André Caron

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustmentact, 1995, June 20th, 1995]

I came in late, Mr. Speaker.

[Income Tax Act, June 16th, 1995]

According to one colleague, it will be drab. I have the feeling that the next book will be the Liberal Party's drab book.

There are, I must say, some avenues which are worth exploring. Individuals. They are always telling us that we have to be careful with personal income taxes because, if we tax the rich, they will have less money, less money to invest. We have to be very careful. But I think that we still have to look into these possibilities. A dollar is a dollar. But, we have noticed that a dollar earned through employment is taxed more heavily than a dollar earned through capital gains. In Canada, people with money and who invest it, pay less tax on the money they earn on their investments than people who are salaried and on fixed incomes. Go figure. Is a dollar worth a dollar or are some dollars worth less than others under the current tax system?

Canadians have the impression that the tax scale is progressive, that everyone pays taxes. That if you earn $50,000, you pay a certain amount and if you earn $100,000, you pay twice that. This is not how it works. In 1992, based on figures I have seen, 2,000 Canadian taxpayers who had earned over $100,000 did not pay any income tax. How can these people not have paid tax? It could not be that they hid income from the tax people. I am sure that all citizens in that tax bracket are honest citizens who would promptly pay any amount owed to Revenue Canada. The fact remains that they did not pay any tax. This was made possible by all the tax credits, the many credits they could take advantage of. There were people investing in real estate, and others investing in movies or research. Anyone who had money started investing, with the result that a number of them ended up not paying any tax.

We could say good for them, if they were clever enough not to pay tax and were not doing anything illegal, all the better for them. I guess we could say that. However, there is a downside to that. I had noticed it in my region and I have friends who have looked into this whole thing. They are middle class people, earning between $40,000 and $50,000 a year, and they were wondering why the system was benefiting the rich and not them. Lawyers and accountants set up all kinds of limited partnerships from which people could borrow in order to invest, get a tax deduction on part of this investment and then repay their loans. In the end, they managed to divert money from taxation like the rich.

The downside of this is that, in many cases, the investors found that the properties selected by the limited partnership were not worth as much as they had been told. So, they lost money. They lost money in order to save on income tax. In fact, they took money owed the government to pay for services, and the only ones who benefited from all this seem to be those who set up some limited partnerships or made certain arrangements allowing some people to divert money from the taxman.

Finally, here in this House, the opposition questioned the Minister of Finance about people who had invested in research and development for that purpose. In Canada, the motto in tax matters is "save on taxes". These people, who usually came from the middle class, borrowed money to receive tax credits.

With these tax credits, it is always the same system. People take money from the government and manage to get tax credits, but the ultimate winner is the initiator of the financial scheme, the company that put forward phoney research projects. The bottom line is that these people end up with nothing.

The Department of Finance straightened some of this out. It realized that some of these companies were not seriously into research, and the credit was denied. You may say, "People knew that the government could go back three years for all these things", but the fact remains that these people got hooked because there is a belief among Canadian people that those with money can save on taxes.

I think that this is a prime example of a tainted system in which people who cannot afford to invest in sectors eligible for tax credits are urged to do so through all kinds of scams and end up being taken for a ride. I think that the Minister of Finance should look at tax shelters and tax credits for an explanation of why so many people in Canada do not pay taxes.

If this is legitimate and normal, the minister should tell us so and, if not, he should take the measures needed to correct the situation. I have some figures here. From 1984 to 1992, taxes paid in Canada by middle income households increased 6.7 per cent, compared to only 3 per cent for households with incomes

of $150,000 and over. Again, it is the middle class which is really paying the tax increases, while those with a higher income are taxed less. Some might say: But listen, 6 per cent of $50,000 is $3,000, while 3 per cent of $150,000 is $4,500; consequently, the rich are paying more. However, this is not the way things work.

With this system, the rich get richer, while middle class people see their taxes go up every year. This is not normal, and I think that the Minister of Finance, or a Liberal caucus committee, should take a close look at these issues.

