House of Commons Hansard #77 of the 35th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was regions.
Martin Cauchon Liberal Outremont, QC
Mr. Speaker, first of all, members opposite are once again hurling insults, calling me an old style politician. At thirty-one, that is hardly the case. I think my view of the situation is entirely up to date. Nevertheless, I respect the views of the Bloc Quebecois, even if its members do not respect mine.
That being said, I will answer the nation question when the Bloc Quebecois has-
Martin Cauchon Liberal Outremont, QC
Let me finish. When the Bloc Quebecois-Remember, I am the member for Outremont and as a member from Quebec, I am very concerned about the hypothetical referendum debate they are trying to launch prematurely, a debate that does not respect the views of the entire population of Quebec.
I will answer this question as soon as they explain what they mean by separation. And as soon as they decide what they want to call it: separation, sovereignty, sovereignty association. As soon as they decide to be intellectually honest with the people of Quebec, whom I represent, we can talk about serious matters. In any case, answering this particular question might take as long as an hour, something like Cyrano de Bergerac!
SupplyGovernment Orders
The Deputy Speaker
I see another member who wants to ask a question. Is there unanimous consent for extending this period? I asked a question. Is there unanimous consent for extending this period?
SupplyGovernment Orders
The Deputy Speaker
We will resume debate. Unfortunately, the time for questions and comments has expired. The hon. member for Trois-Rivières, on debate.
Yves Rocheleau Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take part in this debate which, understandably, arouses passions. First of all, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup for his motion which reads:
That this House condemn the federal government's ineffective regional development interventions, which create overlappings and inconsistencies, resulting in an administrative chaos that hampers regional economic growth.
As we have seen, the debate can easily become acrimonious because it illustrates perfectly the problems of the federal system. As I said, it arouses passions because it reveals the intrinsic adversarial elements associated with the operations of two governments in the same field. Frankly, what interests us in regional development is the way the federal is involved in Quebec. We have conflicting interests; the Quebec government requests overall control of programs because it is responsible for development within its territory, while the federal government justifies its involvement by saying that one of its roles is to lessen regional disparities and uses its spending power, at times improperly.
It intervenes in various ways in regional development, through institutions which duplicate the work of similar Quebec institutions, thereby creating duplications, frictions, waste and confusion. I can give you a few examples.
The Federal Office of Regional Development is in direct competition with the regional secretariat for development and the regional development councils which have a program called business assistance fund. There is competition between the two institutions which have the same clients.
In the area of technological development, the National Research Council, which targets small businesses, is in competition with the Quebec department of industry and trade and its program Innovation PME. So we have two structures and two budgets and we therefore expend twice the energy.
In the area of training seminars for small businesses we have on the one hand the Federal Business Development Bank and on the other the Quebec department of industry. These are two structures which invite the same persons to the same kind of courses.
Then, there is the well-known area of vocational training. Everybody in Quebec agrees that this area is a mess. On one side we have the pretensions and the budgets of Employment and Immigration, and on the other the Société québécoise de la main-d'oeuvre, which has become an almost empty shell because of the federal-provincial conflict in the area of vocational training.
In a blatant disregard for the federal government, there is in Quebec a strong consensus among employers and employees, and all the parties involved, both at the public and para-public levels, to make vocational training the exclusive jurisdiction of the province.
As long as we remain part of it, we would like the federal structure to abolish all its training programs and to transfer their budgets to Quebec or, at the very least, to put these programs at the disposal of the Quebec structure already in place in every region.
I should add that when we talk about regional development, we do not mean just administrative structures or federal-provincial agreements.
It is also something much larger, something which includes activities as well as institutions having, through their operation, a direct influence on regional development.
There are sectors which interest me particularly. The whole area of industrial conversion has an influence on regional development. The same applies to transportation, all the transportation policies-and I could give you in a moment some examples which affect directly my riding of Trois-Rivières-whether they apply to marine, air or rail transportation.
There are direct implications for regional development. We will see that recent decisions and government inaction have also had a direct impact on regional development.
When it comes to industrial conversion, it is very sad, not to say deplorable, to see, week after week, the lack of political will on the part of the present Liberal government. The parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Industry, who is directly concerned, is here. He can hear me. He knows what our position is in this matter.
It is an issue of the highest priority, and yet the minister seems to want to wash his hands of it. The situation is critical. Since 1987, in Quebec alone, 11,000 high-tech jobs have been lost. We cannot repeat it enough, it is totally unacceptable. It is nothing short of a large scale brain drain. People who deserve to work and should work, are no longer needed. The resulting higher unemployment is going to drive them away. The government must act now.
