Debates of April 14th, 1994

Budget Implementation Act, 1994

[Randy White, Reform, Fraser Valley West, BC]

The Liberals have made no changes to the budget. In fact they have increased it, so this is the track we are going on.

I will just run by a couple more because there are so many of them. Let me give members the one that might interest a lot of people. There is $21,566 to examine experimental studies of interactive gestures. Let members' minds roll a bit on that one.

I am sorry I am going to run out of time because I do have a bunch of other things to talk about. If members want to look on the bigger scale of things, here is a government that is talking about spending $6 billion of taxpayers' money on infrastructure, another $1.5 billion on child care seats and so on. It is all taxpayers' money. There have been no cuts to the budget. It is a disgrace to put this in front of the people of Canada.

[Michel Bellehumeur, Bloc, Berthier—Montcalm, QC]

Madam Speaker, to start with I would like to tell the member for Saint-Laurent-Cartierville how pleased I was to meet her in my riding before the Easter break, for the handing out of a cheque. I hope that the day I run into difficulties, I will be able to count on the government to help me out. I will be happy to meet you in my riding for less auspicious events than the handing out of a cheque. Madam Speaker, I mean that in a very friendly way.

Having said that, I welcome this opportunity to speak to Bill C-17, an Act to amend certain statutes to implement certain provisions of the Budget tabled in Parliament on February 22, 1994. Under this rather innocuous title, this act has far reaching consequences for nearly everyone in Canada and in Quebec. This bill affects every household, every family and every taxpayer in the country.

When reading this piece of legislation, one can really see how thirsty the government is for money. There is a problem however, the government always digs into the same pockets to take the money it needs. This time, once again, it goes after the unemployed and pensioners and, as I said before, families, more often than not low-income families who can hardly make ends meet as it is.

I think that instead of bringing the unemployed to their knees, the government should have helped them break out of that vicious circle and get back onto the labour market. You do not keep on hitting somebody who has already fallen to the ground, you help him get up. One way to help the unemployed is to agree to Quebec's many requests to decentralize manpower training. This would improve efficiency and help unemployed workers find their way through a maze of 75 programs with different entrance requirements depending on whether they deal with the federal government or Quebec departments. It would also help reduce the cost of overlapping jurisdiction and duplication which is estimated to be around $300,000 in Quebec alone. This figure was not arrived at by the Bloc Quebecois but by a former Quebec minister, a former minister who was a Liberal and a federalist. Three hundred million dollars because of overlapping is not chicken feed, it is a lot of money.

It is mostly because it has been recognized that a greater decentralization, bringing training and re-entry programs closer to the labour force, was more efficient than a strongly centralized policy such as the approach the Canadian government wants to impose on the provinces that the government must meet our expectations regarding manpower training.

According to Statistics Canada and other government bodies such as the Department of Employment and Immigration, each year, there are between 50,000 and 90,000 jobs that go unfilled in Quebec alone. With these figures, it is possible to see that there is a problem with training. Based on these figures alone, in difficult times such as these when everyone is looking for a job and talking about jobs, the need to do something is obvious to anyone who takes a hard look at the situation. In spite of all that, and in spite of the fact that the decentralization of training is unanimously approved in Quebec, we continue to negotiate, to hesitate and to waver, not knowing exactly what to do. As the hon. member for Roberval said yesterday, we discuss and these friendly discussions go on and on between Quebec and Ottawa, but no decision is ever made. I hope that the future will be more promising. I hope that the powers that be in Quebec will wake up and put their foot down once and for all.

Yesterday too, the Leader of the Opposition was right on when he said that in Quebec the issue of training decentralization generates a rare consensus. Indeed, it is not often that you have Gérald Larose and Ghislain Dufour agreeing on something. There is a real consensus and Quebec's position is very clear.

We can never insist too much on the fact that the Martin budget taxes employment and jeopardizes an already weak recovery.

The minister who, not so long ago, so vehemently opposed the Conservative policy, is now pursuing that policy and is doing even more damage than the Conservatives before him. Indeed, the minister pursues the Conservative policy of lowering UI benefits for the vast majority of claimants. To ease its conscience, the government threw in a few goodies in the bill, including the provision concerning low-income earners with dependent children. This is nothing to write home about, but the government put that in the legislation to make it somewhat more palatable. But this is only to save face; this is only to create a diversion.

This policy shifts the emphasis of the problem and makes it worse. I represent the riding of Berthier-Montcalm which extends to Saint-Michel-des-Saints, Saint-Zénon and all the way up to the Indian reserve of Manouane. What did people tell me every time I visited those regions during the election campaign? They said: "Michel, is there a policy to help our young stay here in our regions?" I understand these people because the population of these communities and villages is

dwindling. Those amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act will not keep the young in the regions. On the contrary, they will leave sooner for the city. The shorter the benefits, the faster they will go in order to find a job. They will try to find a job rather than depend on social welfare, and they will head for the city to do so. The problem is they will not find more jobs in the city than they do at home. And they will end up on welfare. The Minister of Finance will be pleased because they will no longer appear in federal statistics but on provincial social welfare rolls. If that was his goal, he did succeed.

Let met give a few figures on the impact of unemployment insurance reform. Eastern Canada and Quebec will be hit particularly hard by the elimination of regional rates of unemployment beyond 13 per cent. The last word I got from UI officials is that the current rate in my riding of Berthier-Montcalm is about 15 per cent. Those amendments will have a severe impact in my area.

When the regional unemployment rate is higher than 13 per cent, the number of weeks of benefits for people having just a few weeks of insurable work will be greatly affected. The impact on Eastern Quebec, where the needs are most acute, will be severe. According to an internal document of the Department of Human Resources Development, we can expect the following reductions in benefits: Atlantic Canada, $630 million; Quebec, $735 million; Ontario, $560 million; western Canada, $430 million.

The Minister of Finance argued that the cuts were fair, saying that Quebec and the Maritime provinces would still get more, per capita, after the reform. If he meant the benefit to population ratio, his argument does not hold water. It is natural for a province with a high unemployment rate to get more than other provinces.

Since I only have one minute left, I will raise another issue which is very dear to me. As you know, 1994 is the International Year of the Family. I think this should be a golden opportunity for the government to do something to help families.

Let me read you an excerpt of a letter I received from one of my constituents. The subject is "The art of being stupid in the extreme". That person wrote: "You know when the new federal policy regarding help to families was released, I was pleased to see that children's benefits were no longer taxable. Unfortunately, the government announced at the same time that my husband and I were too rich to continue receiving such benefits". With an annual salary of $38,000, once daycare and babysitting costs are paid, as well as other expenses, there is only $11,000 left for the year and for the pension fund. Yet, the minister said that these people were too rich and sent them a notice of assessment for a $63 overpayment.

"I have a cute little case containing exactly $46.09 in pennies and nickels from my little girl's piggy bank. I want to send it to the Minister". The person who wrote asked me to table it in the House, but since this is not possible, I will send it directly to the minister. This is a good example of the lack of policy and will to help families raise children.

[Bernard St-Laurent, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Madam Speaker, Manicouagan, the riding that I represent, is one of the regions most affected by the lack of jobs. Its geography is quite particular. It is so special that to meet all my constituents in the towns and villages where they live, I must often use four different modes of transport-plane, boat, car, of course, and often snowmobile.

Unemployment is particularly high because of the demographics of the constituency. The latest unemployment rate recorded by Statistics Canada, for March, I believe, was 17.8 per cent in my region, compared to 10.6 per cent nationally.

The eastern part of the riding is quite specific, made up mainly of fishermen and/or people who depend on that natural resource; unemployment insurance is a considerable source of income for them. Between 80 and 85 per cent of the people east of Natashquan depend directly on income from fishing. Now it seems that the measures in Bill C-17 will especially affect eastern Canada, including Quebec, and particularly eastern Quebec, including my riding.

That is why I strongly denounce Bill C-17, especially clause 28. This clause will be disastrous for those, like many of my constituents, who depend on fishing.

This is what might happen if Bill C-17 is implemented. For one thing, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans is reducing fishing in the Gulf of St. Lawrence so that the stocks can recover. That is most commendable and useful too, up to a point. But at the same time, and there is the rub, Bill C-17 will raise the minimum number of weeks of work required from 10 to 12.

So on the one hand people are prevented from accumulating weeks of work and on the other, the number required is increased from 10 to 12. These two measures pull in opposite directions instead of converging.

