Debates of Oct. 21st, 1997

Justice

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I think my predecessor made it plain, as I have, that those conditional sentencing provisions were not to apply to serious violent offences.

We then amended the legislation to ensure that the courts are instructed to take into account the sentencing principles of deterrence and denunciation. There have been some lower court decisions that have caused me concern as Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada.

Those cases are presently before appeal courts and we are awaiting the outcome.

Presence In Gallery

[The Speaker]

I draw the attention of hon. members to the presence in the gallery of His Excellency Carlos Ronderos, Minister of Foreign Trade of the Republic of Colombia.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

Privilege

[Garry Breitkreuz, Reform, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on a question of privilege.

I have in my possession a copy of a memorandum dated Wednesday, October 1, 1997 from the acting deputy principal clerk, committees and legislative services, addressed to procedural clerks in committees and legislative services directorate regarding the drafting of amendments to bills.

This is the first opportunity I have had to raise this question of privilege since this memorandum was brought to my attention, and the implications of it became clear.

Citation 116 of Beauchesne's sixth edition states:

Should a question of privilege be based on published material, the article in question must be submitted and read at the Table.

I have a copy of this memorandum for the Speaker. Does he want the article read at the table now?

[The Speaker]

I would like the article brought to me.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Reform, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

This internal memorandum addressed to the procedural clerks in the legislative services directorate indicates a number of important changes that have been made to the level and the quality of the independent legal services available to members. These changes have been made without the full knowledge of the members of Parliament, without MPs having a full understanding of the consequences of these changes and without debate and approval of members of this House as a whole.

As I understand the memorandum, the changes include four things: relegating legislative counsel to drafting only private members' bills; delegating procedural clerks to draft amendments to government bills, a function that used to be performed by legislative counsel; prohibiting legislative counsel from providing legal advice to members in relation to government bills or amendments to government bills either in private or in committee; restricting the drafting of members' amendments of government bills to compatible language as opposed to credible, legally binding amendments drafted by legislative counsel, a service to which we were accustomed in the previous Parliament.

The initiation of these changes interferes with my ability to do my job as a member of Parliament and as such constitutes a breach of my rights and privileges. It strikes to the very heart of what we do as MPs in this House.

I point this out not as a hypothetical case because according to that memorandum a pilot project has been initiated. Over the last couple of years the independent legal services available to me through legislative counsel have been constantly eroded by administrative decree. I have not been given an opportunity to debate this issue or vote on the changes imposed on me by the House of Commons administration over which you, Mr. Speaker, preside.

Further to this, Beauchesne's citation 33 states:

The most fundamental privilege of the House as a whole is to establish rules of procedure for itself and to enforce them. A few rules are laid down in the Constitution Act, but the vast majority are resolutions of the House which may be added to, amended, or repealed at the discretion of the House.

When changes in the ability of independent legal services are made unilaterally by an administrative directive rather than with the full understanding and approval of this House it violates the privileges of this House and every member who sits in this House. It ought to be of concern to each one of us.

I quote citation 114(2) of Beauchesne's:

A complaint of a breach of privilege must conclude with a motion providing the House with an opportunity to take some action.

Therefore I would like to make the following motion.

[The Speaker]

My colleague, if I understand correctly, this has to do with the drafting of bills, the drafting of amendments to bills, the legal counsel.

I know you are aware that two other members of the House have raised this matter, perhaps in another way. I am going to be rendering a judgment on Thursday morning on an issue from the member for Sarnia—Lambton which I believe touches precisely on your point of privilege.

As to this specific point I would judge once again that this would seem, as in my other decision, an administrative matter. It is one which I can tell the hon. member is being addressed at this time by the Board of Internal Economy.

I do not want the member to put the motion just now. If other members have information to bring to bear on this I will listen to it. But at least at this point it would seem to be an administrative matter.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Reform, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is not exactly the same point that was raised previously with regard to restricting the ability of lawyers in legislative counsel to work on private members' bills and so on.

My question relates more to how to change the legal and legislative services available to members. I believe that decision involves process. I am concerned about the process. I am not allowed any input as a private member. It is being done by political parties through the Board of Internal Economy and so on. It is not being debated in this House.

I am not being allowed as a member of Parliament to have my direct input.

[Randy White, Reform, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I do have information that is new and relevant to this specific issue.

The member for Yorkton—Melville made references to the rules and practices of this House being changed without input of members of this House. This is a very serious charge.

