Debates of March 1st, 1995

Motions For Papers

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that the notice of motion for the production of papers be allowed to stand.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed from February 28 consideration of the motion that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government; the amendment, and the amendment to the amendment.

The Budget

[Stephen Harper, Reform, Calgary West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, Reform members will be splitting their time today.

I cannot say I am honoured but I feel responsible to join in this budget debate and to speak against both the budget and the amendment on the floor. I remind the House that it was only one year ago that we in the Reform caucus were saying several things about a budget which had just been tabled.

Those things were that the targets contained in the budget-the target of a 3 per cent deficit to GDP-were not good enough. Even if those targets were to be achieved they would add billions of dollars in cuts to deal with the accumulated interest payments that would be realized as a consequence of adding to our national debt. In so doing, we were assured time and time again that the targets and the measures laid out in that budget were good enough and that they could be achieved with no additional budgetary action whatsoever.

What we have this week is a budget with spending cuts of $12 billion and tax increases of $1.5 billion, all in a period of exceptional economic growth, even above what was foreseen in the previous budget.

It is in order to achieve the very targets that we started out with, the very targets that are inadequate and that we were supposedly going to be able to achieve with no cuts whatsoever. Why? Because on this particular budget path we have added interest payments of $12 billion.

The interest costs on the government's debt will rise in this same period from $38 billion to $50 billion. We are cutting $12 billion in spending now to achieve what? It is to achieve a stable debt-GDP ratio at the top of an economic cycle, so that it will do nothing but rise when we face the inevitable downturn. It is called an achievement. It is the government's belief that this is its ticket for re-election.

This reminds me so much of what the Progressive Conservatives did in 1988. They reached exactly the same point, except at a much lower level of debt and then said all was well.

What do we say now? We say that this is not adequate. We say that this path will continue to add interest charges that will come out of program spending. What are we told? We are told that

there will be no more cuts to achieve our targets, especially not in the area of social programs. We will achieve these targets nevertheless.

The finance minister knows this is not true. There is such a gap between what the Liberal government says and what it does that it is just astounding. It explains why the finance minister must on a daily basis so grossly exaggerate Reform policy in order to cover his real agenda.

In fact my Bloc colleagues in question period today were calling his statements demagoguery. That is the only way to describe his desperate defence of the course he is leading us down.

Some of the cuts in the budget should have been made a long time ago and I agree with them. However it is interesting and necessary to compare them against what the Liberal government said versus what it meant. I am not talking historically but just in recent memory.

As recently as a year and a half ago the Liberal Party said it was against free trade and it would pull out of the free trade agreement. What it meant was it would strengthen free trade, continue those agreements and expand them on a scale that was not foreseen before.

When the Liberal Party said it was committed to keeping Petro-Canada and would not privatize it, what it really meant was it would finish the job of privatization.

When the Liberal Party said it would guarantee funding for the CBC what it meant was it would guarantee that its funding would be continually cut.

The Liberal Party said a Liberal government would never cut the civil service, but what have we got here? Not only do we have retro-cuts, but what the Liberal government really meant was that it would cut the civil service at record levels and do it retroactively by reopening collective agreements.

The Liberal Party said a Liberal government would never cut transfer payments to the provinces. What it will not transfer to the provinces is additional authority or additional tax points, but it will cut the transfer payments to the provinces at a record level.

The Liberal government said it would never raise the tax burden on the middle class. That apparently did not include gas taxes which are paid by ordinary citizens of every class. It did not include limiting RRSP contributions which hit certainly at members of the upper middle class which I would distinguish from the rich. It would raise utility taxes on ordinary consumers, providing they live in Alberta and a few other select areas of the country. It is now prepared to raise tobacco taxes which fall generally on those with lower than average incomes. The Liberal Party said it would never raise taxes on the middle class but what it really meant was most of the tax increases will be on the middle class.

The Prime Minister said he would never allow a society where we see beggars in the streets. What he really meant was he would never walk to work but instead drive by in his limousine so he never sees the beggars that we all meet every single day that we come here.

The Liberal Party now says that it will never cut health care, unemployment insurance, old age security, the Canada pension plan, child care or any of those plans. It says it will never cut them like the Reform Party intends to cut them. What the Liberal government really means is that it is not going to tell Canadians what those cuts are until they come. It is not going to bring them in them until the debt and the interest has drained off every red cent necessary to have a program of any kind.

What the Liberal government also said was that generally it will never cut the social security of Canadians. What do the Liberals really mean when they say all these things about compassion and sacrifice? They mean they will never take MPs off their gold-plated pension plan and you will never see MPs begging in the streets.

The leader of the Reform Party proposed last week a plan for a balanced budget with social programs that are clearly smaller and more decentralized than we have today. These are not popular measures and we know that. Those programs are based on clear objectives and values with dollars that are available today.

As bad as the Minister of Finance will paint this, these programs are going to look very good by the time we find out what the government really plans to do with social programs.

The choice is very simple. Canadians will have accept the tough medicine necessary to get us back to fiscal to health. The alternative is to buy the same snake oil from the same snake oil salesman at a price that is going to go up and up and up.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I listened to the member speak all I heard were negatives and misinformation.

The member somehow painted the reduction of the civil service by 45,000 jobs as a negative when in fact the government is refocusing through program review the downsizing. There will be surplus staff. The member clearly cannot be opposed to eliminating surplus staff in a compassionate way.

The member complains about the transfers to the provinces, yet in the Reform alternative budget the amount of hit to seniors, to the disadvantaged, to those who need health care, is drastically heavier. He paints the RRSP alternatives as if something is wrong. The RRSP limits in fact will be increasing to $15,500 from the current year of $13,500.

[An hon. member]

You'll flip-flop on that one too.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Not flip-flop. The member says the Reform Party has all the answers.

If the member feels that the budget presented on February 27 was a draconian budget, how does he square the fact that instead of cutting $7 billion from the transfers to provinces Reform was going to cut some $15 billion from the social programs of Canadians?

[Stephen Harper, Reform, Calgary West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member raises the issue of cuts to the civil service, asking how I can condemn a program that reduces the civil service and tries to do so in a compassionate manner.

Reformers would not try and do that. In fact, Reformers told the civil servants in this city in the last election that these kinds of cuts would be necessary. We told them we would try to do it in a compassionate manner and we lost that election.

