Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on Bill C-11, which is so important, and
particularly pleased to follow my two illustrious colleagues for Lévis and Châteauguay. Bill C-11, as you know, is more or less a housekeeping bill, in that it is aimed at creating the new Department of Human Resources Development, which is a fairly weighty component of the federal government.
This bill will, of course, be passed. We are discussing it, and discussing it a great deal, because there are a number of highly negative aspects connected to it which we want to point out. Yet we know it will go through, because the federal government has the majority. If, however, it were in my power to prevent the department from being created, of course I would do so, because to date this department has provided the most glaring example of abuse by the federal government.
The Department of Human Resources Development has, perhaps, wrought more havoc on Canada as far as social programs are concerned, than all of the other departments combined. It is the one which sends so many people to my office in a terrible situation, worried about their future, their job, their unemployment insurance. And it is not finished with its mischief, either, for this department is the one they want to use to more or less solve one of Canada's most serious problems.
As you know, Canada has a huge debt, one that has been denounced by the International Monetary Fund on several occasions, and one that places Canada in the ranks of the most indebted countries in the world. In fact, looking at the G-7 membership, Canada is second only to Italy. Canada is in a financial crisis, a debt crisis, in fact it is technically bankrupt. Canada's $550 billion debt is a big problem. A very big problem, one that was created by the incompetence of certain members of this House, before our time of course.
Previous governments have all been so irresponsible in their spending, especially since the arrival of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, and Brian Mulroney later on. When Trudeau came along, Canada's debt was a small one. You might say it was reasonably manageable, one which did not worry foreign investors or harm Canada's economic development. Then it went up to $250 billion, and doubled that under Mulroney. The present Liberal government is, of course, attempting to curb it, but without any appreciable success.
They talk of success, but we know very well that the $5 billion reduction in Canada's deficit was made at the expense of Canada's workers and employers, and at the expense of the unemployed. It is, as we know full well, in this Department of Human Resources Development that this kind of misappropriation of funds, what I would call a kind of fraud, a kind of lie perpetuated in Canada, is planned.
The money in the UI fund comes from Canadian employers and employees; the federal government has not contributed a single penny since 1990. This fund comes from a tax on employers and employees, who are the sole contributors. The federal government then takes $5 billion from this fund to reduce its deficit.
It is in short what happened with the Department of Human Resources Development and all other federal policies. It is the only major bill this government managed to come up with and it will pass. I am sure this bill will pass because government members are in the majority. It is essentially the key bill that this government put forward through the Department of Human Resources Development.
Of course, we can also talk about the reduction of transfer payments to the provinces, in that the government may cut spending on health and education programs by $7 billion by the year 2000. These cuts put pressure on the provinces. These cuts in transfer payments have forced the provinces to adjust, as Quebec is now doing.
It has even become necessary in the area of health care, as we know full well. But I wonder about education. I wonder if this government really has lofty designs on society in trying to reduce its contribution to education. This threatens the future of our young people, who these days need a good education in order to find jobs and make ends meet.
Through the Department of Human Resources Development, the federal government has taken measures such as reducing spending in health and education by cutting transfers to the provinces. The federal government tried to shift these cuts to the provinces to make them take the blame, and then misappropriated money from the UI fund. The fact is that, over three years, something like $15 billion will be diverted.
Then the Minister of Finance will say: "I managed to reduce the federal debt." I mean by that that he will at least have reduced the deficit and discharged his duty to the people of Canada.
As I said earlier, this is misappropriation of funds, nearly embezzlement, because contributions to an insurance program are normally expected to be used for that purpose and not for some other purpose. Normally, employees and employers who contribute to the UI fund should expect their money to be used to make sure that those who loose their jobs are paid benefits out of the UI fund and provided with manpower training so that they can re-enter the labour force.
But that is not how it was used. Not only does the government use this money to reduce its debt, but it also tightened UI eligibility requirements, thereby effectively reducing the number of people who qualify for UI benefits. Imagine that. Do you think that is fair? More and more frequently, participating employers are seeing their UI claims denied.
This government has brought down three consecutive reforms. First, the number of eligible claimants was reduced to about 60, 57, 55 per cent. Then, the second reform further reduced this
percentage to about 47 or 45 per cent. This means that 47 or 45 per cent of those who lose their jobs are entitled to UI.
Now with the latest reform, the most drastic and unfair one conceivable in Canada, only one third of people losing their job will be entitled to UI. This is a fraud, this is embezzlement. If only the number of people losing their job remained the same, and eligibility criteria were such that more people could be on UI. But this is not the case. Fewer and fewer people will be eligible.
