Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel. Therefore, I will use 10 of the 20 minutes I am allotted to speak about this important issue, which the Bloc Quebecois has chosen to debate on its opposition day. The issue of the GM plant closing involves 1,000 direct jobs and close to 10,000 indirect jobs in Quebec.
To begin with, I would like to read the motion because quite often in the House discussions go this way and that way, and in the end, we forget what the topic of the debate was supposed to be and which motion we were supposed to debate. I will read it again so that all those who are listening to us understand what we are talking about today. The motion states:
That this House condemn the government for its inability to defend the workers and the General Motors plant in Boisbriand and thus allowing the vehicle assembly sector of the Quebec auto industry to disappear.
The word inability may mean a lot of things. It may mean a lack of leadership, a lack of will. It may mean that one is only taking small steps while knowing that much more beneficial steps could be taken. It may mean that when the previous industry minister went to Detroit to meet with GM executives, he was in a negative frame of mind. He came out of his meeting throwing the towel right away saying “There is nothing we can do. There is no government program that can help GM workers keep their industry alive”.
It is similar to what they are saying now to sawmill workers in Quebec, “We cannot do anything for you. There are no other programs than the existing ones”.
Liberal members are telling us that they took action, but we are saying that they were not taken with a determination to succeed and they are not the real actions GM workers were entitled to expect.
What is GM? It is a company located in Boisbriand that has an impact over the entire region of the Lower Laurentians and even on my riding of Repentigny. Some of the people who work for GM live in my riding, because the plant is not that far from their home. When things go well at the plant, it has an impact on the whole town, region and extended region, just as when the plant is threatened with imminent closure.
GM has had its ups and downs, as the president mentioned. However, at one point, it was really doing great and providing a lot of jobs. Everyone in the region, restaurants, shops and other businesses thrived while GM was doing so well.
If the GM plant closes down, as was mentioned in this debate, we stand to lose 1,400 direct jobs and 9,000 indirect jobs all over the province, whether it be in the region of the Lower Laurentians, Lanaudière, Beauce, the Outaouais, the Eastern Townships, in south-west Montreal, and elsewhere. Smaller companies might also be forced out of business.
If the federal government does not get really involved in this area to help the Government of Quebec deal with this problem, the closure of this plant will unfortunately make headlines in September. However, we will not hear about all the small businesses that will go under two, three or four months down the line, because of the government's inaction.
This problem reminds us somewhat of the Hyundai plant, this one located in Bromont. A few years back, governments invested money in this plant. A short time later, it shut down.
Need I remind hon. members that in 1987, governments gave GM a $220 million loan? This was a situation similar to that of Hyundai in Bromont. The company needed to pay only the interests till 2017. By then, the loan will be worth $2.6 billion.
GM cannot be said to be a very small or a small to medium size business. In 1987, GM's business and development plans must have provided the direction the company wished the auto industry would take in North America, in Canada and in Quebec in particular. A few years later, a company of that size announced the closing of the plant. The two levels of government will now have to pay about $10 million a year simply in interest on GM's loan. In 2017, the governments will recover the principal, which will then have reached a value of $2 billion.
Can we allow ourselves to give up when dealing with a company to which we gave a loan of $220 million? Need I remind that, during the first quarter of 2002, this company reported rather generous profits for the auto industry? Governments should examine closely loans given in the automotive sector or elsewhere to companies that, two, three, four or five years down the road decide to pack up and leave. One of the conditions of the $220 million loan was to guarantee the vitality and the survival of the plant at least until 2017. This is almost four years later and we have already known for a year that the plant will close.
Even if the parliamentary secretary of the industry minister or the minister himself tell us that the government is very much concerned by what is going on in Quebec, I asked myself a question this morning. If the industry minister or his parliamentary secretary were to come to Quebec to check up on an a sector of economic activity in which the federal government had invested for the last 5, 10, 15 or 20 years, in order to meet the employees who benefited from the federal government's grants, loans or programs, I wonder what type of industry or business the minister would visit.
I thought to myself, “If the minister were to visit Ontario, he would tour the auto industry”. The federal government has invested billions, even tens of billions of dollars in the auto industry. The Minister of Industry would be fully justified in meeting with stakeholders in the auto industry to tell them, “I helped this industry to succeed. I am happy to come and meet with you, to look into the financial and economic situation of your industry. I am proud of what we have done in Ontario for the auto industry”. In Quebec, I wonder what industry he would tour.
If he went to Alberta, he could see oil workers. He could say to them, “We are proud of the tens of billions of dollars that we invested to develop the oil sector, to develop this polluting fossil fuel energy that is making us back off from signing the Kyoto protocol. The federal government is proud of having invested tens of billions of dollars to develop this growth sector of Alberta's economy, making it a prosperous province. We feel somewhat responsible for this success”.
If he were to come to Quebec to visit with people in the hydroelectric industry, sadly he would not be able to pat himself on the back and say, “We helped with this success”. The Government of Quebec alone made it the wonderful success story that it is for Quebec.
If he were to go to the Maritime provinces, the Minister of Industry could visit with people who have benefited directly or indirectly from Hibernia. He would say to them, “With the tens of billions of dollars that we have invested in oil exploration and drilling, we are proud of what our government has accomplished in the Maritimes, mainly in Newfoundland, because tens of thousands of jobs have been created thanks to the billions of dollars invested by the federal government”.
If he were to visit Hydro-Québec to look into new energy sources, the electric motor or the electric drive, he would appear to be a bit of an outsider. He has not made any direct investments there.
The federal government has demonstrated its lack of will and lack of leadership in Quebec's auto industry. Worse yet, the federal government has shown that it has no desire to develop a growth industry in Quebec. The federal government in Quebec can only be seen where it is required to have a presence: an employment office, a post office, a passport office. Otherwise, it is not there.
Why is the federal government present in those offices? Because it has no choice. I challenge any liberal member who will speak later on to tell me in which area of economic activity the federal government has poured massive support in Quebec and to which it can be identified.
The Quebec government is the only one present in the area of high technology, in hydroelectricity, in health and in the pharmaceutical industry, except for pharmaceutical patents.
That is why the former health minister never came to Quebec. He started pulling the plug on health funding in Quebec when he was minister. He will not come to Quebec as industry minister either because he has no reason to do so. The federal government has not invested in Quebec and is showing, once again today, that it has no intention of taking tangible measures to improve the situation in a fundamental area of economic activity, and to save the jobs of those thousand employees who have been working in that industry for many years.
When they say they will create jobs for university graduates, they should also think of those who left school after grade 12 or junior college and who are looking for well-paying jobs. Not everyone who is looking for a job has a bachelor's or master's degree.