Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to participate in this debate on the official opposition's motion denouncing the excessive centralization of powers by the federal government, which is preparing, without saying anything and without consultations, a new, centralized Canada by passing at least the four bills we mentioned.
I will not repeat my colleagues' extremely important and interesting explanations on Bill C-88, Bill C-91 and Bill C-46. I, however, have a lot to say about the bill to implement the budget. But first, I would like to talk about unemployment and poverty in Quebec.
I want to explain why the sovereignists here in Ottawa and in Quebec want to achieve sovereignty, after all the years of repeatedly trying to convince others that Quebec needs more than crumbs and federal commissions. Because we are a people and a nation, we need control over Quebec's economic and social development. Let us talk about poverty. This year, Quebec won the award for poverty.
In its report released this year, the Family and Social Affairs Council showed that, in 1993, Quebec came first among poor provinces for the number and percentage of people and families living below the poverty line.
Last month, 803,900 people-372,000 households-were on welfare in Quebec. This figure includes people who are willing to work and a large number of children we are concerned about, because children raised with the bare minimum often lack what they need in life to develop normally.
Poverty has many causes but that is not what we hear because of the strong prejudices against poor people, who are already facing great difficulties. In summary, poverty is not only a lack of money but also a deep sense of failure, of insecurity, of vulnerability, of worthlessness. All additional failures, such as fruitless job searches, problems with the spouse or children, and
difficulties in finding suitable housing or in meeting nutritional needs, further marginalize the poor.
Losing a job often leads to poverty. By making drastic cuts to UI, the government has reduced the number of recipients, not because there are fewer unemployed workers, but because a smaller number of them are eligible for benefits.
In Canada, only 49 per cent of the unemployed qualified for UI benefits last month, as compared to 77 percent in 1990. As far as unemployment is concerned, the rate is 14.4 per cent in Quebec and it is seasonally adjusted, while the rate of unemployment in Ontario is 8.7 per cent. That is almost three percentage points lower.
To compare Quebec to Ontario or the rest of Canada, we must consider not only the number of persons who are unemployed, but more appropriately the number of persons who are employed; this is called the employment population ratio. It is quite simple. If 65 per cent of the population 15 and older has a job, therefore producing wealth, spending money on clothes and putting some in the bank, much more wealth will be produced than if 50 per cent of the same population was employed.
When you look at the difference between employment and population, you notice differences much greater and more alarming than those for unemployment. For example, the employment population ratio for Ontario is 59 per cent, as compared to 53.8 per cent in Quebec. This means that, quite apart from the unemployment rate, thousands of jobs would be required just for Quebec to match the level of employment in Ontario.
That is not all. What is absolutely tragic is that, if you compare Quebec to the rest of Canada, if you compile statistics on all of Canada minus Quebec, what do you find? You find that the overall employment population ratio for Canada is 59 per cent, while in Quebec, as I indicated earlier, it is only 53.8 per cent. This is a very substantial gap.
It is important to remind you why we are angry in Quebec, and I am not referring only to our anger but to the anger we can feel brewing in many people, ordinary citizens who are unable to find work, who are given funny looks by UI or welfare officers because they always take them for defrauders at first, and the anger of community groups striving to help those in need, and seeing their resources cut time and time again while the need for assistance continues to grow.
You may wonder what this has to do with the motion. The connection between the two is extremely important because, after a long process- of which I will relate the details, time permitting-we came to the conclusion that our only chance to make it was to take control of all the levers, to pass all our legislation, to collect all our taxes, and to sign all our treaties, including treaties with the rest of Canada.
Let me read you a text which I recently came upon. It was written by René Lévesque, then a federalist Liberal minister responsible for family and welfare issues, at a conference on poverty held in Ottawa, on December 10, 1965.
Mr. Lévesque said: "It is absolutely essential, to use a redundancy, that the government primarily responsible for developing and implementing these measures on our territory be the Quebec government. This is the only way to ensure efficient action. It is also the only way to implement a co-ordinated policy for economic and social development which will truly put the accent on the individual".
We could use those same words today to explain our program.
Mr. Lévesque added: "We do not feel it necessary to prove that our government is closer to its population than Ottawa is. Our government is by far in the best position to adapt the possible solutions to the needs of its citizens. It is so because our government has the immediate data on land development, and also because it can monitor the implementation of its selected policies and make necessary changes without having to wait for federal-provincial conferences which take ages to organize or which are useless".
