Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me the floor. I did hear the question but I had been told that an hon. member from the Alliance was going to speak before me. That is why I did not rise.
Ever since it was brought down in February, the budget before us has stirred up its share of commentaries and unflattering remarks. The farther we go in examining this bill, the more irritants we discover.
I shall begin with clause 64 of the Budget Implementation Act, 2003, which represents a serious problem not only for those directly concerned—the school boards—but also for parliamentary democracy.
This is a dangerous precedent; not only introducing a retroactive amendment to an act, but also permitting the government to get around the judgments already handed down against it by the courts.
This kind of manoeuvre, we should point out, was first attempted by the member for LaSalle—Émard, now a Liberal leadership candidate. After the judgments were handed down in 2001, the then Minister of Finance decided to introduce a retroactive amendment to the Excise Tax Act in his budget, which would have enabled him to recapture significant amounts of goods and services taxes from the coffers of the school boards.
The announcement caused such a stink that the former Liberal minister, the hon. Marc Lalonde, wrote to the Minister of Finance on behalf of his clients asking him to reconsider his position. In a letter dated January 15, 2002, he wrote:
On October 17, the Federal Court of Appeal handed down a unanimous decision to the appellant school boards, with the Commission scolaire des Chênes being the test case. The court ruled that school transportation constitutes a commercial activity that is eligible for 100% input tax credits—.
The board in question is the Commission scolaire des Chênes in my riding. For this board alone, the November 2001 ruling in its favour represents $500,000. If the government continues to refuse to grant school bus transportation tax credits, there will be an annual shortfall of $200,000.
Must we appeal to the Prime Minister's better judgment to get him to recognize that his government's position is indefensible, not because his party is not keeping its statutory commitments to the school boards to avoid unnecessary costs, but because the effect of clause 64 is to get around the courts' rulings. It is as if the government had decided to put itself above everything, even above the law. Such an attitude is dangerous, and the impact will, no doubt, be to discredit the judicial system.
As the hon. Marc Lalonde wrote about the school boards, and I will quote him once again:
—it is our clients' impression that the Minister of Finance is basically saying, “Heads, I win, tails, you lose”.
We will continue to speak out against this serious injustice that the government is preparing to inflict on the school boards.
This is an excellent opportunity to tell those now listening that only the Bloc Quebecois members have come to the defence of the interests of Quebec school boards. On the opposite side of the House, not a single Liberal member is prepared to act in the taxpayers' interests. This is proof of how important the Bloc Quebecois's presence in this House is.
We are fulfilling our duty in defending our communities against the repeated assaults of this centralist government. The people of the ridings of Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière and Témiscamingue must be made aware of this.
Let us now look at the employment insurance plan. The problems facing workers affected by the softwood lumber dispute or the fisheries crisis—soon to be joined by the victims of the mad cow crisis—are growing, yet the federal government is ignoring them, too obsessed with raking in money in the EI fund, where billions of dollars are being amassed.
For the past several years, the government has been helping itself to the fund, which has angered those who contribute to this fund, so much so that central labour bodies have started legal action against Ottawa. In the Superior Court, the CSN and the FTQ have launched a challenge against the constitutionality of the Employment Insurance Act. Transparent management is certainly not the reason we find ourselves in this situation today.
Despite unfavourable opinions by the Auditor General years after year, the Liberal government has continued to misappropriate money from the EI fund to finance other activities.
This is serious. What is at stake here is some very fundamental interests of the workers in Quebec, of overtaxed businesses, of men and women hoping that one day there will be a parental leave that fits their lifestyle, and of the labour force as a whole. What the Liberal federal government is doing to the EI fund is weakening the social safety net on which the public relies.
While billions of dollars are currently being raked in to be used later for purposes other than those for which the fund was intended, the provincial governments are obliged to find creative ways of supporting people who are going through serious crises.
The Government of Quebec had to dig into its own pockets to supplement the lost income of the fishers and processing industry workers in the Gaspé Peninsula. Why? Because the federal government has been sitting idly by while people were ending up out on the street, penniless. Quebec has been left holding the bag while the employment insurance surplus has reached more than $45 billion.
Need I remind this House that soon some workers will be the victims of the mad cow disease crisis? Yesterday, a Liberal, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources Development, told us that people could always collect employment insurance benefits, but this is 55% of their salary, based on a maximum of $39,000 a year. And let us not forget the waiting period. The compensation measures leave a lot to be desired.
Need I remind this government that, for the past 15 years, protection for workers who lose their jobs has diminished?
In Canada, in 1990, 75% of unemployed people were eligible for employment insurance benefits. Less than ten years later, this rate dropped dramatically, to 39%.
In Quebec, for the same period, the rate of unemployed who were eligible for benefits went from 81% to 47%, which means that half the workers in Quebec are no longer entitled to benefits, yet EI contributions are still being deducted from their paycheques. Let us not forget the government does not pay one cent into the fund. It is workers and employers who contribute to employment insurance.