And now, on to another topic. Recently, during the French presidential campaign, I read something about taxes on personal wealth. Candidates in France and elsewhere, and this may become the case here some day, have to make a statement of their financial position. In France, there is a tax on personal wealth.

It seems that such a tax existed in Canada in 1972, but it is no longer the case. We are apparently the only OECD country which does not tax personal wealth. Consequently, very wealthy families and individuals continue to get richer; yet, the Canadian government is not even considering taxing such wealth.

There are other things too. I will not go back to the issue of family trusts. We talked about it during the election campaign, and we raised it many times here, during question period. The Minister of Finance finally did something about it in this year's budget, not last year's budget, which is currently in effect.

So, this year's budget includes a provision on family trusts in which the minister made some changes to the rules. However, these changes will only come into effect in three or four years, thus giving time to the tax experts to find another way to exempt rich families, not to mention the possibility that a successor to the current finance minister could provide another tax shelter so that these rich people would avoid having to pay taxes.

Consequently, you see rich taxpayers who do not seem to be paying taxes when they should. There are people with large personal fortunes who never pay taxes on that wealth.

Some people can set up family trusts for the benefit of their descendants, maybe not for ten generations but just the same, this raises questions.

So something can be done in Canada about personal income tax. I disagree with what the former president of the United States, Mr. Reagan, used to say, that if they stopped taxing the rich, the rich would invest. Mr. Reagan tried it, but the rich did not invest. The rich went on accumulating their wealth, because that is what they do. They do not necessarily invest. And when they do, they usually invest with borrowed money, with other people's money.

As far as corporations are concerned, I think it is obvious that the corporate tax system in Canada must be changed, because corporations receive extremely preferential treatment. They will tell us-and I heard it said this morning by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance-that you have to be careful, that corporations must remain competitive. So their taxes should not be too high. Their tax burden should not be too heavy.

Mr. Speaker, do you know which G-7 country has the highest tax rate? Japan, apparently. Would anyone in this House claim Japan is not competitive? Competitiveness is not just a matter of taxation, it is something else. And people who use being competitive as an excuse not to pay taxes are definitely misleading the public.

We saw a very obvious example of this recently in Quebec, where the Quebec government wanted, in fact it still wants, to introduce a 1 per cent payroll tax for businesses with a certain number of employees, to oblige them to provide vocational training. Ghislain Dufour, the Quebec equivalent of the Fraser Institute, perhaps not the equivalent because Mr. Dufour does not qualify as an institute, and I do not think he is eligible for a tax credit, Mr. Dufour said: "Quebec corporations will be less competitive. It will be harder to compete. It does not make sense". A corporation with a payroll of let us say $500,000 would pay 1 per cent, which works out to $5,000. So the corporation is supposed to go bankrupt because it has to pay an additional $5,000 for vocational training for its employees?

In Canada, corporate taxes are too low. In 1987, 90,000 corporations did not pay income tax in Canada. Not bad. In 1991, it was 77,000. Incredible. Granted, some corporations may not be doing that well and so they do not pay income tax, but I would say that one-third of corporate profits in Canada are made by corporations that did not pay taxes. So these are not companies with two or three employees that are leading a hand-to-mouth existence, these are companies that made a profit and thanks to certain measures in the Income Tax Act, manage to avoid paying income tax. So this raises a lot of questions.

It raises a lot of questions for people who have no access to tax shelters and who pay income tax on their weekly pay cheques. How disgusting. There is also the whole issue of deferred taxes. Businesses, billion dollar multinationals established in Canada, are able to put off paying taxes from one year to the next through tax deferral. There will always be a point where their profits are lower, therefore, they will be able to pay less tax, etc. These are all things that make us wonder, and that give us the right to question the Minister of Finance regarding the legitimacy of this system.

