Debates of Oct. 21st, 1996

Poverty

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, last week the Prime Minister championed the cause of the homeless. He told everyone in Canada that he was aware of their problem, that he was very sensitive to the problem and that he saw people like these every day and talked to them.

My question is as follows: Will the Prime Minister admit that his government's record, which shows that it has concentrated far more on reducing the federal deficit than on dealing with the problems of those who live in poverty, is a clear indication that the Prime Minister is far more inclined to listen to those who are prepared to pay $1,000 for a Liberal Party fund-raising dinner than to the homeless and the poor of this country?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, in the speeches I made last week, I made it clear to Canadians that there are social problems that remain to be dealt with in this country and that as soon as we have achieved our objectives-and I am glad to see that the Minister of Finance is well ahead of the forecasts he made a few years ago and that we will have a balanced budget a few years from now-and I told the business people I met that before concentrating exclusively on tax cuts like the Reform Party is doing, we had to remember that we still had problems to deal with, that there were poor people in our society. That is what I told business people in Toronto and Winnipeg, and I told them that was our priority.

In the course of my life I have met people who live on the street. I met some of them and talked to them, and that is why we want Canadian society to function properly and why we want a government that is in good shape, so that we can really look after their problems. That is our abiding concern.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister keeps saying that there are still problems in this country, as if he had started to deal with the problems of the poor. However, that is not the case. The number of poor people and poor children has increased steadily since 1993, when his party came to power.

Does the Prime Minister realize that by cutting the Canada social transfer, money that is used for health care, education and social assistance, he is aggravating the problems of the poor by forcing provincial governments to reduce funding for measures that are intended to support people who are in need? Will he at least admit that?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, despite the cuts we had to make, in his February budget the Minister of Finance directed $250 million more towards helping the poor through a system of tax rebates for their benefit.

I agree we have made cuts, but clearly, if the hon. member looks into this he will realize that when you take federal transfers to provincial governments-in his case, to the Government of Quebec-since we came to power we have not reduced our transfer payments. Some transfers have gone down, but equalization payments have gone up, so that today Quebec receives about the same amount it received when we came to power.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister just misspoke himself. The poor, the people we are talking about, do not pay income tax. That is what I am trying to explain to the Prime Minister. We cannot use fiscal measures to help those

who are in need because they do not have enough money to pay income tax. And that is a fact.

One of the measures introduced by this government was employment insurance reform. Will the Prime Minister admit that as a result of this reform, his government has forced thousands of unemployed workers, tens of thousands of unemployed workers, to go on welfare? Does the Prime Minister think this is the kind of measure that will help the neediest in our society?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, to answer the first part of his question, I would like to say that even people who do not pay income tax receive tax credits. In other words, if they do not have to pay taxes and they are entitled to tax credits, the government sends them the money to which they are entitled. If I am not mistaken, the same applies to the GST. These are amounts that are paid directly to them by the government.

I repeat that we have tried to put our finances in order, and today, we enjoy the benefits of this policy because interest rates are at their lowest levels since 1958. Last week, a political leader said that reducing interest rates was a priority. I am referring to the Premier of Quebec, Mr. Bouchard.

Unemployment Insurance

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development. But first, I would like to say, to follow up on what has just been said, that the unemployment rate has gone up, again.

On October 9, the Minister of Human Resources Development said he wanted to assure all Canadians that the employment insurance program had become a more active measure or insurance program. He stated that a total of $800 million will be injected into this program every year.

According to a departmental document, however, not only is this $800 million investment not assured, but making this investment possible will require recovering a further $365 million per year, and the measures planned to recover the amounts collected by people who cheat the system will not be enough. As a result, a special recipient assistance services will be established.

Will the minister admit that this $800 million will not be available for active measures unless an extra $365 million is recovered every year?

[Pierre Pettigrew, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development]

Mr. Speaker, what I will say is that the new employment insurance program makes work more attractive and is designed to encourage unemployed Canadians to go back to work, and that we want to help them through active measures. I think this is very important.

The envelopes I was referring to last week represent an $800 million improvement over what would have been the case had no changes been made to the employment legislation. By the year 2000, if the calculations are correct and they will be, approximately $2.7 billion in active measures will be available to unemployed Canadians who want to find jobs and re-enter the labour force.

This is therefore $800 million more than what would have been available otherwise.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, not only is this not $800 million more, but the question I just asked the minister was this: Does he or does he not admit that, according to his own officials, in order for this $800 million to be generated, an extra $365 million will have to be drawn from the system every year by going after people who cheat the system-and in cases of real fraud, we agree-but also through a proactive approach in which all recipients may well be treated like potential abusers?

[Pierre Pettigrew, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development]

Mr. Speaker, I can assure you that, when we talk about recovering certain sums, the labour market is very different today from what it was 15 or 20 years ago. We will do our best to break away from the past and deal with the current situation.

Very often, businesses use employment insurance to alter the labour market playing field. They are the ones we intend to go after, not those individuals who are eligible for benefits and whom we want to help. We have compassion for these individuals and want to help them re-enter the labour force.

