Debates of Feb. 3rd, 1999

Health Care

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I am meeting the first ministers tomorrow and I hope it will be a positive meeting. We have always been positive.

The discussions on the social union and medicare were initiated jointly at the same time by the provinces and by us. We have been involved all along. Everybody knows that I am always a positive person. I know that the Reform Party plans—

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Macleod.

Hepatitis C

[Grant Hill, Reform, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker, hepatitis C continues to plague this Prime Minister and other countries let us know why.

In Italy the health ministry has just been found guilty of distributing contaminated blood. They have to compensate every individual, not just a few between 1986 and 1990.

What is this Prime Minister waiting for, a subpoena before he will look after everybody who was infected?

[Elinor Caplan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, we have taken this issue very seriously. Negotiations are under way and $1.1 billion is on the table to satisfy the lawsuits that are before the government. We are assured that those negotiations are under way at the present time. We hope to see a satisfactory conclusion in the very near future.

[Grant Hill, Reform, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it gets worse. In Switzerland the blood services director has just received a 12-month jail sentence for doing exactly what happened in Canada.

I will ask my question again. What is this Prime Minister waiting for, court action to force him into doing what he should have done all along?

[Elinor Caplan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, as the member opposite knows and everyone in this House knows, we have taken our obligations very seriously. We have implemented all 17 recommendations that Justice Krever directed toward the federal government. Further, we have added an additional $125 million to ensure that the blood supply in Canada is safe for all Canadians.

Social Union

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

Mr. Speaker, in relation to the negotiations on social union, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs told the Toronto Star yesterday “We will give up nothing”.

The same minister told La Presse that the federal government's innovative approach would please Quebeckers and might even please the Government of Quebec.

I would like to know whether the Prime Minister agrees with his minister, who says one thing in Quebec and another in the rest of Canada.

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, never before has this minister been criticized for not speaking his mind.

As far as our negotiations with the provinces are concerned, here in Canada we have a system in place to ensure that the federal government's responsibilities and obligations are maintained while at the same time accommodating the provinces.

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

Mr. Speaker, if I heard the Prime Minister correctly, he is telling us that his minister did not speak his mind.

That is one way of looking at it, but the minister added insult to injury by saying that the consent of all the provinces was not required in order to have an agreement. One thing is for sure: Quebec considers the right to opt out with full compensation as essential.

Here is my question to the Prime Minister: If unanimity is not required and the agreement does not have to be signed by all the provinces, does this mean that the government might come up with other initiatives, like the millennium scholarships, in other areas?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the right to opt out and to spending powers, Quebec's traditional position was made clear at the time of the Charlottetown and Meech Lake agreements. This right to opt out could only be exercised under certain circumstances.

That is why the leader of the Parti Quebecois and premier of Quebec left the Progressive Conservative Party. He wanted the partial right to opt out provided for in the Meech Lake agreement.

[Pierre Brien, Bloc, Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs said that an agreement on social union between the federal government and the provinces does not require the support of the 10 provinces in order to be approved.

Are we to understand from the minister's comments that Quebec's approval is simply not necessary to reach an agreement?

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, ever since I have been in politics, and before, I have always said the same thing in French and in English. Therefore, let me repeat that we would not give anything that would adversely affect the quality of the Canadian social union, which is one of the best in the world.

The social union agreement which, we hope, will be signed by all the provinces, will improve things for the federal government, for the provincial governments, but more importantly for all Canadians.

[Pierre Brien, Bloc, Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the minister's statement to the effect that unanimity is not a requirement seems to indicate that Quebec's traditional demands will once again be ignored.

Does this mean that, should some provinces refuse to sign that agreement, it would still be imposed on them by the federal government?

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I am not worried about the hon. member and his party. Regardless of what happens, they will come up with a new traditional demand for Quebec.

Quebec's quiet revolution was not achieved through traditional demands: it was achieved by Quebeckers—with many of them coming from the federal government—who wanted to modernize and secularize their society, and they were quite successful in their efforts.