In March, after the Minister of Finance presented the federal budget, three teachers in the Department of Economics at the Université du Québec à Montréal, UQAM, openly described what they thought of this in the provincial media. They expressed surprise and concern at learning that nearly 60 per cent of the announced federal deficit reduction, namely $2.4 billion out of $4.1 billion, will be supported by unemployed Canadians. Their statement speaks volumes.

It means that, once again, the government goes after the most disadvantaged in our society and asks them to tighten their belts, as if there was fat to be trimmed in the unemployment sector of the economy. It is absolutely unthinkable. The Minister of Human Resources Development himself said some time ago that they wanted to force recipients to work for longer periods to continue to qualify for the same number of weeks of benefits.

I will repeat only the first part of what he said, which is revealing, namely that they want to force recipients to work. To say something like that, they must be a little out of touch with reality.

In Quebec, some 90 per cent of unemployed workers lose their jobs through no fault of their own due to lay-offs, illness or retirement. Most have no control over the duration of their employment and, if they take casual or seasonal jobs, it is not because they do not feel like holding a stable, well-paid job but because they have no choice.

This bill appears to want to protect the country against an attack or an invasion by the nasty hoards of unemployed whose goal is to remain unemployed until they die. And this is not the case at all. No one wants to remain unemployed. In 1987, the Human Resources Directorate announced a competition to staff positions at the Port-Cartier penitentiary in our riding. Many people are familiar with this facility because it made the headlines when it opened.

A total of 250 openings were announced-openings for correctional services officers and for administrative officers. The directorate received no less than 23,000 applications for these 250 positions. Despite the unique aspects of working in a correctional facility, because this is no easy job. There is a certain amount of risk involved. Yet, 23,000 people discounted the risks and applied because they wanted to work. That is what we were told.

It is not that people do not want to work. Rather, the current state of the economy is not conducive to hiring people. Why then take it out on the unemployed?

Pursuant to clause 22 of Bill C-17, certain unemployment insurance claimants will see their benefits increase from 57 per cent to 60 per cent, while others will have their benefit rate reduced from 57 per cent to 55 per cent. By the finance minister's own admission, only 15 per cent of claimants will see their benefits increase, while the remaining 85 per cent will see their benefit rate drop from 57 per cent to 55 per cent. Perhaps we did not say enough about this particular provision when it was announced, but as Official Opposition, we are doing so now. This government is merely cementing the policy of the previous government. Furthermore, it now says that its priority is to reduce the benefit rate, not to reform social programs.

Incredibly, I have only a minute remaining. I was coming to the best part, Madam Speaker. In conclusion, let me just say that in the riding of Manicouagan, just as in other ridings in Quebec and Canada, people want to work. They are tired of being accused of not wanting to work. They want nothing more than to work, Madam Speaker.

I am opposed to this bill because I do not believe for one moment that legislation like this will help to turn the economy around. At best, it will lower the unemployment figures and merely mask the true state of this country's economy.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Madam Speaker, to begin with, a Canada-wide committee was struck to examine the proposed changes to the UI program, as part of the review of social programs. I have talked many times about the creation of committes up until now.

Even before the conclusion of the study, the Prime Minister refuses to give Quebec what rightly belongs to it. Everybody in Quebec, even the Liberals-and these are the Prime Minister's words-who are not big bad separatists, is demanding it, but the Prime Minister rejects out of hand what he calls the "whims" of Quebec.

They are not whims, but Quebec's most basic demands; they are also a way of asking that the Constitution be respected, as it applies to education, which is explicitly described as an area of provincial jurisdiction.

At this point, I wish to announce to members of the House and to you, Madam Speaker, that this very afternoon, the National Assembly of Quebec voted unanimously in favour of a motion giving Quebec exclusive powers in the area of job training.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

[An hon. member]

Quebeckers are standing up for their rights!

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Madam Speaker, the party across the way is acting like a parent who does not want to recognize the autonomy of his children who have grown up. The Prime Minister says that he has to maintain control over budgets and decisions related to job training because we have unemployed workers. Are we not big enough and responsible enough to know our needs? Have we not proven our economic know-how and buoyancy over the past 30 years? Let us go back a little to look at the economic expertise of Quebeckers.

There are, for example, the Caisse de dépôt et placement, the Société générale de financement, the REAs, the financial institutions reform, and Hydro-Québec. I would like to point out that these initiatives are mainly the brain-child of a single man, who will most likely become the next Quebec premier in a few months, Mr. Jacques Parizeau.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Our expertise in the management of our assets is well established, but given the persistent opposition by the ruling government, I repeat, we have realized that it is only by being sovereign that we will be able to patriate those powers that are essential to Quebec's economic renewal.

We must also ask ourselves the following question: In its deficit reduction plan, did the government opposite do its share? Did it penalize only the unemployed and the old people by taking away their tax deductions?

Here is a long excerpt from an article by reporter Claude Piché which appeared in La Presse on February 22 this year. He wrote: ``Here are some figures. Let us not forget them when the minister socks it to us while saying he has to put government finances in order''.

It seems that the reduction and restriction spectre did not keep our diplomats from sleeping. Last year, and the figures are accurate, they are dated February 22, the Foreign Affairs budget exceeded $3.8 billion, a 13 per cent increase over the $3.4 billion recorded in the previous year, when spending was up 5 per cent as compared to the year before. Alone, spending directly related to representing Canadian interests abroad , such as embassies, high commissions, consulates and other diplomatic activities, including everything that goes with it, planes, trips, and soon, increased by 23 per cent over two years, a figure that does not show an obvious concern for austerity.

The Canadian International Development Agency, CIDA, by far the main agency of this department, spent $2.2 billion last year. CIDA increased its expenditures by $232 million last year and by $133 million the year before, for a 19 per cent increase in two years.

The budget of the Department of Indian Affairs exceeds $4 billion. This is another department where it is obvious that they do not know about making sacrifices. Their expenditures have increased by 7 per cent last year and by 9 per cent the year before for a total of 16 per cent. More than half of their budget, more than half of those $4 billion is made up of grants and contributions to band councils and tribal organizations. These payments have jumped 23 per cent in two years to reach $2.6 billion last year.

The inflation rate in Canada was 1.8 per cent last year and 1.5 per cent the year before. We have to wonder.

Let us now take a look at the Correctional Service of Canada, the very agency which builds for criminals luxurious condos such as the majority of honest workers could not afford. It has spent $876 million last year, an increase of 7 per cent over the previous year.

At Fisheries and Oceans Canada, expenditures took a 30 per cent leap over the previous year to $869 million.

The increase in Communications Canada's budget is close to 10 per cent. This department is spending $2.2 billion of your taxes and mine, nearly half of this amount being allocated to CBC. But the biggest chunk which makes all other expenditures look insignificant by comparison is the debt service. This is when we stop counting in millions and talk about billions of dollars.

Last year, Ottawa spent $39 billion to service its debt. If one were to add all the expenditures, the subsidies, the grants-whether justified or not-and multiply the total by four, the result would be the cost incurred last year by the government only for servicing its debt.

Such is the painful assessment of twenty years of poor public finance management.

This article tells us what is wrong. The government asks Canadians to foot the bill and, at the same time, increases its spending-in that case, by an average of 17.7 per cent in the departments I have just mentioned. While the cost-of-living index rose by 1.7 per cent, government spending increased ten-fold.

It is also important to recall the position of the Liberals when the late Conservatives changed the Unemployment Insurance Program. Remember the shouting and the insults of the Liberals against such changes when they were in the opposition. They changed their tune. Remember the position of the Liberals on the issue of granting more authority to the Auditor General. Now, they are opposing a motion proposed by their own party. Change of side, change of heart.

What consistency! They wonder why there is a lack of confidence on the part of the public. A used-car dealer is more popular than they are! I therefore repeat my position with regard to economic recovery and job creation.

In conclusion, the government is once again trying to fool the public. But this time, it does not work because citizens are much better informed than they used to be and cannot abide trickery.

The government must stop believing that it alone can create jobs. You said it, we said it, we agree on that, small businesses have been the main job creators for many years and they have to keep on playing that job-creating role.

The failure of the previous government and the one foreseen for the liberal government should get them to become a bit more responsible. They have difficulty doing that. An efficient government has to be a custodian of public funds, it has, in principle, to keep its spending under control, to keep the deficit

under control and to restore confidence in the economy. I said so last week.

