Debates of March 7th, 1994

Canadian Centre For Occupational Health And Safety

[Stan Keyes, Liberal, Hamilton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, the Minister of Human Resources Development, for visiting Hamilton last week and delivering additional funding to the tune of $100,000 for the national inquiry line of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety.

This allocation will be used to make up for a shortfall in provincial funds originally committed to the centre. Each year the centre's national inquiry line handles 18,000 to 20,000 calls from employees and businesses seeking general information and research on workplace safety and health issues.

It is estimated that the cost of occupational injuries and illnesses in Canada is over $10.6 billion a year. Clearly we have a fiscal and social responsibility to ensure that the general public has access to information that can prevent injuries and illnesses in the workplace and save lives. Helping sustain the essential services of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety in Hamilton is another shining example of this government's red book commitment to quality health services for all Canadians.

Collège Militaire De Saint-Jean

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the closing of the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean announced by the

government has triggered a growing opposition. The authorities, the military personnel and the students of the college, as well as the Bloc Quebecois members, cannot see the logic of such a decision.

In order to reduce spending, the government decided to close the only French military college in Canada and, which is even worse, it will close a college whose per capita training costs are lower than those of RMC in Kingston, and even Royal Roads in Victoria.

The regional action committee intends to oppose this decision and is sending an invitation to all individuals and groups concerned to participate in a demonstration which will take place in Saint-Jean, next Sunday, March 13, to show their disapproval of this questionable decision, to say the least, made by the government.

1994 Labatt Brier

[Bob Mills, Reform, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to announce to this House that the 1994 Canadian Brier is currently being held in Red Deer, Alberta. The Brier began on March 5 and will continue until March 13. The people of central Alberta welcome with open arms all those who will attend this Canadian sporting and cultural tradition.

The Brier includes teams from each of the 10 provinces and the two territories. We can thank the 850 volunteers for their hard work in organizing the games, which we are confident will be the best Brier to date. The Brier is being held in the beautiful Red Deer Centrium and the event is entirely sold out. The Brier is definitely a boon to central Alberta. For this I thank the Labatt Brier.

I wish good luck to each and every competitor in the 1994 Labatt Brier.

Kingston

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was surprised at certain comments in the Quebec media on Kingston's francophone minority which, and I quote: "must cope with one of the most difficult situations in this country". That is not true. Although Kingston is an anglophone community, Canada's French fact has always played an important role in the city's history.

Today, Kingston has several entities that embody French culture: two churches, French schools and even Queen's University which offers a number of courses in French. The Royal Military College in Kingston is a vital part of our francophone community, and the residents of Kingston will welcome students from all the provinces in this country.

Official Languages

[Ronald J. Duhamel, Liberal, St. Boniface, MB]

Mr. Speaker, during the last week of our sitting members of the Reform Party made a number of statements with respect to supposedly the government's policy on official bilingualism. That was a code word for French services because there is no such policy. For the record, it is the Official Languages Act.

They talked of costs of course without giving any figures to bring any precision to them. Why would they do that? To suggest obviously that it is an expensive policy, and it is, but that it is so expensive that if it did not exist there probably would not be a deficit or a debt.

That is the kind of new politics being played. Code words to frighten people, to mislead them, to make them believe something that does not exist.

Where is their plan? Where are their precise costs? Until they can bring forward clear, precise alternatives and show Canadians how we can get together, talk to each other, understand each other, they have no credibility.

Unemployment

[Lucien Bouchard, Bloc, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister.

In their analysis of the impact of this government's first budget, three economists at the Université du Québec à Montréal stated that the government was asking the unemployed, and I quote: "to make an entirely disproportionate contribution by obliging them to shoulder 60 per cent of the cutbacks announced in the budget". In fact, the benefit rate and benefit period of more than eight unemployed workers has been reduced, which illustrates the extent of this unprecedented attack by the government on the unemployed.

Could the Prime Minister explain why the government, instead of cutting operating expenditures and getting rid of widespread overlap in its administration, has deliberately decided to come down hard on the unemployed?

