Mr. Speaker, I am extremely pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-31, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 6, 1996.
It is always interesting to criticize the budget tabled by the government and especially by the Minister of Finance. Even more so in the case of this year's budget, which shows how easy it is to mislead the public on the government's real intentions. My colleagues and myself have said it many times: this year's budget is essentially cosmetic. Under the make-up, however, one can see things for what they really are.
Bill C-31 is the opportunity the government was waiting for so it could sneak through a series of unpopular, highly controversial measures. I will get back to the public's reaction later.
A few weeks ago, the Minister of Finance brought down a budget without any concrete measures, a budget designed to sweeten the pill so that people will be more receptive to the reform of social programs. But it is the measures proposed in Bill C-31 that will have a real budget impact.
Through this bill, the government wants to implement, among other things, the so-called GST reform-to which I will also get back-and to sneak through UI measures that were originally supposed to be part of Bill C-12 now in committee.
Among other things, Bill C-31 allows the government to go ahead with the transfer of public service employees to the private sector as part of the restructuring of the public service and the privatization of certain services and to dispose of railway equipment. In this regard, I noticed a little something in the report that I would like to quote:
Part II would grant the Minister of Transport the power to dispose of government-owned railway cars, or rights with respect to the railway cars, that are used for the purpose of moving grain. It would also provide for an increase in the maximum rates for movements of grain after at least 10,000 of the railway cars or rights with respect to at least 10,000 of the railway cars are disposed of.
What this means is that they will dispose of at least 10,000 railway cars. In the last few months, the government has been selling off ports, airports, railway lines, bridges and railway cars; everything is up for sale.
Bill C-31 also makes minor amendments to the old age pension as provided for in the budget. These are not key elements of the reform, but simply measures affecting access to the old age pension for recent immigrants.
Bill C-31 implements the reform of Canada social transfer. It also proposes amendments to make transition easier. I am confident that many of my colleagues will elaborate on this in their speeches on Bill C-31.
The bill also includes measures seeking to give more flexibility to the Minister of Industry regarding the issuance of spectrum licences, that is specified radio frequencies within a defined geographic area. These measures do give more flexibility to the minister, but this is nothing new. Since we got here, all the bills introduced in this House seek to do the same. What we see here, as in all the bills, is an increasing tendency to centralize power in Ottawa.
So, the minister will have more flexibility and will be able to use regulations, instead of having to introduce legislation. The minister will be able to issue licences through a bidding process, which is tantamount to an auction.
Bill C-31 also includes an amendment to the Canada Student Loans Act, as well as a provision allowing the government to spend $960 million to compensate the maritime provinces regarding the GST reform. Let me just read the last clause of Bill C-31, that is clause 64, on page 55:
From and out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund there may be paid and applied a sum not exceeding nine hundred and sixty-one million dollars for payments to provinces as adjustment assistance for the purpose of facilitating their participation in an integrated value added tax system.
I read this clause to show that a few lines in an act can have enormous consequences. This is why I always tell people to read the Canadian Constitution. We are always told that it is of little value to certain people. But the fact is that a few lines in an act can involve the spending of millions of dollars.
I also want to point out something strange. Bill C-31 includes two things that are also found in Bill C-12, which we are currently reviewing in committee. Part III of the bill amends the Unemployment Insurance Act by retroactively reducing maximum weekly benefits from $445 down to $413. This bill will retroactively affect the unemployment insurance program, as of January 1, 1996, which means that people will retroactively be entitled to less benefits.
In this same Part III of the bill, the maximum weekly insurable earnings are $750 a week, or $39,000 a year, retroactive to January 1. Unemployment insurance premiums will therefore have to be
paid up to this limit. This provision is found in both C-31 and C-12. This is something worth noting.
Why is the government trying to include the same provision in both bills? In fact, there is no escaping that it is because it wants to have this bill passed as quickly as possible. We saw with two motions that were presented here today in the House that a gag has been put on what is being done on C-12 in committee, and also that time allocation has been brought in with respect to C-31.
Of course, we will do a thorough study of the unemployment insurance amendments in committee and in the House. For the time being, I would like to recall the basic positions of the Bloc Quebecois with regard to unemployment insurance.