That confidence is the basis of a healthy economy. The illogical decisions that have been made by governments for too long and that are still made today hinder the establishment of that confidence, which is essential for the economy to recover.

It is not by creating temporary jobs and, while doing so, by ignoring the role played by the small business that the government is going to revitalize the economy, but rather by restoring the climate of confidence which will stimulate investment and, at the same time, will create real jobs, for good.

However, it is not a federal government, with its departmental overlapping and its heavy management, that will meet that simple objective, but a sovereign Quebec, sole master responsible for its decisions and its management, which will inevitably-

[The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Maheu)]

I am sorry, but the hon. member's time is up.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Laurentides, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will try to finish on time.

In Laurentides, the riding I proudly represent, the unemployment rate is 18 per cent, a far cry from the national rate that was leaked last week. As I said a far cry from the rate that hon. members opposite are celebrating. A person would have to be terribly naive to believe that your policies were able to bring down the unemployment rate. All your decisions and initiatives since October 25 have been a mere drop in the bucket.

These self-congratulatory statements are just an attempt to mislead the public. You say your policies are working and producing results, but you are just distributing a few crumbs here and there. Your response is band-aid solutions and very short-term planning.

Where is the real vision? Where are the long-term plans that would help us look forward to a stabler economy that would generate more jobs? Instead of taking a serious approach to the problems and the solutions they require, the ministers opposite go on trips and come back with so-called good news. A trip to Korea, and Hyundai will open its doors again. Good news? News without much substance, which has raised a lot of concerns among the public. This strategy, which I say is pathetic, is not a winner, and no wonder.

The people on the government benches are handling problems on a day-to-day basis. They do not know what is going to happen tomorrow. The unemployed in Laurentides know perfectly well nothing has changed. Since you took over the government benches, there have been no more jobs for them.

They do know that after unemployment insurance comes welfare, and that is what really made the unemployment rate go down. It is true! Look at what is really happening in our ridings. The federal government is passing the buck to the provinces. This transfer of the tax burden, which is a disgrace, is a clear sign of the Liberals' inertia and indifference.

Welfare, cuts in unemployment insurance, jobs without a future, tax increases for the middle class and pretty speeches are the only results produced by the government's red book.

People in Laurentides want work. They are willing to train, be retrained and upgrade their skills to acquire the tools they need to meet labour market requirements. The 18 per cent who are unemployed in my riding-I repeat 30 per cent-want to see some light at the end of the tunnel. They want the government to implement programs that will help them go back to work. They want long-term employment, jobs that will give them some security, not the kind of jobs that last only a few weeks, created under programs that are only intended get people the number of weeks they need to go back on unemployment insurance. Workers are caught up in a vicious circle that the government merely encourages through these programs. We must change our way of doing things, change our approach to get results that are more useful and more attractive in the long run, both for workers and employers.

The economy of Laurentides is based mainly on spin-offs generated by the tourism industry and the goods and services sector. Except for greater Saint-Jérôme where you find well-established small and medium-sized businesses that provide good jobs, our economy depends on tourism. Now, the nearly total dependence of jobs on the presence of tourists in our area means that all workers are considerably exposed to uncontrollable elements. As a matter of fact, poor seasons due to low temperatures or a lack of money on the part of vacationers directly affect employment opportunities in the riding of Laurentides.

There is no doubt that the economy in my region needs to be diversified. A few dozen of strong small and medium-sized businesses would be welcome. They would help reduce our dependence on tourism and protect us against elements over which we have no control.

A business that manufactures high technology products, for instance, could certainly, while diversifying our economy, keep it at an acceptable level, guarantee a certain number of jobs and, indirectly, an adequate overall purchasing power.

Unfortunately, we do not have those small and medium-sized businesses in the Laurentians. Moreover, I invite those of the other side, the ministers, to come to my region and meet the

business people in order to develop the whole small and medium-sized business sector.

We must face the facts. The Laurentians depend on tourism for a living, as I have already said. Ski resorts, beaches, campgrounds, summer theatres, hotels, motels, restaurants and shops are the main source of employment for our workers. The level of activity of those employers depends on tourism, which fluctuates a lot, and on the purchasing power of residents, which is linked to the economy of the region.

The results for workers who are concentrated in great numbers in that sector are seasonal and precarious jobs, unsteady and low paid jobs. Our workers are very much affected by the fluctuations of tourism. That is why they must get unemployment insurance benefits between jobs while they are waiting for good seasons. Some wait for summer jobs while others work in the winter.

At the end of every working season, people come in greater numbers to ask for unemployment insurance because there are no other jobs available to them in the near future.

The recent changes to the unemployment insurance system make benefits even more difficult to obtain. In my riding, these changes will affect a great number of workers who cannot accumulate the required 12 weeks for the reasons I have already stated. For them, it means a direct line to welfare. A nice move on the part of the federal government. The decision-makers on the other side have never realized that, given the economic situation in the regions, some workers have a hard time finding work for 12 weeks.

And the Liberals keep at it. You have to work more, but they give you less. Less benefits and for a shorter period. Less money to spend, less purchasing power; the economy cuts jobs and does not create new ones, and so goes the spiral.

The Liberals reduce UI benefits without offering workers alternatives. Their thinking is topsy-turvy on the other side. The liberal processes follow a logic which is contrary to common sense. It is disquieting and discouraging for my constituents. It shows clearly that the Liberals have more consideration for figures than for persons.

Another provision of this reform also seems to be stress-generating. The benefit rate of 60 per cent for low-income persons with dependent children leads us to believe that there will be investigations made in order to confirm their status. In Quebec, we already know the welfare "boubou-macoutes"; we are aware of all the trouble and tension they caused in our province. I hope the federal government will not copy that kind of action which is most aggravating and infringes on people's privacy.

Finally, the impact of these amendments will be disastrous for the people of Laurentides. They prove that the Liberals are disconnected from the grassroots and from the realities of regional economic situations. Together they can shout "Alleluia for welfare" which is an easy and shameful way for them to shirk their duties and responsibilities.

[Ghislain Lebel, Bloc, Chambly, QC]

Madam Speaker, the present government was elected after campaigning on a single theme: "jobs, jobs, jobs". All of us here remember the answers the Prime Minister gave to the questions of his opponents and of the invited guests during the leaders' debate. To all questions the Prime Minister would invariably and tirelessly answer: "jobs, jobs, jobs."

To some of his unemployed constituents who were voicing their disappointment in the riding of Saint-Maurice, the Prime Minister said: "-this was in the red book, they should have read between the lines-" To read between the lines is the role of the opposition, and it will not fail doing so, whether the party opposite likes it or not.

Any budget worthy of that name has to bring, first of all, a degree of confidence into a failing, not to say moribund, economy and to a population also craving security. How do you reconcile the words of the Prime Minister "jobs, jobs, jobs" and the budget of the Minister of Finance? Did the government succeed in giving the degree of confidence it wanted to the financial world, then to investors, and finally to consumers? I doubt it, Madam Speaker.

Considering the figures contained in the budget with regard to social programs, and unemployment insurance in particular, can we say that social demands for security and stability have been met?

The people of Canada and Quebec have the right to expect two things of a social policy with an economic goal: First, job creation and, second, the assurance that the jobs created will be permanent. What kind of jobs were created up to now? The infrastructures program leads to the spending of huge amounts of money for the creation of purely temporary jobs, almost exclusively for men.

I agree that in the short term jobs will be created, but because of the nature of the work being done, this only postpones for a few years the inevitable crisis already obvious. In other words, instead of buying chickens, they prefer to steal them from someone else's henhouse.

What happened to job creation targeting, for example, young people, laid-off workers aged 50 to 65, and young university graduates, to name a few? Madam Speaker, there is absolutely nothing for them in that bill. Instead, the government cut the budget for forestry development by 5 per cent. There is nothing either for young technicians, no structural project to create jobs in companies such as MIL Davie, which could build the ferryboat people in the Magdalen Islands have been waiting for for so long.

There has been great uncertainty created by clause 25, and the freeze of job-creation programs such as DEPs, which, incidentally, we are told, will be managed by a discretionary fund at the Department of Human Resources Development; it smacks of partisanship. The cut in the unemployment insurance premium is postponed till next year, even though the finance minister claimed that dropping the rate from $3.07 to $3.00 would create 40,000 new jobs. Why not create them right away instead of waiting until next January to effect this much talked about drop?