I appreciate that the administration of the House has authority to make certain decisions and changes on behalf of members. However, if we consider that the legislative services offered to members are an established and vital practice of this House, then it is clear that the administration went beyond the powers conferred on it by the House when it made changes to that practice.

Beauchesne's sixth edition, citation 2 states:

Procedure in the Canadian House of Commons is derived from many sources—the Constitution Act—statute, written rules and tradition.

These traditions are part of what formulate our rules and practices. Until the administration receives new direction from this House it cannot change those practices. Any attempt to do so is an infringement on the privileges of the members of this House.

On June 20, 1994 and November 7, 1996 the Speaker ruled on a matter relating to committees:

While it is a tradition of this House that committees are masters of their own proceedings, they cannot establish procedures which go beyond the powers conferred upon them by the House.

Considering that no other body except this House can change its rules or proceed beyond its established practices, the changes brought to your attention by the member for Yorkton—Melville are a breach of our traditions and therefore our privileges. I refer you to Joseph Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada , page 192:

Each House also claims the right to punish actions which are offences against its authority or dignity, such as disobedience to its legitimate commands—

Making changes to the rules of the House without its authority is a form of disobedience to its legitimate command. This is a very serious matter and I believe we should resolve it immediately. To that end, Mr. Speaker, I believe that the information my hon. colleague has brought up is in further addition to the previous questions of privilege brought up on the matter of legislative counsel in this House.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I only want to comment briefly. The issues referred to by the House leader for the official opposition refer to proceedings of the committee and what a committee is able to do in terms of its authority to ask for witnesses, its authority to exceed the powers of the House and so on. We are not discussing an issue like this today.

The issue brought to our attention has to do with officials of the House under our command, the command of the Board of Internal Economy through you as its chair, Mr. Speaker, and whether they exceeded any authority vested in them by all of us, particularly in an era where we asked officials to reduce budgets and so on.

Be that as it may, later this afternoon—I am told it is at 5.15 p.m.—the committee of the Board of Internal Economy, you, Mr. Speaker as our chairman and all of us sitting on the board have mandated to review the precise issue of legislative services and what services are afforded to members. We will be dealing with precisely the services in question.

I suggest that the information brought to the attention of the table and the Chair be handed to that committee. It could assist the committee in its deliberations. The committee could then recommend to the Board of Internal Economy an appropriate course of action in terms of the restoration of services which may or may not be deficient as alleged by the hon. member in the question of privilege raised a moment ago.

I am sure that the committee and the mandate we gave to the committee at the board was to act expeditiously. Therefore, I can only conclude that the board as a whole would be seized of this very rapidly. Then it will be up to us as representatives of all political parties in the House at the board level to take the course of action which is warranted.

[The Speaker]

As always my colleagues, questions of privilege are taken very seriously by your Speaker. I think what the hon. member for Yorkton—Melville is seeking here is redress, something that will satisfy his quest for whatever kind of information or advice he and other members need, because he is speaking on behalf of the board.

I would like to thank him for bringing up the point. I would like to thank the hon. House leader of the Reform Party and the government House leader.

In view of the fact that I believe a committee will be seized with that this afternoon, I am going to rule at this point that I am going to hold a decision in abeyance so that I can ascertain and I can get more information as to what suggestions if any the committee is going to make.

If the suggestions in my view do not go far enough to deal with this grievance, then I will come back to the House and I will reopen this question of privilege. I do not want to rule on it right now. I will have another look at it at that time.

I want to hold this in abeyance until this committee which was struck by the Board of Internal Economy has a chance to meet to see if the procedures which were discussed will indeed be acted upon. I want to let this sit at this point for now.

[An hon. member]

Mr. Speaker, do I have to put the motion?

[The Speaker]

No, you do not put the motion now. We will hold that in abeyance.

The hon. member for Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre. Is this another point of privilege?

[John Solomon, NDP, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is on this point that I want to relay some information to the House with respect to this issue which may help the deliberations in solving this problem.

I want to point out to the member for Yorkton—Melville that his colleague, the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands has been reported on Saskatchewan's CBC provincial radio as saying that he has a lot of leftover budget and that he calls other members of Parliament who require more budget to staff their offices to meet the increased workload inefficient. Perhaps the member for Yorkton—Melville could go to his Reform colleague for Cypress Hills—Grasslands and ask for some of his money he has left over.

[The Speaker]

I am going to hold this point of privilege in abeyance at this time because we are going to get into debate here and we do not need to.

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Supply

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this debate on the motion put forward by the New Democratic Party.

