Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity today to speak in this debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne-although this particular speech from the throne goes back to last February-because we now have a better perspective on what the federal government has done in the past six months since it made those promises in the speech from the throne. Today, we are in a better position to evaluate the results.
Last week in committee, I had before me the President of the Treasury Board, who said more or less that the role of government was to meet the expectations of its citizens.
I suggest we evaluate on those terms the government's record on what it promised in the speech from the throne. Did it meet the expectations of its citizens during the past year? Did it meet its objectives, deal with political situations and take corrective action when necessary?
The first item is fighting the deficit. One could say that yes, on the whole they managed to reduce the deficit, at least on the face of it, but in fact, and the hon. member for the Reform Party hit the nail on the head earlier, 42 per cent of the cuts were made in transfer payments to the provinces. This means that today, when we see 50,000 or 60,000 people demonstrating against the provincial government in Ontario, it is largely as a result of these cuts.
Twenty CEGEPs in Quebec are on strike as a result of these federal cuts. The federal government decided to reduce funding in this area because it was easier to cut at the expense of the provinces than to cut closer to home. The most obvious example of this is that this week, the Liberal majority voted against a motion to abolish the Senate.
We spend $43 million a year on the unelected Senate, whose members are appointed for purely partisan reasons. The govern-
ment decided to turn a blind eye to this and continue paying this $43 million but, at the same time, it did not hesitate to cut $1.2 billion from transfer payments to the provinces. Let the provinces deal with their own problems.
That is what the government has done to fight the deficit. So it did not get a passing mark. Clearly, the people of Quebec and Canada are not happy with the results, especially in ridings like mine, where people realize how they hid the fight against the deficit behind UI benefits.
They changed the law, and we will see the results in the coming months. The federal government's day of reckoning has yet to come. It will come when people receive their last UI cheques in February, March or April 1997. They will realize that the reform cut 10, 12, 15 weeks and that they will have to go on social assistance while the UI fund boasts a $5 billion surplus.
This is unacceptable. I almost feel like saying it is practically immoral to let people starve while the UI fund is growing. That is the result of the deficit-fighting measures planned in the Liberal government's throne speech.
As for employment, did this government deliver the goods? Two and a half years ago, it campaigned on the following theme: we will create jobs, we will put people back to work. It did create some jobs, but there are still 800,000 fewer jobs than before the 1990 recession.
Above all, the government did not solve the problem of finding jobs for those who are now unemployed. We can put in place every possible measure to improve Canada's competitiveness in technology, and ensure that engineers and technicians have jobs. Fine, that is great. That is the way to go. But the problem today is that, while technologies are being developed, we have all these people with no technical training who are systematically being put out of work, people whom we are unable to retrain so that they can find another job to support themselves and be proud of it. That is the challenge the Liberal government has failed to take on in any way, shape or form. It is riding the wave of economic recovery. The interest rates have gone down. Great, but that does little to improve the situation of those who cannot afford to invest in the economy. When you are 25 years old and jobless, you do not start a family, buy a house and contribute to society, and that does not make you happy.
The federal government should take a lesson from the Quebec economic summit, where, in a show of solidarity, unions, employers, the government and community organizations all agreed on one thing: there must be a clear and precise job creation target. When did this government agree to set a job creation target like the deficit reduction it had set for itself? It would be a good objective for this government to tell us what it is prepared to do, so that in one, two or three years, the unemployment rate in the country would go down by 2, 3 or 4 per cent, and so that we could see the impacts on quality of life and social expenditures. It would be interesting for Canadians to see their Prime Minister rise in this House and say: "Our challenge will be to ensure that Canada's unemployment rate goes down by 2 per cent over the next two years". This is in fact what labour federations are asking of the Prime Minister. To then see the whole government administration work toward this objective would be of significance.
This is the type of concrete measure that is required, not a speech from the throne in which there is nothing to really change the situation, and in which the government relies on market forces. The result is that those who are solid enough manage to survive, which is fine, but those who are less gifted and who had less opportunities through their education do not. This government evaluates its performance on how it provides an opportunity to the strongest ones. However, a society or a government should assess its record based on the opportunities it provides to each and everyone to make a contribution.