There is a complete unwillingness to discuss the conversion of the defence industry, the HST, and Oerlikon's low-altitude defence system.

Poor Canadians, poor Quebeckers, poor jobless.

Since troubles never come singly, the brand new budget is in a bad way and was off to a poor start from the very beginning.

Interest rates are rising rapidly, the Canadian dollar is falling, which means our foreign debt will cost us even more, and some plants have closed, like Hyundai, in Bromont.

What does the Minister of Finance have to suggest after the fact, since he is really the one who is involved? Nothing, absolutely nothing except to take it out on the jobless, in two different ways: having them contribute longer by increasing the number of weeks required to be eligible, and reducing the number of weeks of benefits.

That is how the government reacts to the requests of citizens, of Canadian and Quebec workers. For my part, I consider that as killing them slowly.

This government will probably be remembered as the one that did the least with the biggest budget. Let us not forget that we have a projected deficit of $39.4 billion. It is not chicken feed!

There is only one law the government should adopt, because it has been enforcing it since the elections, that is, the law of least action.

It would also seem that the Liberals favourite theme line "jobs, jobs, jobs" was for nobody, especially not the heavyweight ministers of this government who systematically refuse to carry out the job of creating jobs.

The eastern provinces are hit harder than any other by the proposed UI changes, with cuts totalling $1.3 billion, and Quebec in particular, with nearly $800 million in cuts. These cuts hurt. That is why the last time changes were made to the UI system more than 50,000 braved bone-chilling weather in January or February 1993 to demonstrate their opposition to the Valcourt reform.

It is both urgent and imperative for the government to have a vision for the society it is governing and to stop applying poultice on a wooden leg by holding consultations which are pointless because of this lack of a global vision of the society of the future.

It is the Prime Minister's duty to assign to key positions people with a vision, with innovative ideas, and capable of seeing that they are implemented instead of choosing people, as seems to be the case at present, based on their support during a certain leadership race.

Again, the unemployed are going to be the ones to pay for the Prime Minister's political debts.

A poet once said that many have died for their ideas, but many more have died for want of ideas!

For all these reasons, my caucus will not hesitate to vote against the bill before us.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—Woodbine, ON]

Madam Speaker, the budget reflects what we said we would do during the election. Let me look at some of the aspects of the budget which I find very, very positive and upon which we have already taken action in the last little while.

Looking at youth for instance, I know that earlier the member opposite from the Reform Party was talking about generation x . I have some 20 years of experience working with young people helping them deal with retraining and upgrading. The first aspect of this to look at is apprenticeship.

At a conference recently young people talked about making a decision by the time they hit grade 10. They said that is when they decide whether they are going to continue with post-secondary education or whether they are going to quit school. The latter means dead end jobs and not much of a future.

In this country we have never valued apprenticeships. In other countries apprenticeship is valued. In Germany there are 600,000 graduates a year. In other countries trades are not something blue collar workers do, but trades are considered as careers and professions and are valued by society.

In our culture we have not valued trades. We have not valued tradesmen and people with skills. We have devalued them. Therefore we have not built in infrastructures to be able to assist young people to go into apprenticeship programs or a trade if they choose not to go to an academic program at college or university.

We have built into the budget an apprenticeship program to deal with this very serious problem. It is a serious structural problem in our training and educational programs and affects the future of the young people of the country.

As a country it is time to join the rest of the world in making sure our young people have an option when they leave school. Those who do not want to go on with academic studies at university will have the option to follow a career. It is not just a make-shift program but offers a career in technology, in trades. It gives them the skills not only to get a job today but also to become the employers of tomorrow. In many other countries the artisans are the ones who create jobs in the small businesses.

By announcing an apprenticeship program in our budget we are talking about finally filling the gap and joining the rest of the world in the 21st century.

Another aspect deals with young people who have lost jobs. When the jobs go they are the first to go as they do not have the skills and are the most junior members of a company. There are also those young people who do not have the skills and have already dropped out and need assistance to get back into the labour market. We need to develop training programs and assistance for these young people.

Let us also look at the transition from school to work. Young people who have finished a training program or have obtained a college or university degree are unable to find jobs. Right now a lot of them are looking for work but do not have the experience. Quite often as many of us were told when we were looking for work they cannot get the job because they do not have the experience. They have not yet worked at or practised the trade they studied in school.

The Canada youth corps program which the government mentioned in its budget and which will be announced sometime soon by the Minister of Human Resources Development will try to address that problem. It will try to give young people at least a year of experience in the workplace so they can add those skills to their resumes when they go looking for work. That is very critical.

Traditionally we have not valued young people in the country. I know that sounds like a horrible thing to say and people will say it is not true. We value certain types but not others. In Ontario we have a 30 per cent dropout rate in the school system. That means 30 per cent of our young people after grade 10 have no skills, not much education and no hope of finding a job.

These are the things we are talking about in our budget. It is not just false hope, not just unrealistic plans we are making. The budget is very realistic, very credible and very practical in dealing with the real problems and solutions that today's economy requires and that we should have got into quite some time ago frankly.

The other aspect I want to get into is small businesses. We talk about jobs. All day today many members opposite have been talking about jobs. They do not develop automatically. We are in a recession.

Small businesses create many jobs but they need assistance. The budget directly addresses the problem of funding for small businesses. It addresses directly the problem with banks and the relationship of banks and the lending process. The budget deals with setting up structures to create an environment where the capital needed by small businesses to create jobs and to expand businesses and to invest is there.

The budget deals with innovative industries. It tries to ensure we can develop new technologies and bring them to market in this country making sure that it will also create jobs.

These are infrastructures this country needs badly and we need to work with. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business said that this was a good budget and it was sensitive to the needs of small businesses. That is something we said we would do and something the budget addresses directly.

We have to create jobs but we also have to make sure this country's companies and industries are able to do that. Therefore we have to develop the environment that allows for that.

The infrastructure program has sometimes been reviled and criticized by the opposition. It is not a program that simply allows a few people to dig some ditches; it is a program that creates very serious jobs.

The construction industry has been devastated. Thousands of construction workers have not worked for three or four years at a time and have had to collect assistance. Now they will be able to work. Spinoff jobs will be created as a result of the infrastructure program. This again will stimulate the economy. It will get it going and will create some work and restore hope.

Finally, I want to make a point on some of the criticism I have heard about child care. We talk about jobs. We talk about young people. We talk about economic growth. But then, as some members opposite like to say: "But we must not spend money on child care". How can we assist parents and single parents who work part time or work nights in finding jobs or being retrained to enter the labour market if we do not provide support, subsidize or assist with day care? It is just not possible.

We are being totally unfair and not very honest with ourselves if we do not deal with the realities of the workplace. That demands support and assistance to families and to people who cannot get back into the workforce if they do not have that kind of support. Therefore criticism about additional moneys as was coming from the Reform Party a few minutes ago about child care is not acceptable. The budget tries to deal with that.

We are looking at trying to deal with some very complex problems in a very difficult time in our history but we need to address some of the structural problems. We need to deal with these problems. The budget tries to deal with them in a realistic way, taking into account the fact that there is not a lot of money around. That is true. We also need to deal with the deficit. But we are trying to deal with these things with some very practical solutions.

For my part I hope members opposite will find it important to support our young people, to support the small businesses and to support those parents who need the assistance to get back into the workforce.

[Nic Leblanc, Bloc, Longueuil, QC]

Madam Speaker, first of all, I wanted to ask a question at lunch time but I did not have time to do so. I just want to ask it to the Liberal members in power.

[The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Maheu)]

Sir, the question period if over. You have ten minutes for debate.

[Nic Leblanc, Bloc, Longueuil, QC]

Madam Speaker, this is part of my speech and it is also part of the budget. I wonder why the new business centre of the Canadian embassy in Mexico will be built by an American company. I think it is important to talk about this because, if we want to create jobs and reduce the deficit, we must help Canadian businesses to grow instead of asking foreign companies to build our embassies and offices abroad. I put this question to the Liberals listening to my speech today, so that they can ask the Minister of Foreign Affairs to look into it and ensure that Canadian businesses will be approached first when we have to build embassies and offices abroad.

Madam Speaker, I do not know who stole the notes I had in front of me but they are gone. Ah, I just found them.

