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Crucial Fact

  • His favourite word was finance.

Last in Parliament September 2007, as Bloc MP for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot (Québec)

Won his last election, in 2006, with 56% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Supply October 21st, 1997

Madam Speaker, I will not respond to all the remarks and all the questions. I would say that 90% of them are not relevant.

Our colleague is saying that we are hauling out things that are old hat. That is because the members across the way do not understand. We have been obliged to repeat the same thing to them for the past four years, because they understand nothing, even though we put the figures in plain view before them.

I would ask the member to take his responsibilities a bit more seriously and get his facts straight. Cuts of $42 billion over the next five years will not have a positive effect on the most disadvantaged. Nor will they improve the health network, since the provinces are being deprived of $42 billion in federal transfers for social assistance, education and health. If he puts a little more thought into it, I think he will understand things that he had not quite grasped.

The Bank of Canada has shot itself in the foot too. It has just said that the Minister of Finance did not do as his predecessors had done, which means that he has not done his job. He is supposed to send a signal to the Bank of Canada on the direction monetary policy is to take. If the government has job creation objectives—and he says there are job creation objectives and they are important—he ought to give a different signal to the Bank of Canada. He is empowered by the Constitution. He can give signals. He cannot direct monetary policy or set the interest rate every Wednesday, but he can give signals by indicating that the government considers employment important and that the inflation rate could rise a bit without killing anyone.

In the United States, the rate of inflation is over 3%, and the rate of unemployment is 5%. This makes all the difference between an intelligent policy—perhaps a more intelligent Parliament as well from time to time—and the Minister of Finance's very misplaced policy on interest rates. Our real interest rates are higher than those in the United States. He should find out about that. This party has a communications problem.

Supply October 21st, 1997

Such a fine speech, as my hon. colleague said. I did not say so. Even the Reform Party agrees this was a fine speech.

As I was saying, Madam Speaker, the Minister of Finance, who claims to be in favour of job creation, is sending the Bank of Canada signals that directly contradict this government's job creation objectives. He keeps saying to Gordon Thiessen, the governor of the Bank of Canada: “Go ahead. Whenever the economy starts growing too fast and inflationary pressure may develop, use your strong medicine the old way, by raising interest rates”. That is a recipe for jeopardizing economic recovery.

The Bank of Canada monetary policy is rather complex, but it basically boils down to this. As soon as there is an economic recovery and economic growth creates employment, if growth is deemed to be too fast, according to His Excellency the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Gordon Thiessen, he immediately raises interest rates to slow the rate of growth right down, thereby slowing job creation too.

This is the silliest policy Canada has had in years. Three years into a technical recovery, labour market conditions have yet to be restored to their prerecession levels. Participation levels are lower than ever. Our capacity to reduce unemployment—there are currently 1.5 unemployed Canadians—has diminished. Even Gordon Thiessen realized last year that he had perhaps gone a bit too far with interest rates in the last quarter of 1995; that he had perhaps slowed down the rate of job growth a bit too much.

It is unacceptable that there is a lack of jobs, that the rate of unemployment is so high, and that they are holding to an archaic policy of staying below the Bank of Canada's own inflation target. A minimum of 2% inflation was mentioned. Right now, inflation is around 1.7% or 1.8%.

The Bank of Canada forgot the other part of its mandate, which is to see that the money market does not reduce job creation opportunities. They have completely lost sight of this. They are obsessed with inflation. It is cruel to do what they are doing. They are ruining unemployed workers' chances of finding jobs because they are keeping interest rates high during an economic recovery.

This has to change. As the NDP's motion points out, the Minister of Finance must get back on track and give a clear signal to the Bank of Canada.

There is no question of continuing this sort of dogmatic policy, of raising interest rates when they should not be raised. The emphasis should be on using low interest rates to encourage investment, which will then lead to job creation. It is time the Minister of Finance changed course, because we will never bring down the high rate of unemployment we are now facing with a policy as pathetic as the one favoured by the Governor of the Bank of Canada.

There is one aspect of the Minister of Finance's approach to righting the budgetary situation that I forgot to mention just now. I forgot to mention that the Minister of Finance sat with his arms folded for two years. He watched the train go by, revenues fill the coffers of the federal government, because another $23 billion in taxes went into the federal government's coffers, because the Minister of Finance did not index tax tables, because the Minister of Finance told Revenue Canada to reduce all tax credits including tax credits for persons with disabilities.

If you had any idea, and my colleagues can confirm this, of the number of people with disabilities who come to our riding offices and complain that Revenue Canada is after them demanding the return of the tax credit for persons with disabilities that they received in the previous five years. They even go so far as to tell people who are totally unable to pursue normal work activities that they have no disability, that they are not entitled to this credit. This is the government's budget policy, this is the Minister of Finance's budget policy.

I tell you that we too, like our colleagues in the NDP, condemn the federal government for its negative attitude toward employment and toward people who are suffering. It is in fact the government that put them in that situation.

Supply October 21st, 1997

Madam Speaker, I find it unfortunate that you interrupted—

Supply October 21st, 1997

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this debate on the motion put forward by the New Democratic Party.