The Liberal Party candidates who won told civil servants precisely the opposite. They guaranteed collective agreements they are now breaking. They guaranteed jobs they are now removing. They guaranteed wages they are now taking away.

Now Liberals tell us that will not cut social programs by $15 billion. By the time the Liberal government is done, the cuts proposed by the Reform Party in last week's alternative budget will look very minor and the programs we proposed will look very good.

I am not surprised at anything that comes from people who will run on one thing and a year and a half later say the opposite on every single area of public policy.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member in his speech referred to snake oil. What he neglected to mention was the snake oil in the budget that the hon. member's party presented last week.

The last questioner, my distinguished colleague from Mississauga South, did ask a question. Of course, the hon. member evaded the answer, as every member of his party has when pressed on this issue. What proposals did the member put forward in the budget last week to gut Canada's social programs? Tell Canadians about those. In not one speech in the House have we have heard any clear reference to those guttings of social programs proposed in the Reform budget-

[The Deputy Speaker]

The member for Calgary West has the same amount of time, about a minute.

[Stephen Harper, Reform, Calgary West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the budget proposals that the Reform Party prepared last week and tabled were done publicly and in a manner that is open and available, unlike the plans being made by the government. Any Reform member's office can be contacted by any Canadian and the information will be provided.

There were $15 billion in cuts to social programs, leaving a social program envelope of $65 billion. That $65 billion will not be available when we learn how the government is really going to eliminate a deficit of $25 billion.

[Jim Abbott, Reform, Kootenay East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the budget process has been most fascinating. For the first time in the history of Canada the people have become involved in the process. We had a member presently in the House say yesterday that Reformers were trying to create a tax revolt.

I for one-I can speak on behalf of all my colleagues-was invited to these events, as were many Liberal members who chose not to turn up because they were afraid. It is really interesting that in a small city in my constituency, the town of Golden with 2,371 households, four women I would like to name here today in one week got 2,500 signatures from those 2,371 households: Gert Shewchuk, Stephanie Braul, Cheryl Kofluk and Merle McKnight.

These are common, ordinary Canadian women who are concerned about their country. This was the kind of activity that was going on. This was the kind of involvement that Canadians were demonstrating in this process.

However, when we come to the budget where the government in its own cynical way-although over a three-year period-is taking over $3.5 billion out of Canadian taxpayers' pockets without raising individual income tax rates, it would appear as though the hard work of these women and many others who were involved in the tax protest was successful. When I woke up on the morning of the day following the budget I turned on the radio and was confronted with a song that might be familiar to some members in the House. It goes:

Bye, bye Miss American pie Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry and good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye saying this will be the day that I die This will be the day that I die.

That was the way I felt after I had an opportunity to take a look at the budget.

This is a budget of despair. This is a budget that is not straightforward by any form of measurement. This is a budget that is to have public debt charges increase from $38 billion to $51 billion.

Government members have the audacity to say that they are to protect social program when the largest single increase at 17.3 per cent is spending on funding the public debt. How can they say they are to protect social programs when they are increasing the spending on public debt by 17.3 per cent?

I took a look at their documents. They frequently say that they do not know what the facts are. I have the budget speech of the minister and I read on page 32 that personal income tax is to go up from $51.1 billion to $56.8 billion, to $60.4 billion, to $64.5 billion in a four-year period. Corporate tax is to go up from $9.8 billion to $13 billion, to $15.5 billion, to $16.3 billion. As a matter of fact gross budgetary revenues in the same period are to increase from $116 billion to $137.4 billion. These are numbers provided by the finance minister.

We do not have a revenue problem; we have an expenditure problem. It is so obvious it is just absolutely amazing.

Another interesting point on the expenditure side is that my colleague just referred to the fact that 45,000 civil servants are to be laid off over the next three-year period. He very clearly pointed out that the government was not elected to cut 45,000 civil servants. It was elected on the promise that civil servant jobs were to remain. That promise has been broken.

Furthermore business has also taken a hit in the budget. Business grants have dropped from $3.7 billion down to $1.9 billion. While the premiums remain constant, unemployment insurance payouts are to decrease from $17.6 billion to $15.3 billion, to $14.3 billion, to $13.7 billion.

There is more and more of a take because they are not to decrease the amount they are taking from the unemployed. They are to decrease the payouts and put $5 billion into a slush fund for themselves. There we have it: we have expenditure cuts and the inevitable social program cuts.

Why do I say this is a budget of despair? In spite of all the harsh medicine and in spite of the fact it will be reducing the total amount we are going into the hole by $10 billion, the government has permitted annual interest charges in the same period of time to increase by $10 billion.

In other words we are treading water. Rather than swimming and getting somewhere, we are treading water. I think of another verse of the song:

It's been 10 years I've been on my own and moss grows fat on a rolling stone.

It is a song of despair; it is a budget of despair.

We have to ask the following question. If we look at the cuts that have occurred to this point, where else is there to cut except in the social envelope in a responsible manner so that the people at the bottom end of the scale are protected? Where else is there to cut? There is no place else. In that respect the budget is not only a budget of despair. It is a budget of dishonesty.

We are taking a look at the fact that it is hidden within these documents. The downloading is where it is hidden. It is hidden because they are to combine the Canada Health Act with the Canada assistance plan and post-secondary education funding. They are to rename all those things the Canada social transfer and then they are to reduce it by $4.5 billion.

When it is transferred to the provinces and the $4.5 billion is removed we have a choice as Canadians. Either we downgrade health care, post-secondary education and the amount of funding for the Canada assistance plan, or we increase taxes at the provincial level. We cannot have it both ways. It is just that simple.

I asked myself, in listening to the budget debate, what was the problem here. Is there some difficulty in terms of understanding common ordinary English? I asked a question of the parliamentary secretary last night. His response was rather interesting. My question was exactly what I have been developing here. If we are increasing the amount we are spending from $38 billion to $51 billion in our debt service charge, where is the money to come from? That is a very valid question.

When I said that I do not see how the government could possibly do the job of continuing to fund social programs-and it keeps on saying that it is-his response as reported at page 10181 of Hansard was:

The Government of Canada will be able to keep its commitments and pay pensions to seniors.

The difference is that the Reform Party sees everything black; it is the end of the world.

No, it is just a little despair at this point.

The member acknowledged that we have made real cuts. We have a balanced budget in terms of real cuts and it will encourage economic growth.