Society should be evaluated on how it uses its human potential. There are people who have not managed to complete their high school, who do not have a job and who have not been retrained. This government will be a good government the day it will make sure everyone is used to his or her full potential and is given an opportunity to make a proper contribution to society.
The speech from the throne alluded to this issue, but these were only words. There is no concrete action or result, and this is very unsatisfactory. As autumn ends and winter begins, a tour through our ridings will bring home the insecurity people feel about jobs and the problems experienced by seasonal workers in particular when they think of what they are facing next February and March with the unemployment insurance reform.
They called it employment insurance. What a terrible piece of marketing. Employment insurance should mean a system that makes it possible to guarantee employment to somebody who has potential and can achieve it. They change the name and the packaging, but the product is even worse than before. It is unacceptable, and the government will certainly be judged on it by the people. I urge the government, if it dares, to go before the public today on this issue. You can count on a very clear and very direct message from Quebecers.
There is another point I wish to raise, which involves something even more basic. It is the issue of this government's leadership. This is a government whose management style is short-sighted. Three years ago, the public elected 54 members of the Bloc Quebecois, a secessionist party, a sovereignist party that wants to create two countries within Canada. The message was not clear enough.
The Prime Minister said that Quebec's problem was an economic one, that the government was going to create jobs and reduce the deficit and the problem would go away. Except that there was the surprise of October 30, 1995, when they realized that, despite everything, 49.4 per cent of Quebecers had voted for sovereignty. That shook them to their short-sighted roots. For almost a month, they had been saying: "This time it is really serious. We had better make promises, something must be done".
The morning after the results were in, they started to say that the only thing the federal government could do was to table a little resolution in the House about distinct society, thinking that then the effort would have been made.
I was never an admirer of Mr. Mulroney, but compare the effort he made in the past to unite Canada with this lack of response to the emergency situation created by the referendum. There is a world of difference. The present government lacks leadership with respect to the situation in Quebec. It is not surprising that Quebecers are the only ones in Canada seriously dissatisfied with the federal government at this time: 68 per cent of them are dissatisfied with the performance of the federal government.
Despite a period of economic growth, despite the fact that there has been at least some progress in the battle against the deficit, is there not a message here which the federal government ought to receive, to which it ought to adjust, on which it ought to make some proposals? Yet nothing is forthcoming. There are no proposals, and they are saying that they will react only once they have come up against a wall. This strikes me as a truly aberrant situation. People are waiting for concrete actions from this government, proof that it is going to react.
To give another example, in the throne speech, reference was made to the pertinence of reforming the way shipping is managed in Canada. The diagnosis is fairly obvious, in my opinion. The federal government has been letting its facilities deteriorate for the past 30 years. The proof of this is that, today, 80 per cent of facilities are more or less useless, because they have never been properly developed. They have just been patched up here and there, over and over.
We are in a problematical situation. The government says that changes must be made, and the first statement made, one which we agree with, is that the job of management was done by people who were too far away from the action, who could not possibly know what the concerns were in each region, who could not do any separate marketing, who could not allow facilities to compete with each other. Solutions had to be sought across Canada before the government could finally grasp that some latitude must be given to these facilities, but there are still many aspects that have not been settled.
The address in response to the throne speech offers me the opportunity to tell the government that there will still be much to be done when the transportation bill is examined in the report or third reading stage. Since Confederation, this field has been characterized by a great deal of political partisanship. Every riding has its own story of someone who was port master because he was a Tory, another who was port master at another time because he was a Grit. These situations have never been settled.
Yesterday in committee I proposed an amendment to ensure that the people appointed are qualified, and it was turned down by the Liberal majority. I was not calling for the minister to stop making appointments, not calling for him to no longer be able to choose between candidates, but only for assurance that they were qualified. Once again, the system took too long for adjustments to be made, and for actions to be taken accordingly. This is a specific problem relating to partisan politics, and one that is important to the public. It is important for the government to show evidence of acting justly.
