Mr. Speaker, may I begin by congratulating you on your election as Speaker. I wish to assure you that, in this House, the Bloc Quebecois will always behave with the greatest respect for this institution, just as we have in the past.
After the last election, we find ourselves in a fragmented Parliament, a Parliament reflecting the true face of Canada. The Bloc Quebecois finds itself as the principal Quebec party, the main voice for Quebec in Ottawa. Forty-four members, constituting the majority of the Quebec deputation, 60 percent of the deputation in fact, that is what the Bloc Quebecois represents.
Indeed, speaking of the true face of Canada, we had an eloquent example yesterday in the Speech from the Throne. Two main conclusions can be drawn from the intentions of the Liberal government.
The first is no surprise: continuation of Plan B, the hard line with Quebec. I will return to this point later.
A second conclusion must also be reached: after going after the deficit at the expense of the unemployed and the most disadvantaged members of society, by hacking savagely at transfer payments to the provinces for health and education and at unemployment insurance, now this government has the gall, the indecency, to make use of the surpluses generated by its own cutbacks to interfere in areas of provincial jurisdiction.
Clearly, the aim is political visibility rather than efficiency for the public. With this objective, this second conclusion falls in line with our first one.
The cuts to unemployment insurance, the cuts to social assistance imposed on the provinces and the reductions in health and education transfers occasioned by this government's deficit reduction have wreaked havoc in the lives of thousands of Canadians.
Rather than repair the damage it has done, the government is concerned with only one thing. It wants to use the money it saved to increase its profile for purely political purposes.
If I had to summarize the speech on government policy, I would say that the word is federalism in capital letters.
In its speech, the government is inviting us to take part in a great debate on the post zero deficit age. The Liberals are proposing that half the surplus go to paying the debt and to reducing taxes. The other half would go to misusing its spending power in areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction.
Having been the cause of many social ills, the government now wants to set itself up as the saviour. It will have cut $42 billion from social programs, health care, education and social assistance, thus forcing the closure of hospitals, driving thousands of workers denied unemployment insurance toward welfare and causing massive cuts in schools.
The surpluses that will be generated after the deficit is eliminated should not be used for federalist propaganda, but should go directly to reinstating the transfer payments made to the provinces for social programs. Specifically, this would mean more money for hospitals and CLSCs. It would also mean more teachers and student services.
Secondly, surpluses should go to job creation through a targeted reduction in payroll taxes. In its electoral platform, the Bloc proposed that the employment insurance fund surplus be used to lower employment insurance premiums by at least 35« and to re-invest $2.5 billion in improving assistance to the unemployed, including the seasonally unemployed.
Not returning the annual surplus of approximately $7 billion in the employment insurance fund, and not telling workers and the unemployed about this surplus, is a clear misappropriation of funds. The suggestions I am now making had the agreement of the premiers in St. Andrews recently.
Next, the surpluses must be used in the fight against poverty. And this includes improving the employment insurance system, given the deep cuts made over the last five years, particularly in benefits to seasonal workers.
Finally, there is the long overdue $2 billion in compensation paid to the Maritimes but not to Quebec for harmonizing the GST, one of the demands from Quebec that was also supported by all premiers at the St. Andrews meeting. And only after it has fulfilled these obligations should the federal government think about lowering taxes or reducing the debt.
But instead of repairing the damage caused by its policies, the government announces that it will now use this breathing room to systematically interfere in areas of provincial jurisdiction. The worst interference ever seen in the history of Canada. Even Pierre Elliott Trudeau never dared to go this far. And that's saying something.
The government is confirming its interference in the health field by creating a pharmacare plan, when Quebec already has its own such plan.
Moreover, after taking over 30 years to partially withdraw from the manpower training sector, this same federal government is now seeking, six months later, to maintain, confirm and increase its involvement in youth training.
One the very few new things mentioned in this speech is that the federal government will now get directly involved in education, in order to, and I quote: “measure the readiness of Canadian children to learn”, through an innocuous leaflet sent to every home. And then are we going to have national standards in the education sector? Are we going to have national exams in that sector?
I say we will never let the federal government get involved in Quebec's schools. Never.