[Lloyd Axworthy, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development and Minister of Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition left out all the important parts of the budget. First of all, we increased benefits for low-income Canadians and those with dependent children. We reduced unemployment insurance premiums to

create jobs. In fact, we said that as a result of this budget, 40,000 people would get jobs.

When the hon. member was in the Conservative government, he reduced and cut benefits under programs that had been created to fight unemployment. He raised premiums and increased unemployment at the same time. That is the difference. Our objective is to create jobs for Canadians, while when the hon. member was a minister in the Conservative government, the objective was to reduce employment.

[Lucien Bouchard, Bloc, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, the minister has a selective approach to recent political history. I saw in this House, and I shared, the fervour, intensity and indignation with which he attacked Bill C-113, which took 5 per cent of their unemployment insurance benefits away from the unemployed. We all condemned this legislation and we voted against it. Today, I see the same minister working as part of a cabinet that has launched a wholesale attack against the unemployed.

I want to ask the Prime Minister or his deputy whether the government will admit that without genuine measures to boost employment, the government's decision to reduce the benefits of nearly 85 per cent of the unemployed will have the effect of putting several thousand of these people on welfare?

[Lloyd Axworthy, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development and Minister of Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, I plead with the hon. Leader of the Opposition to read the budget carefully.

When he says there are no measures to create employment, I just mentioned a very important one which is by reducing the premiums on unemployment insurance there is a very substantial stimulus, especially for small business. That was the message from small business during the consultations: "You reduce the payroll taxes, we will create jobs".

At the same time we have reallocated expenditures to initiate a major infrastructure program across Canada of $6 billion.

In addition, to make sure we can establish brand new ways of getting people off social assistance, off dependency and back to work, we have added an extra $800 million in the budget to work with the provinces to establish a series of initiatives strategically placed across Canada to help the very people the hon. member says he is concerned about.

That seems to be a very big difference from the actions he took when he was in government which was simply to cut, slash and burn and do nothing to help those who needed help.

[Lucien Bouchard, Bloc, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Prime Minister whether he realizes that by zeroing in on unemployment insurance, he is putting the burden of the deficit on the shoulders of the provinces, which in the coming year are already faced with spending an additional $1 billion on welfare, which works out to $280 million in Quebec alone.

[Lloyd Axworthy, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development and Minister of Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the hon. member will be very happy to know that last week we had a series of meetings with provincial ministers in education and labour.

They have all agreed to become part of a major effort to reform the social security system. We agreed we would begin to tackle the very serious problems of duplication and overlap of services which do create waste.

We are now dealing with the provinces. We believe we can make substantial savings at both the federal and provincial levels to reduce administrative costs and reduce the kind of overlap that creates additional cost. It is not to reduce the money going to individuals, not to reduce the direct delivery of programs, but to reduce the amount that goes to bureaucracy administration. That is the objective of this government.

Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the ranks of those opposed to the closing of the military college in Saint-Jean are growing every day: francophone associations throughout Canada, the Commissioner of Official Languages, Mr. Goldbloom, General Jean V. Allard, the college's alumni, and even the Liberal Premier of Quebec, who finally changed his mind and now wants the college in Saint-Jean to remain open.

My question is for the Prime Minister. Is the government willing to use common sense and go back on its decision to close the college in Saint-Jean, to allow French-speaking students who wish to pursue a military career to train as officers in French, in their own environment?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to reply to the hon. member that the problem must be put in a real context. Only 16 per cent of French-speaking Canadian military officers are graduates of the college in Saint-Jean.

Many officers who have pursued a career in the Canadian Forces went to other universities. There are flexible programs

allowing them to choose their universities. We will have only one military college in the future. The Canadian Forces will have about 70,000 members and only one military college. The American armed forces have only three colleges for 2 million soldiers.

