Mr. Speaker, before answering the question from the hon. member for Fredericton-York-Sunbury, I want to comment briefly on his remarks. First, the hon. member acknowledges that the government and the human resources minister at the time, the current Minister of National Defence, made monumental mistakes which, unfortunately, were endorsed by the government.
Thanks to representations made by organizations looking after people with disabilities, and also by the official opposition, the government finally realized the enormity of these errors, and some changes were made in the funding provided to these organizations. I recognize it in the budget. In fact, it was announced last January. Corrective measures were taken to restore the situation to what it was before 1996, to restore grants to what they were in 1995.
It is difficult to take for granted that improvements such as these augur well for the future, that we should rest easy and assume that the federal government will propose other measures to improve the lot of the disabled, such as the integration fund, when we know that the government not only has a tendency to interfere in provincial jurisdictions, but that it is still actively doing so.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister willingly admitted to journalists-as can be seen in nearly all of today's daily newspapers-that the federal government was getting involved in areas of provincial jurisdiction, but only temporarily, and would withdraw within a few years. That is really thumbing their noses at people. They are telling us that the federal government is putting money into this just to bug the provincial governments and then, once they have created a need and people come back for more, they will take pull out and take their money with them. What a hateful thing to admit to.
In response to my colleague's question as to which priorities with respect to the disabled the federal government was to be responsible for, a commitment has been made, and it was made several times by the Minister of Justice, for instance, to amend human rights legislation to provide that employers would be obliged to adapt work stations.
The Minister of Justice said that once the government had dealt with the matter of same sex couples or sexual orientation and employment equity, it would introduce amendments to help people with disabilities enter the labour market. That was one of the proposals.
We, and this includes persons with disabilities, are still waiting for the legislation, because this is a very practical measure. In fact any measure, not just experiments, but any measure that will help people with disabilities get into the labour market will be welcome.
People with disabilities do not want to be treated like people who cannot participate in the economy and their community. They want the means to do so. This includes transportation that is adapted to their needs, which means adapting vehicles and adapting accommodation, but it also means special training programs.
So the federal government should reach an agreement as soon as possible with Quebec, as far as the Bloc Quebecois is concerned, but in fact with all provinces that want to patriate manpower training and labour market entry assistance, in order to come up with practical solutions and not just spend money on experiments or creating task forces.
"We do not want a lot of discussion". This was the message we got from people with disabilities, time and time again when my colleague from Fredericton and his colleagues travelled across Canada. They said: "We want no more reports, no more talk, we want action".
That is what they expect from this government, and I hope we will see further measures in the months to come.