Madam Speaker, thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak again to some elements of the finance minister's budget through Bill C-76, which implements, in particular, three important provisions regarding transfer payments to the provinces, rail trans-
port and part of sea transport, as well as labour relations in the Canadian public service.
If I may, I would like to focus my remarks on the part of Bill C-76 dealing with transfers to the provinces. I will let my colleagues address other important aspects of Bill C-76 during this debate but, if I may, I would like to focus my presentation this morning on the important issue of transfers to the provinces.
As members know, Bill C-76, as announced in the budget speech by the Minister of Finance, provides for the elimination in 1996-97 of two federal transfer programs. The first program, commonly called the Canada Assistance Plan or CAP, is the federal government's contribution to the various social assistance programs implemented by the provinces. This contribution amounts to 50 per cent of the social assistance budget in most Canadian provinces.
The second transfer program to be eliminated, commonly called EPF or Established Programs Financing, is the federal government's contribution to the cost of provincial health care and post-secondary education.
Starting in 1996-97, Bill C-76, which derives from the finance minister's budget speech, would replace these two programs with a single payment called the Canada Social Transfer.
There is a snag, however. Before giving the money to the provinces, the federal government would slash the funds historically allocated to the Canada Assistance Plan, health care and post-secondary education. One might say that, in the next few years, the federal government will make cuts to this proposed single payment, this block funding, to the provinces.
It will cut transfers to the provinces by $7 billion over the next three years. I would put it to you, as we have repeatedly said before and as we can never say often enough, that this so-called reform of federal transfers is just a plot to offload onto the provinces deficit problems that the Minister of Finance is unable to solve.
In 1996-97, the cuts in transfers will be distributed among the provinces according to each province's share of transfers for Established Programs Financing and the Canada Assistance Plan. Under clause 15 in Part V of Bill C-76, Quebec will be deprived of more than $650 million as of next year.
In 1997-98, the Canada Social Transfer-imagine calling it a social transfer-will be distributed among the provinces according to criteria to be negotiated. Although technical, the distribution criteria are crucial for the financial future of the Canadian provinces, and Quebec in particular.
Although my demonstration may appear technical, I urge you, Madam Speaker, to pay attention because it is of paramount importance in helping us understand the smoke screen, the fraud, the sham that is the reform proposed by the Minister of Finance.
If the criteria established to determine how this fund will be distributed among the provinces, if the method of distribution remains the same as it is today, Quebec will have a $1.2 billion shortfall in 1997-98. I put it to you that this is not likely to happen since, according to the Minister of Human Resources Development, the method of distribution may be changed because, for example, Ontario-which elected a large number of Liberal members-demands such changes. Ontario, the wealthiest of Canadian provinces, feels discriminated against under the current distribution criteria because it does not receive a share consistent with its demographic weight within Canada.
In spite of what it may have been saying since the tabling of the budget, the federal government wants to change the allocation criteria of the fund, which was originally targeted for social assistance, health and post-secondary education, and use the demographic weight of the provinces as the primary criterion for allocating these moneys. In other words, Ontario, which has the largest population, would get the largest share, even though it is also the richest province. We keep asking the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister about this issue, and neither one will deny the intention to split the Canada Social Transfer according to the population criterion.
If this is the case, and if our fears are founded, the result would be catastrophic, particularly for Quebec's public finances. Such a system might also be unfair. Indeed, if the population of a province is the criterion used, as suggested by the Minister of Human Resources Development and not denied by the Minister of Finance or the Prime Minister, Quebec would absorb 41.7 per cent of the total reduction in provincial transfers, in 1997-98.
If this allocation criteria is used, Quebec's shortfall will go up from $1.2 billion, based on the current allocation system, to close to $2 billion in 1997-98. Quebec's public finances would already suffer a loss in 1997-98. The federal government is saying to the Quebec government: it is your problem; we did not have the guts to assume our responsibilities, but you do it. A shortfall of $2 billion is not peanuts.
Two billion dollars. And the government has the nerve to imply that it might not be the case. The members opposite do not deny anything, yet we are told that this might not be the case. Even if the current criterion is maintained, there will be a $1 billion shortfall. If you use the population as the allocation criterion for this federal money, that shortfall climbs up to $2 billion.
Someone will have to do some planning in Quebec. We do not know what awaits us? Why is that? It is because this government lacks the courage to get down to work, to assume its responsibilities and exert tighter control over Canadian public finances, but it is also because it is incredibly hypocritical. This government knows that Quebec is about to launch a referendum campaign and that Quebecers will have to make a crucial decision this year.
