Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today, on behalf of my constituents in the riding of Jonquière, and to take part in the debate in reply to the Speech from the Throne.
It is October 9, 2002. The Speech from the Throne was read nine days ago on September 30.
All the commentators, English or French speaking, said that this September 30 Speech from the Throne was a mixture of old ideas. It is a patchwork assortment of ideas taken from the throne speeches of 1993, 1997, 2000 and 2001. Once again, the government of the Prime Minister has promised to take action on poverty and social housing. Unfortunately, the result is more and more negative.
What can be said about child poverty? In 1999, we had almost 950,000 poor children in this country, while we had only 800,000 in 1989. Hence, this Liberal government did not take action. It is a failure across the board. Yet, in 1989, a unanimous resolution by all political parties was passed here in the House of Commons, saying that they were committed to eliminating child poverty by 1999, that is 10 years later.
Today, in the Speech from the Throne, another project has been proposed for Canadians. The Speech from the Throne said that we must “—ensure that no Canadian child suffers the debilitating effects of poverty. Canadians and their governments have already taken significant steps in this direction”.
This Speech from the Throne rehashes old ideas. The people of Jonquière I met with last weekend realize that this government is laughing at them. They listen to the news, they read all the information and they say to themselves, “What they are saying makes no sense. We know there are more poor children. They have done nothing for poor children”.
When it comes to social housing, there has been nothing but inaction since 1993: no investments in social housing since 1993.
As for the environment, the government promised that we would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 6% from 1990 levels. That was supposed to be done by 2012. According to the Minister of Natural Resources, we have increased our greenhouse gas emissions by 35% since 1990. Inaction and failure across the board.
With respect to health care, I just listened to the Liberal member's remarks. As far as I am concerned, he is totally out of touch or is blinded by rage and can only see part of what is going on in that sector. The federal government is now putting in only 14 cents on every dollar. In the throne speech, it promised to convene a health ministers summit early in 2003 to lay the foundation for a comprehensive plan for reform. As we know, these are the same Liberals who made massive cuts in transfers to the provinces for health upon taking office in 1993. They will have waited 10 years and suffocated the provinces before taking action.
This means that, in return for the financial contribution it will make to the provinces in early 2003, Ottawa will give itself a free hand in deciding what the provinces should do in health care, when the whole area of health is a provincial jurisdiction.
In the throne speech, the government also promised to put money into infrastructure. In 2000, there was a Canada-Québec infrastructure program, and $1.6 billion was earmarked for the infrastructure program. It is well known how popular the program has been.
For the three parts of this federal-provincial agreement concerning infrastructure, the Quebec government received applications totalling $4.3 billion. This means that there is a shortfall of $3 billion to carry out all the projects submitted, and the Quebec government had to review all them, which it did very professionally, while determining which were the most important ones.
Again, instead of innovating, instead of creating new infrastructure projects in conjunction with the municipalities and perhaps looking after the provinces, this government says it will look after Canada's major cities. Why always major Canadian cities? The mayor of the major city in my region, Saguenay, says that it ranks sixth among Quebec's municipalities.
Why target only major cities like Vancouver, Montreal or Toronto? There are still applications totalling $3 billion on the table. If the government is serious about taking action, it should immediately put money on the table. Quebec said it was prepared to follow suit.
Last year, in the budget tabled by Ms. Marois, Quebec injected $500 million to allow municipalities faced with water problems to act quickly, should their projects not qualify under the Canada-Quebec infrastructure program.
Instead of reinventing the wheel, this government should put money on the table. We do not have to ask for projects. The projects are there, they have been examined and they are awaiting funding. Immediate action is required. With this program, I would see that they want to do something, that they are prepared to take immediate action. But after what we heard in the throne speech, I realize that this government is still saying “Perhaps; perhaps we will take action; perhaps we will do this”. What the government should do is take concrete measures.
Let us also talk about what they promised to do for public transit. During the last parliamentary session, I introduced a bill about which there was a consensus: the federation of urban carriers, the Canadian federation of urban carriers and the ACTU in the Outaouais region all supported this initiative. My bill went through second reading. It provided for a subsidy to public transit users.
When it was reviewed by the Standing Committee on Finance, Liberal members decided that my bill did not make sense. This is strange, because what is the Prime Minister of Canada doing six months later? He is going along the same lines as what is proposed in my bill and saying that everyone should contribute to improving public transit in Canada.
Why did the Liberals not take action when an opposition member made a similar proposal? Six months have gone by. During these six months, a lot could have been done to promote environmental issues, such as the plight of the increasing number of young Canadians who are suffering from asthma.
I realize that this government is making meaningless commitments, saying perhaps. It says, “Perhaps we will take action. Perhaps we will do something”. The Liberals are always right. They never take into consideration the proposals made by others. This is strange. We too were elected by voters who have common sense. They too have good ideas. In a democracy, one cannot always be on the side of power. It is very good for a democracy to have opposition parties.
Opposition members are intelligent, maybe more than those who are in office. We, opposition members, propose concrete measures to help society move forward, but because these ideas come from the opposition, the government thinks they cannot work. This is sad.
What Prime Minister Chrétien, the Prime Minister of Canada, is proposing in the throne speech is to promote public transit.