First of all, this bill must be withdrawn, and that is what we are trying to do in committee. It seems that the minister is completely exasperated with the Bloc's position. I would like to remind the House that, when the bill introducing the GST was tabled, when the Conservatives were in power, the present minister tabled 68 amendments. That was on April 3, 1990, not so long ago. Sixty-eight amendments, and each of these amendments was to abolish a clause in the bill proposing the creation of the GST.
For example, Motion No. 1 of the present minister of Human Resources Development on April 3, 1990 read: "That Bill C-62-the one introducing the GST-be amended by deleting clause 1".
His second motion was "that Bill C-62 be modified by deleting clause 2". In all, there were 68 motions to abolish all of the clauses of the GST bill. Yet today we are accused of wanting to study each of the motions of the bill currently in committee properly, and our time to do so is being restricted.
The proposed reform is inequitable, for the conditions for eligibility have been made tougher. There will be two classes of unemployed, regular and frequent users. Third, the reform is regressive, because there is only one contribution rate and the insurable earnings limit is dropped to $39,000. Fourth, the reform is does not promote job creation, for the new contribution structure encourages capital intensive industries over labour intensive ones.
It is understandable that, generally, small and medium size businesses have described the introduction of these measures as a direct attack on them, for unemployment insurance contributions will now be payable from the first dollar earned. Before, the deductions did not kick in right away, and also the ceiling was much higher, at $42,000, which brought in those with much higher earnings. Now the ceilings are being dropped again, and contributions will be required from the first dollar earned, which means that small and medium businesses size will be the direct target, while big businesses, with their high capital, will be getting allthe perks.
Although these are called pro-employment measures-the act refers to employment rather than unemployment-we know very well that, at the very time that companies are making the most profits they are also making the most cuts. Numerous examples of layoffs have been reported lately, and I shall list but a few. There are some thirty in all, but I shall give five or six.
General Motors of Canada declared record profits of $1.39 billion, yet recently it got rid of 2,500 workers. The five biggest banks in Canada had a combined profit of $4.9 billion, but cut 2,800 staff positions. In 1995, Bell Canada made $502 million in profits, but reduced its staff by 3,2000 in that same year. I could continue, for there are about fifteen cases in all. It has long been proven that, when major employers are given advantages to create jobs, they create no jobs at all. This reform benefits primarily the large corporations and not the small and medium businesses, which create the jobs in both Quebec and the rest of Canada.
We oppose this bill, as well, because the $5 billion surplus in the unemployment insurance fund, a surplus that belongs, not to the Government of Canada, but to the workers and employers who contributed to it, will be used to artificially reduce the debt, which amounts to a general garnishment of wages.
This document also contains everything on the reform of the GST. I think there will be a lot of discussion about this in the days to come. Yesterday morning, the Minister of Finance presented his reform of the GST. After promising to abolish the goods and services tax, the Liberal government negotiated an agreement with three maritime provinces: Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Under this agreement, it will combine the provincial sales taxes and the GST into a single national tax. This national tax will be at the rate of 15 per cent.
Everyone knows that taxation is higher in the maritime provinces than it is elsewhere. Added together, the provincial tax and the GST amounted to more than 15 per cent in these provinces. It is therefore not surprising that they reached an agreement with the federal government. It is to their advantage to do so. They will come out ahead on the deal in the short term, as the federal government is prepared to make up the shortfall of these provinces from the taxes paid by Quebecers and Canadians by agreeing to pay out nearly $1 billion in compensation.
Contrary to anything the government might say and to what the member for Pontiac-Gatineau-Labelle said yesterday, the Government of Quebec never approved the new national tax before us today. What the government said, and I want to make this point, is that it is responsible for its provincial tax and that Quebec may
therefore be more competitive than the other provinces. That is what was said.
Does the federal government really think that the people of a province like Alberta, where there is no provincial tax, will accept such an agreement with it and does it think that the people of Alberta, Quebec and all the other provinces that have not concluded an agreement with it will want to pay for the provinces that have?
This manoeuvre on the part of the federal government not only makes Quebec and Canadian taxpayers unduly pay for something they never asked for, but is a deliberate offensive that will eventually permit Ottawa to take over the collection of all taxes across Canada. During the last election campaign, Liberals, including the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada and the Prime Minister himself, hung their case on the elimination of the GST, and got elected on the promise they would get rid of the GST; and now we have the government proposing a reform which is without any doubt the most blatant breach of an electoral promise in the whole parliamentary history of Canada.