It cannot stand on the side line as it is doing now, claiming that it is waiting for boards of directors to submit their business plans to it. It must summon them, act as a catalyst, shame them in the public interest and ask them what they intend to do, given the geopolitical changes which are sweeping the world, and the fact that all over the western world, defence budgets are being cut. What does the private sector intend to do? We believe that it is up to the government to find out.
I forgot to mention that as far as R & D is concerned, the federal government has a leading role to play in terms of regional development. It must ensure that R & D funding is evenly distributed throughout Quebec, especially among university research centres and researchers. This will attract scientists who will improve the quality of life of people in each region and contribute to a richer and more articulate community life.
I will now raise the issue of transportation, starting with water transport. It is common knowledge that the federal Department of Transport is entertaining serious thoughts about privatizing all Coast Guard operations in the St. Lawrence or even about making shipowners pick up the tab for Coast Guard services in the near future.
If ever shipowners were required to pay for these services, it is not difficult to imagine the impact such a decision would have on all St. Lawrence ports, especially the port of Trois-Rivières. What is to become of Quebec ports and how will be they fare compared to ports where there is no Coast Guard, with ports in Eastern Canada or with U.S. ports?
If ever this decision was carried out, we would no longer be talking about regional development, but rather about regional anti-development. This decision could have some serious repercussions and all stakeholders must be very vigilant and oppose any such action.
With respect to air transportation, another issue which directly concerns my riding of Trois-Rivières in which a regional airport is located, Transport Canada's policy has been to divest itself of its airport assets. In a riding like my own, this issue has been under consideration for ten years. During the Liberal Trudeau era, the question was being reviewed and the repercussions are still being weighed today. Yet, a regional corporation is willing to take over the running of the airport and it is waiting for the two levels of government, federal and provincial, to agree on the fate of this facility. In the meantime, equipment is not being properly maintained and the situation is extremely dangerous.
I have been told that the electrical wiring is outdated and that the cracks are getting bigger every year. This could prove hazardous to the member for Saint-Maurice who occasionally flies in to visit his constituents and stops by in my riding. In any case, the Minister of Transport would simply be showing some common sense by taking steps to ensure that the Trois-Rivières airport is in good condition.
Lastly, with respect to rail transportation, we sense that there is no political will on the part of the government to proceed with the high-speed train project. The conditions in our regions, including mine where the unemployment rate stands at 12.2 per cent, a ridiculously high level for 1994, are unacceptable. This illustrates the complexity of the federal system and the lack of political will. It also shows how the federal government's focus is more on centralization and maintaining a unitarian system. Quebecers will have to choose. Either they will choose to remain a province much like any other province, smaller and more regionalized than ever before within the post-referendum, unitarian Canada of the future, or they will choose to become the masters of their own destiny and become a sovereign nation, as others before them have done.
Dennis Mills LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry
Mr. Speaker, I would say to the member for Trois-Riviéres that I have enjoyed working with him in the last three months in the industry committee where on behalf of all the small businessmen and women of this country, every region of Canada, we have worked hard as a team trying to access capital for small and medium size business.
I believe it was an example where the member for Trois-Riviéres was not just thinking of the people in his riding or his province, but working on behalf of all Canadian small businessmen and women.
When I stand in the House today and say that I am totally opposed to separating this country and destroying this country, it is absolutely nothing personal. My difference of opinion is nothing personal with the member.
I believe this debate today is about spending power: Who has the spending power and who speaks for Canada in Quebec.
I have always believed that the best way to serve the disadvantaged regions was by having a strong national government so that from time to time when regions which were creating more wealth than others needed that wealth to be shared, this Chamber would say through budget and public policy: "Listen, B.C., Alberta and Ontario, you are doing better right now so we must share that with either Atlantic Canada or share it with Quebec". That has been the history and that has been the practice.
Whenever we worked as a unit in the House of Commons with a strong national government, especially under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, the people of Quebec prospered.
Does the member for Trois-Riviéres not believe that the decentralized Government of Canada instrument FORD-Q working on the ground in Quebec is the best hope for looking after some of those very special needs that the member cited in his speech today?
Yves Rocheleau Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by thanking my colleague from Broadview-Greenwood for his nice comments on my role on the committee but it shows a little my mentality and probably that of many of my colleagues with respect to the relations that will have to be maintained in the future between two sovereign peoples. I think that the courteous and the civil thing to do would be to deal with each other on an equal footing without hate or prejudice. That is what I am used to. The quality and experience of the membership of the committee my colleague sits on also helped.