I would, first of all, like to point out that my party supports this motion, because it believes in it fundamentally. The motion, I would recall, condemns the government's budgetary measures, draconian cuts and its lack of concern regarding the vital issues of job creation and individual suffering. It also condemns the government's obsession with inflation, which results in high unemployment.

The Minister of Finance's budget measures have been fruitful, as we saw last week in Vancouver. The deficit for the past fiscal year will be about $9 billion.

I would, however, add something to this estimate. I would recall that, last February, when the Bloc Quebecois expressed the possibility that the deficit in the fiscal year ending March 31, 1997 would not be higher than $10 billion, the Minister of Finance said that we did not know what we were talking about, because he was then speaking of a $19 billion deficit. That was eight months ago.

He was still talking about a $19 billion deficit for the last fiscal year, so when we pointed to a deficit of some $10 billion and accused him of not being totally honest with the public, he said we were incompetent. Eight months later, he acknowledges the Bloc Quebecois was right in its estimates, because he himself announced that the deficit would be somewhere around $8.9 billion.

Unless one is a total incompetent, it is impossible to err in predictions by 53% in eight months. It is impossible. Today I reminded the Minister of Finance of what I told him last week in Vancouver: that he was not intellectually honest, that it was dishonest of him to present incorrect figures on the deficit, as he has done since becoming Minister of Finance.

His predictions were terrible, way out of line. Again on Sunday evening, I was with the president of the forecasting firm Informetrica. We discussed the Department of Finance's estimating methods and realized that, however we looked at the February figures, trying to make adjustments between revenues and expenditures, that is, tax revenues and expenditures, there was no way the Minister of Finance could maintain in February his forecast deficit of $19 billion. Everything pointed to a deficit of between $10 and $12 billion.

The minister withheld information from the public to avoid any debate on the drastic cuts he imposed on the provinces for social programs, employment insurance and other initiatives that directly affect Quebeckers and Canadians.

With respect to these cuts, the minister showed a total lack of compassion since tabling his very first budget, but particularly since his 1996 budget. Where did our dear Minister of Finance take the money to achieve such results? He took it out of the pockets of the poor. He got the money by slashing social programs, by cutting $6 billion per year from programs designed to help the poor. By the year 2003, federal transfers to fund social assistance programs administered by the provinces, to fund higher education, which is also administered by the provinces and which is a field under exclusive provincial jurisdiction, and to fund health will have undergone cumulative cuts of $42 billion by the Minister of Finance. These are the minister's own figures.

If we look at his 1996 budget and planned cuts until the year 2003, we see that, for the fiscal year that just ended, the minister cut $4.6 billion. In 1997-98, which is the current fiscal year, cuts will reach $10.9 billion and will affect provincially administered programs in the social assistance, higher education and health sectors. In 1998-99, cuts will total $17.2 billion, then $23.5 billion in 1999, and so on, for a cumulative total of $42 billion.

So when the Minister of Finance tells us that his government announced it would invest $6 billion in social and health programs over the next five years, this has nothing to do with the $42 billion it will cut and will continue to cut until 2003. It does not present an accurate picture to the public of what this government is really doing to help the most disadvantaged.

Last week, the Minister of Finance announced that several hundreds of millions of dollars would be earmarked annually to help the poorest members of society, to revitalize the health sector, to provide scholarships for students. This assistance is a sham. It shows a lack of intellectual honesty to give this impression, when there are going to be $42 billion in cuts in the very sectors they are claiming to want to focus on in order to help the most disadvantaged, the ill, and students.

Cuts in social transfers to the provinces represent 53% of the federal government's spending cuts. It is not the government, but the provinces, that have done the work. The proof is that for every $1 cut in health care in Quebec, 93 cents was because of the decision by the federal Minister of Finance to cut Quebec's health transfers. Ninety-three cents on every dollar.

As for social assistance and post-secondary education, every time Quebec cut a dollar in these sectors, 73 cents was because of cuts by the federal Minister of Finance. So we are not talking about peanuts. This year, for the first time, Quebec would have balanced its budget, had it not been for the drastic cuts by the Minister of Finance.

It is all very well to tell us about the Minister of Finance's wonderful ability to manage, but any old biped of average intelligence would have done exactly the same thing. It is easy to steal from your neighbour and say that you came by our money honestly. That is what the Minister of Finance has done. He has had others do the work. He has also had the unemployed workers of Quebec and of Canada do some of the work. For the past three years, he has asked them to contribute almost $20 billion to help reduce his deficit. How did he do this? By keeping premiums abnormally high, by generating surpluses that will reach $13 billion this year.

