Mr. Speaker, here we are at the beginning not only of a new year but also of a new Parliament, with a new government, a new official opposition elected by the people of Quebec and a new formation representing mainly Western Canada.
The government party and the third party were given clear mandates by their respective voters. I wish to congratulate both leaders for their success at the polls. To the Prime Minister in particular, I wish health, clear-mindedness and broadness of outlook in carrying out his duties in this crucial time in the history of Canada and Quebec.
The people of Quebec will soon decide their future following a debate that we all hope will be marked by a spirit of democracy. This is also a time when the adverse effects of the combined economic and political crisis are threatening to make a growing number of our fellow citizens lose hope.
I also want to pay my respects generally to all the other members elected to this House. On behalf of my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois, I can assure the Speaker, the government and all members of this House of our full co-operation in respecting decorum in this House. We will see to it, as far as we are concerned, that exchanges remain courteous though intense, rational though impassioned, orderly though vigorous.
The major change in this House is undoubtedly the massive influx of sovereigntist members from Quebec. No one can trivialize the shift represented by the decision some 2 million voters have made to send 54 members here to pave the way for Quebec's sovereignty.
The dynamics which led Quebec to this decision were such that enough members were elected to form the Official Opposition. Paradoxical as it may seem, this electoral result flows from an implacable logic.
Indeed, it was inevitable that these old walls, which too often resounded with the voices of Quebecers who were ready to approve measures rejected by the voters, such as the Charlottetown Accord and the unilateral patriation of 1982, would one day hear the speeches of members who base their party allegiance on the commitment never to accept to compromise Quebec's interests in Ottawa; members who are freed from the constraints of the old Canada-wide parties and who therefore will not be torn between their obligations as federalist parliamentarians and their loyalty to Quebec; members whose political career is motivated only by the determination to work, with their blinkers off, for Quebec's sovereignty.
Many in English Canada were surprised by the Bloc Québécois's achievement on October 25. To tell the truth, I am not surprised by that: the channels of communication from Quebec to English Canada are significantly distorted as they cross the border, so that the Quebec reality is perceived in a very confused way on the other side. That is the first justification for the presence of Quebec sovereigntists in this House.
Institutions often lag behind reality. The previous House of Commons was no exception to this rule; the stinging rejection of the Charlottetown Accord by voters in Canada and Quebec is striking proof. Today, the main architects of that accord have all disappeared from the political scene. They were the same people who showed cold indifference to the misfortune brought on by the long and difficult recession which began in the spring of 1990.
The voters have set the record straight. For the first time in contemporary history, this House which is now beginning its work reflects the very essence of Canada, its binational nature and the very different visions of the future which flow from that. Truth is never a bad advisor. As General de Gaulle said, one may well long for the days of sailing ships, but the only valid policy one can have is based on realities.
What are the realities with which this House will be faced? First of all, a really bad economic situation. To realize the full extent of it, it is not enough to look at the total picture as it is now; we must put it in the relevant chronological context.
The latest recession lasted roughly from April 1990 to April 1992, when net job losses stopped. But big business continues to lay off employees and the so-called recovery is so anemic that only economists dare to call it a recovery. Now, in early 1994, per capita GDP for all of Canada is still nearly 5 per cent less than it was in 1989. We know that per capita GDP is a more relevant indicator than total GDP, since it is affected by population growth, which is very large in Canada. Not only has Canada declined in relation to its partners but it is doing worse than before.
The employment situation does not seem any brighter, any more encouraging. By the end of 1993, the Canadian economy had regained only 60 per cent of all the jobs lost during the recession. The situation in Quebec is even more disastrous, since the recovery rate there is only 25 per cent. It must be said that for all practical purposes, Quebec had no government for much of 1993, but in that time, many young people arrived on the labour market. Just to absorb the number of net new job seekers, the Canadian economy would have to create over 200,000 jobs a year, about 45,000 of them in Quebec. The 1993
performance of 147,000 jobs in Canada, most of which are part-time, and none in Quebec, is far off the mark.
These chilling statistics hide thousands of human dramas. No one goes gladly to an employment centre for the unemployment insurance benefits to which they are entitled. Underemployment has considerable economic and social costs. It is a real collective tragedy. In this regard, it is very urgent to put people back to work, giving them real hope of recovering their dignity by regaining the right to earn their living.
