Mr. Speaker, it is with great interest that I am intervening today in this House on Bill C-96, an act to legally establish the Department of Human Resources Development.
This is a long way from the agricultural portfolio for which I am usually critic for the official opposition, but the significance of the changes brought in by Bill C-96 requires me to speak out.
Application of this bill would be disastrous for Quebec, and I must defend the interests of my constituents first, but also those of all Quebecers.
What the government is preparing to do by going ahead with this bill is quite simply unacceptable. Bill C-96 is a tool with which the minister intends to broaden his powers once again, going over the heads of the provinces to do as he sees fit.
This bill enables the minister to ignore the provinces by establishing direct links with local organizations or individuals of his choice. What we are to understand from this is that when the federal government speaks of decentralization, it is merely replacing the salaries of federal employees with grants to local organizations, thus retaining total control over program standards.
With Bill C-96 it is absolutely clear that the federal government does not intend to respect this area of provincial jurisdiction in any way. We in Quebec will not allow this to happen.
Once again, this reminds me that, only hours after the last referendum, the Prime Minister of this country, the leader of the party across the floor here, the Liberal Party, the one that started off promising no changes, nothing on the table, after the conference on the UN, said there was no question whatsoever of proposing any changes. And with that great declaration of love, paid for by all of us of course, that put any possibility of decentralization, any possibility of change, on ice.
This bill was already prepared, of course, but it is totally contradictory to what the Prime Minister of Canada had suggested.
In reaction to Bill C-96, a proposal was made by Claude Béland, with the support of Ghislain Dufour, a person who cannot be accused of defending the sovereignist cause. As you are well aware, Mr. Speaker, Ghislain Dufour does not run with the sovereignists, but with the party across the floor. He asked that the SQDM unanimously adopt a resolution demanding that the federal government transfer the budgets it allocates for manpower training to Quebec and that it not establish a parallel structure to the SQDM.
Henri Massé, secretary general of the FTQ, also pulled no punches in his attack against this federal plan. "We no longer want the federal government butting in where it has no business to be-that is, manpower-and going over our heads to implement a parallel structure".
Still in connection with the referendum campaign, Victoriaville, in the next riding to mine, Lotbinière, had an important visitor, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, representing a Montreal riding whose name escapes me.
I know that an Ontario resident who has a riding in Montreal happens to be our Minister of Foreign Affairs. He told about fifteen people at a public meeting in Victoriaville that it was Quebec's fault if there was any duplication. Now really! Sure, that is what he said. He did not realize it but there was a reporter-he thought he was alone, no media-who only had a tape recorder and the next day they played his tape of the minister's speech on the radio news.
It really takes colossal nerve and then some, to go to Victoriaville, in the riding of Lotbinière, and say it was Quebec's fault if there was any duplication. Now that is a clear case. Let them stay home. We do not want them. The Liberal predecessor of the PQ government, under Robert Bourassa and then Daniel Johnson, unanimously adopted a resolution asking this government to stay out of manpower training. They just do not understand. Two structures and deficit upon deficit.
In fact, one of my constituents from East Broughton, Clément Paré-I asked his permission to mention his name-told me: "People do not understand. It is like a well at one end of my property. I take a pipe to bring the water from the well down to the bottom of my property. The further I get from the well, the more likely I am to get leaks, and I also lose pressure". It does not take a university degree to understand that.
"It is the same in Ottawa. You pay taxes to Ottawa, the money goes from East Broughton and Frontenac and is sent to Ottawa, some of it gets lost on the way, and then it goes back down
to East Broughton and to Thetford, and some more gets lost, and we are left with the crumbs". That is the kind of system we have: duplication throughout.
Mr. Speaker, I told you the story about the well and I saw your knowing smile. This is a very good example. I think my constituent, Mr. Paré, has very good judgment, and that is probably why he voted and worked for the Yes side in his beautiful municipality of East Broughton.
As I left my riding this morning, I stopped in Weedon to get some gas, and I noticed the Pepsi-Cola vending machine had been struck by a car. So I told the garage owner: "Too bad about that. Your Pepsi machine is broken already". He replied: "Yeah, sure, it was not big enough". In fact, it was huge, standing there outside the garage. Actually he was joking when he said: "It was not big enough". I said: "Too bad, it will cost you a few dollars to repair that". He said: "Oh, that does not matter". So I said: "How come?" He said: "It does not belong to me, it belongs to Pepsi". You see, Mr. Speaker? It belongs to Pepsi, so it does not matter.
People often react the same way to Ottawa. When I was the mayor of a small municipality, I remember we spread eight inches of nice new gravel on the sixth line. My constituents who were, of course, a small group, came to complain that the municipality was spending too much money. I said: "No problem. You are not paying for it". They said: "How come?" I said: "The money comes from the province". They said: "So you got a grant, Mr. Mayor?" I said: "Yes. I got it through our MNA". They said: "Great, the money comes from Quebec! It is not our money".
So you get the same reasoning when it comes from the federal government. When it comes from the federal government, it comes from somewhere on this planet, nobody knows exactly where. My point is that when the Minister of Foreign Affairs, this Ontarian who represents a Montreal riding, when he said in Victoriaville that if there was any duplication, it was not the federal government but the Quebec government, it really takes a colossal nerve.
The board of directors of the Canadian Institute of Adult Education has also condemned the Liberal government's initiative. The CIAE strongly objects to Bill C-96. The Bloc Quebecois is not alone in its opposition to Bill C-96. With this bill, the federal government has demonstrated a flagrant lack of respect for the aspirations of the provinces and especially those of Quebec in matters of education, manpower training and development.
With all these agencies and many others that are opposed to Bill C-96, the government of Quebec condemns outright the federal Liberal government's insistence on going ahead without considering the needs expressed by the groups concerned. Quebec Employment Minister Louise Harel reacted as follows to Bill C-96: "This is an outright refusal on the part of Ottawa to consider the consensus that exists in Quebec and was repeatedly expressed by the previous administrations of Mr. Bourassa and Mr. Johnson and by the present government headed by Mr. Parizeau, a consensus on the need to patriate all programs and budgets for manpower adjustment to Quebec".
In concluding, I want to point out that the Quebec Liberal Party, when it was in power, demanded that the federal government withdraw from this provincial jurisdiction.