Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Lotbinière and, following that, all Bloc Quebecois speakers will do the same with a colleague from our party.
Although I have already criticized the government since the June 2 election, this is my first formal speech in this new Parliament. While taking part in the debate on the address in reply to the throne speech, I want to thank my organizers, my supporters and especially the voters of Berthier—Montcalm, who have renewed their trust in me in a proportion almost identical to that of 1993. Thanks to them and to a wonderful team I have the honour of representing them once again in this House. They can count on my undivided attention, on my availability and on my friendship.
I must also thank my wife and my children for their support and for allowing me to be here to represent the Bloc Quebecois of course, but more importantly to look out for the interests of the Quebec people. In my way, I want to contribute, in this House, to the creation of a country that we can call our own.
As for the throne speech, the Prime Minister said it would probably be the last one before the celebrations marking the new millennium. I will tell the Prime Minister—and I hope he will also make sure of it—that we will do our utmost to ensure that this is indeed the last throne speech before the next millennium. Because what we Bloc Quebecois members want first and foremost is to have a country by the year 2000.
What does the throne speech tell us? Many things were said, but I can think of two essential points: first, all the allusions made in the two previous throne speeches of the Liberals to devolution, change, respect and realignment of federal-provincial powers have disappeared. These words are no longer used by the government.
When it started making cuts to transfers, to social programs, to health, to education and to social assistance, the government talked about devolution and about respecting the powers of the provinces.
But today, because we are seeing that there may possibly be a budget surplus, because of the slashes the Liberal government has made in these programs and because the taxpayers are in the process of getting this government out of the red, now the Liberals are back to their old bad habits.
With the expected budget surplus, they are paying out big bucks for the right to trample over provincial jurisdictions. I will not go into all of the examples there are in the Speech from the Throne, because my ten minutes would not be enough, but I will list three of them.
First, they want to measure the academic readiness of our children. Today is not the first time they are being told that education is none of their business. Mr. Duplessis did battle on this in 1950. This is not yesterday's news. It is not just those wicked separatists, that awful Bloc, who are demanding this. It dates back to the fifties.
They also make no bones about wanting to get back into manpower training. Yet I thought they had just handed that over to the provinces. Now they want to make resources available to help young people get back in the work force. That has no concern of theirs. If they have money left over in their budget, let them give it back to the provinces from whom they stole it in the last budget.
They also want to set up some ten or twelve programs with a national slant, what they call Canada-wide programs. They have been told for more than 30 years that we in Quebec want nothing more to do with Canada-wide programs. Programs from sea to sea do not apply to Quebec. But they persist.
Where I come from, in my country of Quebec, we call that provocation. This federalist propaganda whose aim is visibility over efficiency has caused the leader of the Bloc Quebecois to say justifiably in his response to the throne speech that the speech was nothing more than big federalist talk. Unfortunately, that is the sad reality.
After bringing misery to the families of seasonal workers, after cutting payments to provinces and scuttling their budgets, the hangman becomes the generous lord of the manor distributing money over the heads of the provinces. It is disgusting and hypocritical.
Now the Liberal government is realizing that it cut too much and too quickly. Why not analyze the situation seriously? Why, with the expected budget surplus, does it not mend its ways by returning the money it took from the provinces in the area of health care, social assistance and education; why does it not lower taxes, lower employment insurance contributions and reform personal and corporate income tax as proposed in the 35th Parliament, as the Bloc put forward in its proposal, which was well received?
Why not go after poverty with a vengeance, improve the employment insurance plan and reverse all the cuts that were made?
The repayment of the debt should be debated. I agree with some members who have proposed a debate on the repayment of the debt. I think we should have a very serious debate on the matter.
For the time being, however, the focus should be on health, education, employment and the eradication of child poverty during this 36th Parliament. However, for this to be successful, the federal government should not meddle in these areas. It should give the money back to the provinces, as they know much better how to use this money where it is needed.
The second element of the throne speech that stands out in my mind, and it is of particular concern to me as justice critic, is the federal government's willingness to score political points by taking the hard line with Quebec. Why do I say hard line? Because the federal government intends to continue with its reference to the Supreme Court. It will carry on with its strategy of instilling fear about what might happen following a yes victory in Quebec.
On the one hand, the Liberals praise the merits of Canada, while on the other hand, they are trying to deny one of the most fundamental principles of democracy: the right to decide.
There is worse yet, and this took place after the Speech from the Throne was read. At his swearing-in ceremony, responding to journalists who asked him if there were plans for the Canadian armed forces to take action in Quebec following a majority vote in favour of sovereignty, the new chief of defence staff, General Maurice Baril, did not reject the idea out of hand. The general said neither yes nor no, but that the political question does not arise. He should have said, in a democratic country such as Canada: “There is no question of it, it is a purely political question”. This is very disappointing in a country that considers itself a frontrunner when it comes to democracy.
There are all the strong-arm tactics that are still going on with respect to the issue of Quebec's sovereignty, and to possible consequences for them as well as for us. We never say that, the day after a yes vote, the first people interested in sitting down with Quebec would be my friends across the way. I will not say “my friends” because I do not want my constituents to hate me, but the government opposite would be the first, following telephone calls, probably from all the financiers in the world, to want to negotiate with a sovereign Quebec.
Another thing that upsets me about this throne speech is that the Liberals take credit for the entire Calgary declaration that Quebec is a unique society. We are more than that, and have been for some time. This is not just nasty separatists, or nasty members of the Bloc Quebecois saying so. I will run through a short list of premiers of Quebec who, over the years, have said more than once that we were more than the Liberals wanted us to be, that we were a people.
In 1950, during the opening speech at the federal-provincial constitutional conference—because that is the second national sport in Canada—Maurice Duplessis said: “Canadian confederation is a pact of union between two great nations”. That was in 1950.
In 1960, Jean Lesage said that “provincial sovereignty must not be a negative concept incompatible with progress. Quebec is not defending the principle of provincial autonomy because a principle is involved, but for the more important reason that it views autonomy as the concrete condition not for its survival, which is henceforth assured, but for its affirmation as a people”. So said Jean Lesage in 1963.
In 1968, Daniel Johnson senior said that “a new Constitution should be so devised that Canada is not just a federation of 10 provinces, but a federation of two nations equal in law and in fact”.
I will conclude with one last quote from Mr. Johnson, again at a federal-provincial constitutional conference, in 1968: “The Constitution should not have as its sole purpose to federate territories, but also to associate in equality two linguistic and cultural communities, two founding peoples, two societies, two nations, in the sociological meaning of the term”.
You will understand that, in Quebec, we say no, no, no and no, as the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs would say, to the Calgary declaration.