The Bloc has also talked about tax havens. The Bloc finance critic has raised this issue with the Minister of Finance many times. He has asked him questions as Minister of Finance and perhaps as a first-hand tax haven expert. It is well known that Canada's Minister of Finance stopped managing his own affairs when he came to office, got in to politics.

The Minister of Finance used to be notorious for letting his financial affairs be conducted under a different flag than the maple leaf. Some companies open up in reputable countries, often very old countries, like Cyprus, Malta, Barbados, or even in countries quite far south, close to Australia, like Papua New Guinea, Panama. There are even Canadian companies which have set up shop in these areas. They have offshore subsidiaries in places like Cyprus, Malta, etc.

There are certainly people in these areas who can afford to buy the goods produced by the Canadian factories with subsidiaries there. However, I cannot believe, for instance, that all the 20,000 or 30,000 companies registered in Panama are there for the climate, for the location half way between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and because this is good for business.

We have only to think back to the scandal following the death of Mr. Irving, so well known in New Brunswick, who moved most of his businesses and who specified in his will that his children in Canada would be cut off if they did not set up in tax havens.

When you are the Minister of Finance and you see Canadian companies setting up ghost subsidiaries abroad and you know all about tax havens and you do nothing, I think you are shirking in your duty.

This proves that it is time for a good clean-up, a thorough tidying-up of the Canadian tax system. I think we have to review the agreements we have with 16 countries on tax rates and other tax matters. The official opposition has often called for such a review. The minister's reply is that the matter is under consideration and, given Canada's competitiveness and the current situation, we are in the best of all tax worlds. I do not think this is the case.

The Bloc will obviously vote against this bill, not because the measures are so awful in themselves, they are Canadian measures for the Canadian tax system, that is to say they cloud the situation a little more, and the system will be muddier and muddier.

Finally, I think the Income Tax Act is a little like the country. I do not want to get into a demagogic diatribe on how Canada's situation compares with the Income Tax Act. What is the Income Tax Act. It is a heap of tax measures with more measures piled on every year. No one has gone through it; no has organized it.

People have called for change, and the answer has always been no. So now we have a jungle of an Income Tax Act where the strongest manage to inch their way through and impose their rule and where, often, the people who earn their living and do their best are unfairly taxed. I think the government has to propose a tax reform. Canadian taxpayers deserve it.

[Income Tax Act, June 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to speak on Bill C-70. I am pleased because, first, I thought the government was going to talk about tax reform in Canada with this bill, an act to amend the Income Tax Act, the Income Tax Application Rules and related Acts.

Like many Canadians, I think Canada's tax system should be changed significantly, if not completely overhauled. So, I thought, perhaps very naively, that the Liberal government was going to do its homework. Why was I so hopeful? First, in part, because I had read the red book. The red book promised tax equity and that those who had taxes to pay in Canada would pay them.

From what I can see, the book has faded. We hardly ever hear mention of it. At the start, last year, I remember seeing this book resplendent in all its redness on the desks of the members opposite. Now, from what I can see, the red is more likely on the faces of the members. Some members are looking embarrassed at the outcome of the Liberal's election promises.

Let us look at what we were supposed to have in Canada. We were to have jobs; we were to have tax equity. There are no jobs; the jobs we lost were not even replaced. As far as tax equity is concerned, we may have it next year, or maybe in two, ten or twenty years, from what I can see.

It is true that there is a very strong lobby on behalf of those who do not want reforms in Canada, those who are benefiting from the existing tax situation. I remember a debate on this a few weeks ago. One Liberal member naively said that change was slow. He himself had proposed a reform, but he knew that change was slow because of the strong lobby of the well heeled, who benefit from the weaknesses of our tax system.

I am delighted to see that a Liberal member who has been in the House much longer than I can confirm what we in the Bloc already knew. However, Canadian taxpayers really want tax reform.

If we look at the papers and talk with our constituents, we realize that people are not happy with the present tax system. Looking at the size of the bill before us, which contains perhaps 200 pages, I naively thought that the measures proposed by the Minister of Finance would be quite substantial, at least as

substantial as the size of the document itself, but I realized-and will try to demonstrate to you-that what the minister came up with falls far short of real tax reform.