When the documents say that we are to be overspending $32.7 billion, how in the world could the parliamentary secretary say: "We have a balanced budget?" Obviously he does not understand ordinary English. He said: "The deficit will disappear". By magic? He also said: "The deficit will be reduced by creating jobs". That was a promise in the last election. Obviously it is another promise they believe they can drop.

I close by quoting in despair:

I still remembered how I cried When I read about his widowed bride But something touched me deep inside The day the music died.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Reform Party members took a big risk in terms of the strategy they were to use with regard to the budget. They went out and incited Canadians on the issue of no new taxes and cutting spending. That is exactly what the finance minister did with $7

of cuts to $1 of increases, and those revenue increases included no personal income tax increases.

Reformers presented a budget to the House which said that we had to keep the poor poor and make the middle class poor. They said to Canadians: "Just stop eating for a year and use that money to pay down your mortgage. Then everything will be fine". That is like saying the operation was a success but the patient died.

The question I have for the member concerns the Canadian social transfer. That social transfer is a combination of the CAP and the EPF. The member would well know that as there is growth in the economy and as the value of tax points goes up, the amount of cash transferred to the provinces will go down. In some cases the amount of cash will be zero. That being the case, what leverage would the federal government have over the provinces in terms of maintaining standards?

Would the member not agree that consolidating those transfer programs under one umbrella allows the federal government continued leverage to ensure that the national standards of health care, environment and others are maintained in Canada, the best country in the world?

[Jim Abbott, Reform, Kootenay East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the rhetoric of my hon. colleague is reminiscent of what we ran into during the last election: the only politicians of virtue in Canada are Liberal federal politicians; the politicians in provinces are terrible people as well as anybody who is not a Liberal.

What is this? I do not understand. Perhaps it is just a case that members of that party have been in power for so long, have been building up the debt for so long, and have had the reins of government for so long that as we slide off the edge it has gone to their heads.

To answer the member very simply, if the government is not decreasing the amount of money available to social programs, is decreasing the cash transfers by $4.5 billion, and is not transferring the tax points to the provinces, how can the government possibly try to convince Canadians that it is not simply shifting the burden and that it is able to keep its false promise of being able to look after social programs?

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

Mr. Speaker, for the last half hour or so I listened to presentations by two members of the Reform Party. I am reminded of a movie I saw recently called "The Madness of King George". We have heard a version of paranoid economics where there is a hobgoblin behind every bush and a shadow behind every budget. It reminds me very much of King George who suffered from a similar malady. He would find himself very much at home in the present day Reform caucus.

There is an interesting scene in that movie that I think is worth commenting on. James Fox, leader of the opposition at that time, was seen strolling along the lawns of Westminster with Mr. Pitt, who at the time was prime minister. He was a somewhat straight-laced and dour gentleman according to history; that certainly was how he was portrayed in the movie. As they were walking along, James Fox said to the prime minister: "Mr. Pitt, is there anything you admire at all?" Mr. Pitt said: "A balance sheet, Mr. Fox. I like a good balance sheet".

Mr. Pitt would be very happy with our Minister of Finance today because he has come up with a good balance sheet. He has been able to come up with a balance sheet to escape the malady and the problems faced by governments over the past decade that have promised much and delivered little. He has come up with a balance sheet that has now been acknowledged and recognized by financial markets both here and internationally as meeting the test of restoring integrity in our fiscal system.

A few short days ago the leader of the Reform Party, the chicken little of Canadian politics, screamed that the sky was going to fall and that the clouds were going to roll in? All of a sudden comes the budget and interest rates begin to fall, the dollar stabilizes and financial markets say that the government has met the test.

Not to be daunted by that illusion, he must now find himself a new form of vapour to chase after. He is now pretending there is "a hidden agenda". The only hidden agenda is the one we recently read about in the book about the Reform Party that says the hidden agenda of the hon. member for Calgary Southwest is to rule the world.

The message of the budget is to get beyond the immediate and the superficial, as we have heard this afternoon. We must deal with the specifics and put aside some of the grand statements of moral indignation we hear coming from certain provincial premiers such as: "woe is me, the world is gone" and get down to what the government is attempting to do.

It has provided in this budget the first major step in restructuring the economy of this country to provide a way of ensuring a fiscal, economic and monetary system that prepares us and gives us the kind of foundation we need upon which we can then begin to build a new social reform, a new system of cultural programs to provide certainty and stability to Canada, on which we can then begin to build the new Canada and the new economy. That is what this budget is all about.

It is very important to emphasize that modernization, re-engineering and restructuring are not the object of one day or one week. They must start and must continue. It is going to be work that I certainly believe will engage members of Parliament from

our side of the House and I hope it will engage members of Parliament from all sides of the House.

This is what Canadians want and demand. They do not want the kind of voodoo analysis we are constantly hearing. They simply want people to quit playing with black magic and get down to reality and deal with the real issues such as how to maintain a balance of programs and begin to respond to the transformations in the workplace and in the global economy, how we preserve integrity economically and socially and the sovereignty in order to make our own decisions.

Clearly the statement has been made. As much as we have the fulmination of the Reform Party wishing it were otherwise, wishing and hoping that the sky had fallen as its leader predicted, hoping that there would be a cataclysm in Canada, that catastrophe would be visited upon us, as much as it has been urging and praying that the sky would fall, it has not.

What is happening is that Canadians and people internationally have seen that this government is the best economic manager this country has had in a long time.

That is why every Canadian has a crucial stake in the budget we brought forward. The government moved decisively to restore our nation's integrity and is now beginning to put us in a position where we can do the real work of rebuilding we were elected to do. We had to get the economics right and the Minister of Finance has accomplished that.

We want to maintain the social safety net offered by programs like old age pension, family allowance and welfare. It is absolutely essential that our financial house be put in order. We will take any action necessary to protect social programs today and in the future.

I want to illustrate to members in the House and others listening exactly how that budget has been the catalyst to begin that reformation, that new resolution of programs and developments in our country.

In the budget we announced that we were going to fundamentally reorganize the funding of programs in the very large Department of Human Resources Development to bring together, as we heard during the course of the committee hearings, a new human resources investment fund so that we could consolidate a number of existing programs that may have had value at one time but no longer had the same relevance or the same impact. We wanted to bring them together into a common pool so we could begin to organize a new social reform package.

