Montreal and the processed milk comes back in plastic bags. This is very bad for regional development. A region is not there only to provide raw materials; it can also do processing and occupy markets. I think that free trade will be an opportunity if we take the time to adjust and can meet the needs of the market.

In conclusion, I will simply reread an excerpt from article 31, which I mentioned last week during the opposition day debate on agriculture: "The future depends on decentralized authority in the hands of regional decision-making bodies that are in touch with local reality. Unfortunately, the shared jurisdiction for agriculture and the very different interests of Canada's main agricultural regions provide poor support for the initiatives of Quebec farmers". Quebec farmers are doing the same thing as the Bloc Quebecois; they are using the federal system so that Quebec gets as much out of it as possible. But like many other interest groups in Quebec, they are beginning to realize that

sovereignty for Quebec is an essential tool if Quebec agriculture is to win on the markets of the 21st century.