First I must explain what a budget is. When a family decides to draw up a budget, it starts by calculating its income, just like the federal government must determine how much it collects in revenues. We know that our revenues amount to some $125 billion while our expenditures add up to about $160 billion.

We know that $40 billion go to pay interests on the accumulated debt. We know that; this is easy to figure out. What is more important in making a budget is to establish an order of priority for expenditures. How are we going to spend the money so as to improve our well-being. For example, a family may decide to first spend on a car, on rent, on clothes, on trips or on food. What proportion of our revenue are we going to spend in order to improve our lifestyle, respect our priorities and meet our needs?

It is in that sense that a government must look at its expenditures: It must ensure that spending is done in a way that best serves people, and it must ensure that these benefits are maintained. During the election campaign, it seemed to me, based on the red book, that the Liberals' priority was job creation. Even though we did not have the same vision regarding the country, we fully shared the Liberal's view on job creation.

However, we realized, once they took office, that the Liberals had completely changed their vision. For one thing, as several of my colleagues pointed out, they targeted the unemployed and overlooked manpower training. For five years now, Quebec has been saying that it must absolutely have jurisdiction over manpower training. Again, there is a unanimous motion before Quebec's National Assembly-a motion supported by both the Liberal Party of Quebec and the Official Opposition-asking that jurisdiction over manpower training be delegated to the province by the federal government. As you can see, this is an important issue.

When a government establishes its spending priorities, it should first look at manpower training on a budget level, since we are well aware that overlapping in that sector costs some 300 to 350 million dollars each year. Indeed, 300 to 350 million dollars are spent uselessly because of this overlapping in the manpower training sector. But the inefficiency related to this poor management and this overlapping is also very costly. The result is that we have people who get less training and who are less prepared to face the competition.

I also want to reply to the Reform Party member who made a speech this morning and said that Quebec is favoured in the Canadian federation. He said that we were receiving more than we were giving to Ottawa as regards unemployment insurance. I think the hon. member is partly right, but the question is: Do Quebeckers want to receive more money strictly to help those who are in trouble, or do they want to ensure that they are not in such trouble in the future? This is an important distinction, Madam Speaker.

We know very well that if we managed our own affairs in Quebec, we would recover several billion dollars through increased efficiency. This extra $800 million which the federal government suggests it is paying to Quebec does not mean anything, because this is in the context of the current management structure. The day we run our affairs alone, we will be much more efficient and we are convinced that we can reduce our unemployment more and we will not need that extra money because our economy will grow much faster.

Sometimes we in Quebec feel that the federal government wants Quebeckers to stay unemployed so that it can say that it is giving Quebec more money than Quebeckers pay. We almost feel that they are acting deliberately in a way to keep Que-beckers out of work more and more. So that is sort of an answer to the questions from Reform Party members, who are quite far

from Quebec. They do not seem to understand exactly what is going on in Quebec.

I must also say to the people in the Reform Party that maybe they should take a look at Quebec's economic structure.Quebeckers have had some successes these past few years, although they had to fight incoherent policies that hurt Quebec's development. Despite all that, Quebeckers set up some institutions. For example, on the economic level, we have set up mutual insurance companies, something quite extraordinary. We have the Caisse de dépôt, the Desjardins movement and its credit unions, the FTQ fund, the General Investment Corporation of Quebec. We built some amazing financial institutions.

Of course, every time the federal government changes the laws or regulations, it affects Quebeckers. If we Quebeckers were able to set our own budget priorities and make our own laws and regulations, we are sure that we could grow much faster and solve this unemployment problem that we have to live with and, again, be told by the federal government that we get a little more than we give, especially when it comes to unemployment and welfare.

You know that we Quebeckers have a lot more pride than that. We want to have the honour and the privilege of being able to develop and to earn our living honourably. For that, the only way to succeed is to collect all our own taxes and to make our own laws and in that way we can set our own priorities and develop as we should, Madam Speaker, and the way to do that is sovereignty for Quebec.

[Jean-Guy Chrétien, Bloc, Frontenac, QC]

Madam Speaker, regarding the budget, I would like to discuss two important issues today in the House, namely the proposed changes to the unemployment insurance system and the current state of employment in the country.

I spent the last two weeks in my lovely riding of Frontenac. Not only did I have the chance to bring myself up to speed on certain issues, I also travelled around my riding. My constituents were quite taken aback to see me and questioned my motives. "Is there an election on the horizon?", some asked me. "Is everything all right?", others wondered.

Constituents were surprised that a mere five months after the election, their MP would come and thank them for their support and discuss their problems. It was certainly a politically noteworthy event.

My colleagues opposite in the Liberal government would do well to adopt the same approach. A visit to their ridings without the pressure of an election would open their eyes very quickly to the real concerns of their constituents.

It certainly would have been useful if the Minister of Finance had taken this approach before tabling his budget and especially before introducing changes to the unemployment insurance system. His team of experts, so far removed from the day-to-day world of the unemployed, could have learned a lot.

Madam Speaker, as you know, the unemployed in this country have been left to fend for themselves. While a great deal of lobbying went on in the case of cigarettes and alcohol, no one is lobbying on behalf of the unemployment insurance or any other similar program.

Unemployment insurance reform. There, I have said it. Where do we stand on this issue?

We are struck the most by the lack of respect the Liberals opposite have for the unemployed. Several of the amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act create inequities between individuals as well as between regions. I will give you three examples of such clauses and provide a brief analysis.

Consider, for example, clause 22. It provides for an increase in the rate of benefit with the introduction of a dual scale. However, according to the Minister of Finance, this increase will affect only 15 per cent of claimants, whereas the remaining 85 per cent will see their benefits reduced to 55 per cent. The Minister of Finance has shown his true colours and we now see where his social program priorities lie.

As for clause 26, it highlights the same kind of contradiction on the part of the government. It repeals section 48 of the Act and reduces the premium from the rate of $3.07 voted by the Liberals in December to $3. This point was made several times over the course of the afternoon, but I must emphasize it again. With this measure, the minister thinks he will be creating 40,000 job in 1995, because clause 26 will take effect only in January 1995. Why did this Liberal government, which is apparently so clever, increase the rate of premiums in 1994? Why not reduce it immediately? This would mean a loss of employment for 1994 due to poor planning or lack of goodwill on the part of the Finance Minister of a government which calls itself a champion of employment and yet jacks up UI premiums. I just cannot understand it! The Minister of Finance himself has recognized, as reported in Le Soleil on April 8, that the existing UI premiums constitute a form of taxation that is killing employment.

Coming back to clause 28 now, which provides for the reduction of the benefit period and hits Quebec and the Maritimes particularly hard. I can see several members opposite who represent ridings in the Maritime provinces. The fact of the matter is that any region with a rate of unemployment above 10 per cent will be affected by this measure which, combined with tighter eligibility requirements, is causing serious problems, particularly for young people, and will automatically shift the

load from UI to welfare. That is what we, in Quebec, call shifting responsibility to someone else. And, according to three economists from the Université du Québec à Montréal, it will cost the province the tidy sum of $280 million.

As far as I am concerned, the idea behind all this, the spirit of this reform is more harmful than the measures per se. There is a punitive tinge to it. The Minister of Finance is punishing the unemployed for not having jobs. In his mind, this is a choice they have made. So, their benefit period will be shortened, their cheques chopped, their qualifying period extended, and so on and so forth. It is unfair to ask as much from the unemployed as the Minister of Finance does. And this has prompted Pierre Fortin and his team at the Université du Québec à Montréal to say that, for the sake of equity, the government is actually forcing the unemployed to make an absolutely disproportionate contribution to fiscal consolidation.

This measure is forcing the unemployed in Quebec and Canada to contribute to the government's efforts to put public finances in order and to reduce the deficit. How do you want me to sell that in the region of Thetford when, just a short while ago, an influential minister, namely the hon. member for Hull-Aylmer, was reported to have used a government jet, at a cost of $135,000 or $140,000, to give a short speech on the so-called benefits of sound management? Sorry, but the unemployed in my riding do not buy that.

Furthermore, the UI reform is attacking indiscriminately cheats, profiteers and unemployed men and women acting in good faith. On these words, I will end my short speech on the budget tabled by the Minister of Finance. Of course it is understood that the Bloc Quebecois will not support it.