When hon. members opposite ask where the social reform is, it is happening now. The member from Calgary when she made her presentation on behalf of her party said: "I apologize. It was not all that well thought out because I did not have much time".

We have a plan. The human resource investment fund is the beginning of that because it now gives us the flexibility to put in place a good child care program in this country, to deal with the question of literacy with our partners in the provinces, to begin working on new approaches to help people get re-employed, to sit down with the private sector as we are doing in something like 16 human resource councils in things like electronics, tourism, horticulture, logistics, car repair and auto parts.

We are now putting in place a partnership with business and labour in each of these sectors to start new training for young people. Since the summer close to 10,000 young people have been enrolled in these new internship programs in which we are sharing our resources with the private sector to begin providing new job opportunities and training opportunities.

It is not the old jurisdictional wars between federal and provincial governments. We are getting away from the old turf disputes. We are now sitting down with the private sector and community sector, the women's resource centres, the YWCA, the local communities and asking how to become partners to get people trained.

I heard from one of the Reform members "too little too late". That is coming from a party which said it was going to take the unemployment insurance fund and rip up all programs for women with children in the unemployment insurance program. He says we are too little too late. Talk about taking a dagger to the heart of the vampire. The vampire is taking the dagger to the heart of the Canadian people. That is what is going on.

Those kind of partnerships are now going to be facilitated by this kind of reorganization. The single drawer we have now put in place, which we promised to do when I stood in this House for social reform and said the first major initiative is to put a single drawer of financing in this federal department so we could being to work out these new partnerships. It has happened in this budget and social reform is well under way.

Let me talk for a minute about the Canada social transfer. There have been a lot of balloons and a lot of assumptions made about what is being proposed. Basically what we are proposing in this particular area is to ensure the continuation of an effective national approach for the funding and support of social initiatives by developing a new set of partnerships with the provinces.

We are proposing to do exactly what every single province has been asking us to do, to ensure they could have the flexibility to provide innovation and new approaches, to allow the provinces to become incubators of good social reform. That kind of freedom has been on every single premier's list until we do it.

Then they say: "Oh, God, the devil made us do it. Please do not do it to us".

Do they want the responsibility or not? We have given them the responsibility and for those who have said for some reason or other that this means there is going to be a withdrawal of the federal government from responsibilities, that is not the case.

Every member of the House knows that the present program, the existing program, is the one that creates the problems. Because it was designed 30 years ago it really means that in most cases there is no conditionality. There are no common principles. There are no standards. We simply write the cheques and they make the decisions.

As a result we have created in many cases large numbers of bureaucracies that have chewed up the money not in delivering directly to people but simply providing services for themselves.

I am most surprised by the objection of Bloc Quebecois on this matter because it is the one party which I thought would endorse fully a new system of federalism that would allow provinces to make more decisions for themselves.

The budget lays the foundations of a new federalism, a new partnership with the provinces and communities. At present, we have a government organization that has remained unchanged since the 1930s and 1940s; it is too centralized, too heavy and far from meeting the needs of the people.

The provinces, and Quebec in particular, have been asking that changes be made for quite some time. What the new Canadian social transfer will give the provinces is flexibility and the power to make decisions, less paperwork, yet better results.

What we are basically trying to do is ensure that we would still maintain very clearly the commitments under the Canada Health Act. We still maintain very clearly in the budget papers the responsibility to maintain full mobility. We will sit down with the provinces over the next year to work out a new framework in which we can provide more coherence to our programs, provide more co-ordination of what they are doing among themselves and with us so we can begin to tackle the high priority that Canadians have placed to deal with things like child poverty and to deal with the problems of families.

For the first time as the federal government we are saying let us sit down as equals to work out how we can bring all our resources together in a new way to provide a new framework for social reform.

Again, when members opposite and others say that social reform is on the shelf, they have not read the budget. It started Monday night with a brand new way of working with the provinces to bring about social reform in a collective, co-ordinated, co-operative community way which is what Canadians want. That is what the Canadian social transfer is all about.

I issue an invitation to all members of this House. It is going to be absolutely essential and important that every member representing all the regions be prepared to put forward those kinds of proposals and ideas about how they can see this new Canadian social framework taking place, the kind of priorities that are there, where we allocate the money and to encourage and endorse in their own provinces and their own regions the willingness of the provinces to come to the table.

I was encouraged this morning to hear Roy Romanow, the premier of Saskatchewan, say that we are going to sit down and talk with the provinces, to watch the kind of courage expressed by Clyde Wells, the premier of Newfoundland, last night on television when he said: "Sure, we're the poorest province in the country but we realize the federal government had to take tough steps and we're prepared to sit down and work with them".

The proposal, for example, in Newfoundland for the new income security proposal looking at a way of providing income supplements to top up basic benefits to encourage people to go back to work is one of those ideas that we can work together on, that we can come together with the province of Newfoundland and other provinces that want to engage in that same kind of joint enterprise to provide more work and more incentives for people to go back to work to restore their sense of dignity and their sense of hope. I applaud Premier Wells for the kind of initiative he has taken.

It is important that we get this right and not engage in the vocabulary and the language of old Canada, to talk about the way things used to be which I hear too many doing and by equating social reform with the amount of dollars that we spend. I heard members in the opposition today standing up saying we are going to take this money and the provinces do not have as much.

Have they never considered that by changing that program we will put an entirely new regime in place where we do not have to have duplicating bureaucracy, where we do not have to waste money on people pushing paper, where we do not have to have people stumbling over one another to administer the same program? What we can begin to do is save money that we can recycle and restore back directly to people by getting rid of the superstructure and infrastructure built up over the years. That is the key point.

This is not only a way of bringing down the expenses of government but also making it more efficient, more effective, more competent and more relevant to the people who really need help and support. That is what this budget is about.

Let me for the moments remaining speak of a third initiative that emerges directly out of the budget in terms of undertaking the kind of reform of our social network that we want to initiate. That is proposals to look at the unemployment insurance system or, to frankly use the term that the Prime Minister used, an employment insurance program, to retool, redesign the program as a way of enabling people to get back to work, which is the fundamental mandate we received as a government.

That means taking a program which over the years has allowed or acquired a certain number of disincentives that discourage people from working, that provide alternatives to working, that do not provide the resources to get the kinds of skills and the training required to meet the kinds of new challenges in our economy.

It is fascinating to see how many good ideas are out there. This country is so full of people with good innovative ideas. We have to provide the encouragement, provide the incentive and provide the framework to let them flower.