I might add that there has not been any federal-provincial conference on the vital issue of manpower since this government took office.
Mr. Lévesque continued by saying: "Moreover, our government can more easily enlist the co-operation of its citizens than the federal government could. This is important at a time when the issues of democratic planning and concerted action by citizens and their government take on a greater significance. Moreover, how could we possibly ensure the necessary co-operation in the socio-economic sector if, in addition to the usual problems related to co-ordinating the efforts of a large number of Quebec departments, we would also have to take into account similar initiatives and projects by the federal government? To raise the question is to answer it".
Those words were written by René Lévesque in 1965, when he was a Liberal minister, in his last days as a federalist.
In those days, René Lévesque thought it was possible to have some kind of arrangement with Ottawa while keeping control in Quebec. We are a people. We are a nation. In our house-our economic and social development-we cannot have two architects, two teams of engineers working their own way, with
separate budgets, and giving orders. That is what our motion is all about.
The federal government is making the plan of our house, with our money and without consulting us, when we already have a plan in Quebec. We do not have all the money we need, because part of it was coming to us from transfers originating in our own pockets. In our confederation, the constitution gives the federal government the power to collect money to spend in areas that are outside its jurisdiction.
So, the federal government uses our own money to draw the plan of our house without consulting us, while, on our side, we try as best we can, with whatever means left to us, to prevent the worst, in a situation where we have 803,000 welfare recipients and more than 327,000 unemployed, not to mention people who have given up, and the young who have no hope.
It is hard to keep calm when we hear the federal government bragging that it brought its deficit under control. How dit it manage to do it? By transferring cuts instead of money to provinces, and more particularly Quebec. I stressed how, more than ever, Quebec's economy needs only one architect and only one team of engineers working under the control of that architect, in co-operation with others when information is needed. However, we just cannot continue with this madhouse being built at the people's expense, in spite of the 130 members elected by Quebecers out of a total of 200 at both levels of government.
Quebecers elect, at both the federal and provincial levels, 200 parliamentarians, 130 of whom are sovereignists. They are fed up with the central government using taxpayers' money to try to build a house they do not want, with blueprints they do not want, and for whose satisfaction? To satisfy those who, since confederation, think they are the only ones who know what kind of house should be built, and how.
Now, we happen to be a nation. We are not only a distinct society, but a nation. We are a nation according to every existing international criterion, the main one being the collective will to live. This collective will to live is our main mandate to see to it that our house is built following our blueprints and, moreover, with our money.
I want to read, if I may, a motion that I have just this instant received, and that has just been tabled in the National Assembly: "That the Quebec National Assembly call upon the federal government to review its Bill C-91, which will have the effect of sanctioning the federal government's interference and increasing duplication in regional development".
This comes just at the right moment in my speech. Yes, we will do our utmost to explain that to Quebecers, who have had about as much as they can take of the problems of everyday life-and we can understand that sometimes they do not know which way to turn. We will try to explain to them that it is absurd, with our limited resources, to have two teams of architects contradicting each other, whereas there is only one team they can control democratically. The only one they can control democratically is the one they elect.
Some could say: "Oh! but why is it not Ottawa that looks after all of Canada's economy?" We could have a group of economists who would disagree on many things, but who would agree on one thing, that is as culture goes, so goes the economy. The Japanese do not think like the French, the Germans or the Americans when it comes to the economy and money. What is working for Toyota in Japan is not necessarily working in Mississauga.
The same is true for Boisbriand versus Mississauga. Why? Because culture has a profound influence on how we work, on how we create, on how we organize, on how we sell, on what we decide to work on. It is in the name of this culture, in a broad sense, and in the name of this nation that we are saying in this House, and I understand that it can be annoying, that the movement will not stop. As René Lévesque, who was to become the founder of the Parti Quebecois, said in 1965, once a movement has started, nothing can stop it.
It would be better to start realizing that we will have to negotiate together, but let no one think that they are going to sneak one past us, that they are going to ignore us and create a Canada in which we will not feel perfectly at home, with our money and against our interests. I spoke mostly of Quebec, but I would like to conclude by saying that if the bills in question allow for a better development of Canada, I would say great, if that is what you want. I respect your culture and I respect the fact that that is how you want to develop, but for Quebec, and I am speaking in the name of the majority of members elected by Quebecers, it will not do.