Michel Gauthier

[Employment Insurance, November 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, at the risk of offending our friend across the way, the figure appears on page 47 of his report. If he checked the reports, he would find the same figure.

The government would rather use the EI surplus from employer and employee overcontributions to reduce income taxes for everybody.

Does the Prime Minister not realize that this choice does not make sense when he as Prime Minister could benefit from a tax reduction at the expense of the unemployed even though he pays no EI premiums?

[Quebec Election Campaign, October 29th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I did not think the Prime Minister would drag out the resolutions again.

I remind him that even Jean Charest, a former federal member of parliament, preferred to be away from the House partying rather than have to vote on these resolutions the Prime Minister is boasting about. That is the fact of the matter.

Given the turn events are taking between the Prime Minister and the leader of the Quebec Liberal Party, does the Prime Minister not find himself in a paradoxical situation promising us four years of bliss with his friend Mr. Charest?

[Quebec Election Campaign, October 29th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the leader of the federalist forces in Quebec noted that the Prime Minister's one-step-at-a-time strategy is completely unacceptable and ineffective.

Has the Prime Minister's very credibility not suffered a blow when the rest of Canada realizes today that even Quebec's federalists want nothing to do with him?

[Election Campaign In Quebec, October 29th, 1998]

We have a Prime Minister who says he has met Quebec's demands. He has just said so again. Then we have Jean Charest, his ally, who says, on the front page of the Globe and Mail , that if the Prime Minister blocks change, he must leave. The two of them are contradicting each other.

Who is really speaking for the federalists?

[Election Campaign In Quebec, October 29th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's memory is fragile. Not even Jean Charest came to vote for his empty resolution.

[Election Campaign In Quebec, October 29th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has a serious problem.

His ally in Quebec, his protégé Jean Charest, the one all the ministers want to canvas for, the one the Prime Minister again yesterday described as reasonable, wants him to adapt or leave. What has he to say?

[The Constitution, October 27th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, can the Prime Minister tell us if, when he said he did not want to create false hopes at the constitutional level, he was sending a very clear message to Quebec federalists to not say too much on this issue during the election campaign, because as far as he is concerned the door is shut?

[The Constitution, October 27th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, last year, the Prime Minister said he was waiting for a federalist government in Quebec to proceed with constitutional changes.

However, he just said the opposite and last weekend he shut the door by stating “The Constitution is not a general store”.

Are we to understand from those comments that the Prime Minister is resigned to not having a federalist government in Quebec or that, even with a federalist government, he feels he can never go further than he already has?

[Apec Summit, October 8th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, when the Deputy Prime Minister was Solicitor General, he never got into such a situation because he understood he needed to keep his mouth shut. That is what Solicitors General have to learn, and this one did not.

Someone from a foreign power, someone with an interest in getting some information on Canada, could have been the one sitting close to the Solicitor General on that plane, so what he was saying did constitute a risk to national security. How can a man in charge of national security behave in such a way as to endanger the—

[Apec Summit, October 8th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the Solicitor General is the minister responsible for internal security. He is the one responsible for state secrets. The portfolio is so different from the others that newly appointed Solicitors General are given more training about security than other ministers.

How can the man responsible for security in Canada not understand that the words he spoke, as reported by the hon. member, are unseemly and incompatible with his position?