Mr. Speaker, despite the late hour, I am happy to have the opportunity to intervene in the debate on the pre-budget consultations.
There are three parts to my intervention. First, a review of the main Bloc Quebecois demands, then, an overview of the ad hoc consultations in my riding last September and, finally, an outline of the funds needed to meet the most pressing needs in the area of Canadian heritage.
Over the fall, the Bloc Quebecois responded to the government's call and carried out wide ranging consultations in the ridings it represents to find out people's budget priorities. Then the Standing Committee on Finance visited Canada to find out people's wish list. Then the Liberals released a report that disappointed us a lot because it did not reflect people's expectations.
I would therefore like to review the main priorities of the Bloc Quebecois, which are the priorities it heard from its own audiences.
In the area of health care, the federal government must return the billions of dollars it cut. By doing so it made it extremely difficult if not impossible for the provincial authorities to manage health care, which is under their jurisdiction. The Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs says the government respects the Constitution. Let us see that in action.
In the matter of employment insurance, I believe that everyone is aware of the drama being played out from coast to coast. The last to recognize and sense the misery and poverty all around us appear to be sitting opposite. The Minister of Finance must realize that the employment insurance reform has gone too far and created perverse effects.
They must review the rules for eligibility. For example, a young student in police science leaves his job because he has to do a stint at the police institute in order to graduate. He has no choice as to when his placement there will start, because the institute calls the young Cegep graduates.
At the end of it, while he is waiting to find a job, he is denied employment insurance benefits because he is alleged to have left his job voluntarily. This is a flagrant injustice that must be corrected.
Benefits must be reviewed. The government has come up with a system—no doubt the target it hit was not the one it had in mind—but it wants to penalize seasonal workers such as those in our region who naturally fish only during the periods they are authorized to do so by the government. They are not even free to take their boats out when they wish. This is partly due to nature, of course, but also to the regulations of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which tells them when they must fish.
It is therefore wrong to penalize these workers year after year, by depriving them of 5% of their income over a maximum of five years. Statistics Canada tells us that, in the Lower St. Lawrence region right now, 68% of unemployed workers are receiving benefits of this type, which are reduced year after year, and this number will rise to 80% next year.
If the minister was laid off every summer when the House rose and saw his income drop every year, he would undoubtedly be the first to want to review his own punitive policy, which is merely driving the poor deeper into poverty.
EI premiums must also be cut. At least, that is the conclusion reached by anyone who gives thought to how the EI fund can best be used. There is too much money in the fund.
Right now, the government is accumulating surpluses and seems to be unaware that these surpluses do not belong to it. Moreover, the government has a duty to use them solely for the purpose for which they were collected. What is the point of the government's continuing to accumulate money when the people are in desperate straits?
As well, the conditions for maternity leave need to be re-examined, for these have changed a great deal recently, and in a way are impacting on the birth rate in Canada.
If the Minister of Finance were to announce a tax cut, he would also have to raise the basic personal exemption, index the tax tables, and lower taxes for the low and middle income groups.
The second point in my speech is an overview of the ad hoc consultations carried out last September in my riding.
The people of Rimouski—Mitis were no exception to the rule as far as the key priorities are concerned. They want the federal government to return the money to Quebec so that it may be reinvested in health and education. They are also calling upon the federal government to cut personal taxes.
Another important point they raised was their concerns about the realities of the employment situation in the region, which continues to be a problem, and they want to see the budget surplus used to help create jobs.
The public is keenly aware of the social problems needing attention in the region, and calls for greater social justice between individuals and between regions. Perhaps unemployment has decreased everywhere in Canada, but not in the lower St. Lawrence region where my riding is located. Over the past five years, the unemployed have seen $83 million less in employment insurance. It will be understood that, under these circumstances, when that much money disappears from the pockets of those who could be spending it, this is anything but good for the regional economy. In fact, it is very harmful.
I then took the time to look at what could happen to us, and what we needed from Heritage Canada, the area I am mandated to monitor the most.
Here I will set out a principle to which the Bloc Quebecois attaches much importance: public administration and accountability of all funds devoted to the arts.
Recently, a task force proposed the creation of a film fund. It was obvious that one of the key elements in this planned creation of a fund was a kind of robbing Peter to pay Paul. We will go nowhere in the arts if we deprive the NFB and Telefilm Canada of the means to operate properly in this area.
If the Minister of Canadian Heritage wants to take the lead and create a fund for films, the government must, in the upcoming budget, put out the same financial effort it did when it created the television fund by becoming a major financial partner in creating and renewing cable companies' funds.
The government must act the same way and invest new money in this area. It should not ask the organizations it funds to give up part of their budgets to create this fund, since organizations such as Telefilm Canada or the National Film Board would have a hard time recovering from more cuts.
The Minister of Finance must pay serious attention to the complaints made year after year by artists and consider the major problems it must resolve in the area of taxation.
In this next budget in particular, the minister must finally provide a clear and definite response to a request the Bloc Quebecois considers legitimate, namely, that of spreading artists' income over a number of years so the rich ones compensate for the lean ones, because most of our artists earn less than people who live below the poverty line.
The government must also re-establish some justice for the francophone and Acadian communities. This is the year of the Francophonie. The rate of assimilation across Canada is 40%. The government must put words into action by assuming its moral obligation to return budgets for francophones to their 1993 levels at least.
In closing, I remind the government that it must listen to the people, hear the distress calls from all over and meet the expectations expressed instead of trying to sell the people on the Liberal program, which is long out of date.