Consequently, it does not want to show its true colours. It does not want to show that the federal system is obsolete and going bankrupt. It does not want to show that the federal budget will hurt Quebecers, who will have to pay more and more taxes for fewer and fewer services, and who will witness a crisis in their provincial public finances, thanks to Ottawa. The federal government is hiding all that.
I can tell you that the allocation of federal money based on the population criterion is being formally discussed among top government officials. These senior public servants are saying: do not mention the fact that we told you. Do not mention the fact that this government is hypocritical, that it is waiting for Quebecers to decide on their political and constitutional future before giving them a shock treatment and making them pay and get bad news year after year, since this federal system can no longer survive and can only cause serious damage to Canadian public finances. Where is this said? Nowhere. Why? Because it would be tantamount to telling Quebecers: "Look, this is hurting you and it will continue to hurt you year after year".
This system is taking us nowhere, with the morose political and social climate it will be creating for the next few years, because cosmetic and hypocritical changes like those regarding transfer payments to the provinces will not fix the basic problem of the system. The problem is that it is a big machine, totally outdated and completely dysfunctional, no longer capable of meeting the needs of the 1990s and of the next century. The government will certainly not tell us that before the referendum.
Regarding transfers to the provinces, Bill C-76 also contains a provision that I consider cynical and arrogant, particularly as far as Quebec is concerned. Clause 13, Part V, provides for the maintenance of national health standards and the introduction of new national standards in the areas of social assistance and post-secondary education. Provinces who do not comply will lose their entitlement.
Imagine that, they will be cut off. As if what we get back from the federal government in the form of transfer payments was all Ottawa's to begin with. As if these public funds were a gift from this munificent federal benefactor to the provinces. The fact is that this is taxpayers' money being redistributed to taxpayers in Quebec as elsewhere.
In Quebec, we pay the federal government $30 billion in taxes each year, $30 billion. And they are threatening us? They say that new national standards on social assistance and post-secondary education will be introduced and that provinces who do not comply with these standards-which may be sheer nonsense in relation to the socioeconomic and cultural reality in Quebec-will see their transfers cut off.
Madam Speaker, can you imagine what that could mean to have, in Quebec, education standards imposed by the anglophone majority in Canada? Do you have any idea? Can you imagine how this sounds to Quebecers, with all the historical references we have?
Can you imagine Clyde Wells, in Newfoundland, with his friends and accomplices elected to the federal Parliament, determining indirectly, through Canada-wide standards, the content and goals of the education system in Quebec? Can you believe that we will be entitled to only 25 per cent of the power of decision over post-secondary education matters? Is that what the people of Quebec want? I do not think so.
They should know, however, that this is what this government stands for. We know what the introduction of Canada-wide education standards means. It means that Ontario, Newfoundland, the anglophone majority in Canada will have a say in how our education system, this system through which our identity and culture as Quebecers is perpetuated and passed on from one generation to the next, should operate. That is what is proposed, what this says.
We are told not to worry because, before Canada-wide standards can be implemented, negotiations will be held with the provinces and a consensus will be have to be reached. This is not a guarantee that there will be no Canada-wide standards. Given this government's record, a government that forced the repatriation of the constitution upon us, in spite of the numerous objections raised by Quebec, and the Quebec National Assembly in particular, we can easily imagine that these Canada-wide education and social assistance standards will be implemented.
This measure may not have a financial impact, but I can assure you that its political impact and the impact it will have on Quebec's culture and cultural future are indeniable. That is what is unacceptable to the official opposition, the Bloc Quebecois.
It should come as no surprise that this bill contains a provision that thumbs its nose at historic facts and ignores the need for Quebecers to control 100 per cent of their future, their culture and what they are. It should come as no surprise that this political bludgeon should materialize in a bill on public finances.
I am certainly not surprised, and this week I had the same reaction when a motion was tabled in the House on Quebec's representation in the House of Commons, asking for guarantees-as was the case in the draft constitutional agreements that followed the demise of Meech Lake-that Quebec would have
25 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons, and I even saw Quebec members of the Liberal Party vote against the motion.
I saw the hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi, the newly elected member, the other guy's brother, rise in the House to say he was against guaranteeing 25 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons. I saw the Minister of Finance and member for LaSalle-Émard rise in the House to vote against guaranteeing Quebec 25 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons. This is a man who represents Quebecers, Madam Speaker, and he rose in the House to vote against this guarantee of representation in the House of Commons.
