Debates of Oct. 29th, 1998

Employment Insurance

[The Speaker]

I ask the hon. member to go directly to his question.

[Dick Harris, Reform, Prince George—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the fact is no matter what the Prime Minister says and no matter what kind of rosy picture he paints, workers are being looted $350 a year out of their pockets.

Why does the Prime Minister rank spending almost $3 billion for a personal millennium monument higher than giving workers $350 a year to buy school supplies and snow boots for their kids?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think there will be a lot, of the 100,000 students, who will be receiving in the next 10 years a bursary from this government because of the millennium scholarship program who will think that we have not acted in the best interests of preparing the young people of Canada to be best equipped to face the challenges of the 21st century.

[Dick Harris, Reform, Prince George—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, 5% of Canadian post-secondary students are far more important than millions of Canadian children.

Canadian workers need a break. The Liberals have taxed away 155% of any wage gains they have had in the last five years. Now they want to take another $350 a year from their EI surplus.

Will the Prime Minister give Canadian workers a raise by letting them keep their money?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I said and I repeat the Reform Party was asking us not to reduce the premiums but use the money to reduce the deficit and eventually the debt.

As usual it has changed its position. What is unbelievable is that when we are preoccupied with making sure the young people of tomorrow will be able to earn a good living because of good education, I note with pleasure the Reform Party is opposed to that.

Election Campaign In Quebec

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, last weekend, the Prime Minister said that he had met all Quebec's traditional demands.

Then, the day before yesterday, he did a complete about-face, opened up the door to the general store and said that, if Quebeckers voted for Jean Charest, he might have some constitutional amendments to offer them.

How does the Prime Minister explain that his recent message of support for Quebec's Liberal Party has apparently not reached Jean Charest, who this morning was calling for the Prime Minister to change his attitude or quit?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, what I like is that, since yesterday, when the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and I said we had made changes, the Leader of the Bloc Quebecois and the Leader of the Parti Quebecois have been taking the credit. The same people who say we are not making any changes are now taking the credit.

What is good about this election campaign is that finally the truth is coming out. Yesterday, the Leader of the Bloc Quebecois said that a vote for the PQ was a vote for a future referendum in Quebec. Quebeckers are glad to see that the old tricks are over and the truth is coming to light.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I said that there would be a winning referendum because there will be winning conditions and because the PQ will win the election.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

[The Speaker]

The hon. leader of the Bloc Quebecois has the floor.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, after the election, Canadians will realize that the Prime Minister is once again deluding himself with his predictions that sovereignty is headed nowhere. It is not the old tricks that will disappear, it is this Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister may well brag about everything he has done for Quebec, yet even his ally, Jean Charest, is calling for him to quit. He has had enough too. What does the Prime Minister make of that?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad that an election has been called, because now the truth will begin to come out. Yesterday, he talked about a referendum, but now he says only if the conditions are right.

If Quebeckers truly want to have winning conditions in order to have the wishes they have expressed in the last two referendums respected, in order to bring about real changes, they should vote for a Liberal government that wants to remain in Canada and not for a party that wants Quebec to separate.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has a serious problem.

His ally in Quebec, his protégé Jean Charest, the one all the ministers want to canvas for, the one the Prime Minister again yesterday described as reasonable, wants him to adapt or leave. What has he to say?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, what the Prime Minister has to say is that he, in this House, had a resolution passed on distinct society, which the members of the Bloc Quebecois opposed.

We had a law passed in parliament giving a veto to all the regions in Canada, including Quebec, and the Bloc Quebecois opposed it.

Each time we have made changes in order to improve things for all Quebeckers who want to remain Canadian, the Parti Quebecois has opposed a true presence for Quebeckers within Canada.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's memory is fragile. Not even Jean Charest came to vote for his empty resolution.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

We have a Prime Minister who says he has met Quebec's demands. He has just said so again. Then we have Jean Charest, his ally, who says, on the front page of the Globe and Mail , that if the Prime Minister blocks change, he must leave. The two of them are contradicting each other.

Who is really speaking for the federalists?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, we are the ones making the changes. For 30 years we had problems with manpower in Canada. Who managed to resolve this problem? Our government.

[An hon. member]

It was the PQ.

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Saint-Maurice, QC]

Quebec, for 30 years, wanted to resolve the problem in education, which required a constitutional amendment. Who helped Quebec resolve this problem by changing the Constitution? It was the federal Liberal Party, here, in parliament.

Agriculture

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.

Canadian farmers are in crisis. Prices are down, input costs are up and droughts are taking their toll. U.S. farmers have just received $6 billion in additional farm aid. European farmers are getting twice the support of Canadian farmers but this government has cut agricultural support by two thirds.

Lloyd Pletz, a Saskatchewan farmer, says “I'm finished in the spring. I've got no way to hang on”. Has the Prime Minister nothing to say to Lloyd Pletz and other farm families like his?

[Lyle Vanclief, Liberal, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Mr. Speaker, we have had continuing discussions with the farm leaders over the years and the provincial governments. We have put in place a very thorough safety net system in the country.

At the present time we are reviewing that. I have called a meeting of the key farm leaders and the provincial agriculture ministers for next week to discuss where we are and the management tools that are there and how we might better use them to address this serious situation of the Canadian farm income.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, this is a crisis. We are talking about a crisis and in a crisis Americans do not just talk, they put their money where their mouths are. Congress has just approved $6 billion more for emergency farm aid while this government says to Canadian farmers “You are on your own”.

When will this government ensure a level playing field for Canadian farmers? When will this government begin to respond to the serious crisis on Canadian farms?

[Lyle Vanclief, Liberal, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Mr. Speaker, we have been working with Canadian farmers to get prepared for this unfortunate circumstance that happens periodically in commodity prices throughout the world.

It is interesting and I might inform the hon. member that the United States Department of Agriculture has been and continues to be in Canada to look at the system we have put in place for our farmers so that they would not have to do what they are doing now when the situation gets like it is.

National Defence

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the defence minister says that pilots who are not comfortable flying Labradors have been told they do not have to. But retired Lieutenant Colonel Dennis Hopping, a former Labrador pilot and CFB Greenwood base commander, said “It is very difficult as a member of an air crew team to say no, I won't launch an operational mission to save someone's life. What a terrible position to put a professional pilot in”.

How can the minister put these pilots in that position? If one of them gets hurt flying the aging Labradors before the final report comes in as to what happened with that Labrador crash in Quebec, will he accept full responsibility for it?