It is not only taxpayers but also experts who are demanding changes. Canada's tax system-which over the years has been modified by legal precedents and amendments, by new regulations, and by various interpretations of the legislation in effect-has led to the emergence in this country of various tax experts and consultants, who help large corporations and wealthy individuals get around the Canadian tax maze to avoid paying their fair share.

The experts themselves tell us-I read a few newspaper articles-that Canada's current tax system is very confusing. A mother cat would lose her kittens in such a maze. There are various interpretations. There are people who manage to get around the system without paying their fair share, simply because the tax structure has become so complex that no one can find their way around it, except for experts who take advantage of this situation by directing work to their firms, which charge substantial fees and often engage in lobbying activities.

The hope I had has been dashed. This hope, which was reflected in the red book, shared by the public and confirmed by the experts, has been thwarted once again.

For the information of the people listening to us, or the colleagues who were perhaps not paying attention and who may not have noticed, the bill before us, Bill C-70, implements measures proposed by the Minister of Finance in his 1994 budget. On this day of June 1995, we are here in this House to discuss tax measures that were proposed by the minister in February 1994. It is obvious that, if we wait for the minister to speed up tax reform, we will wait for a long time.

If we take a look at the clauses now, we could say that the minister has made an effort and that at least there will be a few amendments to the Income Tax Act that will bring us closer to a comprehensive reform. All those who listened to the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Finance speak before me will have realized that this was not the case.

What, essentially, do we find in this document? We find a few rather trivial reforms which are just a drop in the bucket, when what the Minister of Finance should really be doing is delivering on the Liberal government's promise of a fairer tax system for Canada.

So, when we look at these measures, those which, in my opinion, have the greatest impact are the provisions exempting from tax the interest earned on prepaid funeral arrangements. Some Canadians have been more prudent than the governments of recent years. Figuring that one day they will die, they are prepaying their funeral expenses. These amounts generate interest, with the result that the Minister of Finance has devoted a great deal of attention in this close to 200 page bill to this issue. It is one of the five or six measures in the bill. Funeral expenses are tax exempt.

There are other proposals for exemptions, such as tax-free arrangements for mutual fund corporations. These are also very interesting, but we are still talking about people who will not be paying taxes. This is perhaps as it should be, but it does not augur well for tax credits, and I will come back to this a bit later. The bill deals with exemptions for those who invest in mutual funds, as well as foreign affiliates.

When I saw these words, I said to myself: "At last, the Minister of Finance is going to tackle tax havens". I saw the word "foreign" and I said, "Now we have it, the Minister of Finance is proposing a measure on tax havens". I will come back to this shortly. But no, it was merely a question of what shareholders are required to report. These are trivialities.

The bill also talks about debt forgiveness and objections on appeal. Large corporations who object to their assessments will have to be more specific. Is it really important for the Government of Canada to deal with this issue in the bill now before this House and provide for special measures ensuring that large corporations file their claims promptly concerning the taxes they owe? Certainly, I have no doubt about that.

These large corporations include Seagram, Power Corporation and all those we keep hearing about during question period or bumping into at private dinners hosted by the heritage minister. The fact remains that, in view of the situation and the need to reform our tax system, it is rather pointless to put forward amendments such as these. It figures that the government would present them on a Friday, in the absence of the Minister of Finance, because we would see him turn redder than usual, with embarrassment no doubt, because he is calling on the Parliament of Canada to consider such pointless measures, when the Canadian tax system needs to be revamped.

Tax reform is required in Canada and we will try and take a closer look at that. I would like to start by clarifying a point. I read in La Presse today the famous annual announcement issued by the Fraser Institute. It said that we will be starting to work for ourselves next Sunday.