In response to the question, I think that with every passing year it becomes more obvious that this country has reached a dead end. What I have noticed in recent weeks, perhaps during the opposition leader's international travels, is that English Canadians seem to have discovered the sovereigntist movement, as though it started with Mr. Parizeau, leader of the Opposition in Quebec, and the member for Lac-Saint-Jean, Leader of the Opposition in this House. In fact, the sovereigntist movement has been around in Quebec since Confederation and as you know, there was no referendum before Quebec became a Canadian province. If I remember correctly, it passed by one vote among the Quebec representatives here in Canada's Parliament.
What strikes me is that we may have to question the role of the media in the evolution of the debate. Incidentally, 30 years ago here in Ottawa, there was the Laurendeau-Dunton Royal Commission.
Dennis Mills Liberal Broadview—Greenwood, ON
Mr. Trudeau was not a separatist.
Yves Rocheleau Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
No, I am talking about the sovereigntist movement that has been evolving for the past 30 years. I myself have been a sovereigntist since 1961. I was a member of the Rassemblement pour l'indépendance nationale, or union for national independence. The Laurendeau-Dunton report, which referred to the two solitudes, was published in 1963. We are not inventing anything, Mr. Speaker.
Four other royal commissions examined the patient and all came to more or less lame conclusions that promoted the growth of the sovereigntist movement. Why? Because first of all, we are a nation and now that we are better educated, we want to become a member of the United Nations. On the other hand, in this Canada we are condemned to always remain a minority if we stay in Confederation.
So, in my opinion as a long-time sovereigntist, these are the two main points underlying all our arguments. The sovereigntist movement is not, as has recently been suggested on French-language television, "a burst of pressure from the Quebec people" but, on the contrary, a fire that has been stoked up for a long time. The ashes are smoldering, the fire is hot, and Quebecers will soon decide on their future in a democratic fashion, Mr. Speaker.
Monique Guay Bloc Laurentides, QC
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on this Official Opposition day to speak on regional development. My remarks will focus on the Laurentian region, a major part of which is in my riding.
The situation faced by individuals in my region is very serious. In April 1994, the unemployment rate was 16.6 per cent. Add to that all employable welfare recipients who are out of work and this rate easily rises to 30 something per cent. One person out of three is out of work.
In Saint-Jérôme, a major regional center, the average annual income of renting households was $22,835, while the provincial average was $28,136. That is $5,500 less. In Saint-Jérôme, one household out of four spends over 30 per cent of its income on housing. Things are even worse for 20 per cent of these, or 1,340 households, since 50 per cent of their income has to be used on housing. Most of these households, or 66 per cent, are lead by single mothers.
These figures are telling. They speak volumes about the conditions that cause an escalation in poverty, hunger and health problems. These problems are increasingly palpable as they set in and take on proportions never seen before.
This account of the situation of the people in my region clearly shows a declining economy. For several years now, there has been no growth. We are justified in looking seriously into the whole issue of regional development, because, as we can see, it clearly does not meet its primary goal, which is to enable people to live comfortably in their regions.
The federal government was not successful in developing my region. The regional economic base is crumbling in spite of massive injection of money under general agreements. The social fabric is disintegrating, rural migration is continuing and young people are the first to leave their regions.
Developed regions, major centres, are expanding at the expense of regional resources. The problem can be readily identified on site and all those concerned are unanimous in denouncing the cause.
The interference of the federal government in the development of my region is causing horrendous administrative chaos, costly duplication and inconsistency. Development, which entails consultation, joint action and harmonization, is not designed by the federal government to accommodate these notions.
On the contrary, the government moves in and acts as if it owned the place. It does not examine the situation. It does not consult people. It does not have any regard for what has been accomplished so far. Even worse, they are incoherent and illogical in their regional development policies.
I have a specific example for you. In my riding, in a small municipality, the federal government, through the Federal Office of Regional Development, FORD, asked hoteliers and innkeepers to come up with plans to renovate their outdated and run-down facilities and to harmonize them with the development of a major private ski resort then under way. The hoteliers and innkeepers produced these projects and plans in the expectation of federal financial support under APDA, the Assistance Program for Designated Areas.
These people did their homework seriously. The first step was taken; it only remains to carry out the projects. Unfortunately, they are still waiting and uncertain, since there is no money for this program. What good planning! What consistency! It is as if you drew up plans for a house but stayed outside because you did not have money to build it. These business people have been sorely misled.
