Madam Speaker, I would like to start by thanking the hon. Minister of Human Resources Development for his kind remarks. Unfortunately, that is about as far as it goes. Since the very beginning of the session, the minister has shown no sensitivity to the specificity of Quebec as a nation, a distinct nation, one that has been hit particularly hard by federal policies. Quebec's backward economy and poverty cannot be measured against the economic conditions and poverty found across Canada, as the hon. minister did in his speech. To insist on doing so would be an insult to history, and even more so to refuse to yield to facts, facts which are measured and compared better and better by the day. Many people deny these disturbing facts because they would call for an explanation and, today as in the past, they constitue a strong incentive for action.
You would think that statistics were conspiring to break the whole truth to the House of Commons about the relative economic backwardness of Quebec and the extent of poverty in Quebec. We have before us the annual reports that allow comparisons to be made and conclusions to be drawn.
When the second largest province in Canada ranks first in terms of low-income families, it is out-of-place to state, as the minister did, that there is poverty in Quebec like everywhere else in Canada. The truth of the matter is that Quebec has only recently won this title, although it had always been in the running. It is the first time that Quebec takes this dubious honour away from New Brunswick or Newfoundland. Just for the sake of comparison, let us say that there are as many families below the low income cut-off in the Montreal area alone as in all of the Atlantic provinces combined.
Let us take a look at the significance of this. If Quebec, with a little over 25 per cent of the population of Canada, has 31 per cent of low-income families living within its borders, this means that the rest of Canada, all of Canada minus Quebec, with 75 per cent of the population, accounts only for two thirds of low-income families anyway. Poverty in Quebec weighs more heavily on Quebec than over-all Canadian poverty on Canada.
We all know that unemployment and poverty are rampant almost everywhere in Canada. Millions of Canadians are without hope, if not to say living in despair. Without being unique to Quebec, the phenomenon has nonetheless hit Quebec the hardest in terms of intensity and numbers of people affected.
We could expect the standard of living to be about the same for all the people living below the low income cut-off, thanks to the social safety net we have in place in Canada. For that to be true, the concentration of poverty would have to affect neither the people nor the region, which is not the case. The higher the
level of poverty and unemployment, the more destructive the effects on the affected communities.
These just-released census data show that, of all Canadian metropolitan areas, Montreal also comes first for the proportion of low-income families. These figures apply to the entire census area, so that we can say that the concentration of poor people in metropolitan Montreal is quite alarming.
The concentration of poor people in large and small communities or provinces has a significant effect on the services these communities need and on their ability to pay for and obtain these services. It impacts on their ability to keep their young people and their more dynamic elements and, in turn, on their demographic development.
The regions of Quebec are emptying faster because they are in a vicious circle of impoverishment.
I want my position on the fight against poverty to be clear right from the start. As an Official Opposition critic and member of Parliament, I will make every effort to speak on behalf of those who are not here but whose hopes and future depend on the work done in this House and, in the end, on the vote of the majority.
It is too easy for those whose income is a lot higher than that of the average Quebecer or Canadian, whose jobs are secure for at least five years, like the hon. members opposite and beside me, to look at budget constraints and forget about ordinary people who work for minimum wage or a little more, who would like to work for minimum wage or a little more but who cannot find jobs or who would not be able to raise their children on so little.
Because of their insecurity and inability to plan ahead or to save money, a large number of Quebecers and Canadians depend on collective support. This support is being questioned by the government, and any attempt to sugar-coat it for Canadians would be misleading. The government got elected by promising jobs. It did not say that the unemployed themselves would be held responsible for not having jobs.
Let us talk about poverty and unemployment, not in terms of statistics but of living conditions. Let us try to understand. When we talk about poverty and unemployment, we see two scenarios: the first is a low income level but the second must be called poverty.
The first situation, simpler for lawmakers, is when people earn less money for a while because they have lost their jobs but hope to find new employment; because they are students in a sector where jobs are available; because they are ill or have just given birth. People temporarily earning less or no income: that is the kind of problems governments like to deal with. This lack of money does not mean poverty but, combined with other problems, it can lead to it. That is why we must make every effort to prevent people from getting caught in such a horrible trap.
The second situation facing lawmakers could be called "true poverty"; it is a horrible vicious circle experienced by people whose health, education, housing, addictions, repeated failures, depression, solitude, harassment or family responsibilities only aggravate their feelings of failure and powerlessness.
In such cases, and they are becoming more and more numerous, lack of money turns into a chronic problem and life becomes worse than jail because many prisoners have a hope of getting out. Prisoners have the means to study or occupy themselves and even, ironically, a sense of security.
This poverty is worse than jail because the outside world is there, just beyond the door but, with all its attractions, it remains out of reach. Except perhaps on the evening of payday, but those who want to forget for one night will have to pay the price all month. Yes, hundreds of thousands of Quebecers and Canadians are experiencing these awful feelings of failure and powerlessness.
They accept and often internalize the judgment which they know is made against them, and they isolate themselves in their silence. These people need to be helped and not threatened with being deprived of the small pittance which is their only security.
When we, members of the Official Opposition, defend existing social programs it does not mean that we oppose any amendment or reform of those programs merely for the sake of opposing them; rather, in these times of crisis and deficit cutting, it is to defend with constantly renewed energy our social security mechanisms and the principle of fairness, and also to reinforce social cohesion. To defend the existing programs is to oppose duality, to oppose the fact that hundreds of thousands of Quebecers and millions of Canadians will be left to fend for themselves with a pittance barely sufficient to ensure their mere survival.
This is what fighting for existing programs is all about. But to do a good job at it, we must constantly demand that the government introduce an economic policy which will foster job creation, otherwise any social program, any new training, however good, will only be a makeshift solution which could make things worse, since people will be even more desperate if there is no job after this training and all their efforts prove futile.
