Mr. Speaker, Bill C-13, which we are debating this afternoon is important and significant. It should be approved by all parties, but, the government being what it is, there are concealed flaws.
Bill C-13 concerns the creation of institutes of health research in Canada. These institutes are to replace the existing medical research centres.
One reason it might be tempting to support this bill is the fact that the Department of Finance must substantially increase the amounts allocated to research. However, the problem lies in the intrusion this government is preparing to make once more into an area of provincial jurisdiction.
I can clearly recall, in 1978 when the current Prime Minister was the Minister of Finance, that he attempted an unprecedented intrusion into the provincial jurisdiction of municipal affairs. We in Quebec had just elected René Lévesque, and the federal government was trying to deal directly and by mutual agreement with the municipalities in Quebec and the rest of Canada.
The Quebec municipal affairs minister at the time, Guy Tardif, had systematically blocked the federal government's attempt to deal directly with the municipalities.
You can see how tricky the Prime Minister was at the time, in 1978. To get around that, he sent a cheque for $85 directly to all Quebec taxpayers. To annoy and ridicule the government of René Lévesque, he took another tack and gave each taxpayer $85.
At the time, I was a member of the Parti Quebecois. In our funding drive we collected not all of federal government cheques for $85 but a few of them. People said to us “What the government is doing at the moment is so stupid, we will give the same amount, or $85, to the Parti Quebecois”.
The Bloc Quebecois cannot endorse Bill C-13 as it stands. My colleague from Hochelaga—Maisonneuve has prepared a series of amendments in this regard, which we tabled in the House together on Thursday. We will try to talk members opposite into accepting them. We hope to see the majority of these amendments passed, because the bill would then reflect the spirit and the letter of the charter that is a part of the Constitution the Prime Minister himself patriated when he was Minister of Justice, without Quebec's agreement, following the “night of the long knives”.
When we watch the little guy from Shawinigan, the member for Saint-Maurice, in action, we get suspicious. We are also suspicious about the amount that Quebec will receive out of the budget allocated to health research, to discover new treatment techniques. We are concerned because we wonder whether Quebec will get its fair share.
Traditionally, Quebec has only been receiving 14% of the moneys allocated to research and development. The federal government's track record is not good. This is why we have serious concerns. We would like to see a framework where Quebec receives at least 24.2% or 24.3% of the budget earmarked for research and research centres located in Quebec benefit from these amounts.
All this is very nice, but members are well aware that, unfortunately, Quebec has not been getting its fair share of federal investments.
Today, all opposition members are proudly wearing a red heart on the left side. This is because today is budget day.
The Minister of Finance has made deep cuts to provincial transfers. I remind this House that the Minister of Finance who, in a few hours, will be tabling his seventh straight budget, cut $1.7 billion in social transfers to Quebec for fiscal year 1999-2000.
If the minister wants to create duplication and a structure that will interfere with provincial jurisdictions, he should be reminded that, this year, in Quebec alone, he made cuts totalling $850 million. That is close to $1 billion in the health sector alone. Since 1993, he has cut health transfer payments by $3.4 billion in Quebec alone.
Earlier I was listening to a conversation. He seemed a bit disappointed that we are not giving our support for Bill C-13 so that it can be passed quickly. We in the Bloc Quebecois are only too familiar with the Liberal Party and the agenda of the Prime Minister and there is no danger that we are going to give him our blessing and make it easy for him.
I was reading the newspapers on the weekend. What is going on at HRDC is scandalous. The Prime Minister said that only $2.59 was unaccounted for. The RCMP is investigating two cases right now and, in one alone, $100,000 is involved. It is no longer $2.50. In another case, close to $166,000 is unaccounted for. It has literally been lost track of.
The $166,000 was supposed to go to a relatively poor riding in East Montreal, Rosemont to be precise, the riding next door to Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, and the hon. member for Rosemont had signed the agreement with HRDC for a grant to create 45 jobs in Rosemont. I was going to say “transfer this money” but that is not quite it. It has disappeared. The RCMP should conduct an investigation.
In any event, Saint-Maurice won out, supposedly because it was closer to the border with the United States. But it is not—it is further away. If the Eastern Townships had been considered, that would have been smart, because the Eastern Townships are very close to the U.S. border.
Right now we are looking at a government that is rotten at the core and the rot is starting to spread outwards.
Last week, I read the speech given in the House by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health in support of Bill C-13. In the not-so-distant past, I was a teacher and the president of our union was the man who is now the hon. member for Anjou—Rivière-des-Prairies.
It is terrible to see how someone can change in a dozen years. I do not know if it was the year he spent with Marcel Pépin and Ti-Louis Laberge in his cell in Orsainville that so altered him that he is now defending the very policies he once so vehemently opposed. He even took his orders from Colonel Khadafi.
Today, this man rises in the House to speak about the virtues of Bill C-13. This just does not make any sense, and the mere fact that he is defending this bill today should make us suspicious.