Madam Speaker, the Bloc Quebecois decided to fight Bill C-76 tooth and nail. Basic reasons motivate us to keep this promise, for example, fairness. All too often, the budget hits the middle class and the needy instead of addressing inequities within the tax system.
The government has refused to review the tax system, despite the Bloc Quebecois' repeated requests over the past year and a half. In addition, the current budget cuts do not target unnecessary or extravagant spending, such as the purchase of furniture for the fisheries minister's office. No, they hit the neediest.
Another example is the army. The Bloc Quebecois recommended cutting the Minister of National Defence's budget, but only targeted unnecessary spending or spending in non-essential areas. For example, Operation William Tell, $7 million; the lavish fishing trips to the tune of $1.2 million; the number of generals, their assistants and retinues of support staff; mansions for high-ranking officers; the Reserves, which cost us some $532 million but have no specific mission, according to several generals.
Instead, with Bill C-76, the government hits the neediest, widows, orphans, and veterans, whose average age is 73 years.
Bill C-76 hits three acts which are administered by Veterans Affairs. The seven clauses of the bill which affect these three acts all cut benefits and allowances.
Clause 42 will have the effect of gradually phasing out education assistance benefits for the children of deceased veterans. In fact, clause 42 amends the Children of Deceased Veterans Education Assistance Act. This amendment initiates the gradual phasing out of a veterans benefit that provides the children of deceased veterans with the assistance they need to continue their education. With a few exceptions, the 85 students now receiving these benefits are the children of deceased military personnel who participated in Canadian peacekeeping missions. Students who were receiving the benefit on the day the budget was tabled will continue to receive it under this legislation but the department will not accept new applications.
Clauses 68 to 72, inclusive, amend the War Veterans Allowance Act by terminating the payment of allowances to allied veterans of resistance groups. As of September 1, 1995 or within two months after Bill C-76 receives royal assent, whichever comes later. The same provision will also initiate the gradual phasing out of allowances payable to allied veterans in uniform who immigrated to Canada at the end of their service and resided in Canada for at least 10 years before applying for veterans allowance.
Bill C-76 will terminate payment of allowances to about 3,000 veterans. Payments will also be terminated in the case of 1,000 veterans of resistance groups whose old age security and Canada Pension Plan benefits raise their incomes just above the threshold below which they would be entitled to certain health care benefits. The provinces will inherit this new set of clients, two thirds of whom are Quebecers.
Clause 73 (a) would terminate compensation for loss of income in the case of veterans who are required to appear before a review board.
Clause 73 (b) would also do away with compensation for income loss and includes other restrictions on travel and living expenses occasioned by a medical examination required by the minister. We oppose this loss of benefits for veterans. Society's disadvantaged-seniors, widows and children-are being attacked.
Let us look at a specific example: a woman in Montreal, a widow, who has just received a notice in the mail. The director general of veterans' benefits at Veterans Affairs Canada, Doris Boulet, is advising her that she will lose all the assistance she has been receiving for a number of years. Under the provisions proposed in Bill C-76, this woman will lose on a number of counts. First, she will lose her allowance. Second, she will no longer enjoy the related benefits she received from Veterans Affairs Canada, including her Blue Cross identity card. Third, she will no longer have access to veterans' independence programs, nor, fourth, to Veterans Affairs Canada contributions to long term health care. In short, she is being abandoned.
The letter tells her to act quickly to find other sources of financial and health care assistance. It reminds her of existing programs: federal government programs, such as old age security and the guaranteed income supplement, and provincial government programs, such as social assistance and health care plans. She is advised that these are her options to help her replace the financial assistance and the other benefits she will no longer enjoy following adoption of Bill C-76.
In fact, the need of that woman is recognized, but she is simply referred to other federal and provincial public services. This is a good example of duplication. That woman is told that she can get help from both the federal and provincial levels. Yet, as I recall, veterans affairs come under federal jurisdiction.
Here is another example. The hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot learned from Branch No. 2 of the Royal Canadian Legion that the Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue hospital is increasing the monthly rate for its rooms from $547 to $704. This increase of 28 per cent brings to 198 per cent the total increase for these veterans since 1990. Veterans are offended, hurt and humiliated by such off-hand treatment on the part of a country they paid to protect. Why penalize these veterans by offloading onto them the financial burden related to the treatment of injuries which they suffered while defending our country? There are many other places cuts could have been made.
If I had suggested that the responsibility of the Department of Veterans Affairs should be decentralized and delegated to the provinces to ensure greater efficiency, federalists would immediately have objected, on the grounds that this is an exclusive federal jurisdiction. Bill C-76 leads us to one conclusion: the federal is no longer able to meet its responsibilities. Why not decentralize by delegating to the provinces responsibilities as well as tax points?
The federal system is obsolete. We need autonomous provinces which would give to the federal government, or to another economic and political union, a mandate and a budget to manage certain joint responsibilities. In short, the Bloc is opposed to the
loss of these benefits for veterans. The poor, the elderly, widows and children are too often the ones who are targeted.