House of Commons Hansard #31 of the 35th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was budget.
Presence In GalleryOral Question Period
The Speaker
I wish to draw the attention of hon. members to the presence in the gallery of the Bangladesh Minister of Finance, Minister Saifur Rahman.
Peter Milliken LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table in both official languages a number of Order in Council appointments which were made recently by the government.
Pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 110(1), these are deemed referred to the appropriate standing committees, a list of which is attached.
Government Response To PetitionsRoutine Proceedings
Kingston and the Islands Ontario
Liberal
Peter Milliken LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, while I am on my feet, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8) I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government response to eight petitions.
Francis Leblanc Liberal Cape Breton Highlands—Canso, NS
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), I have the honour to present to the House in both official languages the report of the Canada-Europe Parliamentary Association on the meetings of the Bureau and of the Standing Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe held on January 17, 1994, in Copenhagen, Denmark.
John Richardson Liberal Perth—Wellington—Waterloo, ON
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the first report of the Special Joint Committee on Canada's Defence Policy. This report requests additional powers for the committee concerning televising of its proceedings and the power to create subcommittees.
The Senate adopted this report at its sitting of February 24. If the House gives its consent I intend to move concurrence in the report later this day.
Rex Crawford Liberal Kent, ON
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-220, an act to amend the Hazardous Products Act.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present this private member's bill entitled an act to amend the Hazardous Products Act.
I first presented this bill last June in response to two of my constituents, Robert and Maria Weese of Wallaceburg, Ontario. They lost a young son in a tragic accident at school when a portable soccer net blew over.
This bill is based on the recommendations of the coroner's jury in the Wallaceburg case. The bill would require that soccer goals, handball goals and field hockey goals for recreational or school use be fixed to the ground. There are many other cases in both Canada and the United States where nets have blown down and youngsters have been injured or killed.
I again commend the Weese family and the local community for working to prevent other possible tragedies. I am proud and honoured as their member of Parliament to present this private member's bill on their behalf.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed.)
Chris Axworthy NDP Saskatoon—Clark's Crossing, SK
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour, pursuant to Standing Order 36, to present a petition signed by about 100 residents of Saskatoon protesting the closure of the National Film Board office in Saskatoon. That would leave Saskatchewan along with Newfoundland as the only provinces in Canada without a National Film Board presence, another nail in the coffin of our national institutions across this country.
Chris Axworthy NDP Saskatoon—Clark's Crossing, SK
Mr. Speaker, I also have a petition signed by 299 people from all across Saskatchewan. They are protesting Bill C-91 which basically increased the price of drugs in Canada by reducing the availability of generic brands. They are calling upon the government to repeal Bill C-91 and to look to the interests of Canadians and their health care in order to ensure that drugs are a more reasonable price.
Jim Jordan Liberal Leeds—Grenville, ON
Mr. Speaker, I have a petition addressed to the minister responsible for post offices. This subject perhaps has taken a new slant with the new minister but I do have an obligation to present these petitions anyway. I have been sitting on them here for a week or so.
The petitioners are from little places in rural eastern Ontario, for example Lansdowne, Elgin, Westport, Gananoque, and so forth. They express real concerns about the previous government's position in reference to rural post offices.
Rural residents think they deserve the same postal services as urban residents of Canada enjoy. The previous government pillaged small towns in rural Canada.
They ask that the new minister responsible for post offices take a new look at this and he already has. The petitioners are asking the new minister to restore complete postal services to rural communities. They have grown accustomed to this service through the years and would like to see it restored.
I support these petitioners as do many of our rural caucus.
John Maloney Liberal Erie, ON
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 I am pleased to present a petition on behalf of the constituents of Welland-St. Catharines-Thorold.
This petition adds more names to the growing number of Canadians who are fiercely opposed to the importation of killer cards. Not only do these cards glorify murder and criminals who commit horrific acts of violence but they act as a daily reminder to the victims' families and friends of the brutal violence that struck down their loved ones and struck down their security and faith in humanity.
The constituents of Welland-St. Catharines-Thorold do not want these trading cards in their communities. Those who have signed this petition affirm that: "We abhor crimes of violence against persons and we believe that killer trading cards offer nothing positive for children or adults to admire or emulate but rather contribute to violence. We ask that the laws of Canada be amended to prohibit the importation, distribution, sale, and manufacture of killer cards and to advise producers of killer cards that their products if destined for Canada will be seized and destroyed".