So, we went from a $6 billion deficit in the UI fund in 1993 to $13 billion in accumulated surpluses this year. The calculation is simple: the $6 billion deficit was eliminated by imposing very high employer and employee premium rates and by making the employment insurance plan stricter. Add $13 billion to that and there are the $19 billion that did not go to the unemployed these past three and a half years.

That is $19 billion taken away from the unemployed, that should have been used, partly at least, to pay benefits to the unemployed to help them get back to work. But it was not. This amount could also have been used to create jobs. Again, it was not. Job creation is not important to this government. If it was important, we would not have 1.5 million unemployed workers in this country. If it was important, the employment insurance premium rates would not be maintained at an artificially high level, as they currently are; premiums rates, which are payroll taxes, would be lowered.

High premium rates slow sustainable and meaningful job creation. Now that the public finances are in better shape and that he has the most vulnerable taxpayers to thank for that, what is the Minister of Finance waiting for to correct the situation, by admitting his mistake and his responsibility in the deteriorating poverty situation?

Again, we must not think that billions of dollars, $42 billion by the year 2003, can be cut without serious harm being caused to the people of Quebec and Canada and without this being reflected somewhere in the statistics on poverty. It already is.

There is reference to child poverty. The incidence of child poverty was 14.5% in 1989. The percentage of children living in families below the poverty line was 14.5. At the present time, the figure is 20.5%, a rise of 4.5%, and this is connected to the Minister of Finance's policies, the Minister of Finance's drastic cuts to social programs. That is the only explanation there is.

When we look at unemployment, the minister is boasting of fantastic surpluses in the unemployment insurance fund, which he is putting toward reduction of the deficit, when we look at the restrictions which have helped accumulate the unemployment insurance fund surplus, the restrictions to the new employment insurance program, we see that this is no joke.

In 1990, 77% of the unemployed, the men and women who lost their jobs, were entitled to unemployment insurance. This year, only 41% were. Why? Because the rules were tightened up. The eligibility requirements were tightened up.

So where do you think people go today, when they are no longer entitled to unemployment insurance? Most go on welfare. They become marginal. Once again, the one responsible is the Minister of Finance. He is the one who pretends to have a heart, while in fact he has no compassion, none whatsoever, along with the rest of the government, for the most disadvantaged and for the unemployed. He is the one responsible, he is the one marginalizing workers, who end up cut off from the realities of the workplace, once they are marginalized and forced onto welfare. They are cut off from that reality, and it is hard to get back to a normal job search afterward. One has to be close to the labour market to improve one's chances of finding work. The Minister of Finance totally disregarded that aspect in his efforts to meet his budgetary objectives.

The motion tabled by the NDP also deals with the monetary policy. It is the federal government which dictates the main thrusts of the monetary policy to Gordon Thiessen, the Governor of the Bank of Canada. At the very least, the minister sends signals, even though he does not administer the monetary policy himself. He sends signals to the Governor of the Bank of Canada on behalf of his government, so that the latter will apply specific interest rate policies.

The Minister of Finance, who claims to support employment and who gives all kinds of wrong figures, which makes me wonder about his intellectual honesty, tells the Bank of Canada: “Go ahead with the strong medicine; interest rates must go up as soon as economic recovery is in sight. We must not create too many jobs. It would generate inflationary pressure. Go ahead, raise interest rates. Do what the Bank of Canada used to do, which was to apply strong medicine whenever there was any emerging inflationary trend”.

The minister agrees with this policy. Last week, in the Globe and Mail , while everyone else in Canada was criticizing—

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

The hon. member for Tobique—Mactaquac, on a point of order.

[Gilles Bernier, Progressive Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Madam Speaker, I do not think we have a quorum.

[An hon. member]

There are only 15 members present.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

There is no quorum. Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, I find it unfortunate that you interrupted—

[René Canuel, Bloc, Matapédia—Matane, QC]

—such a fine speech.

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Such a fine speech, as my hon. colleague said. I did not say so. Even the Reform Party agrees this was a fine speech.

As I was saying, Madam Speaker, the Minister of Finance, who claims to be in favour of job creation, is sending the Bank of Canada signals that directly contradict this government's job creation objectives. He keeps saying to Gordon Thiessen, the governor of the Bank of Canada: “Go ahead. Whenever the economy starts growing too fast and inflationary pressure may develop, use your strong medicine the old way, by raising interest rates”. That is a recipe for jeopardizing economic recovery.

