Mr. Speaker, after that half-hour procedural debate on the scope of Standing Order 73, I am going to enter the discussion on Bill C-92 to amend the Income Tax Act. The purpose of this bill is to implement certain measures announced in the 1996 budget. I wonder why the government tabled this bill only yesterday, more than one year later.
To begin with, the purpose of the 1996 budget, like its predecessors, was to battle the deficit. But the losers in the battle were the provinces, the workers, the unemployed and the most marginalized members of our society. This budget pretends to reduce the deficit by taking the $5 billion surplus from the unemployment insurance fund. We can see the consequences today: the bulk of the budget problems of the Government of Quebec today are, in fact, due to the 1996 budget, as well as the 1995 and 1997 budgets.
Many of the difficult choices the Government of Quebec has to make are the consequences of the cuts in social transfers to the provinces that have been decreed by Ottawa. I must state that it is immoral for the government to use the unemployment insurance fund surplus to solve its deficit problem. These funds do not belong to the state, to the government, in any way; they belong exclusively to the workers and to the employers.
When Bill C-12 reformed the unemployment insurance system in Canada, it drastically reduced benefits, their duration, and the number of unemployed people eligible for benefits. Workers and especially the unemployed will not forget Bill C-12 when they vote in the next election.
Neither Bill C-92 nor the budgets brought down in 1996 and 1997 contain any provisions for the kind of tax reform in this country that the Bloc Quebecois has been demanding repeatedly. The 1996 budget only went so far as to create a technical committee on business taxation, a committee whose appointees had a conflict of interest and whose members advise large corporations on how to save on their income tax. Moreover the committee's mandate, which was for a set term, has already been extended until the end of 1997.
In the next election, taxation will be a central issue. The Bloc Quebecois will talk about Canada's unfair tax system. The tax burden must be shared equitably between private citizens and corporations. There should also be a greater measure of fairness in the tax system's approach to large corporations and small businesses, because small businesses are the sector that creates jobs.
Our current tax system does not promote job creation, although unemployment is our number one problem today in Canada, Quebec, the maritimes and everywhere else. Again, we have to mention all those promises that were not kept by a government that was elected under the slogan: jobs, jobs, jobs. Today, unemployment has reached 12 per cent in Quebec and 10 per cent in Canada. The main victims are women, young people and workers around 45
or 50 years old who can no longer find work when they are laid off. Immigrants are also hit by unemployment.
Last week in Montreal, I met several leaders of the Spanish speaking community who told me that 40 per cent of the members of this community are now unemployed in Montreal, more than half of the black population in Quebec, especially Montreal, is unemployed. These people want to work. They are even prepared to take on difficult jobs, to work the night shift, to work for the minimum wage, even without employment insurance. They want to work, but the government is doing nothing to create jobs.
In my riding in Montréal-Nord, almost one third of the labour force is unemployed. People come to see me at my office and ask me to help them find a job. This is very sad, because there is almost nothing I can do to help them. Zellers, which is doing very well, announced it was closing its warehouse in Montréal-Nord, so 378 employees will lose their jobs as of July 1.
Last week, we attended a meeting called to create a committee to salvage these facilities. The meeting was attended by federal members, of course, and provincial members, representatives of the municipality of Montréal-Nord and the unions. I want to take this opportunity to ask Zellers not to close its warehouse in Montréal-Nord, an area that has a very well trained and highly skilled workforce with considerable experience in this field.
I also take this opportunity to appeal to business to develop social responsibility. Banks, for example, which made more than $6 billion in profits last year, more than any other business sector in Canada, also lay off the largest number of employees. That is unacceptable.
Again, I think the government should introduce a bill imposing a minimum tax on corporations, and banks in particular.
The situation in Montreal, and Montreal North in particular, is extremely difficult. More and more women, children and immigrants are living in poverty. A very large share of the responsibility for this most acute problem lies with the federal government. There are 1.5 million poor children in Canada. More than 5 million Canadians and Quebecers are living under the poverty line. In Montreal North alone, about 9,000 households, or 20 per cent of the total population, rely exclusively on social assistance.
Efforts have been made these past five years to establish a CDEC. I made this a priority when I ran for office. The CDEC has been in operation since February and is doing a great job. However, the federal government will not contribute $170,000 to the Montreal North CDEC, but at the same time, older workers are no longer covered by the POWA, the Program for Older Worker Adjustment, since it was abolished on April 1.
For all these reasons, I can only find fault with this government, and all this will come out during the next election campaign.