Debates of March 2nd, 1999

Millenium Scholarships

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

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Human Resources Development said yesterday that the unanimous resolution of the Quebec National Assembly would resolve the matter of the millennium scholarships. This resolution asked the government to negotiate government to government.

How can the minister stubbornly refuse to respond to Quebec's demand and to negotiate government to government on this matter?

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

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Liberal Party of Quebec made an extremely constructive suggestion, and we welcomed it.

I can see that the Bloc Quebecois is still blocking and trying to penalize Quebec students when what we want is to make sure that they have easier access to higher education.

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

Mr. Speaker, that is not what the resolution he said he is referring to says. The millennium scholarships represent a political decision to ensure visibility.

How can the minister say such a thing, namely, that he is prepared to negotiate, when he wants to send an official, when he himself refuses to assume his political responsibilities, because it is a political matter?

How can he refuse to negotiate government to government and hide behind Jean Monty, who should concentrate on settling the problems at Bell Canada, where he is cutting jobs, rather than getting involved in the millennium scholarships?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the president of Bell Canada would welcome the advice of the leader of the Bloc Quebecois, who himself needed another advisor to tell him what to do in the coming year, in the person of the former premier of Quebec.

I can assure you of one thing. The three principles of the resolution passed in the Quebec National Assembly, as the Prime Minister of Canada wrote to Mr. Bouchard, may be met for the greater benefit of students in Quebec.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in his response to the Quebec Minister of Education's offer to negotiate, the Minister of Human Resources Development says he is prepared to negotiate any program whatsoever with him, yet he persists in refusing to discuss the millennium scholarships.

How can the minister justify his readiness to discuss any program with the government of Quebec, with the exception of the millennium scholarships for which he claims he wishes to delegate departmental employees to hold discussions with Quebec?

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

Mr. Speaker, first of all, legislation creating the foundation, an independent body, was enacted. Second, Minister Legault's letter called for us to ignore the National Assembly resolution and went back to the demand for opting out with entitlement to compensation, which is not part of the National Assembly resolution.

The preference was to ignore the principles of the National Assembly resolution, and to revisit the question of the right to withdraw with full compensation. This was negotiated last Spring, and we know what the results were.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, how can the minister refuse to negotiate with the Quebec Minister of Education on the millennium scholarships, when he himself confirmed yesterday that he was speaking with the Quebec Liberal Party?

Is the minister not placing himself in a delicate position by speaking with the opposition rather than the government?

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

Mr. Speaker, we know very well that the Bloc gets its orders from the government every morning, and there is no complaint about that here in the House. It is perfectly normal for parties to speak to each other. If I did not speak with the leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec I would be faulted for that.

What is at stake here is to give Quebec students access to the millennium scholarships. I want to adopt a constructive attitude. A pathway opened up yesterday and I very much hope that Mr. Legault is going to accept the opening offered yesterday by the Liberal Party of Quebec.

Commodity Prices

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I address my question to the Prime Minister.

The agriculture minister, the finance minister and others have expressed concern about low commodity prices, and rightly so. Now the World Bank has confirmed that real commodity prices are likely to remain below 1997 levels for at least 10 years.

This means the crisis in farming, in forestry and in mining communities is not going away. Does the Prime Minister share these concerns? Will he consider convening a national summit to tackle the crisis?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, Canada has worked very hard to make sure that the commodity industry faces the situation in a very good way. We have increased the productivity of that sector and we have managed to keep exporting.

One of the reasons we are on Team Canada is to sell a lot of the commodities. We were criticized by the NDP for doing the mission which tries to sell Canadian commodities.

On the other side too, the commodity sector is not as viable as it was before. Exports used to be 60% in commodities and now it is—

[The Speaker]

The hon. leader of the New Democratic Party.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is Canada is the most vulnerable of the G-7 countries to this crisis.

Does the Prime Minister recognize that low commodity prices continuing for at least 10 years will have a disastrous impact on communities that are dependent on agriculture, forestry and mining? Will the Prime Minister show some leadership here? Will he convene a national summit to work together toward solutions with those affected by the problem?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

Mr. Speaker, the leader of the NDP has awakened to the intensely competitive global marketplace.

In a news release today she said the only answer is for Canadians to work together to find solutions. That is exactly what we have been doing as a government since 1993. We are fighting for fair access in markets around the world.

Team Canada trade missions take advantage of that access. We have more research and development, more diversification, more value added economic growth. Canadian dependency on raw commodities has been cut from over 60% in 1980 to about 35% today.