However, these measures and policies are just part of a more global strategy designed to achieve the first objective that we pointed out, namely to pursue more aggressively than ever the government's plan B. This is the logical consequence of the last election, when we witnessed repeated attacks against Quebec, its politicians and its democratic institutions.
The prevailing ideology in the rest of Canada is getting further than ever from Quebec's traditional demands and aspirations. Such hardening is being promoted in an irresponsible fashion by the comments of the Reform Party, by the actions of the Liberal Party of Canada, and by the collusive silence of the leader of the Conservative Party. As for the NDP, it has always ignored the Quebec issue, and in fact this is why Quebecers have always ignored the NDP.
Slowly but surely, through the use of psychological profiles, changing democratic rules, hate-filled Internet sites and the promotion of partition, public opinion in the rest of Canada is falling into collective beliefs that still smack of colonialism as regards Quebec, in that they view us merely as a quaint entity.
This attitude is obvious in the government's throne speech. Never before, in a Speech from the Throne, has a government so directly threatened Quebec's right to decide on its own future.
Moreover, the Liberal government is dropping the solemn commitment made after the referendum to recognize Quebec as a distinct society, after putting it in a motion passed by the House of Commons, and after repeating it in the form of an election promise in its second red book.
Further watering down recognition of the Quebec people, this government has embraced the definition in the Calgary declaration, referring to the “unique character of Quebec society”, as unique as B.C. salmon, and without constitutional amendments.
If we carefully examine this agreement, it is easy to understand why the Prime Minister and the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs were so enthusiastic. This is the worst it has ever been for Quebec. Several experts agree it is far less than Meech and even less than Charlottetown.
The federalists were rather quick to applaud the results of a recent survey on this agreement. They should not get carried away, because as Quebecers become better acquainted with the contents of this agreement, their support will be affected accordingly. In the rest of Canada, we already hear people saying that Quebec has been given too much. There is a very real possibility it will be Charlottetown all over again.
The only message sent to Quebec in this throne speech is that we should be satisfied with Canada as served up in Calgary, otherwise it will be Plan B.
All in the defence of national unity, the government even has the nerve to emphasize the bilingual character of this country, when the facts tell a different story altogether. They show a shocking rate of assimilation among francophones outside Quebec, a national Constitution that since 1982 has never been translated into French, and a few weeks ago, the closing, to all intents and purposes, of the only francophone hospital in Ontario, the Montfort. That is Canada's bilingual character.
I have only a few words for the rest of Canada about the premiers meeting which was held in Calgary. Forget the Calgary deal, it will never pass Quebec.
The Bloc Quebecois has never deviated from its basic principles. Now more than ever, we deem sovereignty to be necessary. The constitutional impasse is still there, even more so since the Calgary declaration. The main purpose of the Bloc Quebecois is clear: to advance the sovereignist project while staunchly defending Quebec's interests.
During this next mandate, defending Quebec's interests will have to involve defending Quebec's democratic institutions. When we came to Ottawa, we knew it would be hard, that harsh words would be exchanged. Yet we would never have dreamed that we would have to defend democracy, we would never have dreamed that the federal government would stoop so low as to question the very foundations of democracy.
This best country in the world is behaving like an imperial power looking down its nose at its ignorant colony, which dared to get just a little too uppity on the evening of October 30, 1995. A colony which no doubt needs psychoanalysis, I suppose, as the hon. member for Don Valley West so clearly demonstrated to us with his pseudo-psychoanalysis of the Premier of Quebec. Some might also add that the people who voted yes did not know what they were doing, while everything was perfectly clear to those who voted no.
Yet the rules governing the last two referendums were accepted by all parties, including the federal government. A federal government which, let us recall, accepted Newfoundland into Confederation with a close vote in a second referendum. Casting doubt on those rules now indicates obvious bad faith and, in particular, a profound disdain for the near-victory of the yes side in the last referendum.
Let us look a little closer at the rules the Prime Minister is trying to discredit with the help of his hatchet man, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs.
In Quebec, all of the province's political leaders agree on the rules governing Quebec's move to sovereignty. There is clearly a consensus in Quebec on this, which the federal government is refusing to recognize.