The Bank of Canada monetary policy is rather complex, but it basically boils down to this. As soon as there is an economic recovery and economic growth creates employment, if growth is deemed to be too fast, according to His Excellency the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Gordon Thiessen, he immediately raises interest rates to slow the rate of growth right down, thereby slowing job creation too.

This is the silliest policy Canada has had in years. Three years into a technical recovery, labour market conditions have yet to be restored to their prerecession levels. Participation levels are lower than ever. Our capacity to reduce unemployment—there are currently 1.5 unemployed Canadians—has diminished. Even Gordon Thiessen realized last year that he had perhaps gone a bit too far with interest rates in the last quarter of 1995; that he had perhaps slowed down the rate of job growth a bit too much.

It is unacceptable that there is a lack of jobs, that the rate of unemployment is so high, and that they are holding to an archaic policy of staying below the Bank of Canada's own inflation target. A minimum of 2% inflation was mentioned. Right now, inflation is around 1.7% or 1.8%.

The Bank of Canada forgot the other part of its mandate, which is to see that the money market does not reduce job creation opportunities. They have completely lost sight of this. They are obsessed with inflation. It is cruel to do what they are doing. They are ruining unemployed workers' chances of finding jobs because they are keeping interest rates high during an economic recovery.

This has to change. As the NDP's motion points out, the Minister of Finance must get back on track and give a clear signal to the Bank of Canada.

There is no question of continuing this sort of dogmatic policy, of raising interest rates when they should not be raised. The emphasis should be on using low interest rates to encourage investment, which will then lead to job creation. It is time the Minister of Finance changed course, because we will never bring down the high rate of unemployment we are now facing with a policy as pathetic as the one favoured by the Governor of the Bank of Canada.

There is one aspect of the Minister of Finance's approach to righting the budgetary situation that I forgot to mention just now. I forgot to mention that the Minister of Finance sat with his arms folded for two years. He watched the train go by, revenues fill the coffers of the federal government, because another $23 billion in taxes went into the federal government's coffers, because the Minister of Finance did not index tax tables, because the Minister of Finance told Revenue Canada to reduce all tax credits including tax credits for persons with disabilities.

If you had any idea, and my colleagues can confirm this, of the number of people with disabilities who come to our riding offices and complain that Revenue Canada is after them demanding the return of the tax credit for persons with disabilities that they received in the previous five years. They even go so far as to tell people who are totally unable to pursue normal work activities that they have no disability, that they are not entitled to this credit. This is the government's budget policy, this is the Minister of Finance's budget policy.

I tell you that we too, like our colleagues in the NDP, condemn the federal government for its negative attitude toward employment and toward people who are suffering. It is in fact the government that put them in that situation.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your appointment.

The member, well known in this House, has just made some fairly trite remarks. It is always the same old story from the hon. member on the subject of federal government meddling in areas under provincial jurisdiction.

I know that the member has a lot of criticisms on the Minister of Finance's position on the economy. I must say that our economy is in full recovery. I realize it is difficult for the member to comprehend the fact that this Minister of Finance is not only one of the most popular ministers of finance, but his ideas, words and leadership have revitalized our economy. It is bouncing back for good reason.

I find it very interesting that the Bloc Quebecois members continue to talk about the fact that so much money is being taken away from them and that somehow the federal government can be blamed for just about everything. Frankly after having heard that for three or four years in the past Parliament we think perhaps there could be some kind of development to their thinking.

This might be a good opportunity for the Bloc Quebecois to rethink things, given that the economy is recovering vigorously.

I offer a few points raised by the member opposite on the political and monetary plans of the government and the Bank of Canada.

Madam Speaker, it will not come as a surprise to you that in this country the federal government does not interfere and does not ever want to do what it did some 35 or 40 years ago when it interfered in monetary policy. It goes to prove just how out of touch the Bloc Quebecois is when it failed to recognize that after 35 years, in my lifetime, we have never seen interest rates this low.

So why Bloc members would continue or why they would obsess themselves with the idea that somehow this is a major problem is beyond me. What I can tell the hon. member, and I am sure Madam Speaker you would understand, is that our economy has never done any better. From my view I think what the hon. Minister of Finance has done is not only commendable, it is exceptional.

In this context, could the hon. member, in his wisdom, not acknowledge here in the House that our economy, including that of the province of Quebec, is in full recovery and that the cuts in assistance to the disadvantaged came not only from the federal government, but also from the provincial government and his former party chief? Would he not agree, with the rest of the country, that the reality of the 1990s is that we must provide sound financial management for the disadvantaged, the poor and the future?