Madam Speaker, I am pleased to address this House on Bill C-91. This bill seeks to do many things, including changing the name of the Federal Business Development Bank, which will become the Business Development Bank of Canada. As they say, what is in a name? What does that name change involve? Let me explain a few things, particularly as regards clause 21, which reads:
The Bank may carry out duties or functions that may be assigned to it by the Designated Minister in relation to the administration of any program supporting Canadian entrepreneurship, to the extent that it is able to recover the costs of carrying out the duties or functions.
The clause says "to the extent that it is able to recover the costs of carrying out the duties or functions". As you know, when a bank lends money, it takes a risk. Here, the level of risk is not defined. We have reservations about that.
The minister responsible for implementing the act can ask the Business Development Bank of Canada to support Canadian entrepreneurship by carrying out duties or functions currently assigned to other federal departments or agencies.
Bill C-91 seeks to ensure that the Federal Office of Regional Development-Quebec, better known as the FORD-Q, will be the provider of federal services and programs to small and medium size businesses.
I have several objections regarding this bill. First, this legislation is another centralizing measure which will create unnecessary and costly duplication. Bill C-91 completely eliminates the role of the provincial government in terms of helping small and medium size businesses.
As you know, this contradicts the Liberal government's claims that it wants to abolish duplication and overlap with the provinces. This centralizing attempt is obvious in clauses 20 and 21, which will allow the Business Development Bank of Canada to enter into agreements with other federal departments to deliver assistance to small and medium size businesses directly.
The agreements signed, including with the Federal Office of Regional Development for Quebec, will allow the federal government to interfere more in regional development projects. I did not say "to get involved", but to "interfere", which is definitely not the same. "To get involved" is to act like a partner, while "to interfere" is to usurp a place when you are not invited.
Clause 20 of the bill provides that the Business Development Bank of Canada may enter into agreements directly with any other body or person. That means that it could have agreements with regional development councils, which is precisely what the FORD-Q would like. In Quebec, the Act respecting the Ministère du Conseil exécutif does not allow agencies under provincial jurisdiction to enter into agreements with the federal government without the minister's approval. We can see here the difference between partnership and interference.
Consider the context of clause 20, which is far from innocuous because the Quebec legislation could be bypassed. Given the present budgetary restrictions, if the federal government wants to fund projects advocated by a regional development council, the council will strongly pressure the Quebec government for an exemption. Unfortunately, this is already a common occurrence. The federal and provincial governments are on a collision course because of legislation that does not foster partnership, but interference in a local process.
Once again, we have the federal government blatantly disregarding the very existence of the Quebec government and securing the legislative authority to act without prior consultation with Quebec or, for that matter, any other province. I am referring to the Quebec situation because I am familiar with it, but all provinces will suffer from the adverse impact of this bill.
My second misgiving concerns regional development and more particularly the federal government's centralist attack that is in direct contradiction with Quebec's regionalization policy.
I had the honour and the privilege to sit on the National Capital Commission-and I am talking about Quebec City and the future of Quebec-and I heard the presentations made by many stakeholders who believed that regionalization in the province of Quebec is crucial. However, the federal government has never recognized that regional development is an area of exclusive provincial jurisdiction.
During every round of constitutional negotiations, Ottawa has ignored our demand. Instead, Ottawa promised the government of Quebec to limit its presence in the regions to what is provided for under the Canada-Quebec framework agreements. However, ERDA, the Economic and Regional Development Agreement to which my distinguished colleague referred earlier, came to an end, that was in December 1994 I think, and the federal government has refused to renew it. The Canada-Quebec agreement has expired.
Without joint programs with the government of Quebec, the mandate of FORD-Q becomes practically obsolete. So, to maintain its visibility in the regions, the federal government has found nothing better than to redefine the mandate of FORD-Q.
Nowadays, FORD-Q is known as the delivery arm for all the small businesses assistance programs set up by the federal departments and will be able, on the one hand, to provide assistance services to small and medium size businesses through a single information window and, on the other hand, to develop new programs, particularly for exporting SMBs, through federal departments.
A third concern of mine has to do with the fact that the federal government prefers to withdraw from social program funding. It is well known. It takes the taxpayers' money to create useless overlaps with Quebec agencies which support small and medium size businesses.
The 1995 federal budget, as we know, cut more than $7 billion from social programs. The federal government is asking people to make sacrifices because it has no more money. It even uses the surplus in the unemployment insurance fund-of all things-which is financed by employers and employees. And what does it do with this money? It finances new child care programs, new programs to fight against poverty, new manpower training programs, which, it must be said, all infringe on provincial jurisdictions.
Unfortunately, the federal government is in no hurry when it comes to responding to Quebec's demands, which are that it withdraw from the fields of manpower training and regional development and reduce this costly and useless duplication. However, Ottawa continues to ignore Quebec's demands, even though this waste of money affects taxpayers and creates an administrative mess, because the beneficiaries of these programs no longer know where to turn. Moreover, it creates unproductive and unhealthy competition between programs that are not even based on the same strategies. And that is where the problem lies. These programs are not based on the same strategies. Strategies which are useful, necessary and beneficial to Quebec are not necessarily the ones chosen by the federal government.
I will conclude by saying that I regret that this bill has been proposed in this form by the government and that I fervently hope that, this fall, Quebec will take control of its destiny and that we will no longer have to engage in these pointless negotiations cap in hand, with Ottawa, but rather will be able to negotiate as equals with the goal of a happy and healthy prosperity for all.