But we will not let employment insurance become a tool in the hands of businesses to be used to alter the labour market playing field. In a word, we are against fraud but in favour of showing compassion for those who truly need assistance.

Employment

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, last week the Prime Minister said not to read his lips but to read his record. That record is pretty dreadful.

There are 1.4 million unemployed Canadians, two to three million who are underemployed, 500,000 who have given up looking for work. One in four Canadians is worried about losing his or her job. There are record bankruptcies, record levels of personal debt, plummeting personal incomes, record taxation levels and a list of broken promises as long as your arm. It is a record to be

ashamed of. The government has not learned the lesson that taxes, taxes, taxes kill jobs, jobs, jobs.

When is the government going to stop breaking the backs of tax worried Canadians and start shrinking government and lowering taxes? That is what creates jobs.

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, given this new found interest in jobs perhaps I should remind the hon. member what his leader said in 1993. In Penticton, Reform leader Preston Manning said it would take up to three years before any job creation would occur under his party's economic plan.

In fact, he acknowledged that his zero in three plan could actually cost more jobs in the interim and then he went on when asked a further question he said: "What is the alternative?" The alternative was the government that was elected. It has seen the private sector create close to 700,000 new jobs. That is 700,000 more jobs than the Reform Party would have created.

[The Speaker]

Colleagues, I would remind members to please not use each other's name in the House. Use a title or riding.

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am surprised the finance minister is still fighting the last election.

Since the government has taken power the average family has lost $3,000 of annual spending power because of tax increases. Under the Reform's tax cut proposals a single income family of four with an income of $30,000 will pay 89 per cent less in federal tax. The Reform plan offers low and middle income Canadians real tax relief.

Will the finance minister stop the attack on Canadian families and announce today that it is time to give Canadians a pay raise after years of Liberal-Tory national pay cuts?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, let us understand what the Reform Party recommended in its document last week. In its $2,000 tax reduction, a one earner couple with two children and an income of $15,000 by its numbers would save $420.

The same one earner couple with two children and an income of $100,000 would save $3,200 a year and more that made a capital gain.

That is progressivity according to the Reform Party. This is a tax cut for the wealthiest Canadians and it is done in order to pay for the gutting of the basic social programs that protect the middle class in this country.

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the finance minister has a lot of gall when he talks about tax relief for high income Canadians.

Using Reform's tax cut proposal, according to a StatsCanada econometric model that we had run this morning, over a million low income Canadians would no longer have to pay taxes. That would leave money in their pockets where it is desperately needed instead of in the pockets of bureaucrats and high-flying politicians where it is usually wasted.

When is the government going to realize that its rinky-dink, make work, job creation programs are not the way to help Canadians and that cutting the size of government and giving Canadians real tax relief is?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the Reform Party likes to think it has done something new. Essentially it is recommending that we rob the poor to pay the rich.

For anybody who wants to understand what the government has done, let me quote Carl Weinberg of High Frequency Economics, the American expert on what has happened in this country. He said that you can now price Canadian securities on the basis of domestic economic fundamentals rather than slavishly marking up U.S. yields. That is what happened. He said it is a whole new world.

He goes on to say that what is happening in Canada right now is one of the boldest experiments in macroeconomics that has ever been undertaken. It is a sea change in the way we will have to think about this country.

[The Speaker]

Now that we are back in shape, we have to close in a little bit on the questions and the answers.

Communications

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

Mr. Speaker, this is only Monday. On March 19, the heritage minister returned DMX's license to the CRTC because the proposed Canadian and French content of the company's audio programming was clearly insufficient. However, on October 11, the minister granted the license to DMX, even though the situation was still essentially the same.

Since DMX's proposal is basically the same in October as it was in March, can the heritage minister explain what made her change her mind and grant a license to DMX?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, the answer is the same as the one I gave before recess, about a week ago. The reason is that, thanks to our intervention, the two companies involved have increased their Canadian content by 25 per cent.

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

Mr. Speaker, the minister's reputation for calculating speaks for itself. How can the heritage minister intimate that DMX increased its Canadian content, considering that 17 of the 35 channels DMX intends to

offer will be programmed in the United States, where no Canadian content requirement applies? Do the calculation and tell me about it.

[The Speaker]

Dear colleagues, you must always address the Chair.

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, the calculation is as follows. The CRTC requires a 30 per cent Canadian content from Canadian cable operators. DMX and Power raised their Canadian content to 40 per cent. The difference between 30 and 40 per cent represents the 25 per cent increase I told you about a week ago.

Employment Insurance

[Jim Silye, Reform, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the new Minister of Human Resources Development.

The government's latest billion dollar tax grab is a payroll tax on part time employment. Why has the government imposed a new tax on part time employment that will hurt those Canadians least able to afford it: small business, working mothers and university students working their way through school?

[Pierre Pettigrew, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development]

Mr. Speaker, we are approaching the unemployment situation in a new way. We want to make sure there is an ethic of work in this country. We want to make sure that every hour counts.

Five hundred thousand workers now benefit from unemployment insurance, which we now call employment insurance. They are now covered by this scheme because part time workers are included in it.

This is part of the new labour market we are in where many people work only part time. We wanted to cover them and this is the reason we are doing it.