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Questions On The Order PaperRoutine Proceedings
Kingston and the Islands Ontario
Liberal
Peter Milliken LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, the following question will be answered today: No. 4.
Question No. 4-
Len Taylor NDP The Battlefords—Meadow Lake, SK
What steps have been taken by Revenue Canada since the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada regarding the Glenn Williams Case (92 DTC 6320) requiring Revenue Canada to reconsider its interpretation of the scope of the exemption from income taxation due to Indians under the jurisdiction of the Indian Act?
David Anderson LiberalMinister of National Revenue
Mr. Speaker, following the decision rendered by the Supreme Court, the department reviewed the decision and issued a preliminary position near the end of 1992. A period of transition was put in place to allow Revenue Canada time to assess the scope of any negative impacts of the case and to allow affected individuals and organizations time to reorganize their affairs.
To clarify the application of the Indian tax exemption, revenue officials received input throughout 1993 from Indian organizations and individuals regarding the types of situations that could be affected by the Williams decision. Between June and October 1993, meetings were held across Canada with interested parties. Inaddition to the input obtained at the meetings, the department has received close to 250 letters and submissions from interested parties.
The department, based on all the input obtained and a sound analysis of the case, developed proposed guidelines for the interpretation of the Williams decision. The guidelines are a fair and liberal interpretation of the tax exemption provided by the Indian Act.
The draft guidelines were sent to some 200 Indian organizations and individuals on December 15, 1993. The department will accept comments on the draft guidelines until the end of March 1994. As the guidelines were not issued until near the end of 1993, the government is extending the transition period for existing employment arrangements to December 31, 1994. This will allow those who may be adversely affected to study the guidelines and rearrange their affairs if they so wish.
Questions On The Order PaperRoutine Proceedings
The Deputy Speaker
The question as enumerated by the parliamentary secretary has been answered.
Peter Milliken Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.
Questions On The Order PaperRoutine Proceedings
The Deputy Speaker
Shall the remaining questions stand?
The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-14, an act to provide borrowing authority for the fiscal year beginning April 1, 1994, be read the second time and referred to a committee.
Borrowing Authority Act, 1994-95Government Orders
The Deputy Speaker
The Chair recognizes the hon. member for Charlesbourg, who has eight minutes left.
Jean-Marc Jacob Bloc Charlesbourg, QC
Mr. Speaker, it is not easy to pick up where one left off, but I will try.
I said earlier that I would concentrate on the impact on defence spending. In this connection, for the benefit of the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands who said that Kingston is a bilingual city, I have here an article dated March 3, which says that the military base's French school is not allowed to post its name in French on the outside of the school. I think that is rather revealing. "We wanted to emphasize the French character of the only place in Kingston where our children can speak French. In town, everything is in English". It is easy to say Kingston is completely bilingual, but this is not borne out by the facts.
My next point is that when the Department of National Defence and the Department of Finance made cuts in the defence budget, there were plenty of things we did not bother to mention and accepted without a murmur, because in Quebec we have always been somewhat deprived in this respect. In fact, the Minister of National Defence admitted that Quebec was at a disadvantage as far as defence spending was concerned.
I remember what was said in this House by the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence, when the former painted an idealistic picture of Canadian bilingualism and the latter, the Minister of National Defence, was upset that Bloc members refused to believe in the bilingual character of Kingston. How could we when we consider that at the time, Prime Minister Trudeau ordered the Royal Military College in Kingston to become a bilingual institution? And what is the situation now, 20 years later?
Kingston graduates are "officially" bilingual. In fact, francophones who attend the institution are perfectly bilingual. Anglophones have a very limited knowledge of French, so limited that they do not feel comfortable speaking French and lose that limited knowledge as soon as they graduate. This is from a report by the departmental committee on Canadian military colleges released in May 1993. These statements were not drafted by Bloc members, sovereigntists or separatists. This was in a report on military colleges by the Department of National Defence.
The Prime Minister said that Canada's linguistic duality was not exclusive to francophones in Quebec and included all francophones outside Quebec as well. When making these decisions, he probably overlooked the following: If bilingualism is the rule, why do the vast majority of officers from the Maritimes go to the Saint-Jean military college to become truly bilingual?