This consensus is grounded on three basic principles: first, the existence of the people of Quebec; next, respect for fundamental democratic principles; finally, the integrity of Quebec territory. All of Quebec's premiers, be they federalist or sovereignist, from Daniel Johnson senior to Robert Bourassa, have defended these three principles.
The federalists, in their post-referendum panic and without an argument to stand on, are going after the process, trying to discredit it by all possible means. By doing so, however, they are the ones discrediting democracy in Canada by deriding the rules underlying it. Partition, a reference to the Supreme Court, doubt cast on the rule of the simple majority, a country wide referendum, all threats and fears are fair game.
Under the tutelage of the Reform Party, the Liberal Party of Canada has chosen not to face the issue. Everything is being questioned with the almost acknowledged aim of frightening Quebecers and with the obvious aim of saying, “You will never do it”. The bidding is escalating at the expense of Quebecers.
Although they are not acceptable, these attacks against Quebec's democratic institutions are not the real problem. Although they are irresponsible and dangerous, the threats of the partition and hacking-up of Quebec are not the real problem. Although it is both absurd and disgusting, the reference to the Supreme Court aimed at depriving Quebecers of their right to decide their future democratically is not the real problem.
The real problem is this stubborn denial of the very existence of the people of Quebec. This is the real problem, which in turn leads to all sorts of undemocratic excesses cloaked in legality and clarity. Such hypocrisy. This is the root cause of the deadlock. The Liberal Party of Canada's approach has failed, because it denies the existence of the people of Quebec people, a people different from the people of Canada.
By so doing, the big guns in the federalist camp are endorsing the position of the leader of the official opposition, who stubbornly denies the existence of the people of Quebec as one of the two founding nations of Canada in 1867.
Canadians are a people. The aboriginal peoples are made up of several peoples. People all over the world are divided into various peoples. If it is good for everybody else, why would it be bad for Quebecers?
I appeal specifically to members from Quebec in this House who, over and above their mandate, are citizens who must believe in respecting democracy and above all in the existence of the people of Quebec.
We urge you not to be part of the government's blind denial of the facts when it refuses to recognize that the people of Quebec people exists and is free to decide its own future.
To conclude, let me say a word or two about Canada's future. In its Speech from the Throne, the government is predicting a brilliant future for Canada during the third millennium. It even invites us to celebrate this future success ahead of time. We see things differently.
We believe that Canada is at a crossroad. It has a choice. The federal government can remain true to its traditions of tolerance, openmindedness and democracy, traditions upheld by Lester B. Pearson, among others. Then, the government will give Quebec the right to decide its own future in accordance with the democratic rules which are part of the common heritage of the peoples of Canada and Quebec.
Thus, it will become once again a model at the international level, with which a sovereign Quebec will be able to build a real partnership. Not a pseudo-partnership where Quebec would simply carry out orders from Ottawa, but a fruitful partnership between two sovereign countries. This is simply reasonable, this is plain common sense.
Or the government can let itself go and drift away from democracy, this has already started, driven mostly by the anti-sovereignist phobia of the Prime Minister and his Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. And this is the open door to all excesses, a slide towards anger and intolerance, towards totally anti-democratic behaviour. This is a dead end street.
Unfortunately, it is this second alternative which seems to prevail at the present time, because of a Prime Minister who is blinded and intoxicated by the arabesques and arrogance of his Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. This is regrettable, but I am deeply convinced that in the end the Canadian people, whom I sincerely trust, will not allow it. The government will have to pay a heavy price for having defiled its own institutions.
Members of the Bloc Quebecois will continue to stand by the democratic traditions of Lester B. Pearson's Canada. We will continue to respect this House despite the fact that many members on the government side try to defile it and use it for their own anti-sovereignist obsessions, as they are presently trying to do with the Supreme Court. Even if they continue to move down this dead end street, they will not prevent Quebec from progressing toward sovereignty. I do hope that Quebecers will have their own country by the year 2000.
In concluding, I move:
That the amendment be modified by adding after the words “legislative program” the following:
“that denies the existence of the Québécois people and their culture, which once again reflects the government's centralizing vision by confirming and increasing its presence in areas of provincial jurisdiction such as social programs, health and especially education, and”.