Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to congratulate the hon. member for Chambly—Borduas on his excellent speech. I have known him for a few years and I can assure the House that he will make a very useful contribution here, particularly in light of this throne speech.
This being the first time that I rise in the House since the election, I also want to take this opportunity to thank the voters of the riding of Joliette, who once again put their trust in me, in significant numbers. I thank them and I hope to live up to the confidence they placed in me.
I also want to pay tribute to Joseph Forest, of Saint-Donat, who turned 100 years old on October 9. Mr. Forest is still very mentally alert, as evidenced by the fact that he is a staunch sovereignist. I wish him a happy birthday.
Getting back to the issue before us today, namely the government's throne speech, there is one thing that strikes me. A retired colonel mentioned it Friday on CBC radio, in connection with the tragic events that occurred on the submarine Chicoutimi . A retired colonel is not necessarily someone who follows politics the way we do in this House. He said that people hear the federal government talk about health, education, daycare, municipalities, which are all provincial jurisdictions. However, they never, or hardly ever hear the government talk about national defence, which comes under its jurisdiction.
While it is true that the government says little about national defence, the same may be said for international trade and the employment insurance issue. This throne speech is totally silent on federal jurisdictions. Only in the jurisdictions of the other levels of government, namely the provinces and Quebec, is the federal government full of good and very specific ideas. These are, of course, good ideas based on the centralizing and imperialist vision of the Liberal Party of Canada.
As we know, as far as health is concerned, they tell us that things need to be administered in the way the Liberal government has imagined it, whereas the federal government and the Liberal government of Canada have never administered health systems. This Speech from the Throne does not stop at health. No doubt they have said all they had to say on that, so now they start in on education. They call it learning, and tell us that learning is not exactly the same as education. Frankly, that is just playing with words. They talk about recognition of foreign credentials, when professional bodies came under provincial jurisdiction. In Quebec in particular, this is a debate that has gone on for ages, with the doctors' and other professional bodies. It is not up to the federal government to come barging in to help solve such a highly complex problem when Quebec has been working on it for a good fifteen years if not more. I had the opportunity of sitting on the Conseil supérieur de l'éducation and the Comité sur l'éducation aux adultes some years ago, and it was already an issue being discussed in depth at that time. Solutions are needed, but that said, adding the federal government's two cents' worth is not going to help.
When it comes to all the other elements, like child care, it is the same thing. There is a level of detail of great concern to the other levels of government in Quebec and the provinces. The provinces have also looked at the problems that exist in some of our public systems, such as health, education or day care services, and they have solutions that are often much better in terms of implementation.
As I was saying, it has a great deal to say about learning and about recognizing the foreign credentials of new Canadians. However, on something so fundamental to a sovereign country like Canada—something Quebec wants to become one day—as its international policy, which is its number one prerogative, the only sentence in the speech is, “This fall, the Government will release a comprehensive International Policy Statement that will reflect this integration.” What should have been at the core of this Speech from the Throne was all the concerns of Canada, Canadians and Quebeckers about international issues, but there was nothing.
There is the hot issue of the day: Canadian participation in the missile defence shield project, the one being pushed by the American authorities. With all the time that has passed since the June 28 election—the House even resumed two weeks late—one might have expected the government to be in a position to tell us something more than “there will be an international policy this fall”. They go on, moreover, to say that “Parliamentarians and other Canadians will have the opportunity to debate its analyses and proposed directions”.
We might now have expected a position or some parameters relating to the government's reflections, but no. Because they are aware that this is a touchy subject, and involves questions of federal jurisdiction, they prefer to keep mum about this particular hot potato and likely will end up trying to present all of the people of Canada and of Quebec, as well as all the members of this House, with a done deal. Not only is this unacceptable, it is undemocratic as well.
Now for employment insurance. The member for Chambly—Borduas was very clear about this in his speech. If there is one area that still falls, regrettably, under federal jurisdiction, it is employment insurance. I always think to myself that Mr. Godbout , the man who made it possible in the early 1940s for the federal government to reclaim jurisdiction over this from the provinces, must be turning over in his grave.
Employment insurance has been a terrible problem for years; ever since the Liberals “reformed” employment insurance in fact. The truth is, it started with the Conservatives. The House probably remembers the Axworthy reform. At that time I was working with the unions. Along with our young people, we fought that reform because we could clearly see where it was leading. It led us just where we thought it would, to the misuse of public money: $45 billion, as my colleague has said.
There have been drastic cuts in accessibility. Now only four out of ten people who pay premiums and lose their jobs ever get any benefits. It is no longer a social safety net at all; it has become a Canada-wide lottery. It has been denounced many times. In 2000, the ministers went to the Chicoutimi region. The hon. member for Jonquière is here to confirm that for us. The ministers said they were going to solve the problems. And what did we get as a bill? Something merely cosmetic.
A few weeks after the election was called, the Liberals thought they could fool the people with other cosmetic changes to EI. It fooled no one in the regions of Quebec and no one in the Atlantic provinces.
What we might have expected is not what is written in the Speech from the Throne. There we find a sentence that is probably receiving quite a bit of scrutiny, to the effect that the government will look into the employment insurance program to ensure that it remains well-suited to the new realities. What does that mean? Are they going to change it to suit the interests of multinationals that still prefer having a workforce incapable of achieving minimum economic security? Such workers can be forced to accept poor working conditions and low salaries in order to meet legitimate competition from developing countries. Is that what we want? That is what the Axworthy reform was.
Are they finally going to respond to the concerns of Canadians, Quebeckers, workers who want to have a real system, since they are paying for it? The same is true for employers.
Therefore, this is a subject that the Liberal government should have been prepared to meet head on with answers. My colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot spoke of this during question period. Year after year, we end up with surpluses much higher than the Minister of Finance predicted. It is true for the current finance minister and it was also true when the Prime Minister was finance minister, and when Mr. Manley was finance minister.
The surplus is systematically underestimated. Perhaps this is a way to provide funding based on conditions set by the federal government in areas where there are acute problems, such as health. That was what Mr. Chrétien did when he came up with $2 billion at the last minute after having said that he would probably not be able to do so without scraping the bottom of the barrel.
We need to have a good look at the real numbers in order to have the discussions that we should have with the provincial premiers on federal transfers to the provinces. This is not just about equalization. I think that everyone agrees on this except the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party of Canada.
We need an institute that could assure us of the validity of the numbers.
Everything I have talked about that was not elaborated on in the Speech from the Throne is in the amendment moved by the Conservative Party. It talks about an independent employment insurance fund to be managed by those who pay into it. It talks about having a free vote on the missile defence shield. It talks about the need to create an agency to ensure that the fiscal forecasts of this government are verified by an independent body.
All these items—and there are more in the amendment moved by the Conservatives—are not just concerns of the Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecois. They are concerns of Canadians and Quebeckers. The best illustration of this is that two-thirds of the members here in this House are not from the Liberal Party of Canada, but from the Bloc Quebecois, the Conservative Party, or the NDP, and the government has to realize that.