We should also remember-and I want to include the Royal Roads College in Victoria as well-that if we consolidate military training at a single college, there are many people in Western Canada who will not opt for a military career because they would have to leave the West and come to Ontario. The same applies to the Maritimes, because most officers who studied at the Saint-Jean Royal Military College were from the Maritimes and the province of Quebec.
Jean-Marc Jacob Bloc Charlesbourg, QC
I have the figures. You can ask questions when I finish my speech.
At the Saint-Jean military college, anglophone students are in immersion for five years. Francophones have a chance to practice their English on a regular basis and, unlike the anglophones, are motivated to learn English because later they will have to work in other anglophone provinces or on peacekeeping missions within the international community, where English predominates.
The Saint-Jean military college is the only college that produces francophone and anglophone officers who are truly bilingual and who understand the linguistic and cultural duality which has been on the Prime Minister's lips since the beginning of the 35th Parliament.
This government has just made a decision which, according to all concerned, has no sound economic basis, because an institution of higher learning, a university that must embody the four pillars of officer-training, which are military instruction, university training, second-language training and physical education, should not have to meet narrow financial criteria.
The Minister of National Defence has stated that I had encouraged him to make cuts in military spending, but definitely not in Quebec. The minister said I was applying a double standard. But I want to remind him that, in terms of the money spent on infrastructures, Quebec, with only 13 per cent of those expenditures, was not getting its fair share, whether from a per capita or a budget point of view. In the document entitled Budget Impact , the minister himself clearly illustrates what I said in my previous presentation in this House.
Indeed, the minister tells us that in 1993, Quebec only received $302 per capita, while the Canadian average is $398. For a population of 6.7 million people, this translates into an annual loss of about $600 million, and this for more than 20 years now. This money not invested in Quebec represents more than $10 billion, a sum which surely would have helped create permanent jobs.
When we asked for cuts in the defence budget, we were convinced that this kind government, which wants to keep the bad Bloc Quebecois members from destroying the great country that Canada is, would show us that Quebec had suffered such a prejudice because of this imbalance in the defence budget, and
that this injustice would be corrected by not eliminating what little our province had got in the first place.
Again, when confronted with figures quoted by the hon. member for Saint-Jean, the Minister of National Defence said that indeed Quebec's percentage of the defence budget was smaller. The minister also said that he appreciated the hon. member's arguments to the effect that Quebec is at a disadvantage, but added that it was because of its geographical location in Canada. How can the minister and his government confirm that Quebec is at a disadvantage and ask us to put up with yet more cuts, when we have already suffered a prejudice for more than 20 years? If our location put us at a disadvantage during the Second World War, how can it once again put us at a disadvantage today?
Moreover, it is misleading to say that 22 per cent of military spending is now made in Quebec. Again, the Minister of National Defence pointed out that after the budget under study the percentage of military expenditures in Quebec has in fact increased, because of major cuts in the rest of the country. That share, which was 19 per cent yesterday, is now 22 per cent, this in spite of the closing of the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean and the downsizing of the military base.
Indeed, how can the minister say that when the figure of 22 per cent is only an estimate for 1997? To imply that this is the estimate for the present is to stretch things quite a bit. The same goes for the statements made concerning the Royal Military College in Kingston, and that concerns me.
I also want to say something about the comments made by the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence who said that if the government had listened to the Bloc Quebecois and cut 25 per cent of the defence budget, it would have been necessary to make even greater cuts in Quebec. In fact, if the government had made such a cut without affecting Quebec it would only have brought the expenditures made in our province in line with the per capita average spending for the rest of Canada. It would also have provided an argument for the few federalists still waiting for a justification of the Canadian federalism.
Not only was the Liberal government quite prepared to make cuts in Quebec, but it also showed its arrogance and its unfairness by closing the military college which is the least costly to run. It decided to close the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean in spite of the departmental report which I quoted earlier and which recommends that all three military colleges remain open and that operations be streamlined.
In my opinion, the recommendation made by the departmental committee is certainly a good one, considering that the closure of Royal Roads and the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean will only translate into savings of $34 million. By comparison, the hon. member for Waterloo, who is one of the minister's colleagues, mentioned that if we put restrictions to the relocation of military personnel moving from one base to another, which cost $118 million last year, we would easily save $35 million.