Now let us look at strategic development plans. All regions of Quebec recently adopted such plans for themselves. They are drawn up in concert with the RCMs, local stakeholders and regional sectoral organizations. These plans are based on consultation and co-operation. They were developed very carefully, following a very thorough process to consult all local and regional interest groups.
What disturbs many community stakeholders is the lack of concern and of consideration for these plans shown by federal agencies and departments. All federal officials in the regions have these plans, but they never replied or bothered to compare their point of view with what the regions want and consider important and strategic for their development.
Even worse, since it did not consult the various interested parties in the regions, the federal government, through FORD, went so far as to have a firm of consultants draw up its own regional plans and this firm used data provided by the producers of the regional plans. This borders on fraud and is certainly a shameful waste of public money.
It is another fine example of duplication and, even more, an illustration of federal contempt and disrespect for Quebec's regions and the interest groups that seriously spent so much energy and money to come up with a clear vision for their regional development.
The federal government must change its approach to regional development. I am not talking here about section 25's or DEPs, which can be termed the welfare approach to regional development. I am talking about export assistance programs, technological development support programs, the program to help disadvantaged regions and so on. I am talking about programs which have real impact on regional development and are in no way linked to the regions' initiatives.
I would like to make a digression about international markets to indicate that the regions are already selling goods and services on these markets. Given these facts, you have to agree that the federal government should review its regional development policies and harmonize its actions with those of the regions
which are already taking into consideration the new situation on the world market.
In matters of regional development, the federal government's record is far from brilliant. I think they should go back to the drawing board and fast. For the taxpayers, it is sad to see how the government is wasting their money.
Harmonious regional development requires more consistency in the actions of all levels of government. Given its inefficiency in this area, the best thing the federal government could do is to withdraw from this jurisdiction, as all social and economic experts have asked him to do, and to transfer to the province of Quebec all the funds allocated to the economic development programs which have some regional impact.
Of course, a sovereign Quebec would resolve this issue.
[English]
Sarkis Assadourian Liberal Don Valley North, ON
Mr. Speaker, I was following the remarks made by the hon. member and she demonstrated that there are no good and effective federal-regional development programs.
I was looking forward to examples from her province that would benefit the federal government so those could be implemented in all regions.
I wonder if the hon. member would be good enough to give us some examples of what the government in her province implemented for regional development within the province of Quebec.
Monique Guay Bloc Laurentides, QC
Mr. Speaker, I just gave an example from my riding, but throughout Quebec and Canada there are several such examples of overlapping and duplication. The hon. member could probably provide examples from his own riding.
I will not give him any additional example, but I do know that, particularly in my region and in Quebec, there are enormous problems. The FORD is not doing what it should, while Quebec is doing its job. I am sure that if the hon. member checks, he will find similar problems in his region.
Paul Crête Bloc Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup, QC
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's speech is in perfect agreement with the findings of a gallup poll to the effect that 82 per cent of Quebecers feel the Liberals are not managing the economy efficiently; 60 per cent of British Columbians think the same, as well as 52 per cent of Maritimers, 49 per cent of Westerners and 48 per cent of Ontarians.
This poll shows that the farther they live from the national capital, the further you are from Ottawa, the more unsatisfied people are. Does the hon. member not see this as a confirmation that government programs for regional development, not only in Quebec but also in the Maritimes and in the West, absolutely do not meet the specific needs of these regions, and that these national programs are not adapted to any region of the country?
Monique Guay Bloc Laurentides, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup. These programs obviously do not work, since the needs of each region are different. Where I come from, there are associations and groups conducting economic impact and regional development studies specifically for our region. However, these studies are not taken seriously. Valuable work is done at these conferences and meetings. Sometimes, it takes two, three, four or five months to do a serious study.
Studies are done, but the federal government ignores them. The FORD does not work with us at all regarding these issues. We have always had problems. Even members of Parliament, try to get information from that office, but nothing happens. Everything is on hold. It goes without saying that regions must be involved in regional development. We are tired of seeing young people leave our regions and move to large urban centres because we have no jobs for them.
In Quebec, we have a very good structure to develop our regions; consequently, if we have our own development tools and if we can look after our own regional development, we will certainly do very well. However, in the meantime, and as long as the federal government tries to control and centralize everything and does not let the regions decide anything, we will unfortunately live in poverty as is the case now.
Dennis Mills LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry
Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have an opportunity to participate in the debate today because I believe that this debate is really about who speaks for Canada.