As you know, the Fraser Institute is a group of right wing, ultra-conservative economists funded by unknown sources. In fact, I think that we know and perhaps we should say that it is backed by large corporations, which stand to profit from measures like the ones before us today and certainly claim a tax exemption for their contributions to the Fraser Institute.

The Fraser Institute calls itself an institute. It may look like an extreme right or conservative lobby, but it calls itself an institute. They are telling us that every one of us, in this House and throughout Canada, has been working for the government so far this year, but that we will now start earning money for ourselves.

They are telling us that we are overtaxed, that the government is rifling through our pockets. You see what I mean. They seem to want to have us believe that no one pays for the services available in Canada, be it health, education, national defence, infrastructure, highways or what not, and they benefit no one in Canada. These people come and try to peddle the idea that the money paid in taxes by Canadians is actually money being stolen from them.

Before going any further, I would like to denounce such pronouncements. Taxation is a very serious subject that is tied to the very nature of democracy. We live in a democracy where the government provides services, and these services must be paid for by all taxpayers who, through their members of Parliament, vote on a budget that will allow the Minister of National Revenue to raise, in the form of taxes, the money required to pay for these services.

I think no one in Canada, except the people at the Fraser Institute and their ilk, would criticize this system. We receive services, and the government has to pay for the services it provides. People are prepared to pay taxes. When they go to the hospital or send their children to school or university, they realize there are certain costs involved, and they are willing to pay their share.

They are willing to pay their share, but they want their tax assessment to be fair and equitable. The first question is whether in Canada as a whole, we are being overtaxed. Should we repeat the Fraser Institute's mantra and say it does not make sense, we are overtaxed, the government should withdraw from everything and should pay no taxes at all? In the end, this would mean there would be no more government.

When there is no more government, we no longer have a democracy but a feudal system. The Fraser Institute and people of their ilk want to take us back to the middle ages when someone would conquer a territory and be given the title of duke, count or prince. He would then raise taxes, not to provide services but more often to provide a rich dowry for his daughter who was supposed to marry his neighbour, who had also managed to impose his rule on part of the population. In the end, this is the law of the jungle, and that is not what we have in Canada.

Are we overtaxed? I will not answer that question, but I will make a few comparisons. If we look at the figures and compare them with other OECD countries, in other words, the 25 richest countries in the world, in 1992, our tax rate was about 36 per cent of GDP. That sounds like a lot, but is it really when we compare it with the tax rate in other countries? It is easy to say we are paying too much, but we have to find out whether we are paying too much, compared with what other countries are paying. There are no absolutes in economics. Everything is relative.

I do not want to insult anyone here who is an economist by profession, but in economics, we often realize that everything is relative, even the results. We often see economists contradicting their colleagues, and in the end, we realize that some economists are more accurate in their predictions than others. There are certain basic principles that economists ignore at their peril.

In the Scandinavian countries, the tax rate is not 35, 36 or 37 per cent as in Canada, but 45 per cent. That is quite a bit. In Germany and Italy, between 40 and 44 per cent of GDP goes to taxes. Compared with other countries, Canada is about average. This is not the disaster described by extreme right wing parties that think government should get out of everything and stop providing services in the areas of health care and education and let the law of the jungle prevail.

These people use a certain ideology based on certain principles to mislead the public so that people start to challenge the government's right to raise fair taxes.

I say that we are about average among industrialized countries and that taxation is not the main problem. We have to see where the problem is. I think the real problem is that the tax burden is poorly distributed in Canada. Some people do not pay enough taxes and some people pay too much.

This is why I was asking earlier and expecting tax reform. I hope my children will perhaps see tax reform in Canada. When Quebec becomes independent, we will have an eye on the world. We will be reading papers like the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail , and I hope to read that Canada has finally started its tax reform.

How is the tax base distributed in Canada? With a brief look at history, we will discover that taxation is a matter of choice. It is a political choice. Someone somewhere decides a tax will be levied in one area and not in another. A choice is made.