Let me speak for a moment about the New Brunswick job corps which was a joint project between us and the province of New Brunswick for older workers who had lost their jobs in the forest industry. The forest industry was shrinking. We have come together as part of our strategic initiatives plan and put together a New Brunswick job corps for older workers.

Many of them went back to the forest to plant trees, to do the reforestation, to restore the resource. Others worked in a wide variety of other areas. I received one of the most encouraging letters last week from a gentleman from Moncton, New Brunswick who as part of his job corps experience has been working with the boys and girls clubs of Moncton, sitting down with young people, using his well honed, well developed talents from his years of working in forestry to impart that same kind of skill and that same knowledge to young people.

He wrote to me saying it was the best job he had ever had because he is back working with young people, giving them the skills they need. Rather than telling a 55-year old man he no longer is of use and is simply going to draw his benefits for the next year or two and will live out his life asking where is the meaning and purpose, we have given him new hope through the New Brunswick job corps. He is now back working in a job that gives him an enormous sense of satisfaction.

That can be done not just for one, but for tens of thousands of people, if we can take money spent through unemployment insurance purely for benefits and convert it into money for things like the New Brunswick job corps.

It can provide wage supplements for people to go back to work in the private sector. It can provide earned income supplements to get people off social assistance and back into employment. It can provide better training programs working with the private sector. It can provide good counselling in our programs so that people can understand what their choices and options are.

It can provide a new labour market information system from coast to coast to coast so that people will know exactly where the jobs are. They can plug their resumes into that system and an employer will know exactly who is available. They can do it right across Canada.

That is what we mean by social reform: re-engineering our system of unemployment insurance into an employment insurance system. We would be using the resources to give people the kind of incentive, the kind of support and the kind of encouragement they need to get back to work. We believe that is what Canadians want. They want to go back to work. The best kind of social security enables them to go back to work.

There is a transformation going on in today's workplace. Technology has an enormous impact in changing the way we work and in changing the kind of work available. We have to change with it. We cannot stay with the old programs and the old ways. Reform and change are essential to enable people to understand that this new workplace is something and that they have a real place to occupy.

My plea today is to let us use this budget as the launching pad. Let us use it as the foundation upon which we build a new employment system, a new work system and a new job system in Canada. With scarce resources and by working closely with the provinces, the private sector and community organizations, we would create new job opportunities. We would create new partnerships and would combine our skills and aptitudes to give Canadians real hope. Most important, we would use those resources so that Canadians individually could have choices. They could choose what kind of job, what kind of training, what kind of school and what kind of community they would build.

We launched social reform as a public consultation. It is now coming into practice as a program as of Monday night's budget. Its whole purpose is to give and restore to Canadians the choices about the kind of work they do, the kind of community they build and the kind of country they are going to live in.

[Gaston Leroux, Bloc, Richmond—Wolfe, QC]

Mr. Speaker, anyone who is not aware of the government's real situation, of the figures, anyone who does not know the real intentions and the mess this government finds itself in, would be tempted to vote for a minister so eager to speak about job creation and training, would be tempted to vote for the Minister of Human Resources Development after such an enthusiastic speech.

What enthusiasm. What a man, with his desire to put young people back to work. What a man who wants post-secondary training for students. What a man who wants the transfer of

funds to give the provinces the power to make their own decisions.

People do not take these political speeches at face value. People know very well that debts are being offloaded in this budget. They also know very well that these transfers mean that the provinces will receive less over the next three years. For Quebec, the shortfall will be more than $2 billion.

When the Minister of Human Resources Development speaks about putting young people back to work, giving young people the chance to be trained, how can he explain that his reform plans would send young people right into debt? Since there is no money left, student loans and grants are of course frozen. But credit is to be extended more readily. At the same time, while responsibilities are being transferred, transfer payments are being reduced. This forces the provinces to come up with very tough budgets also.

This dynamic minister who would offer fine training through his plans for job-related training in conjunction with employers and with the workplace, does he know that this has been planned for a long time in Quebec? Does he know that in Quebec the University of Sherbrooke has a co-operative training program in which all students are not merely trained, but are also sent on regular placements with potential employers? Does he know that this approach was taken by what some call factory schools where students get practical training, long before the minister announced his plans, long before the minister suggested that such things should exist? No, Mr. Speaker.

How can the minister, in such an ardent speech, maintain this hope for young people when his budget consists solely of reducing transfers and offloading the federal debt onto the provincial budgets?

[Lloyd Axworthy, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I sure liked the first part of his comments. I will certainly do my best to answer his question.

First, it is important to get the facts right. I know the hon. gentleman is an honourable and respected parliamentarian who never wants to get confused by misinformation. As we pointed out in the House today, the changeover in transfers in the province of Quebec for example only amounts to 3.1 per cent, not the vast figures used, but 3.1 per cent in 1996-97. It is a reduction of about $350 million, at most.

I want to underline the point I made during the course of my remarks because I know the hon. member takes this very seriously. That amount is far less than the reductions we are taking ourselves as a federal government, which is on average about 7 or 8 per cent. The national average of reduction on transfers is about 4.4 per cent and in Quebec alone it is 3.1 per cent. I would be quite happy to share further that information. It would be very useful for the member to know those are the real facts and not those that have been put forward by other sources.

It means we have to work at what I have heard the hon. member speak of quite eloquently in his own way. We need to eliminate a lot of the duplication which takes place between levels of government. We need to eliminate a lot of the build up of bureaucracies and the program administration which are in the way of the direct delivery of programs. I have always said that one of the major objectives we have in social reform is to eliminate many of those barriers and hurdles that have built up.

This puts the onus and responsibility on the provinces to figure out ways of doing that. They now have far more freedom and far more choice about how they can reorganize their programs to get those kinds of things because we are taking the restrictive rules off.

As the hon. member knows, the Canada assistance plan had a whole set of rules about what could not be done. A good example in Quebec is the APPORT program which has been a very good incentive to enable people on social assistance to go back to work. We could never fund APPORT under the old rules of the Canada assistance plan. Under our new transfer proposal Quebec can now use funds from the federal government for the APPORT program and therefore have a lot more flexibility.

It seems to be a real example of contradiction to have it being opposed by the Bloc Quebecois when it is in the interest of Quebec to have access to those funds for use in Quebec's own innovative programs.