For more than 20 years Quebec has been asking for control of all social and revenue protection programs to make them more effective. The reasons mentioned today by the minister to justify his reform are far from being new ones. In fact, the Liberals, who today find nothing better to do than to undertake a restructuring of the social security system in Canada, were the ones who refused to give Quebec full responsibility for the tax points, something which Jean Lesage had negotiated at a time when the
Liberals were still willing to negotiate, that is before the arrival on the scene of former Prime Minister Trudeau.
A social security system, no matter how good, cannot of its own give back hope and dignity to Quebecers and to Canadians. What we need more than anything is a true employment policy.
Since 1990, the employment growth rate, to which research services in Ottawa do not often refer to but we will do so, is diminishing. Indeed, the number of Canadians able to work increases more rapidly than the number of jobs available.
Why is this reform of our social security system suddenly so urgent? Why is the Minister of Human Resources Development, who is accountable to Quebecers and to Canadians for fostering job creation, not desperately trying to introduce a true employment policy, which is the only solution to give hope to young people and workers who have very little hope left indeed.
Among all the testimonies to which he referred, the minister surely remembers that of the former deputy minister of Employment and Immigration, Mr. Arthur Kroeger, who strongly criticized Canadian governments. His comments were reported in the Globe and Mail , last week. This is not a quote; it is an excerpt from the
Globe and Mail.
He said, "Canada has never had a real employment strategy, even though the unemployment rate, especially long-term joblessness, has been climbing since the 1950s and the labour market is polarizing into well-paid jobs for those with solid skills at one end and low-paid jobs for those with little education at the other".
Later, he added, in his own words:
"What we are seeing is a growth of a Canadian under-class".
In another article, which was reproduced in Quorum by the way, yet another expert, Mr. Lars Osberg, told the hon. Minister of Human Resources that social program reform is not what will create jobs, that reform and job creation should go hand in hand. He insisted on the necessity of an employment policy.
If the minister is preoccupied by jobs, why did he increase unemployment insurance premiums as of January 1 instead of freezing them for now, while recovery is so slow, and increasing them later on when recovery has reached the level that economists are promising him? They all agree that these repeated increases have a negative impact on employment, that they constitute an employment tax.
The answer is simple; with all its generous statements the Liberal government has but one purpose and that is to reduce the deficit. No, I am sorry, they have two main purposes: to reduce the deficit and to implement a system, and I quote from Mr. Axworthy's speech, on page 7, a typically Canadian system that will "give Canadians a sense of their own uniqueness".
Therefore, it is not surprising that today, in the area of occupational training, as was the case yesterday with family allowances and as it will be tomorrow with welfare, Quebec is confronted with arrogance and an ever present desire for centralization. The important thing is not to find efficient solutions for people, it is to find a system "which will give Canadians a sense of their own uniqueness". Quebecers do not need programs to help them discover their own identity. Indeed, the central government and especially the Liberals have consistently tried over the years to suppress the very existence of that identity.
Consider the incredible refusal on the part of the central government to give Quebec control over occupational training. I listened to the hon. Deputy Prime Minister talk to us about the great benefits of occupational training. We and indeed all Quebecers do not need to be convinced of these benefits and we have been waiting and we will have to wait two years. Because the most implausible of all detours is being taken, namely a comprehensive review of social and training programs, Quebec is being denied the means with which to launch a serious assault right away on some of its major problems. Yet, if we look at the Liberal program, we can find nothing in what Quebec is now doing that goes against what is advocated in the red book, except for one thing. Quebec wants control because it knows that the current mess only leads to wasted resources and energy and to dashed hopes. Quebec cannot afford to wait. In the face of Ottawa's refusal last week, labour, business and provincial government representatives had some very harsh words for the amazing ineptness of the government which is seeking "a typically Canadian system".
Do we need to remind the government, or perhaps say it for the first time, that an employment policy is urgently needed, in Quebec more than anywhere else, because it is in Quebec that the employment/population ratio reflects a largely inadequate level of business activity.
To clearly grasp the difference between Quebec and Ontario, let us say that if Quebec and Ontario had the same rate of employment, there would be hundreds of thousands more jobs in Quebec today.
No doubt it is not merely a coincidence that for many years now in Quebec, labour, business, social agencies and governments have been working together to tackle serious problems and improve the situation. Responsibility for occupational training falls to them and to the Société québécoise de développement de la main-d'oeuvre to which the government refuses to hand control over training.
Together-and this was not obvious at the outset-they have come a long way and acquired the necessary expertise. The only explanation for the minister's refusal can be found in his speech where he says he is looking for a "typically Canadian system, one which gives Canadians a sense of their own uniqueness".
To delay action for two years on such a critical, fundamental matter as occupational training is a slap in the face for Quebecers. What kind of trust should they place then in the aims of the social security reform process?
The Minister of Human Resources Development wants to carry out a comprehensive reform. He wants the proposals and suggestions put forward to be Canadian solutions. He wants to institute a social security system that gives Canadians a sense of their own uniqueness. If the Minister of Human Resources Development refuses to see that the people of Quebec have their own identity which requires a made-in-Quebec solution, if he persists in wanting to encroach upon provincial areas of jurisdiction such as education and training, if he steadfastly refuses to transfer quickly to the Government of Quebec full responsibility for manpower development, well then he should expect vigorous opposition on our part.
In point of fact, the Minister of Human Resources Development is in the process of demonstrating that Quebec is right to claim, as it has for many years, the right to manage its own income security system. That is what the minister wants, for reasons of efficiency. Yet, the same reasons can explain Quebec's position. The only difference is that Quebec wants a Quebec-style administration, while Canada wants a typically Canadian system.