Debates of Nov. 1st, 2004

Child Care

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we have already seen where collaboration got us in the conference on the fiscal imbalance. I remember the matter of young offenders as well, where we were told how Quebec was handling it better than anybody else. But in the end, an approach was imposed, in order to please the rest of Canada, which Quebec wanted nothing to do with.

So here is a very clear question for the minister. In order to this happen again, is he prepared to guarantee Quebec an unconditional right to opt out with full compensation? Can he give me a concrete answer to that question?

[Lucienne Robillard, Liberal, President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, unlike the Bloc Québécois, which is not, of course, a federalist party, the Liberal government of Quebec is capable of sharing common objectives with the other provinces and comparable indicators, as it has shown in the case of health, while having an agreement tailored specifically to Quebec's priorities. This is what we are going to be doing.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in the francophone media, the Minister of Social Development keeps repeating that he is going to respect the provinces and that Quebec is the model to emulate in the field of child care. Your applause is welcome.

However, in the anglophone media, he goes into more detail. In an interview on Saturday he talked about points of reference, reports and standards.

I ask the minister to be clear and precise, here in the House, and to confirm that Quebec, whose system is the model, will be permitted to opt out entirely, unconditionally and with full compensation.

[Lucienne Robillard, Liberal, President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I shall repeat it again. My colleague, the hon. Minister of Social Development, is working with all the provinces including the federalist, Liberal government in Quebec. It is very clear that we are going to respect provincial jurisdictions. Nevertheless, it is also clear that Quebec shares many of the overall goals of this federation. This time, it is Quebec that will serve as the model for all the other provinces of Canada.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on June 3, 2004, during the election campaign, the Prime Minister said that Quebec would receive its share of the $5 billion without having to open its books to the federal government.

Will the Minister of Social Development confirm that this promise made by the Prime Minister while campaigning in Quebec still holds, especially as he prepares to meet the ministers responsible for this sector?

[Lucienne Robillard, Liberal, President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government in Ottawa, like the Liberal government in Quebec, is in favour of accountability to its own citizens. The Government of Canada has never asked a province to make such a report to it.

That is exactly what we have done in the health care sector. In that sector, each provincial government and the Government of Quebec will report to its own citizens. It will be the same in the other sectors.

Privacy

[Jack Layton, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, inside and outside the House, the NDP has raised the question of Canadian privacy vis-à-vis George Bush's patriot act. We raised it in the context of the Lockheed Martin contract with Statistics Canada. We raised it with regard to banking records. Now the British Columbia privacy commissioner is sounding the alarm.

The U.S. ambassador on the weekend indicated that the Canadian government has not even asked that Canadian laws be respected by the Bush administration in this regard.

Why is the government doing absolutely nothing to protect the privacy of Canadians against the George Bush patriot act?

[Reg Alcock, Liberal, President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

Mr. Speaker, contrary to the assertions of the leader of the fourth party in the House, as I have said earlier in the House, this is an extremely serious issue and one which we take very seriously.

The member referenced the Lockheed Martin contract. That contract was rewritten in order to ensure that the data remained in the hands of Canadians.

There are concerns. I have met with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. She assures me that the new legislation that was passed by this House gives her the authority to deal with private companies that are holding data in Canada.

National Defence

[Jack Layton, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the U.S. ambassador said that the Canadian government, the Liberal Party, and the Prime Minister had not even picked up the phone to express any concern on behalf of Canadians. Some expression of concern that is, absolutely nothing.

On the weekend the Prime Minister gave the Danny Williams treatment to foreign affairs, saying one thing and doing another. He pretends he supports multilateralism, but at the same time is hell bent on pursuing defence missile systems.

It is absolutely impossible to defend on the one hand multilateralism and at the same time to proceed with missile defence. Why is the government--

[The Speaker]

The hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs.

[Pierre Pettigrew, Liberal, Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, this government has demonstrated quite clearly our absolute support for multilateralism.

It is quite possible to walk and chew gum at the same time. We have been in Norad for decades. We have been in Norad with the United States of America because we are talking about the security of the North American continent.

I do not know where the leader of the NDP is going with this. We support multilateralism, absolutely. We are determined to look at the security of this continent as all Canadians should.

Sponsorship Program

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this weekend the Prime Minister showed his true colours when he told defeated Liberal candidates that in the next election they were going to win the jackpot. It seems that for Liberals winning an election means a free hand to loot the public treasury.

Sadly, this appears to include the Prime Minister himself. We now know he intervened to direct money to his personal fundraiser and to a leadership supporter.