[Herb Grubel, Reform, Capilano—Howe Sound, BC]

Mr. Speaker, now that I listen to the minister I can understand why some people call him the head dinosaur in the Liberal stable of those who believe that all the solutions to the economic and social problems of Canada are found with the government.

The issue of this budget is one of credibility. One year ago the Minister of Finance said: "We have now made all the cuts that we have to make". It is a matter of credibility not relative to what we have proposed. I think that we have been honest. What is at issue is the untruth, the smoke and mirrors we got in the last budget. It was said that there would be no cuts and especially that social programs were sacrosanct.

The budget speech gives the expenditure reductions by category. Would anyone believe there are cuts planned in health, in Canada Mortgage and Housing which serves the poor, and in veterans affairs? The people who served this country will now

be asked to make sacrifices by this government which promised there would be no cuts at all. One of the biggest cuts has been in heritage and cultural programs. There are cuts in international assistance as well. All of those things were promised to be sacrosanct.

The issue is one of credibility. I stood and applauded these cuts, but the story was given that there would be no cuts in the future. Now we are hearing all kinds of wonderful stories. Why should we believe them this time?

[Lloyd Axworthy, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, by the way, I want to make an official announcement. It is well known that in the next week the Reform caucus room will be renamed Jurassic Park. I hope we will be invited to the opening.

The real question of credibility is what Canadians take as being the honest efforts of a government to balance out its priorities. Those are to make sure that we can start living within our means and using our fiscal system to restore health while at the same time maintaining the kind of justice and compassion that we have.

I think the credibility of the hon. member's own party fell apart in its alternative budget. The Reform Party talks about clawbacks of $3 billion on seniors pensions. It talks about taking away maternity benefits from women. It also talks about virtually doing away with the Canada assistance plan and turning it into some kind of investment program. Imagine a single parent with three children in downtown Toronto saying: "Yes, I have a few thousand dollars. I am going to invest in my own registered retirement savings income security program". That shows no credibility.

We are trying to balance the two off. We know we have to make some cuts. At the same time, we believe in the kind of social reform we are initiating. It enables us to sit down with the provinces and the private sector to establish partnerships for new training programs and new job programs. We all share in the cost. We eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy and we get rid of duplicated programs. It is under those kinds of initiatives that we can begin to use our valuable resources in a much more effective way.

It seems to me that members of the Reform Party have completely and entirely abdicated the notion that good, effective management can bring about better results. Maybe it is because they know they will never have the opportunity to manage anything in the federal Government of Canada at any time, anywhere. Therefore they do not focus on the requirement to ask how to do things better.

The Reform Party has given the name Reform a bad currency. The real meaning of reform is to be able to make effective changes without losing one's values. We have maintained our Liberal values and we are going to make effective changes.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Order. Excuse me, but I must make the following announcement before 5 p.m. 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 Notre-Dame-de-Grâce-gun control; the hon. member for South Shore-tourism; the hon. member for Frontenac-the budget.

[Gaston Leroux, Bloc, Richmond—Wolfe, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure as the member for Richmond-Wolfe and the official opposition's critic for regional development to speak on the occasion of the tabling of the budget.

I would ask permission to first remind this House of one of the major causes of the Canadian deficit, because the aim of this budget is to resolve the problem of the deficit in order to tackle the problem of the debt. Let us have a look at one of the causes of this great catastrophe of the Canadian economy-the debt.

Liberal Pierre Trudeau came to the position of Prime Minister armed with a national vision that was impervious to the many representations made with respect to provincial jurisdiction. This national delusion of grandeur on the part of one political party would take the country of the 1970s down the road to a national debt that is today out of control.

The Liberals' Canadian nationalism formed the ideological foundation for government intervention, given the lack of a real social democratic policy. National unity in the face of rising provincialism provided one vocation for the party and its leader; the other was Canada's independence from the United States. Thus involvement by the central government with the aim of ensuring a Canadian presence in all regions of this vast country gave birth to a monstrous government apparatus, the cost of which is being felt today in the national debt.

Canada's debt is the hidden side of this national liberalism. It is the expression of the collapse of the Liberals and of Canada's economic and political systems. Yes, Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Party of Canada is responsible for the national debt.

Having said this, Canada's debt is now $550 billion, and will climb to $650 billion by 1997-98. The federal government's debt will continue to grow faster than the economy. The net debt will grow from $546 billion in 1994-95, to $578 billion in 1995-96 and will reach $603 billion in 1996-97. The debt, as a percentage of gross domestic product, will peak at 73.5 per cent in 1995-96 before easing off slightly to 73.4 per cent in 1996-97.

Canada's problem is structural. It is directly linked to the Liberals' desire to centralize everything and to stake out an

imposing presence for itself throughout the country. Quebec should have dragged itself out of this quagmire a long time ago.

In the Minister of Finance's 1995-96 budget, the state takes a hands-off approach to this bankrupt country's economy. However, the federal Liberals still have the same desire, the same delusion of grandeur: they have stuck with the same flawed vision they had in the seventies, which was the dream of a unified nation taking its place among the greatest western capitalist countries.

In 1996-97, the government will cut $650 million in transfer payments to Quebec for health, education and welfare, but has no intention of withdrawing from these jurisdictions. The central government is beginning its great withdrawal by merging established programs financing with the Canada assistance plan to create one global transfer program, dubbed the Canada social transfer.

Despite budgetary constraints and the spectre of national bankruptcy hovering over our heads, Ottawa firmly clings to national standards. Abiding steadfastly to federal principles, that is the rampart the government is defending in the budget, with Quebec's referendum looming on the horizon. Make no mistake, this budget is, above all, about decentralizing the deficit accumulated by Liberals Trudeau, Chrétien, Lalonde and Turner, about decentralizing the Liberal debt, starting with cuts in federal transfer payments for post-secondary education, health care and social assistance.

The federal government has withdrawn from its funding role, but the departments where duplication exists remain in place. Did anyone say the Department of Health would be abolished? And when do we get this sweeping structural reform of the federal system? Despite the government's claims since the beginning of this year that it wants to decentralize, the Liberals are still flying the centralist flag. Thanks to national standards, the centralist option is alive and well.

A withdrawing from its funding role in the provinces does not mean the central government has withdrawn its administrative structures. Even if these become increasingly symbolic, they are still costly and, as such, even more damaging to the initiatives of the provinces. The trouble is, the federal withdrawal creates a vacuum. There is a lack of real job creation measures. People are upset about drastic cuts, and there is a consistent lack of regional development policies. For instance, general cuts in transfers to the provinces will have an impact on access to university. This is tough for our young people.