I have consulted a number of books on individual and corporate taxes. In passing, I noted that, among the countries in the G-7, Canada has one of the lowest tax rates. The members of the G-7 are meeting in Halifax. It is a beautiful city that I had occasion to visit a few years ago. I reached the same conclusion as the Quebec journalists: it is an English city.

In 1950, personal and corporate taxes in Canada were comparable. The rate was 28 per cent for individuals and 27 per cent for corporations. These were the federal tax revenues. Now, individuals are taxed at the rate of 48 per cent, corporations at 7 per cent.

As you can see, personal income tax has increased, while corporate taxes have decreased, and I am not counting here the effect of the GST and the QST. We can see that we have moved from a situation in the 1950s where there was a certain balance between personal and corporate taxes to today's imbalance.

Our first reaction is to say: "Tax the corporations". We will talk about this in a few minutes, but, before we look at what is going on with corporations, let us look at the situation of individuals. There are things worth considering.

I am not necessarily making any proposals; I am trying to channel our thoughts to avenues which could be of use to the Minister of Finance or the finance committee or the next Liberal Party committee in line to issue a red book or a red and green book, because I have no idea how to define the colour of the Reform members. However, I do feel that, at some point in the future, the colour red and the colour of the Reform Party will be mixed together. What will be the new colour?

[Voisey Bay, June 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Indian Affairs. The Voisey Bay deposit in Labrador, which promises to be one of the richest in Canada and more important for Newfoundland than the Hibernia Project, is located on lands claimed by the Innu. The federal government and the Government of Newfoundland suspended negotiations on land claims during the very month the deposit was discovered.

Can the minister give the Innu guarantees that the federal government will do everything in its power to settle the land claims before the start of mining operations in Voisey Bay?

[Cn Commercialization Act, June 15th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, like my colleague for Beauport-Montmorency-Orléans, I want to support Motion No. 11.

This motion seeks to preserve the CN employees' pension plan. You will have noticed that Bill C-89 says nothing about the pension plan. I think it is important that provisions be made in the act itself so that the CN employees' pension plan can be preserved.

Why? Because of the recent and also not quite so recent history of Canadian National. We have noticed, over these past few years, that CN has had a certain propensity for shifting the costs for the transformation and modernization of the system to its employees. It has streamlined its operations under the pretext of improving productivity, but it has nevertheless changed the working conditions of its employees.

Especially during the last strike, which was a combination of strike and lockout, we saw that CN developed a strategy to completely change the working conditions of its employees and to urge the Canadian Parliament to pass a special bill under which these conditions would be legislated.

Yesterday, in the report released by the mediation-arbitration board, we saw that the worst concerns we, in the Bloc Quebecois, expressed during the debate on the legislation ordering CN and CP employees back to work, came true and the working conditions were unilaterally changed in favour of the employer.

I think it is vitally important that the Canadian Parliament protect the interests of the CN employees in terms of their pension plan. The motion put forward by my colleague from Beauport-Montmorency-Orléans should be agreed on, because it would be very reasonable to ensure that, after the sale of CN, it would be impossible to change the CN pension plan without the consent of the CN Pension Board.

You know that the rules of the CN Pension Board are such that the employees can have some influence and some input on the way the funds are administered.

I think that if such a motion is adopted-and I noted that my Reform colleague said something similar-, it would be entirely appropriate for the Parliament of Canada to ensure that justice is done for the workers who have given so much of themselves to this company and who, at the age of retirement, are entitled to enjoy the benefits they worked so long for, because people who worked for CN made a career there and were, in a way, employed by the government of Canada, by a crown corporation. I think that the House of Commons should not use privatization as an excuse for shirking its responsibilities.

[Unemployment Insurance, June 12th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, will the minister confirm that the federal government is not planning to reform the unemployment insurance system by cutting forestry workers' benefits by 22 per cent and fishery workers' benefits by 33 per cent? Does he not feel that this would hit regional workers very hard and that, in fact, the two tier system that he said he did away with because it was discriminatory is again rearing its ugly head in in his new proposal?