While eligibility criteria for the plan have become stricter and the number of insurable hours to be entitled to benefits has increased, the government cynically decreased the amount of benefits from 66% to 55% of insurable income with a $39,000 ceiling, as I mentioned earlier.
Upon its creation in the 1930s, the unemployment assistance program was nothing less than an insurance policy. The nature of it has changed, as it has almost become a privilege to be entitled to it. This is outrageous.
Again, I will mention that the Liberal government does not contribute a cent to the fund, which is accumulating surpluses at a staggering rate.
The surplus in the EI fund is a clear indication of the existence a fiscal imbalance, and the provinces and the taxpayers are paying the price.
To counteract this plundering of the fund, which has been going on for far too long, the Bloc Quebecois has, on a number of occasions, proposed the creation of a self-sustaining fund. Instead of recognizing that this scheme no longer makes sense, the present MInister of Finance is perpetuating the bad habits of his predecessor. To prevent further protest, he has announced consultations, which will buy him time to continue raking in the surplus, to pay down the debt.
I invite the Minister of Finance to review his position and to seriously consider the Bloc Quebecois proposal. We speak for the workers and the business owners, when we say it is time the plundering stopped.
Let us now move on to part 6 of the act to implement certain provisions of the budget, which deals with the air travellers security charge. As we have done ever since this tax was implemented, we continue to speak out against it as unjustified. In fact, it is a hindrance to the mobility of the population and means just one more fee the travel industry has to collect.
I continue to argue that charges relating to security and policing must be met by everyone via public funds, and not through a disguised tax imposed on those who travel by air. Security is a national affair. Of course, a terrorist on board a plane is a threat to the passengers but, as the tragic events of September 11, 2001 have demonstrated, people on the ground are also in danger. We all stand to gain from enhanced security measures. Imposition of a specific tax on the travelling public is unfair and abusive.
In December 2002, the Standing Committee on Finance, of which I am a member, acknowledged the negative impact of this tax in its prebudget report to this House.
The Tourism Industry Association of Canada met on numerous occasions with committee members to explain why it sees this tax as “an instance of poor public policy”.
The Minister of Finance received no fewer than 300 briefs, all of which were opposed to the security charge, from provincial departments of tourism, airlines, airport authorities and industry associations. I have not found a single individual or organization in favour of this measure; no one, apart from this government, is.
In response to dissatisfaction, the government announced in its budget a reduction in the charge for domestic flights only, a reduction made possible thanks to a change in accounting methods. What the government is really doing is not reducing the amount of money it is taking from the airline industry, but rather amortizing security equipment costs over a 15 year period instead of five years, as originally planned. This is unacceptable.
The Minister of Finance decided that it should be airline passengers who finance security measures that benefit everyone. While he is lowering the charge on domestic flights, the charge on international flights has not been reduced.
If security measures at border crossings are paid for by the government from the consolidated revenue fund, and not by the people or businesses who cross the border, then why should it be any different in the case of air travel? What is the reasoning behind the government's position?
In its report on the viability of Canada's airline industry tabled on April 11, the transport committee recommended eliminating the security charge for airline passengers, since transportation security is a critical national need that must be funded federally.
Just this weekend, the current Minister of Finance and candidate for the Liberal leadership inferred that he might go ahead and lower the special airport security taxes. Can the minister tell us what he is basing these intentions on? Could it be that he has seen studies that he forgot to present to the Standing Committee on Finance?
While we are on this topic, I must point out that I was concerned when I read in a Quebec paper that the federal government is reviewing the airport security charge without even telling us about it.
A reporter found out about this review through a request under the Access to Information Act. What is the minister waiting for to table these studies in the Standing Committee on Finance and the House? Unless the hush hush surrounding these studies is a sign that the minister is hiding something? Could it be businesses operated by friends of the Liberal Party with deep pockets who have contributed to the party?
Finally, I would have liked to come back to those who were forgotten in the budget. I would say that this government has not lived up to its commitments with regard to the elimination of child poverty. The figures published recently by Statistics Canada show that the rich still get rich and the poor still get poorer, which reflects badly on the hon. members opposite.
When a government no longer cares about the messages sent by its citizens, when a government is ready even to defy the justice system, when a Prime Minister says that he does not need parliamentary debates in order to make decisions, this is cause for worry. Faced with such a dangerous attitude, I can only invite my constituents and all the people of Quebec to think hard about their future.
When the federalist government in Quebec City denounces the federal government's inaction with respect to the people who have lost their livelihood, when it denounces the brutal reality of the fiscal imbalance and its effects on the province's ability to provide services to the population, one possible solution remains, an exciting project that will bring people together, that of creating our own country.
For some time we have been hearing people talk about change. As far as I am concerned, the only real change for us, for Quebec, is our sovereignty.