I am not done but unfortunately my time is up.
Réjean Lefebvre Bloc Champlain, QC
Mr. Speaker, in light of the budget tabled two weeks ago and the additional information provided by the Minister of Finance since, it would seem that the Liberal government has taken no serious action to prevent duplication between certain federal departments as well as between levels of government or to check squandering in the public administration. We know full well that year after year the Auditor General unearths outrageous cases of waste.
Of course, the Minister of Finance says he is reducing the operating budgets of the federal bureaucracy, but that is not enough if we are to stop living above our means. The government cannot expect, with the kind of expenditure level it is forecasting, to lower the individual tax rate in the medium term, a move which would really contribute to restore the confidence of Quebecers and Canadians in the economy.
Basically, the government is not addressing the chronic government deficit problem when it fails to rationalize its spending. Moreover, it is relying on a very slight economic recovery to reduce the deficit. With the underground economy constantly gaining ground and given, among other things, our level of taxation, there is no way that government revenue can increase faster than the sum total of revenues generated by economic activity, the GDP. In fact, the government is only moving funds around from one budget item to another without reducing expenditures as a whole.
As for the unemployment insurance reform, it reflects the contempt of Liberals for the jobless. Minister Axworthy admits to be pursuing the following objective, namely to force recipients to work longer to continue to qualify for the same number of weeks of benefits. As if people chose to be unemployed and to work only a given number of weeks. This program is intended to provide income support to workers and must not be seen as a way of life in combination with work.
This reform without any job creation incentive results in pushing the unemployed toward welfare, thus passing the buck to the provinces. The young will bear the brunt of this reform as they are the ones having a hard time finding long-term jobs.
The problem with unemployment in Canada and Quebec is the lack of available jobs and increasing numbers of temporary jobs. The government must promote work and make it accessible to all.
The infrastructure program will do nothing to address job insecurity as only temporary employment will be created with the billions sunk into it.
With regard to the implementation of this program, many rural municipalities in Quebec feel left out because they have done infrastructure work in the past two years. Take for example the municipality of Saint-Maurice, with a population of 2,195. In 1991-92, this municipality spent $413,000, or $95 per person, on non-subsidized infrastructure work. The standard for work not covered by the new program is as follows: the cost of work done over the past two years, divided by the total popula-
tion, up to a maximum of $80 per person, $80 being the provincial average for municipalities in this category.
Such a criterion clearly favours municipalities which have not done capital work during the period covered by this administrative requirement. One way to resolve this problem would be to abolish this criterion and thus not penalize anyone.
Although the Quebec Department of Municipal Affairs is responsible for applying the program, I wish to point out to the Liberal government the situation of many small Quebec municipalities, which is cooling their enthusiasm for this program and its economic benefits.
For nearly ten years, I was mayor of a small municipality in my riding, and every budget item was minutely examined by my council so as not to burden our constituents with a deficit. All of a sudden, the federal and provincial governments are urging the municipalities to borrow, which will endanger their future budgets because of the famous calculation based on spending and investment in 1991 and 1992. What I conclude is that both the federal and provincial governments want our small municipalities to go further into debt. I wonder if these governments are not jealous of how these municipalities operate. I think our governments have some lessons to learn from these municipalities, which can restrain themselves and balance their budget.
The municipality of Saint-Maurice which I took as an example has to spend $175,000 in 1994 and $175,000 in 1995 before it receives a cent in subsidies, which will be allocated one third, one third and one third.
In closing, I would like to deal with one last subject: the reduction in the age credit. As we all know, taxpayers aged 65 and over can claim a tax credit of 17 per cent of $3,482 from the federal government and 20 per cent of $2,200 from Quebec. This credit reduces federal income tax by about $610 a year for all seniors who have to pay income tax. In Quebec, this credit also reduces provincial income tax and the combined reduction is about $1,050 in Quebec. The change made in the latest budget is intended to reduce this credit for seniors whose net income exceeds $25,921; the credit will be reduced by 15 per cent of the individual's net income which exceeds this amount.
This government measure will affect 800,000 people, including 600,000 middle-income people in our society. As we can see from several examples, the Liberal government is saving money at the expense of the unemployed, young people and seniors. What is even more striking in this budget is the lack of any long-term planning for lower deficits and job creation incentives.