[The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Maheu)]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Jonquière-Native Communities; the hon. member for Verchères-Team Canada; the hon. member for Wellington-Grey-Dufferin-Simcoe-Agriculture; the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce-Gun control.

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski—Témiscouata, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate this afternoon in the debate on Bill C-17, An Act to amend certain statutes to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 22, 1994. If we read the explanatory notes, we see that this bill deals with several issues and I would like to mention those that interest me the most, namely the wage freeze, the CBC, of course, and unemployment insurance. I will touch on these issues in my short speech.

This morning while listening to the debates because I was on today, I heard a member opposite give this bill 98 out of one hundred. I have the impression that we did not read the same bill. Although some sections are interesting-we cannot say, even if we are in opposition, that everything is bad-I would find it very hard to give such a high mark to this bill. True, when I was a teacher I had a reputation for giving low marks, but I still learned to read documents and assess their contents.

Wages are frozen for another two years. This time, they add insult to injury by suspending pay increment increases, which is worse as it will reduce even more the purchasing power of all public servants and all those targeted by this bill. I did not take any economics classes but, in my opinion, the more people's purchasing power is reduced, the slower the economy recovers. That is my impression, in any case.

So I do not see how this measure will put people back to work. The government is always talking about job creation. I would very much like to have, outside the Parliament buildings, a thermometer that would allow us to see every morning the number of jobs created by this government. We are used to red mercury, but we would probably see the thermometer dip to the freezing point quite often, without rising again because lost jobs would also be recorded. It would be hard to get the mercury to rise. The exercise could be extremely interesting, given how the government side crows over that project saying it will create 40,000 jobs. They want people to believe them, but they can never tell us how many jobs were really created the day before.

In my region, I hear people say: "Yes, three jobs were created, but yesterday eight jobs were lost. We are still five jobs short, even if we have three new jobs today." I think they should stop trying to convince people that so many jobs have been created. If there were that many new jobs, we would not have such high unemployment levels. This is self-evident, I would say.

With the wage and pay increment freeze, how will the pay equity problem which affects mainly women be resolved? Exceptional measures were adopted to provide for the Civilian Reduction Program. Here again, this could have been handled differently. We could have said: "O.K. We will freeze the pay increments and wages, but at the same time we will resolve the pay equity problem." That would have been a positive measure to take in order to revitalize the economy, since a good segment of the population would have regained some of its purchasing power, which it does not have because of a kind of discrimination that is allowed to go on in the federal system. By the way, the Quebec government was able to put an end to this kind of discrimination, thanks to the settlement it reached with the central labour bodies. In my mind, that would have been a very positive measure to take, but they blew it!

The first time I spoke on the budget, I mentioned that a lot of the workers in my riding have seasonal jobs. Fortunately for all of us and also for the Japanese it would seem, crab fishing has resumed. Some people will now leave the unemployment lines and get back to work. This will make the unemployment rate go up and down. And it is from these monthly figures, which do not reflect the true situation, at least from my point of view, that we are going to decide how many weeks of benefits people will be entitled to or what percentage they will receive, and so on.

So, we are using a measure which is arbitrary and sometimes far-fetched, because if you take the overall number of people fit for work who are between the age of 18 and 55 and compare this real number to the famous rate we hear about all the time, you would be quite surprised.

Now, daycare was mentioned in the red book. But, it was announced that no money would bet set aside in this year's budget for daycare. So, we were not to expect a miracle, because this party only does was it promised to do. Moreover, daycare subsidies were linked to the GDP. However, we do expect families to take care of their children, whether the GDP is rising or over 3 per cent. To my way of thinking, it is important that children be taken care of, whether the gross domestic product stands at 3 per cent, 2 per cent, or 1 per cent. It seems to me that, especially in this International Year of the Family, this shows a severe lack of vision and long-term planning on the part of the government.

So, when it comes to job creation, if we look at Heritage Canada, which is, as you know, my favourite department, we find that the budget of the National Film Board was reduced by $600,000. Why? To prevent independent directors from making movies. They create jobs but we cut there too. We heard this afternoon and yesterday about francophones outside Quebec. When we cut what is set aside for francophones outside Quebec by 5 per cent, we cut jobs. They cannot afford to keep their employees. Thanks to this measure, francophone organizations outside Quebec will undoubtedly disappear and very soon only anglophone members will represent Canada in this House. There will not be francophone members from Canada any more.

So, in my mind, this is also a serious problem. This department is always cutting jobs. In the case of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, this great agency which receives $1.2 or $1.3 billion yearly from the government, it has been known for a long time that CBC has a major problem, that is a structural loss of revenue.

In 1990, it was decided to cut the fat and to get rid of the regions so that CBC would have the dough it needed to solve its problems. Madam Speaker, the figures are astounding. This year, that is in 1993-94, CBC will have a $41 million deficit that will be covered by the staff pension fund surplus. Next year, the estimated $31 million deficit will be met the same way.

I can go on and on. In 1998-99, the deficit is going to reach $178 million. To top it all, CBC was just given authority to borrow $25 million in order to unfairly compete against private corporations and buy the broadcasting rights for the Atlanta Games at a cost of $28 million. Obviously, there is something wrong with that. This is a major problem. Assistance to athletes is cut, but we are going to support the Atlanta Games by paying two and a half times more for the broadcasting rights than CTV or Tele-Metropole were ready to pay.

[René Canuel, Bloc, Matapédia—Matane, QC]

Madam Speaker, many of us are newcomers in this House and we are here to try to improve the lot of our constituents. Unfortunately, unemployment plagues our country, especially in rural ridings.

In 1987, a Senate committee published a report containing frightening figures. That was one of the rare occasions in which the Senate was useful. Do you know what they said? They said that keeping someone on unemployment was more expensive for the government than creating a job for him or her. According to this report, in 1985, an unemployed person earned an average of $14,040 a year before losing his job.

Once on unemployment, the same person received more than $14,645 in various benefits from the three levels of government. That means that when a potential unemployed person works, he or she costs $14,040 in salary and produces $14,040 in goods and services.

So, society gets something back for the salary paid to that person. When, on the contrary, we pay that person to produce nothing, there is no benefit for the community. Where is this government's logic? Does it really care about the dignity of men and women?

The recent budget of the Minister of Finance shows that he does not care at all about the reality I just described.

Since 1968, the cost of unemployment has equaled the national debt. None of the measures put forward by previous governments, neither new technologies nor export expansion nor reducting the size of government, could make a dent in the unemployment rate.

There are solutions. It is only by putting the unemployed back to work that we will succeed in reducing the deficit. And it is only by creating jobs that we will stimulate growth without causing inflation to rise.

The solutions are within our grasp, but we must have the will to implement them. This inaction has terrible consequences for the people.

Allowing people to stay idle is to strip them of their dignity, to tie their hands and feet and leave them in the dark, to make them

suffer. Allowing people to stay idle is also to drive them to rebellion, to violence and to suicide.

In my riding, during the election campaign, some people committed suicide because they had been jobless for five years. Two brothers went around and knocked on every door. They were told everywhere that there were no openings. I thought that this would stop with the new government. But in my riding, there are other problems. It is a rural area, an area where unemployment is even higher than elsewhere, and you have no idea of the kinds of problems that unemployment can create in some families.

Finally, forcing people to become unemployed is to force them and their whole family to live in shame. It is not only the unemployed themselves, but their whole family, their whole environment.

Would it not be more profitable for all communities to give work to everybody at a minimum wage? I ask the question. Of course, there are some problems with a minimum wage, but it is a solution that we should consider.

The Economic Council of Canada simulated the implementation of such a program under which, for the production of essential goods and the provision of essential services, unemployed people would get on average as much as they were making when they had a job. The Council even found that not only was this program workable, it would not increase inflation, nor the deficit, nor the tax rate.

Would it not be worth considering? Through such profitable programs, and without hurting organized labour-as everybody has the right to work-and without additional cost to the government, we could use these people to launch a national child care program and a home care service program for the elderly. How many senior citizens are in need of that service? We have nobody to send to help them.

Moreover, we could set up a genuine manpower development program. We could even launch a national program for the revitalization of poor neighbourhoods in our large cities. We could set up a program to help farmers deal with the new realities of the marketplace. As you know, farmers work very hard. They need labourers, but they do not have any.