I would, first of all, like to point out that my party supports this motion, because it believes in it fundamentally. The motion, I would recall, condemns the government's budgetary measures, draconian cuts and its lack of concern regarding the vital issues of job creation and individual suffering. It also condemns the government's obsession with inflation, which results in high unemployment.

The Minister of Finance's budget measures have been fruitful, as we saw last week in Vancouver. The deficit for the past fiscal year will be about $9 billion.

I would, however, add something to this estimate. I would recall that, last February, when the Bloc Quebecois expressed the possibility that the deficit in the fiscal year ending March 31, 1997 would not be higher than $10 billion, the Minister of Finance said that we did not know what we were talking about, because he was then speaking of a $19 billion deficit. That was eight months ago.

He was still talking about a $19 billion deficit for the last fiscal year, so when we pointed to a deficit of some $10 billion and accused him of not being totally honest with the public, he said we were incompetent. Eight months later, he acknowledges the Bloc Quebecois was right in its estimates, because he himself announced that the deficit would be somewhere around $8.9 billion.

Unless one is a total incompetent, it is impossible to err in predictions by 53% in eight months. It is impossible. Today I reminded the Minister of Finance of what I told him last week in Vancouver: that he was not intellectually honest, that it was dishonest of him to present incorrect figures on the deficit, as he has done since becoming Minister of Finance.

His predictions were terrible, way out of line. Again on Sunday evening, I was with the president of the forecasting firm Informetrica. We discussed the Department of Finance's estimating methods and realized that, however we looked at the February figures, trying to make adjustments between revenues and expenditures, that is, tax revenues and expenditures, there was no way the Minister of Finance could maintain in February his forecast deficit of $19 billion. Everything pointed to a deficit of between $10 and $12 billion.

The minister withheld information from the public to avoid any debate on the drastic cuts he imposed on the provinces for social programs, employment insurance and other initiatives that directly affect Quebeckers and Canadians.

With respect to these cuts, the minister showed a total lack of compassion since tabling his very first budget, but particularly since his 1996 budget. Where did our dear Minister of Finance take the money to achieve such results? He took it out of the pockets of the poor. He got the money by slashing social programs, by cutting $6 billion per year from programs designed to help the poor. By the year 2003, federal transfers to fund social assistance programs administered by the provinces, to fund higher education, which is also administered by the provinces and which is a field under exclusive provincial jurisdiction, and to fund health will have undergone cumulative cuts of $42 billion by the Minister of Finance. These are the minister's own figures.

If we look at his 1996 budget and planned cuts until the year 2003, we see that, for the fiscal year that just ended, the minister cut $4.6 billion. In 1997-98, which is the current fiscal year, cuts will reach $10.9 billion and will affect provincially administered programs in the social assistance, higher education and health sectors. In 1998-99, cuts will total $17.2 billion, then $23.5 billion in 1999, and so on, for a cumulative total of $42 billion.

So when the Minister of Finance tells us that his government announced it would invest $6 billion in social and health programs over the next five years, this has nothing to do with the $42 billion it will cut and will continue to cut until 2003. It does not present an accurate picture to the public of what this government is really doing to help the most disadvantaged.

Last week, the Minister of Finance announced that several hundreds of millions of dollars would be earmarked annually to help the poorest members of society, to revitalize the health sector, to provide scholarships for students. This assistance is a sham. It shows a lack of intellectual honesty to give this impression, when there are going to be $42 billion in cuts in the very sectors they are claiming to want to focus on in order to help the most disadvantaged, the ill, and students.

Cuts in social transfers to the provinces represent 53% of the federal government's spending cuts. It is not the government, but the provinces, that have done the work. The proof is that for every $1 cut in health care in Quebec, 93 cents was because of the decision by the federal Minister of Finance to cut Quebec's health transfers. Ninety-three cents on every dollar.

As for social assistance and post-secondary education, every time Quebec cut a dollar in these sectors, 73 cents was because of cuts by the federal Minister of Finance. So we are not talking about peanuts. This year, for the first time, Quebec would have balanced its budget, had it not been for the drastic cuts by the Minister of Finance.

It is all very well to tell us about the Minister of Finance's wonderful ability to manage, but any old biped of average intelligence would have done exactly the same thing. It is easy to steal from your neighbour and say that you came by our money honestly. That is what the Minister of Finance has done. He has had others do the work. He has also had the unemployed workers of Quebec and of Canada do some of the work. For the past three years, he has asked them to contribute almost $20 billion to help reduce his deficit. How did he do this? By keeping premiums abnormally high, by generating surpluses that will reach $13 billion this year.

So, we went from a $6 billion deficit in the UI fund in 1993 to $13 billion in accumulated surpluses this year. The calculation is simple: the $6 billion deficit was eliminated by imposing very high employer and employee premium rates and by making the employment insurance plan stricter. Add $13 billion to that and there are the $19 billion that did not go to the unemployed these past three and a half years.

That is $19 billion taken away from the unemployed, that should have been used, partly at least, to pay benefits to the unemployed to help them get back to work. But it was not. This amount could also have been used to create jobs. Again, it was not. Job creation is not important to this government. If it was important, we would not have 1.5 million unemployed workers in this country. If it was important, the employment insurance premium rates would not be maintained at an artificially high level, as they currently are; premiums rates, which are payroll taxes, would be lowered.