Certain regions may have trouble supporting their universities. This was said by Claude Lajeunesse, president of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. And he should know. The Eastern Townships, where I have the privilege of representing the riding of Richmond-Wolfe, is one of the regions that will be particularly affected by the federal government's new policy, the so-called Canadian Social Transfer, and the attendant cuts in transfer payments. This region, which has two universities and five hospitals, will suffer as a result of these cuts. Let the federal government withdraw, let it disappear and with it the departments of Health and Human Resources Development, let full responsibility be transferred to the regions, with the appropriate tax revenues.

Canada is the G-7 country that invests least in research and development, but the Minister of Finance cut the budget for research and development. In the agricultural sector in Quebec, $10 million will be cut annually over the next three years. This will have a particularly dramatic impact on the development of regions in Quebec that are known for their flourishing dairy industry. We see the same thing happening to the National Research Council of Canada, whose budget will be cut by $76 million over the next three years. Do not try to understand why. The Liberal Party which, throughout its election campaign and in its red book, focused on jobs, advanced technology and competitiveness, is now withdrawing from research and development in Quebec, making the regions poorer in the process.

Another example of a regional catastrophe. The Gaspé and the Maritimes will be particularly affected by the repeal of the Atlantic Region Freight Assistance Act, since $99 million worth of subsidies will be cut.

I would like to welcome my Liberal colleagues, who are coming from behind the curtains to listen to what I have to say.

The federal withdrawal announced in Monday's budget may be described as typical of a routed State, a government that has become so fat that it can no longer move except to reduce this government-made deficit on the backs of others: Quebec and the provinces. For example, Henri Massé, secretary general of the FTQ, reminds us that the total payroll for federal civil servants accounts for only eight per cent of the deficit and he concludes that this is a very cruel budget for the little people. It attacks the most disadvantaged segment of our society, namely the wage earners, while protecting the friends of the regime. The powerful capitalist leaders of the Liberal financial community in Canada are like the angels of the Liberal Party.

We, in the Bloc Quebecois, ask federal public service employees: "Do you not think that your jobs will be safer in a Quebec public service set to expand in a new sovereign country than in this declining federal public service?" Who says that laying off 45,000 employees will produce efficiency gains? What guarantee do we have that, as my hon. colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot said, the "bosses" across the way will not decide to replace the career civil servants who will be laid off with friends of the regime, friends of the Liberal Party?

Again, one of Quebec's regions will have to bear the brunt of indiscriminate federal cuts, as 12,000 federal jobs will no doubt be eliminated in the Outaouais region.

Going once more against what it had announced during the election campaign in terms of employment policies, the Liberal Party is about to cut the budget of its industry department by $560 million. This measure is all the more harmful because it affects peripheral regions.

With respect to the regions, while maintaining a presence, the Liberal government is planning to reduce the budget of regional development agencies by the modest sum of $0.6 billion over a three year period.

The Federal Office of Regional Development-Quebec, the FORDQ, becomes an empty shell that eventually will merge with the Federal Business Development Bank, as indicated in the budget, and play the role of a financial institution.

The implications of the budget are obvious: regional development agencies will channel their assistance to small business. Subsidies will be systematically replaced with refundable contributions and loans. Apparently, the Liberal Party of Canada thinks it can treat regional small businesses and big multinational corporations the same way, because when it cuts 60 per cent of its subsidies to business, it seems to think this should affect regional small businesses as well. And remember, they cut only 60 per cent, when everyone in the official opposition, including Quebec employers, wanted to cut them 100 per cent.

This approach will be very damaging to regional development in Quebec. That being the case, with the FORDQ an empty shell, the federal government should withdraw from regional development altogether, with full compensation for Quebec. The FORDQ is a typical example of duplication and overlap. Programs to help small businesses already exist in Quebec in all administrative regions, including a secretariat for small business at International Affairs.

Quebec cannot afford to remain in a system that maintains duplication and overlap. In any case, Quebec has generally had gained very little as a result of federal regional development policies, and the Minister of Finance's latest budget is a case in point. In fact, we are been advised by the minister that operating budgets of regional development agencies will be cut, and again, Quebec is being hit, this time to the tune of $40.3 million.

Monday's budget is typical of the Liberal philosophy of Canada's financial community. This budget does nothing to relieve the tax burden on the middle class, but maintains tax shelters for the very wealthy and large Canadian corporations. It continues to attack the neediest in this country. In 1995-96, social programs will see their budgets cut by 7.3 per cent; industrial, regional and scientific support programs, 1.8 per cent; heritage and cultural programs, 6.9 per cent; and Transport, 11.4 per cent. Meanwhile, debt charges are expected to increase by 20.7 per cent over the same period.

It is pretty obvious that Canada's financial community is not helping to pay the debt. The job market and the neediest in our society are bearing the brunt of these debt charges. The figures prove it: Over 27 per cent of the cuts to job creation and social programs will be used to pay the 20.7 per cent increase in the cost of servicing the debt.

The budget hits big business and corporations with a disproportionately small share of the deficit and debt fighting measures. Surtaxes on incomes of approximately $115 million were raised from 3 to 4 per cent, income tax rates for large corporations were raised slightly from 0.2 per cent to 0.225 per cent of capital used in excess of $10 million.

Let us not forget the banks. They do not get a permanent tax increase, but a temporary one. A minimal and insignificant tax. The Royal Bank of Canada, you will remember, pocketed $1.2 billion in profits last year. These are but a few examples of how the federal Liberal budget has spared the middle class, only to hit the big Canadian capitalists with mere micky-mouse tax measures, and thus passes by funds that are needed to reduce the deficit.

That is where the money is coming from to reduce the federal deficit. There is nothing in this budget for job creation, which is particularly dramatic for Quebec's regions. The Liberals even have the gall to say that the unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged over the next few years, at approximately 9.5 per cent, that is to say about 11 per cent for Quebec and its regions. The people of Quebec should know the time has come to say "yes" to a sovereign Quebec. It is more important than ever that our powers and decisions be in our own hands and not in the hands of others, like the federal Liberals.