In my district as elsewhere in the rural world, many people can create jobs. I will conclude with the words of our great poet, Félix Leclerc: "The best way to kill people is to pay them to do nothing". Paying people to do nothing. I think the government opposite is trying to organize something only temporarily because people are being asked to tighten their belts again. They will need twelve weeks of work to be entitled to UI benefits. When they do not receive UI benefits, they live on welfare, and that is how these people are being killed, in the end.

[Osvaldo Nunez, Bloc, Bourassa, QC]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-17, that ill-advised legislation of the Liberal government on unemployment insurance will affect three and a half million Canadians. Workers in Canada and Quebec who lost their jobs may not know it yet, but they also lost up to four months of benefits.

Workers are not and should not be considered as responsible for the lack of jobs and the long unemployment spells before they can find a new job.

By reducing benefits this government will only inflict greater suffering and poverty on the jobless, their families and their communities. Those reductions put the blame and the burden of unemployment on them, and that is unfair and morally unacceptable. Many jobless in my riding in the North End of Montreal, some of whom voted for the Liberals in the last election, are really angry about those kinds of antisocial and cruel policies.

But there is worse. The systematic attack by the Liberal government against the most vulnerable in our society, against the jobless is a disgrace.

Indeed, everybody remembers what the Prime Minister said when he was Leader of the Opposition. Posing as the champion of social rights, he decried the policies of the Conservatives who, with Bill C-105, attacked the unemployed instead of unemployment. Those are the very words of the Prime Minister. It is mind-boggling.

Furthermore, in the red book, which served as bible and election platform for the Liberal Party in the last campaign, we can read word for word on page 74: "The Tories have systematically weakened the social support network that took generations to build. Not only have they taken away billions of dollarsfrom. . . people who have lost their jobs, but they have set us on a path to becoming a polarized society, divided into rich and poor-"

Seeing how fast the federal government did exactly the opposite of what it promised and went even farther than the Conservatives in its attack on the most disadvantaged, we can rightly say that this government cynically misled the people for the sole purpose of getting elected.

In fact, not only has the government maintained the same immoral and punitive policy that it denounced when the previous government presented Bill C-105, but it has done worse.

Since the UI program was created 54 years ago, no change of this magnitude has ever been made. No government has ever taken such odious, retrograde and unjust measures against the very people this government publicly promised to help.

This project hits hardest regions where jobs are the most difficult to find. Indeed, the deepest cuts will be made in areas where the regional unemployment rate is the highest. So, in a city with a 6 per cent unemployment rate, a worker who is laid off after nine months will lose five weeks of benefits. But in Montreal, where the unemployment rate exceeds 13 per cent,

and also in the Maritimes, the reduction for the same employment period will be twice as big, that is a ten-week reduction.

The government seems to think that the system to which workers are contributing is being systematically abused by those people who most frequently rely on unemployment insurance. Hence, it considers some citizens as being less deserving than others, simply because they live in less fortunate areas of the country or work in seasonal industries. It is as if we were to refuse to give health insurance benefits to chronically ill people because they rely on the system more often than others.

For ten years I was a part-time arbitrator at the unemployment insurance office in Montreal. In that capacity, I witnessed numerous disturbing tragedies suffered by people who were seeing their benefits being cut off for different reasons. These people who were already living under the poverty level were then forced to give up their home because, under these conditions, they were no longer able to pay their mortgage.

These human tragedies have increased and have become even more dramatic since April 1993, when Bill C-113 passed by the Conservative government was implemented.

The government should take into consideration the findings of a recent Gallup poll which sets at 70 per cent the number of people in Quebec who oppose this unemployment insurance reform which will certainly reduce the number of UI beneficiaries, but will increase by the same number the total of welfare recipients.

Reducing unemployment insurance payments, as the government is doing, will not give jobs to the men and women thrown out of the work force, even though the Minister of Finance is claiming that the 2.28 per cent reduction in UI premiums for employers will create 40,000 jobs. If this screwy logic were true, all we would have to do would be to reduce the premiums by another 85 per cent to find jobs for all the unemployed in Canada.

In February 1993 already, 50,000 people braved an Abitibian cold of minus 25 to demonstrate against a similar bill tabled by former minister André Valcourt.

Yesterday, the caucus of the Bloc Quebecois received the major leaders of the FTQ-the Quebec Labour Federation-for which I worked for 19 years. They voiced their strong opposition to the cuts in social programs, and in particular to Bill C-17.

On May 1st of this year, the major Quebec unions will be holding a gigantic demonstration against the neo-conservative policies of the Liberal governments of Canada and Quebec. Rest assured, Madam Speaker, that I will be there.

The Canadian union movement-I conclude, Madam Speaker-is unanimous in its opposition to Bill C-17, and this includes the CLC which has 2.2 million members. For all these reasons, I will vote against the bill.

[Gaston Péloquin, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Bill C-17 proposes many amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act. One of the first occurs in clause 21 and aims at defining the word "disentitled", "inadmissible" in the other language. It explains in a very specific and pragmatic way the reasons or conditions why someone could be disentitled to unemployment insurance benefits according to the government. The Minister of Human Resources Development and his advisors have gone to a lot of trouble to define a very simple word.

If the minister had simply looked in the dictionary to find the meaning of the word "inadmissible", he would have recognized the very essence of his bill.

Allow me to quote Webster's New World Dictionary , in the hope that this will give the minister the inspiration he needs so badly before his bill is passed. I ask the hon. minister to listen carefully to the universal definition of inadmissible''. In the third edition of the Webster's, they say:not admissible, not to be allowed, accepted, granted or conceded''.

Therefore, that term defines Bill C-17. In drafting the legislation, did the minister wonder about what is really "inadmissible", according to the unemployed of this country?

These people are deprived of one of their most fundamental rights, the right to earn an honest living, the right to contribute proudly to the economic development of their community.

What is "inadmissible" for these people, more than anything else, is their inability to meet the conditions set forth in paragraph B of section 28.3 of the Unemployment Insurance Act. No, what is "inadmissible", what they cannot accept, is that the government, on top of standing idly by as far as job creation is concerned, is once again targeting the disadvantaged as the solution to its debt and deficit problems.

During the election campaign, the Liberals kept promising that they would not touch social programs. The last federal budget contained some surprises in this regard. Of course, old age pensions were left alone, but some tax credits were cleverly eliminated.

The same thing happened to federal transfers for social assistance: transfers were not reduced, but access to the UI program was, which in turn increases the social assistance bill for the provinces. In Quebec, these measures will not only result in a loss of revenues for the unemployed, but also in a series of additional expenses that all Quebeckers will end up paying for sooner or later.

A recent study by the economics department of the Université du Québec à Montréal revealed that the changes the minister intends to make to the Unemployment Insurance Act and the resulting transfer of expenses will cost the Quebec treasury more than $280 million, or 28 per 100 of the $1 billion bill which was dumped on the provinces.

Has the government not yet understood that it will only solve its financial problems by creating permanent jobs? Instead of constantly bearing down on senior citizens and unemployed Canadians, the government should focus its energy on creating jobs that would allow it to increase its revenues in a healthy fashion.

The closure of the Hyundai plant in my riding of Brome-Missisquoi is a good example of the confusion that exists within the government with regard to maintaining stable and high-paying jobs, like those that the Bromont plant offered until recently. We are talking here about 850 jobs that were lost.

The government does not know which way to turn and adds to the confusion since Hyundai has announced that it does not intend to reopen the Bromont plant.

The Minister of International Trade, like a heroic avenger, rushed to Korea to obtain all the details concerning this matter. Upon his return, he made a reassuring announcement, saying that everything was settled and that the Bromont plant would reopen in the not too distant future.

The next day, Hyundai announced that it did not intend to resume its activities in Quebec until 1997-98. Who should we believe? While the government is treading water on this matter, the employees of the plant and their families and the entire population of the Eastern Townships are waiting for real answers about their economic future.

All they have learned until now is that if they manage to find a temporary or seasonal job, it will be more and more difficult for them to get unemployment insurance if Bill C-17 is passed.

In closing, I would like to say to the Minister of Human Resources Development that he should consult the dictionary before asking the House to pass his bill. Maybe he would see that the word "inadmissible" applies to the way his bill is drafted and maybe he would be more inclined to listen to the recommendations put forward by the hon. member for Mercier on behalf of the Official Opposition.

These amendments to Bill C-17 would perhaps help chase the word "inadmissible" from the mind of every unemployed man and woman across Canada.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to be able to speak in this House and it is a privilege that most of us appreciate. However, it is sad that we sometimes have to speak on a measure that would impose cuts on the most needy in our society.