High premium rates slow sustainable and meaningful job creation. Now that the public finances are in better shape and that he has the most vulnerable taxpayers to thank for that, what is the Minister of Finance waiting for to correct the situation, by admitting his mistake and his responsibility in the deteriorating poverty situation?

Again, we must not think that billions of dollars, $42 billion by the year 2003, can be cut without serious harm being caused to the people of Quebec and Canada and without this being reflected somewhere in the statistics on poverty. It already is.

There is reference to child poverty. The incidence of child poverty was 14.5% in 1989. The percentage of children living in families below the poverty line was 14.5. At the present time, the figure is 20.5%, a rise of 4.5%, and this is connected to the Minister of Finance's policies, the Minister of Finance's drastic cuts to social programs. That is the only explanation there is.

When we look at unemployment, the minister is boasting of fantastic surpluses in the unemployment insurance fund, which he is putting toward reduction of the deficit, when we look at the restrictions which have helped accumulate the unemployment insurance fund surplus, the restrictions to the new employment insurance program, we see that this is no joke.

In 1990, 77% of the unemployed, the men and women who lost their jobs, were entitled to unemployment insurance. This year, only 41% were. Why? Because the rules were tightened up. The eligibility requirements were tightened up.

So where do you think people go today, when they are no longer entitled to unemployment insurance? Most go on welfare. They become marginal. Once again, the one responsible is the Minister of Finance. He is the one who pretends to have a heart, while in fact he has no compassion, none whatsoever, along with the rest of the government, for the most disadvantaged and for the unemployed. He is the one responsible, he is the one marginalizing workers, who end up cut off from the realities of the workplace, once they are marginalized and forced onto welfare. They are cut off from that reality, and it is hard to get back to a normal job search afterward. One has to be close to the labour market to improve one's chances of finding work. The Minister of Finance totally disregarded that aspect in his efforts to meet his budgetary objectives.

The motion tabled by the NDP also deals with the monetary policy. It is the federal government which dictates the main thrusts of the monetary policy to Gordon Thiessen, the Governor of the Bank of Canada. At the very least, the minister sends signals, even though he does not administer the monetary policy himself. He sends signals to the Governor of the Bank of Canada on behalf of his government, so that the latter will apply specific interest rate policies.

The Minister of Finance, who claims to support employment and who gives all kinds of wrong figures, which makes me wonder about his intellectual honesty, tells the Bank of Canada: “Go ahead with the strong medicine; interest rates must go up as soon as economic recovery is in sight. We must not create too many jobs. It would generate inflationary pressure. Go ahead, raise interest rates. Do what the Bank of Canada used to do, which was to apply strong medicine whenever there was any emerging inflationary trend”.

The minister agrees with this policy. Last week, in the Globe and Mail , while everyone else in Canada was criticizing—

Deficit Reduction October 21st, 1997

Mr. Speaker, it is really unbelievable. Twice now, since he spoke in Vancouver, I have heard the minister spout this nonsense. He is pulling the wool over the public's eyes. He is adding $6 billion over five years. He is cutting $6 billion annually, until 2003. His government will have taken $42 billion out of the mouths of the most disadvantaged by 2003. What are $6 billion worth compared to the $42 billion in cuts now taking place?

I question the intellectual integrity of this minister.

Deficit Reduction October 21st, 1997

Mr. Speaker, if the Minister of Finance has some leeway now, it is because people have paid for it. The unemployed have been singled out and have so far contributed $19 billion through unemployment insurance cuts.

My question is for the Minister of Finance. Now that he is well ahead of his forecasts, does he not think it would be fair and reasonable to give a little something back to those who, for two years now, have done more than their share to eliminate the deficit?

Supply October 9th, 1997

We do not.

Supply October 9th, 1997

Madam Speaker, I will repeat my question since I was interrupted. How can the member claim to be serving ordinary Canadians when his party is being bribed by large corporations and banks to the tune of $40,000 in donations to the Liberal Party of Canada? How can this government not have its hands tied by all this generosity on the part of corporate Canada?

Supply October 9th, 1997

—but maintains privileges—

Supply October 9th, 1997

Nobody in the Bloc received contributions from companies. And do you know why? Because we are following the lessons of Mr. Lévesque, who thought that, by respect for the people and to better serve the people, big businesses, banks and trust companies should not finance political parties. I think that Mr. Lévesque was right.

The list of contributors to the Liberal Party of Canada includes the six major banks, which gave more than $40,000. For their part, trust companies contributed more than $35,000 each.

In that situation, nobody will be surprised that the government cannot muster enough political will to act when asked to fix the tax loopholes which allowed family trusts to transfer $2 billion in the United States without paying taxes.

Grassroots financing means that the funds are gathered among those who ask us to represent them and do a good job at it instead of representing big businesses, like they like to do across the way.

How does the hon. member dare say that his government can represent each and every citizen when it is being bribed by big business and refuses to take the necessary actions to fix the tax loopholes—