Mr. Speaker, work is a right, employment is a necessity, and poverty is an affront to human dignity, an injustice to our learned institutions and an infringement of fundamental freedoms.
It is in this context that the Bloc Quebecois supports the proposal by the youngest member in the House, the member for Lac-Saint-Jean, that a parliamentary committee be struck to look at the issue of the role and authority of governments with respect to the redistribution of wealth.
A debate on this scale cannot be partisan. It is therefore with confidence that I urge my fellow members in the House to take an active role in the Bloc Quebecois' proposal.
I would like to take a moment to read out the motion. It goes as follows:
That this House reiterate the 1989 commitment to eliminating child poverty by the year 2000, urge the government to act, and strike an all-party Special Parliamentary Committee with the main objective of considering Canadian parliamentarians' ability to narrow the gap between rich and poor in the new context created by the globalization of markets, because of the following facts:
(1) despite the economic growth of recent years, the gap between rich and poor continues to widen;
(2) the globalization of markets greatly affects governments' ability to develop their countries' economies in accordance with their priorities; and
(3) globalization and the international agreements that frame it, particularly the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) as now written, may limit some of governments' powers and consequently those of the representatives elected to this House.
I will begin by recalling the observation of one of this century's great thinkers, Fernand Dumont, who said, in Raisons communes , that “Problems do not go away because we have talked about them too much; they persist because we have not resolved them”. He was right, of course.
Indeed, in our ridings, we are constantly reminded of the increase in poverty by the very people who suffer because of that problem. Every day, the fact that poverty is on the rise is reported by the media and by members in the House of Commons. Since we came to the House in 1993, this issue has been a priority of the Bloc Quebecois. It is an ongoing concern among our members.
As for statistics, they leave no room for argument. They show that, despite economic growth, the gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow rapidly. A study from the national forum on family security concluded that, between 1981 and 1991, in the bottom 20% of the income scale, $25,000 or less, incomes dropped by $400 million. In the middle income group, between $39,000 and $54,200, incomes dropped by $2.7 billion. However, in the top 20% of the income scale, $74,000 or more, incomes increased by $6.6 billion.
What is the situation elsewhere? In 1992, the wealthiest 20% of the population in the United States had an income that was 11 times higher than that of the poorest 20%, compared to seven and a half times in 1969. Internationally, the wealthiest 20% of the population have seen their share of the world income increase from 70% to 85% between 1960 and 1991, whereas the poorest 20% have seen their share drop from 2.3% to 1.4%.
But beyond these statistics, there is pain. There are children who are hungry and parents who are desperate because they cannot give them what they need. There are young people who are reluctant to bring children into this world because they are in dire financial straits. Do we have the right to remain silent and to continue to include in our legislation what really amounts to the social and economic exclusion of an important part of our collective wealth?
People looking for a job must not be reduced to developing productive resources. They are human beings who want to take an active part in economic growth. It is in this perspective that we must reflect on the globalization of trade and, particularly, on the multilateral agreement on investment.
Globalization is more than a theory or an ideology. It is a reality we see every day. Whether we like it or not, rising to a changing and knowledge based international environment has become the main concern of industrial strategies and national economic policies.
The Bloc Quebecois is aware of this reality. That is why we agree with the MAI principle, which is aimed essentially at defining a legal framework for alleviating the uncertainty associated with investing in a foreign country by making it an obligation to implement the same measures for national and foreign businesses, to promote investment and, at the same time, economic growth.
But before we support this agreement, we must get right to the bottom of an aspect of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. I would like to raise one of the aspects that concerns me the most, that is the increasing impoverishment of people and the gap between rich and poor.
The social clause is the most important aspect for me today and I would like to stress it. I know there are others claimed by the Bloc and by the Canadian people, but the social clause is the one that would allow us to have a better control so that the gap between rich and poor would not deepen.
Since 1994, OECD union organizations have been calling for the inclusion, in all trade agreements, of a social clause committing countries to respecting the seven fundamental conventions of the International Labour Organization. What is at stake here is the freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, the ban on forced labour and job discrimination, among other things.
With respect to the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, I know that the preamble to the report does mention the attachment of signatory states to the 1992 Rio Declaration. But how can such an undertaking be taken seriously when it is known for a fact that the United States ratified only one convention out of seven and that Canada has signed only four of them?
Some may fear that this agreement on investment could be signed without a social clause. Instead, we would like the investment treaty to be negotiated under the auspices of the World Trade Organization, because it is more representative. At the moment, the OECD has only 29 member states, while the WTO has 130.
The Bloc Quebecois wants more transparency and I think it has the support of the people. We want more transparency because we know that the people are very concerned and did not have a say in this agreement which will probably be signed next fall.
More transparency is needed. This agreement must generate more local benefits and some guaranteed net benefits for the countries involved in increasing capital flow. The people must be the first to benefit from any increase in capital flow. We are well aware of the problems associated with some agreements that may not be complied with. Capital outflows could be catastrophic for some of the countries involved in this agreement. National economies would become more vulnerable.
Safeguards must be in place to avoid abuses and to ensure that this agreement benefits people. I strongly support the motion tabled this morning.
Since I was elected, child poverty and the impoverishment of the people have been at the heart of all my comments and speeches in this House.