As we have to make cuts, we decided to close the military college in Saint-Jean. We are sorry but we had to cut somewhere. We made cuts in every province, including Quebec. We told the Quebec government and all the people that, if they wanted to keep the college in Saint-Jean as an institution of higher learning, we were ready to help them, as we help other provinces hit by base closures and, very often, by cuts much more severe per capita than those made in Quebec. We are ready to help but the decision is final. A country with 70,000 soldiers cannot have three military colleges when the American armed forces have three colleges for 2 million soldiers.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, now that we know that Kingston is not a region where the Ontario law on francophone areas applies, that a Kingston French-language high school is even housed in portables without running water, and that the Kingston mayor's policy for integrating francophones is to let the English marry the French, does the Prime Minister still have the audacity to say that Kingston is the best possible place to integrate French-speaking communities into the armed forces?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I would reply to the hon. member that francophones can now receive their whole training in French at the college in Kingston. This morning, I was looking at the file of a young woman who was able to take in French at the military college in Kingston 38 of her 40 engineering courses.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Saint-Maurice, QC]

As a francophone in Kingston, she functioned so well that, at the end of her course, her fellow students voted to give her the prize awarded to the student who contributes the most to his or her faculty's development.

So, Mr. Speaker, I think there is a way to organize the college in Kingston so that francophone students can be served in French. And, if there is a need to improve the local situation in Kingston, we will try to help, just as we are now trying to help the people who want to keep in Saint-Jean an institution that, unfortunately, can no longer serve the military.

Official Opposition

[Ed Harper, Reform, Simcoe Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.

Many Canadians, including federalists in Quebec, were outraged last week when the Leader of the Opposition made an official visit to Washington and New York to sell Quebec separatism. The purpose of this visit was made very clear by the opposition leader. He went to lay the groundwork for future relations between a separate Quebec and the United States.

Does the Prime Minister not agree that by having the Canadian embassy involved the Canadian government legitimized the purpose of this visit?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, the people of Canada voted in one election. They elected a separatist party as the Official Opposition and we are treating it as the Official Opposition.

Not only bad things came out of that trip, there were a lot of good things too. The Leader of the Opposition told the Americans he was Canadien français, just like me. That is great. He said he wanted the Americans to understand his position. Rather than using the confusing term of sovereignty he wanted them to know the truth and the truth will now be known by Quebecers. He said: "I am a separatist," and I was very happy.

[Ed Harper, Reform, Simcoe Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, traditionally the primary objective of opposition leaders has been to defend the interests of Canada. The present Leader of the Official Opposition has been forthright that this is not his primary goal. His objective is to lead Quebec out of Canada.

Does the Prime Minister believe that in this case the Leader of the Official Opposition misused his office to promote the breakup of Canada?

[The Speaker]

Again the Chair is having a little difficulty with the questions in that they seem to be attacking individual members. I do not know that this is really the administrative responsibility of the government.

I would let the Prime Minister answer the question if he so wishes, but I would hope the questions would be rephrased so that they deal with the administrative responsibility of the government.

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I believe I can speak about national policies that can be useful in keeping Canada together.

I urge the member of the Reform Party to recognize generously that it is a very good thing in Canada to have two official languages.

[Ed Harper, Reform, Simcoe Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian taxpayer picked up some of the tab for the visit. Does the Prime Minister believe that Canadians received good value for the money spent?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I was pleased to hear the premier of Alberta say on Friday that he was in favour of two official languages in Canada. They like to

use him a lot in their speeches, so that is something that should be noted.

I do not know what was the cost of this additional lunch or dinner for the Leader of the Official Opposition. I just hope it was cheaper than the party for the Governor of the Bank of Canada.

The Budget

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before tabling his budget, the Minister of Finance told us repeatedly that he would be cutting expenditures, but he did not have the courage to follow through. Now he is telling us that it is going to happen next year, as part of a second phase. Even the Prime Minister, on tour in Western Canada, contradicts him on that point.

How can the Minister of Finance expect us to believe that he does want to reduce spending when the Prime Minister flatly contradicts him by saying that all cuts the government planned to make were made this year?