Therefore, it is no surprise that the unemployment level remains at such a high level. Fortunately, the American economy is not suffering from the same problems as those of the Canadian economy. Consequently, the economic situation has at least one aspect that works for us, namely exports to the United States. But the result is that the gap between American and Canadian unemployment rates has never been so high, the difference being close to five percentage points. The recovery south of the border is much stronger than here.
Indeed, major obstacles to a strong recovery continue to exist in Canada. In the last few years, inflation has been lower here than in the United States, but our interest rates remain high.
We hear a lot about the fact that interest rates are presently at their lowest level in thirty years. The reality is that this is only true of short-term interest rates. In 1963, the bank rate set by the Bank of Canada and the preferred rate charged by banks were about the same as today. However, the rate of a 25 year mortgage was 7 per cent, and the rate of long-term Canadian bonds was 5,1 per cent, instead of the present 7.25 and 7 per cent rates that now apply to a five-year mortgage. This is where the problem lies, and it is a two-fold problem. Indeed, long-term interest rates remain too high, while the purchasing power of Canadian households has dropped significantly.
Soon we will have no choice but to take a close look at the characteristics, the evolution and the magnitude of our economic problems, and also at the hardships that they create for their primary victims, namely the one and a half million unemployed workers, and the millions of children and adults who live below the poverty level. It appears that the new government prefers not to assess the magnitude of the problem, which is not even touched upon in the Throne Speech. Moreover, the government does not realize that we are caught in a vicious circle. The fact is that there will not be a true recovery as long as the political structure remains the same. Indeed, the present political structure is the primary cause of the falling into decay of the Canadian economy.
One of the most obvious, if not spectacular, signs of this is the chronic inability of federal governments to control the budget deficit and the resulting soaring debt. It seems that this voracious monster can at will, like the Minotaur, take its toll in terms of jobs, of the minimal security of the poor, of the financial health of the federal State, and even of the future of our young people. Not only have those deficits been constant for the past 18 years, but this year's, which stands at some $43 billion, confirms that the system is totally out of order.
In order to get out of this mess, it will not be enough to blame the previous government. In any case, Canadians have already let us know what they thought of its performance. Yet, the careful observer who has not buried his head in the sand cannot fail to identify a certain element of ineffectiveness, which is inherent to the system.
Nevertheless, the government continues to pursue the ostrich's policy followed by its predecessor. By escaping from reality, it cannot put the finger on the main problem: this country is not governable, because it is stuck with a deficient and sclerotic decision-making structure.
Nothing seems to make successive governments in Ottawa come out of the cocoon in which they shelter themselves from reality, and so it is with this new government.
Yet, one only has to look at the relative performance of various other countries subject to the same international environment. This is a sure criterion, since everybody is facing the same economic problems and requirements. Therefore, the global context does not justify Canada's mediocre performance in terms of productivity since 1979, the worst of all OECD countries, nor the persistence of such a high unemployment level, nor the uncontrolled growth of the debt which, as we know, reached $500 billion yesterday. Canada is also in first place in terms of relying on foreign investors, since 40 per cent of its debt is owed to foreign interests.
Be that as it may, it is not free trade agreements, global markets, or the requirements imposed by the competitiveness of the world markets which, in the last few decades, have forced the federal government to embark upon all kinds of programs and expenditures, to encroach upon provincial jurisdictions, and to create a tentacular bureaucracy. Rather, this extravagance and this inconsistency were motivated by a triple internal concern: to give to the federal government a legitimacy snatched from the provinces; to affirm its role as a strong central government; and to neutralize the centrifugal forces of the structure. It is our political structures which are called into question when we wonder why we have become the most overgoverned country in the Western world, with 11 governments for a population of 28 million people.
We only have ourselves to blame if overlapping federal and provincial activities prevent the creation of cohesive programs and generate an outrageous amount of waste in human and financial resources That reveals a second reality as inescapable as the economic crisis, that certain inefficiencies are at the very heart of our system. These realities feed upon each other, and are a true reflection of the vicious circle which characterizes Canadian federalism. At the core of the economic crisis is a political crisis.
But for the better part of English Canada, there is no political crisis. Or, if there is one, they choose to ignore it. They have sent to Ottawa a new government with the mandate to better manage the present system without changing anything in it.