Quebecers will pay dearly if they decide against having a country of their own, a real country that will take control over its public finances and operate the administrative changes required. Unless Quebecers vote for sovereignty this year, unless they choose budget efficiency and structural change, they are headed, as a society, for a situation where Quebec will have less and less control over job creation and will loose all ability to put in place an efficient regional economic recovery plan.

A negative vote at the upcoming referendum will signal the decline of regional development in Quebec, because the present Liberal federal government is showing its true colours in this budget with disastrous consequences for the regions. What the Federal Office of Regional Development, this capitalistic small business loan agency, will become is a parody of regional development. As the Bloc Quebecois critic for regional develop-

ment, I fully support the amendment put forth by my hon. colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot to defeat this budget.

In closing, what it this budget about? What does it mean? This is a pre-referendum budget that does not even let us see right away, in practical terms, that, once again, the federal government is hurting Quebec. The pain it getting pretty unbearable and this pain is like a wound, a wound that will not heal in this federal system. In order to heal, we have to decide for ourselves. Quebec has to choose its own remedies, so that it can be on its way to economic recovery.

It is up to the people of Quebec to choose a positive solution and find a cure to they own ills. To remain in this federal system is to leave our cultural and economic future, which is already seriously compromised, in the hands of individuals who look after and stand for interests other than those of ordinary people in Quebec. The unemployed, the disadvantaged, the ill, the aged, the young, these are the people for whom the federal system never does anything.

No! They work for the financial elite, the big corporations, the banks, the family trusts that will not be taxable until 1999, all close friends of this government, the majority of whom represent English Canada and the financial elite. That is what Canada has always been.

The people of Quebec must take responsibility for their own future, with confidence and openness. Confidence in themselves, in their resources, their strengths and capabilities; open to others as they always have been in their cultural and business relations with Canada, the United States, South America, Europe and the rest of the world.

Confidence and openness are Quebec's two greatest assets for the future. They are what it needs to recover from this incurable federal disease. The future of Quebec, if the people really want it, depends on pride. Pride in the fact that we decide to have a country, in the fact that we are all prepared to be responsible for our economy, our social programs and our culture, and pride in our own perception of the future, the future of generations to come, of our sons and daughters. We put our trust above all in our children, and we must do everything we can to prepare their future and ensure that our contribution in this respect is exceptional and worthy of the responsibility we have as their parents, as their elders.

History is in the making, and we should be proud to be a part of it and to make this exceptional contribution to our joint future. We say yes to this future, for the sake of our children first of all, and we want the people of Quebec to be a strong and vital force in a country that is Quebec.

[Francis Leblanc, Liberal, Cape Breton Highlands—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the speech by the hon. member for Richmond-Wolfe. I know he listened with interest himself to the words of the Minister of Human Resources Development earlier, when he spoke about the overtures made to the provinces to work out a new framework for the social security system, as described in part in the budget, and in other government initiatives to involve the provinces and work with them in a spirit of partnership, so that together they might develop a new social security system that will meet the needs of all Canadians.

Given these initiatives and the position the hon. member has just expressed on Quebec sovereignty, I would like to know whether he thinks there is a happy medium. Would it be possible to work in partnership with the government of Quebec in developing a new generation of social and other programs, which might, in his view, enable the people of Quebec or the government of Quebec to really participate with the rest of Canada in these programs?

Given that the referendum, if the government of Quebec ever sets it in motion, is not a foregone conclusion and that there is a good chance, if not a strong possibility, that Quebecers will say "yes" to Canada, as they have always done, and "no" to separation as proposed by their provincial government, is there any way, in his opinion, consistent with his option, to work together with the government of Canada, other provincial governments and in the other partnerships involved, to improve and renew Canada's social security system?

[Gaston Leroux, Bloc, Richmond—Wolfe, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all I would like to thank my colleague for this very long question with its many parts. First off, I must say that the words dialogue, partnership and co-operation are not just words but are underlying principles in Quebec, underlying principles used by elected members, used in the communities. In Quebec we have always worked through dialogue, partnerships and in co-operation.

To my mind, this is a very clear characteristic of Quebec and in this regard, my hon. colleague, you must have seen the numerous socio-economic summits held in all regions since the 1980s, you must have seen dialogue and partnerships develop between university communities and economic communities. Since then, you must have seen strategic plans evolving for each region in response to the difficult economic situation and to meet development needs.

Yes, my hon. colleague, we have these deeply rooted qualities and we have also worked through partnerships, in co-operation and openly with a great variety of partners in Canada, the United States and other countries.

However, my hon. colleague, we are not attempting to give a history lesson, but we do have a very great deal of patience. Quebec has demonstrated that it has a lot of patience. Quebec has shown that it is a very peace loving nation. We have discussed this Canadian partnership for a very long time now. We have had repeated discussions about many areas of jurisdiction. One must consider that we have suffered heavy blows as a result of these discussions. You will remember that the greatest and most serious blow ever dealt to Quebec was the unilateral patriation of the constitution in 1982.

This unilateral patriation of the constitution, to remind you, followed a major debate in Quebec when honest people believed the speeches stating that a "no" meant "yes" to fundamental change to the system described as a partnership, involving give-and-take and co-operation, when they were told that a "no" meant "yes" to profound reform and to a serious re-affirmation of ties with Quebec. Quebec had the constitution rammed down its throat. Even though the National Assembly voted almost unanimously against patriation. There are limits.

Quebec nevertheless took the "beau risque". We tried to come back, to resume dialogue, to get back into the debate with a partner called Canada and the other provinces. We went through different stages. We survived the Charlottetown experience, we survived Meech, despite the many wounds they inflicted.

Partnership, openness and association with our neighbours are qualities that are still part of the make-up of Quebecers, but it is hard to conceive that association could coexist with renewal.

Yes indeed, dear colleague, Quebec, which will take on the qualities of a sovereign country, will be extremely interested in economic association. Please keep in mind one very important point regarding Quebec's trade balances with the other provinces. In 1989, Quebec bought goods and services for a total of $26 billion from Ontario, $2.2 billion from the Atlantic provinces and $5 billion from the Ottawa region alone. Trade links between these regions do exist.

Yes, dear colleague, we are prepared to work in partnership with friendly countries and in a spirit of openness, co-operation and collaboration, but only on the basis of economic association and only after we have established our sovereignty.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Dear colleague, I would ask you to address the Chair next time. This enables us to depersonalize the debate.

The hon. parliamentary secretary on a point of order.