There is something even more fundamental involved as well. In this reform, there is a provision for the regional ports, the ones that are doing business, but not necessarily on an international scale, to be able to be turned over to local interests.
We have tried, and we must keep on trying to add components to the legislation that will remove the arbitrary, political element and ensure that decisions to invest in Baie-Comeau, Cacouna, New Brunswick or western Canada are not made on the basis of the political colour of their representatives but on the basis of economic interest. The government should use the economic profiles and statistics compiled by officials with the Department of Transport and interpret them intelligently.
Another important aspect is to ensure that ports without any commercial economic activity except a ferry service like Rivière-du-Loup to Saint-Siméon or Trois-Pistoles to Les Escoumins on the North Shore-can be sold at a good price without any interruption of service. This is a good example of the imperfections in our system and the need for reform. Ignoring the need for reform reflects a major lack of leadership on the part of the Canadian government.
If no guarantees are given, we may get some outlandish situations. For instance, the federal government may decide it will no longer maintain a harbour facility, it may decide to get rid of the port of Rivière-du-Loup, for instance, even if the ferry offers an essential service recognized by the Government of Quebec and there is a subsidy for this service.
The federal government, which is responsible for wharves, might decide it no longer has the money and no longer wants to
maintain the facility. The region would then be in a totally unacceptable situation. The government has to move, to react, to implement concrete solutions.
I admit that in this particular case, Bill C-44, there was a lot of consultation. Suggestions were made which were adopted, but many aspects remain to be settled. I hope the government will find a way to do that.
To sum up, should Canadians be satisfied with what they heard in the speech from the throne and the way it has been implemented?
My answer is what people on the street, at the barbershop or the cornerstore are telling me. They ask where are the jobs all these government projects were supposed to provide. They ask me what is happening. Why do they not see any results? People no longer believe that millions of dollars have been cut and millions invested. They want to know if their neighbour will get a job, if any positive result will be achieved anywhere.
In a riding like mine, Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup, it will be a few more months before we can see if the government action was successful in any real way. We will have to wait and see if the transactions which are supposed to allow the local community take charge of the port facilities in Cacouna and to ensure the future of the ferries between Rivière-du-Loup and Saint-Siméon, and between Trois-Pistoles and Les Escoumins will come through. That is what matters.
Regarding the employment insurance reform, a bill providing for the conversion of seasonal workers' contribution to the economy will have to be tabled. Seasonal workers must be able to find work during the winter. The government has increased the number of weeks required to qualify for benefits while reducing the benefit period. If only the negative aspects of the UI reform make it, we are headed for a major social crisis. I urge the federal government to find solutions and listen to those organizations that make suggestions.
In my riding, there is a coalition of forest management companies. They are developing a plan, not to artificially create employment or to pay seasonal workers to do nothing, but to provide them with an extra three or four weeks of work, either in the spring or in the fall, through solutions involving forestry, processing forestry products and developing new products in order to achieve interesting results. This is my heartfelt cry to the government in this respect.
We have fought long and hard against employment insurance reform. If the government wants to send a clear message to the regions, where there are many seasonal workers, telling them that there is not only bad news in this reform, time is running out. Act quickly, this is your last chance. The people in my riding will judge you by your actions.
In reply to the speech from the throne, I think we can say, and I will conclude on this, the federal government has shown a blatant lack of leadership in terms of reducing the deficit for instance, by failing to cut back where it should have. In the area of employment, the proposed solutions are not the right ones and, on the constitutional issue, Quebec is being ignored and, to some extent, insulted. If the federal government's attitude does not change, the best solution will be to go our own way, because Quebecers are very patient.
Twice already they asked Canada to change course and come up with proposals and twice Canada declined. The third time will be the right one. The Canadian economy will be completely reorganized and the Canadian territory will be divided in two countries, so that Quebecers can finally make decisions on what is important to them and for their future.