On the other hand, Quebecers not only sent a completely new team to Ottawa, but they gave their elected representatives the mandate to prepare a new order. The Bloc Quebecois was given a double mission: to manage the economic crisis and to handle the political crisis. Does the distribution of elected members in this House not prove the very existence of this second crisis? The government party only got 19 seats in Quebec, compared to 54 for the Bloc. Who do you think speaks for Quebec today?
More than 30 years ago Quebec awakened to the world and decided to catch up. The quiet revolution transformed Quebec. It did not take long before the spirit of reform in Quebec collided with the spirit of Canadian federalism in Ottawa. Thirty years ago the horns were locked. Thirty years later we are still at it, as if frozen in a time warp. We should learn from the past, and this we should have learned: The political problem with Canada is Quebec, and the problem of Quebec is Canada.
However, many Canadians refuse to acknowledge the problem which only serves to compound it. For example, the Bloc Quebecois has been on the federal scene for more than three years, but until recently we were ranked alongside the bizarre and the outer fringes.
Our aim of course is not to win popularity contests in English Canada, but we have here in a nugget the essence of the political predicament which bedevils Canada. A new political party which had led systematically in the polls in Quebec for three years was regularly dismissed as a quirk on the charts or a manifestation of a temporary leave of the senses. Hugh MacLennan's powerful novel Two Solitudes was published in 1945. Half a century later the title still mirrors the political landscape.
Some are willing to deny the obvious in order not to upset the status quo. They speak of one Canadian nation, whereas Quebec and English Canada are two different nations. Even when nobody in Quebec was contemplating sovereignty, the Canada that steered Quebecers was not of the same cloth as the Canada that seized the minds and hearts of maritimers, Ontarians or westerners. Quebecers were in the vanguard of the struggle for more Canadian autonomy under the Red Ensign and eventually for the political independence of Canada. This tends to be forgotten in certain quarters where Quebec bashing is a popular pastime.
Canada and Quebec have both changed tremendously in the last 100 years, but they are travelling on parallel tracks and remain as different today as they were yesterday. By and large they both continue to ignore the history and the culture of the other. This is no accident; language, geography and history largely account for it.
However, Quebecers do not deny that English Canada constitutes a nation in its own right with its own sense of community. Every single poll in the last few years has shown that the vast majority of the people in each of the nine provinces want to remain politically united after Quebec becomes sovereign. This small detail is conveniently neglected by all those who question the existence of an English Canada on the shaky basis of regional differences.
In France the people of the north are certainly as different, if not more so, from the people of the south as maritimers are from the people of British Columbia. But they both feel a strong attachment to France, or to Canada.
In fact, by clinging to the one nation thesis, English Canada is running the risk of undermining itself. As Kenneth McRoberts, the political scientist from York University, wrote in 1991: "In its effort to deny Quebec's distinctiveness, English Canada has been led to deny its own".
If one accepts the obvious, one must surely accept the consequences. Every nation has the right to self-government, that is to decide its own policies and future. We have no quarrel with the concept of federalism when applied to uninational states. It is a different matter when it comes to multinational states, particularly to the Canadian brand of federalism.
Canadian federalism means that the Government of Quebec is subordinate to the central government both in large and lesser matters. Within the federal regime, English Canada in fact has a veto on the future development of Quebec.
When the theme of national sovereignty is brought up in English Canada a nice paradox almost always emerges. As I will certainly refer to it in the coming months, I shall call it the paradox of English Canada. First, the tendency to consider passé the concept of national sovereignty, what with the European Community, GATT, NAFTA and so on. This is a patent misreading of the situation. Take a look at the western world. Ninety-five per cent of its population live in nation states.
The fact is that Quebec is the only nation of more than seven million people in the western world not to have attained political sovereignty. I invite members of this House to reflect upon this. As a political structure Canada is the exception rather than the rule, an exception that is not working well, to understate the case.
The particular situation of Quebec was inadvertently recognized by a member of the Canadian delegation to the final GATT negotiations in mid-December. As will be recalled, Canada was seeking to be exempted from the clause attacking subsidies by sub-national governments because, in his words: "There is only one Quebec". He was right of course.