The nation has been rid of its deficit and we already—

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Compton—Stanstead.

Sea King Helicopters

[David Price, Progressive Conservative, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Sea Kings are so old that they have to be reskinned and ribbed, refloored and re-engined. Families are dependent on long term maintenance as a safety measure to protect their loved ones flying Sea Kings. The minister keeps saying we will not fly unsafe aircraft but his words differ from his actions.

Will the minister ensure that the money taken for the Persian excursion is immediately restored to Sea King maintenance so that pilots and their families can sleep at night?

[Art Eggleton, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, we will not fly an aircraft that is not safe to fly. We have a very high maintenance level. We are not robbing it from some other accounts that deprive the military of proper training or anything of that sort.

We recognize that while we well maintain the Sea Kings, they are getting on in years and will need replacement soon. We are in the process of developing a strategy with respect to their replacement.

[David Price, Progressive Conservative, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the minister should change his lines as they are no longer credible. Considering that we had another safety incident yesterday with the Sea Kings, that brings the total to nine in the last month that we know about.

Will the minister not admit that it was a mistake to cut funds out of the maintenance budget of our 35 year old Sea Kings that will now have to fly for another six to eight years, especially when the minister has no intention of even initiating the maritime helicopter program?

[Art Eggleton, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, we do not cut funds that are necessary for the proper maintenance of any of our equipment.

We have, as has any aircraft operator, maintenance difficulties from time to time, service requirements. Whether it is new aircraft or old aircraft we will continue to provide a very high level of maintenance because we want to ensure that our personnel are in fact safe when they fly these aircraft.

Taxation

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Edmonton North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, if you want the real facts you go to Stats Canada and not to the minister.

Take two Canadian families that earn $50,000 a year. In one family both parents work outside the home and in the other, one parent stays home with the kids. One would think they would pay the same amount of taxes, right? No, in fact they do not. The family that has one parent stay at home pays $4,000 more a year in taxes.

Why does the Prime Minister think that is fair? How does the Prime Minister think that is fair?

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Secretary of State (International Financial Institutions)]

Mr. Speaker, we have to recognize that during the process of reducing taxes we have recognized a number of the disparities. Let me recite them for the member.

Where we have a single earner family we have a spousal credit of $1,500. In addition, we have the age credit, the pension credit, the disability credit and the medical credit that can be claimed.

With the child tax benefit we give $1,340 more to a single earner than to a double earning family. On top of that, a single earner can contribute up to $13,500 to the RRSP of a spouse.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Edmonton North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in spite of all the credits that the minister brags about, these people are still paying $4,000 a year more in federal tax and the minister is clawing back that money off the child tax credit.

The point is that last year single income families paid 92% more federal tax than dual income families. Under the 1999 budget that discrimination gets even worse. Families with a stay at home parent pay more than double the federal tax of a two income family regardless of what he says about credits. Families are having to live on credit now.

Why does the government continue to discriminate against single income families?

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Secretary of State (International Financial Institutions)]

Mr. Speaker, we have from day one recognized the overly onerous burden of the personal income tax and we have continually, in every budget, taken measures to reduce it.

Unfortunately we cannot afford the $25 billion in fiscal goodies promised to us by the Reform Party with a $9 billion black hole without telling us where it will come from.

If we were to undertake to introduce the Reform budget, the bonding agencies would just simply laugh at us.

Millennium Scholarships

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the unanimous resolution passed by the National Assembly regarding the millennium scholarships provides essentially three things: first, Quebec's share will be determined by using demographic data; second, Quebec will select the students who will get the scholarships; and, third, the scholarships will be awarded while avoiding any duplication and ensuring the necessary visibility for the government.

Is this not a reasonable position, and will the minister come to the table and sign this with the Quebec Minister of Education?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to see that the former Bloc Quebecois leader recognizes the content of the National Assembly's resolution. It is absolutely reasonable and I believe we will easily reach an agreement with the Quebec government and the foundation that will benefit Quebec students.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if the minister really wants Quebec students to benefit from it, I should remind him, in an absolutely reasonable manner, that, on February 15, the Quebec Minister of Education asked to meet him to negotiate on the basis of that resolution, to sign an agreement and to settle the issue.

If the minister is serious about settling the issue, will he do the reasonable thing, assume his political responsibilities, sit down with Quebec officials, sign an agreement and thus allow Quebec students to benefit from the program?