Reactions in today's papers, especially in the English press, bear witness to this fact; nearly all of them point out that the government, in this matter, is reneging on its election promises. No matter what is written in the Liberal red book, what is at stake is the government members' word; the government did promise it would scrap the GST.
Under the law, there is exchange of consent when an individual signifies expressly or tacitly his or her acceptance of the offer made by another party. People signified they wanted the GST scrapped. The Liberals expressly promised to scrap the GST. Perhaps they would like to see videotapes of the statements they made during their first election campaign; if need be, we can show them to them.
Any proposal including all the elements pertaining to the proposed contract and indicating that it becomes binding on its author should it be accepted is a contract offer. The Liberals made a contract offer, they offered to scrap the GST should they be elected. People believed their promise and accepted their proposal. The government made a formal contract offer, an offer which was binding but which it did not honour.
The law also says that a contract is arrived at when the offeror-in this case the Liberals who offered, even promised, to scrap the GST-receives acceptance, no matter the form. The Liberals offered to scrap the GST, and people accepted to elect them as the government. A contract was arrived at and all the conditions for its validity were met.
Two things happen whenever one of the parties fails to abide by a contract: first, that party is sued for breach of contract with damages; second, it is no longer trusted by the other party, having misled it and caused it considerable damage. Well, the people will remember in the next election that they cannot trust the Liberals.
We have three examples. Among other things, the Liberals promised to tear up the free trade agreement. That promise was quoted many times by Jeffrey Simpson, I believe. They promised to tear up the free trade agreement but, as we know, it slipped through with the greatest of ease. They promised to kill the GST but, as we know, they are now reinforcing it, even spending close to $1 billion to convince some provinces to jump on the harmonization bandwagon. They promised to recognize Quebec as a distinct society and we now have a principal homeland of something or other. All those promises have been abandoned.
As we heard on the news this week, my Liberal colleague-I have just learned that he will be my deskmate in this House and I am looking forward to it-the hon. member for York South-Weston, who resigned from his caucus, has acted with great integrity and earned the respect of the people in his riding, who strongly supported his decision.
The fact that a member of the government has resigned because he has lost confidence in his own government speaks volumes. It must be said that the government does not write down what it says or do what it promises in writing. It is important to remember this. I just want to quickly go over the commitments made at the time, which were recently quoted in the Globe and Mail . Here is what the Deputy Prime Minister was quoted as saying in the March 11, 1996 edition of the Globe and Mail :
"I have already said personally and very directly that if the GST is not abolished, I will resign".
To this day, there have been no resignations.
Here is another promise as reported by the Globe and Mail . This time it is the Prime Minister speaking: ``We will scrap the GST''. There is no reference to harmonizing or to the red book. The message was very clear.
The Prime Minister also said, on May 2, 1994: "We hate this tax and we will make it disappear". For once he said exactly the same thing in French and in English.
It is also important to remember what the hon. member for York South-Weston said in his letter to the Prime Minister:
"The Liberals were in breach of their electoral commitment. We all know that we did not promise to simply harmonize the GST. The promise was to scrap it and implement a fairer system".
This is not what was done and this is why the hon. member for York South-Weston resigned, as did to the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood.
There are at least two people in this House, on the Liberal side, who have some backbone and who remember the promises they made. How many Liberals went from door-to-door during the election campaign, as we all did, and promised people that they would indeed abolish the GST, not harmonize it?
Those who did that should remember that they made commitments, and they should seriously think about the calibre of people such as the hon. member for York South-Weston and the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood.
The Minister of Finance now admits he made a mistake: "We made promises which we failed to keep". As for the Prime Minister, he says: "We fulfilled our promises". There is an obvious discrepancy between the words of the Prime Minister and those of the finance minister.
I will conclude by quoting from a short text written by Jeffrey Simpson, who relates what is going on in an article entitled:
"The height of political gall lies behind a veil of crocodile tears".
This is truly extraordinary. In this article, Mr. Simpson tells us, in reference to the Minister of Finance, that:
"During the election campaign we were right to criticize the GST". Among its problems, he recalled, were overlap and duplication. That is what the Liberals were campaigning against in 1993.
And then, Mr. Simpson asks:
Is that what you heard from your friendly Liberal candidate in the election? Did "scrap the tax" mean "end overlap and duplication"? Did "abolish" mean kaput for "overlap and duplication"? We all obviously misunderstood.