Let us ask ourselves: Who was in the driver's seat during the European revolution of 1989-90 which saw German reunification and the accession to political sovereignty of so many nations in central and eastern Europe? Was it the supranational institutions, the EC, NATO, the Warsaw pact, or was it the different nations, each one of them seizing the chance of a lifetime?
In short, Quebecers aspire to what is considered normal in the western world.
The paradox of English Canada pops up with the second part of the discussion about national sovereignty, the part that deals with the issue of Canadian sovereignty. A large part of the free trade election of November 1988 was spent, in English Canada, on the impact of the free trade agreement on the sovereignty of Canada. Everybody agreed that this was something important that should not be tampered with. However if Canada's political sovereignty vis-à-vis the U.S.A. is valuable and must be preserved, why is it that Quebec's political sovereignty vis-à-vis Canada is depicted as irrational in the anglophone media of the land? When the preceding Prime Minister said that she preserved Canadian sovereignty during the last stage of the NAFTA negotiations, why is it that nobody rolled their eyes and derided this quaint idea of sovereignty? What mysterious alchemy transforms the quality of a concept according to the people to whom it applies or according to the year of accession to sovereignty? One must not forget that independent nations are not born. They are made.
All this does not prevent Canadians and Quebecers from having quite a few things in common: a respect for democracy, a large degree of openness to people of other cultures, and a fascination with our neighbours south of the border. And they both love their country. However, the problem is and has been for a very long time, that it is not the same country.
Make no mistake about it. We will not stop reminding the people that, in order to legitimize his power play against Quebec National Assembly in 1982, Pierre Trudeau was able to call upon the support of Quebec's Liberal members of Parliament in order to claim to speak on behalf of Quebec.
We will repeat as often as necessary that the government party no longer speaks for Quebec. You can also be sure that we will not lose sight-and will not allow anyone to lose sight-of the fact that the new Prime Minister is the very man who led the assault against Quebec, in 1981, and ignored the quasi-unanimous repudiation by the Quebec National Assembly.
The Charlottetown episode followed a similar pattern. Did we not see a block of Conservative members from Quebec, who had initially got into politics to repair the damage done by the 1982 patriation, side with the Liberals in an effort to seal the fate, once and for all, of Quebec's historical claims?
The 1992 referendum results dispelled any lingering ambiguity. The rejection of the Accord from coast to coast ended all hopes that some may still have had for a renewed federal system in Canada. You take it or leave it as it is.
The Prime Minister himself came to the same conclusion. Did he not announce shortly after coming into office that he would not even attempt such a reform?
Thus we should be able to make in the clear light of day the decision we are supposed to make by referendum in Quebec. We are left with only two choices: either we settle for the status quo that almost every federalist in Quebec since Jean Lesage has denounced or, the alternative is clear, Quebec attains full sovereignty, with full powers to assume full responsibility. The identity and roles of the players would be clarified at the same time.
There certainly seems to be a sort of poetic justice in all this. The henchman of the dastardly deed in 1982, who has since become Prime Minister, will soon have to ask the people of Quebec to turn down the sovereignty deal in favour of the constitutional one which had earned him their reprobation in the first place. And he will have to do it on his own, without the support that his mentor, Pierre Trudeau, claimed to have in Quebec. You can see why he does not want the talk Constitution, as he said.
By its presence and actions in this House, the Bloc Quebecois will be doing every Quebecer and Canadian a service, whether they like it or not, by preventing them from going back to square one. Now that the Meech and Charlottetown accords have stripped the varnish of political correctness from the Canadian federal system, revealing its obstinate fixedness, everyone is immune to promises of renewal. So much so that nobody dares make any, not even to score political points.
This imposes upon us a basic civic duty, which consists in sparing ourselves three more decades of fruitless discussion, endless attempts and lost illusions. This waste of resources, this dilution of collective hope, this misuse of our energy has been going on for too long already. All we have to show today for the
ordeal the best wills in Quebec and English Canada have suffered is bitterness, suspicion, lack of understanding and a profound collective alienation. We are about to lose the very will to face reality squarely.
More importantly, there is the waste of time. I am not only referring to that of the people who, in the excitement of the sixties, dreamed of solving our conflicts and building in Quebec and Canada societies that would be tolerant, imaginative, open to the world and concerned with social justice. I am thinking of our two nations in particular. Because time is running out for them too. While we mope around, the world is coming apart and rebuilding around us. The boat is going by and we are missing it.