Therefore, the Canadian social union will not be modernized through traditional demands.

Employment Insurance

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, 800,000 unemployed Canadians are now denied benefits because of this government's assault on unemployment insurance. What is the government doing to correct the situation? Well, it is working hard to deny even more benefits.

Will the human resources minister admit that Canadians are being cut off UI benefits not because their claims lack merit, but solely because of arbitrary quotas imposed by Ottawa? Will he admit that, yes or no?

[Pierre Pettigrew, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development]

Absolutely not, Mr. Speaker. There are no such quotas. Our department obviously wants to protect the integrity of the system and works at finding out frauds wherever they are. But there are no such quotas.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, that bluster does not explain the internal departmental document that shows denying benefits to the unemployed is a priority for the government. In fact the government has specific quotas, actual quotas to cut off as many people as needed to net government coffers $612 million this year alone. To enforce the quotas the government has given employees a choice: either cut off enough people to meet your quotas or lose your jobs.

How does the minister justify this brutal attack on unemployed Canadians?

[Pierre Pettigrew, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development]

Mr. Speaker, on this side of the House we like to manage. We manage things properly. We have some expectations. There are indeed, as we exercise our responsibilities in protecting the Canadian public, certain indicators. We know how much we can expect to recuperate in certain regions and we have certain numbers against which we compare how much we get. But there are no such threats of firing people or any element as the NDP is saying right now in the House.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the proud tradition of the RCMP, an internationally respected institution, is being destroyed by the Liberal government.

Spending this year for our national police force has been cut by $89 million. As a result the RCMP training academy in Regina has closed and detachments all over the country are running by skeleton crews.

The government has consistently pursued wasteful spending policies to the detriment of all Canadians.

Will the solicitor general sit idly by and watch our national police force deteriorate beyond repair? What is he going to do?

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, the RCMP is like every government agency and department. It had to look at how it spent its dollars. We have done some things also to fight organized crime in this country such as the proceeds from organized crime legislation. What this does is take the profit out of organized crime. It gives the RCMP a weapon to take the proceeds out.

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the government's solution to the problems in our national police force has been to commission a $1 million study to review the RCMP's mandate.

The problem is not the mandate but the lack of funding provided by the government to the RCMP for national policing. While the U.S. state department has deemed Canada a haven for organized crime, the government has slashed the RCMP budget by $174 million since 1994.

When will the solicitor general use his power at the cabinet table and immediately restore funding to the RCMP to ensure adequate protection for Canadians?

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly will not deal with the figures my hon. colleague has presented.

All departments had a review of how they spent their money, the RCMP included. I can assure the House the RCMP is a well respected organization in this country and around the world and we will give it the tools to fight crime in this country.

Yvon Duhaime

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Edmonton North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, things are pretty shady in Shawinigan. Yvon Duhaime bought the Grand-Mère Inn from the Prime Minister in 1993. He did not reveal his criminal convictions of drunk driving and assault when he received over $850,000 of taxpayer money in 1997 to expand his inn.

We now learn that a huge amount of this taxpayer money went directly into Duhaime's bank account when by law it is required to go to a notary.

I am sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this. What is it?

[John Manley, Liberal, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, I want to point out once again that the loans received by this business were given on the basis of a commercial arrangement. The interest rates are somewhat higher than commercial rates through the BDBC.

Private sector lenders were engaged in the same financing package, including the caisse populaire and an agent of the Quebec labour union.

What we have is a broad package. The funds were transferred in the normal course. A cheque was made payable to the notary as well as to the recipient and the supplier. These are ordinary business transactions.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Edmonton North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, if the Business Development Bank gives grants, what if any other bank were just to give grants? Any one of us would love to be on that list. The government keeps saying that this is arm's length. He received transitional job fund money and received seed grants as well. A lot of those funds were public funds that came from human resources. These are public funds that went into a private bank account. Any Canadian would love that kind of deal.

Who will investigate this? Obviously it needs to be checked. The ethics commissioner will not investigate it, so who will?