A few months ago, we would never have thought that we would see the implementation of a budget whose main thrust is to hurt and injure the unemployed. Our hopes were high and we thought that the creative mind of the Minister of Finance would lead him to choose the best mix of solutions to control the deficit and put the government's finances back in order.

Our present finance minister is no better than the Liberal Minister of Finance we had when our Prime Minister was himself Minister of Finance and beat all the records for increased deficits during his term.

One would have thought that a few years of reflection in the opposition, a few new faces, some ideas mentioned in the so-called red book would have given the Liberals a broader and more humane vision of the problems our society is confronted with. But no, the recipes are the same old ones. We blamed the Conservative government for its erroneous forecasts, we said that its finance minister was disconnected from reality, that he did not understand a thing about the workings of the economy, that his measures were counterproductive and that they were wreaking havoc instead of helping put our house back in order.

We went from bad to worse. The last budget was produced by an amateur, who made forecasting errors estimated at several billion dollars. He is an amateur who, oblivious to the influence of a finance minister's statements on financial markets, toyed with the value of our dollar and the nerves of the financial leaders. He is an amateur whose only solution to reducing the deficit was to attack the most needy members of our society.

Some of my colleagues who took part in this debate have given some really pathetic examples. With the human misery we see nowadays, when 20, 22 per cent or more of the population are jobless in some areas, our Minister of Finance, a man of original mind who was promising us the moon, has found a magic solution. He will cut UI benefits and shift the unemployed on to the welfare rolls.

When I asked a question of the Minister of Finance and of the Prime Minister, I was flabbergasted to hear them both candidly tell us: Well, we will cut unemployment insurance and take that money to create jobs, and the unemployed worker, instead of receiving UI benefits, will be going to work. That sort of reasoning does not stand up. If they do believe in their own job creation strategy, we have an alternative formula for them. Why did they not create jobs first and cut unemployment insurance

afterwards? That is what the Minister of Finance should have done but did not do, and that is why we cannot accept these measures attacking the poorest members of our society.

In the exclusive club of the finance minister's friends, it is obvious that the easiest way to get back on the road to prosperity is to slash transfer payments to individuals in the budget. Keep shifting your problems onto the shoulders of the provinces. What a nice federation, really, what a nice confederation this is. Talk about responsible government. Keep unloading your problems onto the provinces, as if provincial deficits did not matter. Some people find this situation funny. But, Madam Speaker, is it not the height of irresponsibility to be laughing and making fun when the House is about to vote a bill that will cut benefits for the poorest in our society. You really have to be irresponsible to keep laughing when the government is about to dump the unemployed onto welfare rolls.

The minister quoted employment statistics. Do you know why unemployment is dropping? Because people are so discouraged they do not even want to say they are looking for a job. There is no hope in this country for the young, for seasonal workers, for people who can usually earn a living by working five or six months a year. There is no hope left for those people. They no longer say that they are looking for a job. The worst part is that the young are the most severely affected by this unfortunate reform by the Minister of Finance and the Liberal government. Those young people have no hope.

Somebody said that the best way to kill a man is to keep him from working. The Minister of Finance is sacrificing future generations because of his lack of originality, his inability to come up with new and dynamic solutions, his inability to attract social activists, entrepreneurs, unions, business people, merchants, people with ideas to develop. The Minister of Finance failed to create consultation forums from which the original ideas he was unable to have could have emerged. It was much too difficult, Madam Speaker.

The Minister of Finance traveled across Canada. He met all his friends, economists, experts, people from different backgrounds, but he was unable to create a dynamic of social consultation which would have helped us find new and original solutions. He wants examples? A simple one springs to mind: it is Corvée habitation , a Quebec housing program which lasted a few years. It was a marvellous program which associated unions, entrepreneurs, business people and citizens around one same cause, the pursuit of a noble aim, to put people to work and to stimulate the economy. It was the finest example of a group assuming its responsibilities for the unemployed and people who are suffering. But because he acted irresponsibly, the Minister of Finance did not get to know these original solutions. If he really believes what he says, why did he not create jobs first and reduce UI benefits after? No, Madam Speaker.

Time is a detail for a technocrat like the Minister of Finance. The period of time during which an unemployed 25 year-old man with two children exhausts his UI benefits and has to go on welfare before he finds another job three or four years later is a technical detail for a technocrat like the Minister of Finance. It is an inhuman approach.

We cannot agree with such a piece of legislation. It is immoral to propose such measures in the House. How do you expect us to be able to show our faces in our ridings? How do you expect our fellow citizens to believe in the work that is being done here, when these people opposite promised jobs, jobs and jobs throughout the election campaign? The first steps that were taken were not creating jobs, but creating more poor people. This government will have created the greatest number of poor people; it will win the championship not for creating jobs, but for creating poverty. That is what this government will have done. That is what this minister of Finance will have done, a minister without ideas, without imagination, incapable of consulting people, incapable of taking his role seriously, incapable of estimating his deficit and totally incapable of evaluating the disastrous effects of unemployment insurance cuts on the poor people of Canada.

Madam Speaker, let me say to you that this budget-you are telling me that I have one minute left-will have been a terrible budget in terms of cuts. Working people are facing cuts, people who earn money, even very little, such as old people, are being targeted. The provinces are being targeted because the deficit is being shifted onto their shoulders. Everyone in Canada, all those who deal with the Canadian economy have been wrongly targeted. Here is a man without any imagination, a reform that hurts and an insensitivity that will cost you dearly one day.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Madam Speaker, this budget is an irresponsible budget. It is a budget which does not reflect the promises contained in the red book. Quebeckers knew that very well. They did not buy the promises of the Liberals and did not elect many of them: no more than 19, and mainly in Montreal's West Island. Quebeckers were aware that it was all wind. This is the reason why Quebeckers will soon break with this system. And I am sure the Liberals know that as well.

I see ministers confirming what I am saying. The members on the other side know all about it, really. We can see them even if they try to hide from the camera, but when we talk about that, they are not comfortable. They know that when we go over the commitments of the red book one by one, it is clear that they do not appear in the Budget.

I am thinking of social housing for instance. I have discussed that issue with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the hon. member for Papineau-Saint-Michel who said again and again during the election campaign: "It's terrible what the Conservatives have done. They have cut social housing but we, the Liberals, will fix that." If you compare the Liberal budget to the Conservative budget, they are the same, they contain the same measures. There is nothing for social housing. So much so that social housing interest groups in Montreal and the mayor of Montreal denounced this week the federal government's lack of action in the social housing sector.

They asked for federal intervention because for years the federal government was active in that sector, investing in it, creating expectations and then it pulls out, as it did in other sectors, leaving all the responsibility to the provincial governments. Now those governments are passing that responsibility to municipal authorities, who pass it on to taxpayers who can no longer afford to pay their taxes.

I know that taxes do not create any hardship for the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands because his way of living in Kingston has nothing to do with the conditions in which the unemployed workers live in Quebec. There may be, of course, a military college where francophones will not feel at home. A city where high schools are not even equipped with toilets for the students. I understand why the member for Kingston and the Islands does not spend much time in the French high school in Kingston. He has natural needs to be satisfied now and then.

As regards POWA, the Program for Older Worker Adjustment, we have seen the whip of the Official Opposition who is now whip of the government, the member for Saint-Léonard, the member for Papineau-Saint-Michel, the member for LaSalle-Émard present a petition of 10,000 signatures denouncing the fact that older workers outside Montreal, Toronto and a few other large centres had no access to programs. They have no access to those programs because a given number of workers must be laid off at the same time.

Everybody was against that! There were demonstrations in Montreal in February, there were promises: when we take office, we will change things. Only to discover that nothing has been done as far as the Program for Older Worker Adjustment, called POWA. Not only that, an MP, parliamentary secretary to Minister of Human Resources Development, has come to justify the position of the government, using word for word the same arguments used by a conservative MP and minister last year. A copy-cat!

Industrial conversion! The last straw! The helicopter program is cancelled. Alright. Quebec was in favour. And this is in Quebec, I remind you. On the other hand, the tank contract in Toronto was left untouched. This is a different matter. The tank contract has been respected. I suggest to you, Madam Speaker, that if necessary rescue operations by helicopter are possible, but rescue operations by tank are rare.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.