Whether we like it or not, there will be a debate on our political future, and it will take place right here. The government is free to stonewall as has been the practice in this House with regard to the sovereigntist aspirations of so many Quebecers. Is it out of fear or powerlessness that they are evading subjects that put into question the old political structures of Quebec and Canada as well as their capacity to solve social and economic problems? Whether fainthearted or resigned, this total silence is irresponsible and leads to paralysis. The Bloc Québécois has been sent here precisely to break this conspiracy of silence.
We will not be afraid to point out that Quebecers are and will always be in a clear minority position within the federal system. The population ratio is three to one. We can fool ourselves and believe that we can determine the course of events despite this ever-present handicap which relegates Quebec to second-place status when interests diverge. This would imply constant tension and a superior performance on our part. In other words, utopia.
If the truth be told, the Trudeauesque utopia is not foreign to the annals of French Canadian history. For many decades, French Canadians believed that their destiny was prophetic. In many respects, Pierre Trudeau is the last missionary of French Canada.
Here again, we are confronted with a paradox. Canada needed measures to safeguard against the demographic and economic weight of the United States. Hence the creation of the Foreign Investment Review Agency and the implementation of the new energy policy. Quebec, on the other hand, did not require measures to protect itself from the demographic and economic weight of English Canada. Competence was all that was required and everything else would take care of itself. How very naive! And this was seen as reason triumphing over passion.
In reality, Quebecers want to live a normal life. They are tired of fighting for basic things that have been denied them. They are quite willing to confront the challenges of the day, but they want all of the odds to be on their side. On the one hand, they want greater economic integration and a stronger competitive position internationally, while on the other hand, they want political sovereignty in order to face Quebec's competitive partners on a level playing field.
Quebec sovereigntists advocate a modern concept of political sovereignty, one which is exercised within the framework of major economic structures and which is respectful of minorities. Under no circumstances will the 630,000 francophones outside Quebec be sacrificed. Moreover, Quebec sovereigntists were not the ones who rejected the Free Trade Agreement with the United States and NAFTA. There is a difference between withdrawing into oneself and pulling out in order to perform better in the new global economy.
The close economic integration between Quebec and Canada forces us to take a careful look at what is happening in Europe. What lessons can we draw from the European model?
Some pundits like to believe the European Community will gradually transform itself into something resembling Canadian federalism and use this as an argument against Quebec sovereignty. Thus they reveal their lack of familiarity with European developments. In fact the other way around appears much more likely. To solve the Canadian political crisis our present institutions should and I dare say will evolve along the lines of the European Community.
A few facts seem in order. The European Commission in Brussels has a budget that amounts to 1.2 per cent of the global GNP of the community. It has no fiscal powers and-such a tragedy-cannot run a deficit. The federal government in Ottawa spends 22 per cent of GNP and has the whole gamut of fiscal powers. As for deficits we all know what has happened. The commission in Brussels has no army, no police and a small bureaucracy when compared to national governments. Community decisions are in fact executed by national bureaucracies. If we exclude trade matters, national sovereignty remains the basic ingredient of the community.
For instance the 12 members could modify the structure and the workings of the EC without the commission having any say in the decision. For these countries co-operation is the master word, not subordination.
This is a far cry from the Canadian brand of federalism. Who will pretend, for example, that only the provincial governments determine the future of Canada? Who will pretend that the federal government is but a benevolent arbitrator of inter-regional conflicts? For Quebec the central government is the problem. For English Canada it is part of the solution.
The Maastricht treaty extended the process of economic integration to the field of monetary policy by setting the objective of a common currency before the end of the century, and the process of political co-operation by specifying the objective of a common thread in the fields of defence and foreign policy. These sensitive fields will remain the prerogative of the heads of state assembled in the European Council.
Hence the following question: If the European union is indeed the wave of the future as is frequently alleged in the Canadian media, why not propose this model as a solution to Canada's national problem? If Maastricht represents the embodiment of the next century, why does English Canada not propose the same kind of arrangement to Quebec? The Maastricht arrangements would be much easier to implement between Quebec and Canada than among 12 very diverse countries.
Let there be no mistake. Bloc members will not forget that their commitment to sovereignty constitutes the real reason for their presence in this House. One could say that as far as we are concerned, the pre-referendum campaign has begun. Meanwhile, we will not let the recession be dissociated from its causes.