Not only will there be fewer people eligible, but they will receive smaller benefits for a shorter period of time. This is marvellous, magical, because of course according to statistics there will be fewer and fewer unemployed workers in Canada since, when you are no longer eligible for UI, have no job and are not entitled to UI, and there is no other recourse, what do you do? You go on welfare. Welfare is a different kind of system, it is a provincial system. If one is not eligible for welfare, one disappears from the face of the earth, one becomes invisible.
From the federal perspective, this is marvellous, it is as if the unemployment rate was going down in Canada. This is marvellous. Through various tricks, statistics and funds, the problem created in the first place by the federal government and its disastrous overspending over the last 10 years is being dumped on the provinces. Provinces will now have to support more people on welfare.
Access to the unemployment insurance fund will be more limited and, moreover, provinces will be faced with cuts in the most important areas, the most vulnerable like health and education, and now, with the new Department of Human Resources Development, pensions. They are now going after our seniors, because they have been spared until now. The reform of old age pensions will primarily target women, since the pension will be determined based on family income.
This means that the woman who stayed home all her life to raise a family, who did not have any form of employment recognized by society, because she was a housewife, might not have the right to an old age pension. She will continue to be dependent on her husband. This way, the federal government will save billions of dollars at the expense of the most vulnerable people of society: the young, the sick, the old and the unemployed.
This is what the Liberal government is doing to Canada. It is going after the most vulnerable. It is going after those who are poorly organized, insecure and focus on surviving from one week to the next.
People come to my office, single women with two, three children, who are without a job and have a really hard time surviving on welfare. They want to work.
If you allow the federal government to use the money from the unemployment insurance fund to reduce the debt rather than investing into job creation or manpower training, this is what we will get. More and more people will know hardship and suffering. This is what the federal government will give us. This a rotten government.
Mr. Speaker, I am not referring to you directly, but the government's social policy is totally rotten and unfair. It is a fraud, a misappropriation of funds. It is so rotten. One cannot imagine a worse social program, given that the root of the problem is the huge national debt of $550 billion, which concerns the International Monetary Fund and which will soon exceed $600 billion, in the year 2000.
When you think about the problems that triggered the initiatives taken by the human resources development department, you realize that there were other, easier, more reasonable and fair solutions to solve the issues. But the government deliberately chose to target young people, the sick, the elderly and the unemployed.
Who was spared? Who was spared in every possible way? The rich, the well-to-do and the large corporations. The government was generous to them. It is that simple.
Let me just give you a few examples. Take the all-important family trust issue. For those who do not know how family trusts work, you first have to be a millionaire. Family trusts are not for everyone: it is a very select club. One has to be very rich, like the Minister of Finance, who is worth several million, or like the Reitman, the Bronfman and all the other very rich families. So, you must first be rich to join the select group benefiting from family trusts.
It costs a lot of money to set up the program that allows these families, through a family trust, to avoid having to pay taxes. These families never pay taxes. This is great. They make millions in profits each year, but they do not pay taxes. This is truly wonderful.
It is estimated that, in Canada, thanks to these family trusts, about $100 billion are not subject to any taxes. One hundred billion dollars in profits there wealthy families make in Canada. If I were the Prime Minister, I would go and get at least half of these $100 billion. There are thousands of people who are hungry, who have no jobs and who do not have enough to feed their children. Consequently, when you have rich people who do not know what to do with their $50 million, you go and tell them: "Listen, not only have you not paid taxes on your profits for X number of years, but you have $100 billion in family trusts. Therefore, we will collect half of that amount, that is $50 billion".
Imagine, only with this fair, reasonable and justifiable measure, the government could have collected $50 billion more in taxes.
However, it chose not to take $50 billion from the family trusts, but rather $5 billion from the unemployed.
This government spared the wealthiest families. It even warned them to reconsider their finances, because in five or six years from now, it may have to change the conditions applying to family trusts.
The government could have gotten more money from corporations who avoid paying taxes. An estimated $3 to $4 billion go to banks in the Bahamas and the West Indies. An estimated $4 billion a year, from what I have heard.
The government could have closed the tax loopholes used by corporations. It could have taxed the banks. Imagine, last year alone, banks pocketed $5.2 billion in net profits. Shareholders took all that money home with them. The banks' profits almost doubled from the previous year. We are not talking peanuts here. The government collected about $100 million from the banks over a two-year period. That is a little under one per cent. That is not much for banks.
All that to say that this government is rotten to the core. It does not have a social policy, it promotes a policy based on the best interests of the fittest and the richest and it picks on the most vulnerable people of all, the weakest, the young, the old and the sick. Come next election, I hope the people will realize that we need a change of government.