Mr. Speaker, I am extremely delighted today to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-10, an act to amend the Municipal Grants Act.
We do not want to mislead the population. We talk about grants, but my colleague from Saint-Jean asked last week why we called it grants since they are basically payments of property taxes. As we used to say in law, and my colleagues who have studied in that field have heard it often enough “The King can do no wrong”. That is what is taught to law students on the very first lesson of their very first day in school. Then I could add to that saying that the King does not pay property taxes either.
That is the reason why there is a little subterfuge and the act talks about grants instead of taxes. However, if we look at it more closely, it could very well be real grants. Usually, when we talk about grants, we talk about the discretionary power of a minister. The minister can decide to give or to refuse a grant. In this case, the title Municipal Grants Act is not misleading since the discretionary power of the minister is mentioned in clause 3 of the bill.
There is nothing more scary than the discretionary power of a minister. Seldom do we see a minister having discretionary power who does not end up dirtying his or her hands. We really do not see it often. We have a very good example right now with all the mess at HRDC involving two ministers, one who was there earlier but has left since then and the other one who was not there earlier but is in the middle of things right now. This shows what discretionary power can do.
At the discretion of the Minister of Human Resources Development, $500,000 was given to Wal-Mart. Poor Wal-Mart. It is sad how little money they have. And they are not alone.
The Minister of Human Resources Development and her officials do have discretionary power, and I see the member opposite shaking her head, but it is really a discretionary power even if, under the legislation, the minister has the authority to give grants or to fund programs, there is a highly discretionary component to all these things.
Here is an example. I know I am not a minister and I have no such pretension, but here is an example. Officials at Human Resources Development Canada divided my riding, the beautiful riding of Chambly—and I take this opportunity to say hello to the people of Chambly—into areas, such as area 37 or 38. For these areas to be eligible for the transitional jobs fund, their unemployment rate had to be over 12%.
The county town of Marieville is located in my riding, in the middle of a vast countryside, a largely agricultural area, where of course there is practically no unemployment. You may have a father, a mother and even a son working on a farm, so no one is unemployed.
The unemployed move to the county seat, the city of Marieville, which has high unemployment, in excess of 12%. For a year now, we have been asking the minister to transfer Marieville to the adjacent area, Chambly, so that it could qualify for grants under the transitional jobs fund, thus allowing people living in Marieville to benefit from this program.
This request was made a year ago. It was made not only by myself, but also by the municipal authorities, by Sylvain Lapointe, the mayor of Marieville, whom I take this opportunity to salute and who does an excellent job as a mayor, by the chamber of commerce and by the MNA.
Every stakeholder told the minister that it made no sense to include Marieville in a rural area, while this city which has between 5,000 and 6,000 residents and has high unemployment, but cannot benefit from the transitional jobs fund.
I learned, during oral question period, that the minister have given grants in her riding, where unemployment is clearly lower than 12%. It is not always true that the shoemaker's children are the worst shod, the minister's riding being proof of that. The minister gave transitional jobs fund grants, even though her riding does not seem to qualify for them.
To this she says “Yes, but in my riding, there are some pockets where unemployment is higher than 12%”. The law does not give her that authority. The law says that if in a particular area, which is clearly defined, the unemployment rate is below 12%, that is 11.99%, it does not qualify for transitory job fund grants.
The same applies to the riding of the Prime Minister, who used the same argument during oral question period last week or at the beginning of this week. He says that in his riding there are places—a street, a neighbourhood, a corner—where unemployment is over 12%. But this is not what the law says. It says that in the area as a whole unemployment must be 12% and above.
So members can see what discretionary power is. These people will stop at nothing to meet their ends. Fortunately, once in a while, they get caught, as it happened to the minister.
Do not ask me to show any pity, because what management at the Department of Human Resources Development did is really dishonest. I could give many examples and my friend, the member for Trois-Rivières, has just as many of his own.