I do not believe that we will ever resolve the debate with the Bloc Quebecois because it does not believe in Canada. It is separatist. It will not recognize any federal presence, Government of Canada presence, in the province of Quebec. As long as it has that position of trying to destroy Canada then this debate is not going to go very far.
The fact of the matter is that we are a national government here in Ottawa but we are supervising one of the most decentralized national governments in the world. Many members of Parliament today gave very specific examples.
We have a decentralized instrument in Atlantic Canada called the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency which is a Government of Canada instrument on the ground working with the
provinces and the municipalities. That unit is very sensitive to the diverse needs of Atlantic Canada.
As we become more and more dependent on the new economy and the new technologies, the Government of Canada presence is there to support those new emerging small and medium sized businesses. That instrument is in place.
In western Canada we have the western Canada diversification fund which is also a decentralized Government of Canada instrument working on the ground in every province in western Canada trying to be ultra sensitive to the needs of not just the region but of every province in the western region.
In the province of Ontario we have FedNor, an instrument in northern Ontario which is very sensitive because we are talking about industries which have very difficult times because of shipping distances and because we are going through a conversion in the north. We are moving into new industries there because our resource based industries can no longer sustain us. However, the Government of Canada has a presence there. The federal Government of Canada works with FedNor and with the municipalities and the province of Ontario trying to be sensitive to the needs of northern Ontario.
In the province of Quebec we have the Federal Office for Regional Development called FORD-Q. There are hundreds of examples of where FORD-Q is working in a decentralized way in every region of the province of Quebec, trying to make sure that the very issues of concern that the Bloc Quebecois is talking about today are addressed.
The problem is that the Bloc Quebecois refuses to tell its constituents that there is a Government of Canada presence working on the ground in its region, getting policy direction from the national government in Ottawa, on the ground operating in Quebec in a very decentralized way. The fact of the matter is the Bloc members will not recognize these decentralized instruments because they are not interested in building Canada. They are interested in destroying Canada.
The thing that is beginning to really bother me about the Bloc Quebecois members is they now know that their separatist thrust is destabilizing the economy of the country. As they destabilize the economy of the country they are putting pressure on our interest rates. That cost to the national treasury is a heck of a lot more than some of the duplication examples that they gave here today.
I would be the first person to admit that our system is not perfect. There are examples, not just in Quebec but in every region of this country, in which we can show that there might have been some waste here or that there might have been a duplication there. That is no excuse for giving up on Canada. That is no excuse for saying I want to separate from Canada. If they really believe in putting people back to work in their constituencies the same way that we in every other region of the country want to put our people back to work, then they would stop this notre chez nous.
Let us get real. We are dealing with the lives of millions of people here. We are no longer dealing simply with the lives of the people in the province of Quebec. We are dealing with the lives and the jobs of people from coast to coast in this country. This separatist let us kill Canada approach is really not in the best interests.
They laugh. This is a member of Parliament who served for 10 years in the Mulroney government, an ex-Mulroneyite sitting now with the Bloc. Their leader, another ex-Mulroneyite, is an incredible example.
Dennis Mills Liberal Broadview—Greenwood, ON
Mr. Speaker, it is a very sad day for our country when people come to this boardroom not to build it, not to improve and not to look out for the unemployed in their ridings, but they know because they are not stupid people-you do not get elected here by being stupid-that this destabilizing talk that they are going through right now is costing jobs right across the country. It is destabilizing our economy.
When they talk about regional and economic development there is not a province in Canada that has had the benefit of the national treasury like the province of Quebec.
Dennis Mills Liberal Broadview—Greenwood, ON
It is not your money.
Dennis Mills Liberal Broadview—Greenwood, ON
Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Quebecois always comes up with this line that it is its money. It is not; the Minister of Finance announced in January under the equalization entitlements a further $70 billion going to Quebec from Ontario, B.C. and Alberta. It just came off $60 billion from the last five years.
Those members do not tell their constituents that between the last five and the next five years from the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario we have transferred $110 billion. Almost one-third of the national debt is because of the province of Quebec equalization entitlements.
We do not resent that because that is part of our constitutional responsibility. What really bothers me is that in spite of our living up to our responsibilities in Confederation these people still want to come to this national Parliament and try to destroy the country. Canadians have lost patience with the Bloc Quebecois and I believe that eventually even in the province of Quebec there will be many people who will say that if they reflect over
history and talk about caring and sharing, Canada has really been a good package for the people of Quebec.