For the time being, and until Quebecers have made their decision in a referendum, members of the Bloc will seek to safeguard the future by averting present evils to the best of their ability. These evils include unemployment, poverty, lack of budgetary restraint, undue duplication, threats to our social programs, fiscal inequity and loss of confidence in our political institutions and leaders.
All these issues have a direct impact on Quebec's interests but are equally important for the rest of Canada. Our aspirations drive us apart, but our social, economic and budgetary problems are the same.
As Premier Bob Rae would say: "We are all in the same boat".
Who can challenge the legitimacy, even for the whole at Canada, of any action the Bloc may take to limit the damage, create jobs, wrestle with the deficit and fight off attacks against our social programs? The universal character of these concerns confers a clear legitimacy on a common response to these issues. In addition, we received an electoral mandate. Our 54 seats were allocated by the principal players: the electorate. Do these seats have any less clout because they come from Quebec?
I can already hear our opponents claiming that it was only thanks to an erratic division of seats of English Canada between the Liberals and Reform members that the Bloc was able to come to the fore with the second largest number of members. However, the impact of spoilers and how this translates to the electoral map is also an expression of the will of the electorate. It was a combination of all votes, whether they were from Quebec or the rest of Canada, which made us the Official Opposition. To criticise the fact that this responsibility has now been taken over by the Bloc Quebecois shows a lack of respect for the democratic process has a whole.
We intend to take these responsibilities seriously; and we will do so loyally, correctly and with due resolve. We know that is what Quebecers expect us to do , and they would never forgive us if we deviated from this path.
In this respect, we are guided by two principles: equity and responsibility. On both counts, the speech from the throne was a complete disappointment. At a time when more than one child out of six and one family out of eight are living below the poverty line in this country, when a million and a half people are unemployed, and when more and more people in Quebec see this as proof of the failure of Canadian federalism, one would expect the new government to stage a strong and spectacular rally.
There is a general and widespread feeling of disappointment, both among the needy, breadwinners, young people and seniors, and also among business people and investors.
All were anxious to know what specific measures would be taken to put Canadians back to work. Unfortunately, the government merely served up a condensed version of its little red book. The first hundred days of this government will not go down in history.
Analyse though we may, we will find none of the answers we expected in the speech from the throne.
Is there anything in the way of projects that hold out some hope? Nothing. The talk goes on about municipal infrastructures. It may be useful, but the program falls tragically short of what it would take to jump start the economy. The government has failed to understand how important it is to give people hope. How can the unemployed take heart, how can decision makers consider investing when the government is not even aware of the seriousness of the situation? When it should have taken drastic measures such as starting work on the high-speed rail link between Windsor and Quebec City, transferring labour training programs and resources to Quebec, where all parties have been lobbying for it for a long time, when it should have set up a fund to convert military industry to civilian uses, when it should have taken so many measures, the government chose to be content with publishing yet another pamphlet filled with vague electioneering propaganda.
The government will no doubt retort that it does not have the resources to invest in economic recovery. That is tantamount to acknowledging a lack of political courage and administrative stringency. Indeed, it is possible to reduce the deficit while leaving room to manoeuvre. To do that, you have to decide once and for all to cut spending. But the will to do so is lacking. We agree as to the diagnosis, but not as to the treatment.
The Bloc Quebecois is willing to support an ambitious deficit cutting plan, but not just any one. We cannot ignore the origin of the present national debt. We cannot forget that the federal government was the first one to open wide the gates in the early 1980's, leading to this spiralling public debt. As we all know, on March 31, 1994, the net debt will reach $507 billion whereas the combined debt of all the provinces will be less than $170 billion. This explains why, a few years ago, the federal government decided to unload part of the federal deficit on the provinces.
In view of this heavy responsibility, the federal government should show the way rather than impose its will by decree. Before considering shrinking the social safety net, before passing the buck to the provinces, the federal government must first put its own house in order. It could follow two very different paths. Ridding the federal administration of its fat could be done very quickly by eliminating useless trips, contracts awarded to private interests, friends and friends of friends, extravagant spending here and abroad, and by taking into account the horror stories which have been listed, year after year, by the Auditor General in his annual report.