[Unemployment Insurance, June 12th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. The federal government has shown yet again that it is proposing cuts mainly targeting Canada's jobless, who, for the second time, will be the targets of a reform proposal of this government.

Does the Prime Minister realize that, altogether, last year's unemployment insurance cuts of $5.5 billion and the $1.6 billion in cuts recently announced amount to a 25 per cent total cut in assistance to the most needy of our society, those who have to claim unemployment insurance benefits to survive?

[Members Of Parliament Retiringallowances Act, June 8th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to what the hon. member for Richelieu had to say. He expressed his surprise at the wording of Motion No. 4 which says that members who want to make an election concerning their pension will be able to receive the pension or make that election only if they are Canadian citizens.

I am astonished, surprised and disappointed to see this kind of proposal because, like the hon. member for Richelieu, I see this as an attack on the members Quebec sent to Ottawa, an attack on Bloc members. The message is that Bloc members are sovereignists who are trying to get Quebec to separate and should be punished by being deprived of their pensions.

When they were elected in October 1993, the Bloc members were well aware that their term in Ottawa would not be long enough to entitle them to a pension. However, I would like to point out two things about Motion No. 4. First, I think it is unfair to sovereignist members who work in Ottawa and represent their constituents. Sovereignist members from Quebec received a mandate from the people. They are proud to sit in the House of Commons and do the job they promised to do, which is to defend the interests of Quebec and promote Quebec's sovereignty.

Incidentally, this motion attacks not just Quebec sovereignists but any Quebecer sitting in the House of Commons who, after Quebec becomes sovereign, decides to give up his Canadian citizenship, because the motion says: "As long as that person is a Canadian citizen".

So are the Prime Minister, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Labour, the President of the Privy Council and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, the members for Sherbrooke, Pierrefonds-Dollard, Verdun-Saint-Paul, Outremont, Gatineau-Labelle, and the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce who has been in this House for 30 years, are they all going to be forced to choose between their pension and their citizenship after Quebec becomes sovereign?

Are you going to tell the Prime Minister who, if I am not mistaken, has been a member of the House of Commons for 30 or 33 years and who has represented the people of Quebec to the best of his ability: "Mr. Prime Minister, if you do not give up your Canadian citizenship, you will be entitled to your pension, but otherwise, if you take out Quebec citizenship, you will give up the pension entitlements you had under Canadian law"?

I consider this motion unfair for the membership of the Bloc Quebecois because it smells like punishment. It is also unfair for federalist members of Parliament from Quebec, who will be asked to choose between their pension and their citizenship.

It also makes a mockery of the whole Quebec sovereignty debate in which it has been made clear that Quebec would assume its responsibilities in the event of sovereignty. Quebec will not ask people living there to give up their citizenship or anything else in order to obtain Quebec citizenship. Quebec will not, for example, ask federal public servants entitled to a pension to give up their Canadian citizenship in order to receive a pension paid by Quebec, because Quebec has announced it will assume the responsibilities it inherits from the Government of Canada in the area of federal public service pensions.

I think that a motion like this one complicates matters ahead of time for the Quebec and Canadian negotiators who will be trying to reach an amicable agreement after Quebec achieves sovereignty.

I think it is a very bad thing and does not augur well for the future to have Parliament adopt this sort of motion. It is a disgraceful way to behave and it will hinder future negotiations.

I think we will need all our democratic and justice wits about us to ensure that the negotiations following sovereignty are conducted in the best possible manner. It is not acceptable for the Government of Canada to adopt a motion like this one, which

will prejudice discussions and make it harder for Canada and Quebec to reach an agreement before they even start.

[Aboriginal Nations, June 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, we were very disappointed by the editorial of free lance writer Gilbert Oskaboose in The First Perspective magazine.