So it should come as no surprise to see one of the main pillars of the preservation and renewal of Quebec culture, our education system, bludgeoned in this way, and I am referring to the possibility that national standards will be imposed and that decisions will be made elsewhere on the orientation, content and objectives of our education. I am no longer surprised. Nothing would surprise me in this Parliament. Nothing would surprise me, coming from this Liberal government and its few distinguished members from Quebec.
It is a disgrace. I felt sick to my stomach this week when I saw that. I had the same feeling I did last week, when I saw a member from Manitoba speak out against revoking the conviction of Louis Riel for high treason. This was hard to stomach, especially from a member for the same riding Louis Riel represented before he was hanged for high treason. What is going on here? I knew, and we could tell from the outside before we were elected, and now we can see it firsthand. What is happening here is a disgrace, a patent denial of our history, and again, this refusal to make amends for certain historic facts that are a disgrace to Canada and Canadian federalism.
They tell us: Do not worry, national standards will be negotiable. It does not say anywhere in this bill that national standards will require unanimity or a consensus among the provinces. The federal government reserves the right to apply them whether the provinces agree or not. Here, the old guard is up to its old tricks: the current Prime Minister, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Human Resources Development were all there in the previous Liberal government. They are up to their old tricks of wanting to tell the provinces what to do and arrogantly imposing a centralist vision on all Canadian provinces, including one province they feel is just like the others, and they say that right here, and I am of course referring to Quebec.
It is the same gang that misled us in 1980, when those federalist members, now ministers, were out on the hustings. One is now Prime Minister. They went around saying: If you vote no in the referendum on sovereignty, it will be a yes to renewed federalism, yes to decentralization and yes to flexibility. A year later, they literally shunted Quebec and the Premier of Quebec and Quebec's aspirations aside, saying: We have an agreement, the federal government has an agreement with the other Canadian provinces, and Quebec will have to go along. That is happening now with a very ordinary bill to implement certain provisions of the budget of the Minister of Finance.
The old gang, the one responsible for the show of force in 1981, patriated the constitution. We have to keep saying this. We tend to forget what happened. Despite the near unanimous decision of the Quebec legislature, the Liberal government of the time patriated the constitution. This was the government of Mr. Trudeau, who is no longer a member here, and his acolytes-the present Prime Minister, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Human Resources Development and others. The Liberal government, at that time, also ensured Quebec's exclusion. I tell you I see the hand of the old gang in this bill. This is the gang that is telling Quebec: "Forget your nationalist and sovereignist claims, that is all over, you are going to be included. You will have to bend and we will make you bend", to the delight of the Reform Party members.
The government's objective with regard to transfer payments to the provinces is clear. The government presented things clearly too. It wanted to avoid having to make difficult decisions this year, because, with the Quebec referendum, it would mean revealing the failure of the federal system. Furthermore, it wanted to try and minimize the impact of cuts in social assistance, post-secondary education and health care transfers to the provinces. These cuts are serious.
The government, and its Minister of Finance, is an old hand at deception, illusion and hypocrisy. It managed to leave the impression that these cuts would hurt neither Canadians nor Quebecers. It managed to do what it wanted. Things this year do not look too bad, really. However, for next year, it covered up the fact that everyone is going to have to pay and that it is going to be tough and will keep on being tough. It will keep on being tough until 2050, because the system is outdated and does not work anymore.
I will tell you that the shortfall the Quebec government will be facing in the next few years is equivalent to the operating budgets of all of the hospitals in Quebec, except those in Montreal and Quebec City. This is a considerable amount. The money to operate all the hospitals in the outlying regions, that is what the federal government is cutting from its transfers to the provinces.
In other words, in this budget, with regard to transfers, the federal government is making Quebec and the other provinces shoulder the offensive part of the reform, which the Minister of Human Resources Development was unable to complete, for the moment, and which the Prime Minister wanted to keep under
wraps this year for strictly political reasons. I tell you-this is unacceptable.
In essence, the approach, the thinking, by the Minister of Human Resources Development is more or less as follows. I would not be stating it too directly by putting it this way: social programs and unemployment insurance have to be cut in order to stimulate job creation and growth. Imagine, Madam Speaker, hitting the unemployed and the poorest people in our society in an effort to stimulate growth and boost job creation. What great thinking. It sounds like Liberal thinking to me. It sounds like Liberal ideals.
I tell you, as is often said: this Liberal government is the most Conservative government Canada has ever had. Its thinking runs totally counter to Liberal thinking.
And I repeat, it is too important not to, that we have noticed over our 16 months here that the government believes it should cut social programs and unemployment insurance in order to create jobs and stimulate the economy. Even the ultraconservatives of the last century were less direct, less tough than that.