Why did the Prime Minister hide his sponsorship involvement from voters, even though he promised to leave no stone unturned and to give them all the facts?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, again we are going to be responsible in this party and we will not comment on day to day testimony. However, we will comment when hon. members, like the member opposite, make allegations that are false, based on extrapolating from one day's testimony and drawing the wrong conclusion.

The fact is that it is irresponsible for her to indulge in character assassinations on the floor of the House of Commons and as a member of Parliament, it is shameful. It is appalling that as a lawyer she would not understand the independence of a judicial inquiry.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this minister could give lessons on character assassination, especially when he was sitting on our side of the House.

This mad as hell Prime Minister had lots of time to come forward and make full disclosure about his own sponsorship involvement. Instead, the truth is being squeezed out of him fact by fact, bit by bit.

I ask the Prime Minister again to level with Canadians. Why were they asked to vote without having “every single piece of information and every fact in front of them” as the Prime Minister promised?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, that is yet one more example of a well choreographed but poorly researched question.

If we want to talk about openness, transparency and cooperation, let us talk about the 10 million pages of documents that were provided to Justice Gomery for his work. We are not afraid of the work that is going on with Justice Gomery or being totally cooperative. In fact, the Hamilton Spectator said this weekend that Justice Gomery was showing himself to be a breath of fresh air for Canadians. The Ottawa Sun said that it was another sign that the inquiry was operating on an even keel.

It is working. Let it work.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Gomery inquiry is a breath of fresh air, but hiding 10 million documents until after the election is not quite what Canadians expected.

Some 30 years ago, amid great fanfare, the Liberal government opened Mirabel airport. The human cost of that airport would prove to be huge: families uprooted, businesses destroyed, hopes dashed.

Is there any Liberal minister who will finally show a little respect for those who suffered and admit that the Liberals made planning errors that marked this infamous project right from the start?

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, Aéroports de Montréal, ADM, informed TC that it had received several proposals. ADM met with the bidders to discuss the proposal. Four bidders will present detailed proposals over the next three months and ADM will evaluate each of these proposals.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, last night, Quebeckers watched with disappointment as the last flight took off from what some call Pierre Trudeau's airport. What a Liberal planning mess. Now the minister, without the support of his caucus, has unilaterally decided on an open skies agreement.

After the empty promises for Mirabel, can Canadians trust promises made by someone who wants to tell Americans how to fly Canadian skies without even negotiating?

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, again we hear rhetoric. Last week the minister said that he will involve the committee and that this was a process that will invite all stakeholders for them to participate as well as hon. colleagues across, committee members, in order to ensure we have an open policy and all stakeholders are consulted.

Child Care

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, according to the OECD and all observers, Quebec has the best child care system in Canada. Unfortunately, the negative side of this is that Quebec does not fully benefit from the tax deductions and tax credits for child care allowed by the federal Minister of Finance.

Can the Minister of Finance tell us whether he plans to make a decision in favour of Quebec, which has been deprived of $1 billion in tax benefits for the past five years simply because Quebeckers came up with a good child care system long before the others?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, there are policies at the provincial level that carry with them both positive and negative impacts federally, and there are policies at the federal level that have the opposite effect provincially.

In the ongoing arrangements between governments, every effort is made to accommodate those impacts as programs are designed but it has not been the tradition to provide any kind of direct offset or compensation. That has not been the tradition in normal fiscal arrangements among governments.

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the problem is that Quebec pays and the rest of Canada benefits. That is not normal. The federal government has provided these deductions and tax credits for child care to parents in the other provinces, but not in Quebec.

Should Quebec not be compensated in the future for the $1 billion it has saved the federal government and for paving the way for a child care system that will soon be used as a model for the other provinces, except that Ottawa will foot the bill this time?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, part of the genius of the Canadian federation is that when social experimentation and good ideas are developed at the provincial level, they become shared among all Canadians.

A number of years ago the Province of Saskatchewan invented the concept of medicare that has become a jewel in the crown of Canada. I want to say that Quebec has developed the most sophisticated child care system in the nation. It is a wonderful thing that we are now taking steps to ensure that the same benefit can flow across all of Canada and Canada can benefit from the social innovations.

Aerospace Industry

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Rivière-Du-Loup—Montmagny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bombardier may choose to develop its new aircraft outside Quebec, because competition is keen, as other countries and several U.S. states have made offers to attract it.

Is the Minister of Industry aware how urgent it is to take action if the federal government wants to help keep Bombardier developing in Quebec and will he get an offer on the table promptly to support Bombardier's developing in Quebec?

[David Emerson, Liberal, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, the short answer is, yes. The long answer is, we are consulting with the aerospace industry across Canada and we are moving to ensure that we have a strategy in place that will benefit the aerospace industry and all of Canada. It will not just be a Bombardier strategy. It will be a Canadian strategy and it will benefit workers across the country.