His disparaging remarks on Quebecers and sovereignist leaders do not in any way reflect the feelings expressed by the First Nations chiefs and members with whom we meet as part of our work. Our differences of opinions usually do not keep us from having civilized discussions. Unfortunately, the tone used by the editorialist does not reflect the respectful attitude which we are used to in our contacts with members of the First Nations.

Quebecers, including a sovereignist government which was the first one in Canada to recognize the existence of aboriginal nations, have, for a long time, been more open minded toward these people than Canadians have in general.

The Bloc Quebecois hopes that aboriginal leaders will denounce the comments made by Mr. Oskaboose, so as to promote, on both sides, the open-mindedness which will lead to agreements such as the ones which were recently signed by Quebec and the Crees and which will foster peace and co-operation between our peoples.

[Legal Recognition Of Same Sex Spouses, June 1st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on the motion tabled by the hon. member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, asking the government to take the measures necessary for the legal recognition of same sex spouses.

I listened carefully to the comments of many members who oppose the motion. I think we have to put things in their proper context. The fact is that there are same sex couples engaged in a relation which is in every way similar to that of heterosexual couples.

That is the reality. And it is a reality which we must respect, primarily because these are human beings engaged in an emotional relationship. These people also happen to be citizens who have a right to enjoy the same benefits as any other Canadian, and that includes the provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which I will discuss later on.

It is essential to keep the notion of respect in mind, otherwise we quickly fall into stereotyping, an attitude which, for centuries, has had the effect of marginalizing and stigmatizing same sex couples. The time has come to put an end to that in Canada.

In our country, same sex relations were decriminalized in 1968. Consequently, the issue that we are discussing today does not fall under the Criminal Code. It is absolutely unfair, demagogic and unacceptable to assimilate the lives of people engaged in same sex relationships to those of people engaged in sexual deviations prohibited in the Criminal Code.

In 1968, under Prime Minister Trudeau and justice minister Turner, homosexual relations stopped being considered a crime in Canada. We are talking about relations which are accepted in our society, which are not criminal in any way, and which are experienced by Canadian citizens.

These Canadians are also entitled to the benefits of the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom. As you know, the charter prohibits discrimination, specifically discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability. I think that sexual orientation falls into the same category as the grounds listed in section 15 of the charter.

In today's society, same sex spouses can use section 15 of the charter of rights and freedoms to put a stop to any discrimination against them. I believe that the latest decision made by the Supreme Court in this area, the Egan decision, recognized that fact. It indicated that discrimination based on sexual orientation is similar to all the other types of discrimination mentioned in section 15 of the charter.

Now, could any breach of the charter be justified? I do not think so. As you know, pursuant to some provisions in the charter, under some circumstances, some types of discrimination can be accepted, but I do not think it would apply to homosexuals, because we do not see how it could be justified.

Why could discrimination based on religion, race, colour or age be prohibited, but discrimination based on sexual orientation allowed, when homosexuality has not been illegal in Canada since 1968? Of course, there is some opposition to this motion, as we heard from some of the previous speakers, but I think some members are mixing everything up and are raising issues which have nothing to do with the motion put forward by my colleague, the hon. member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.

They talk about family and marriage. In the motion before the House, we are not trying to redefine family or marriage. We are only trying to put a stop to the discrimination against same sex spouses in Canada. My colleague is not asking Parliament to recognize that two individuals of the same sex who live as a couple constitute a family. He is not asking Parliament to decide if they are married or not. This issue may be debated at another time, but the object of today's motion is only to recognize that two homosexuals having a stable relationship can enjoy the same benefits the Canadian government and Canadian legislation give to legally married spouses or common law partners.

While listening to the previous speakers, I realized that the arguments they used must be the same arguments that came up during the debates over the Divorce Act or other bills granting benefits to common law spouses. They would have said that we are attacking the family and the whole concept of marriage, but that is not the case.

Obviously, the legislation concerning divorce in Canada and giving some benefits to common law spouses have in no way undermined the concept of family in Canada. I see that my time is up. I hope I will be able to complete my speech during the third hour of debate on this motion.