House of Commons photo

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

Goods And Services Tax March 17th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I asked the Prime Minister whether he supported applying a new GST to health care and medication. He gave the following answer, and I quote: "All taxes collected by the government go into the government's consolidated fund and this money is used to pay for all the government's programs." With this answer, the Prime Minister left all of his options open.

Will the Prime Minister tell us, yes or no, if he is preparing to extend the GST to health care and medication, as some of his own members have hinted?

Health Care March 16th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, these developments are very disturbing, and I would ask the Prime Minister to be a little less flippant in his answers, because this particular issue is fundamental. We are not talking about submissions by witnesses but about his own members who came out in favour of applying the GST to health care and medication.

I will direct my question again to the Prime Minister. Does he or does he not support applying a new GST to health care and medication? That is what people want to know.

Health Care March 16th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, the government is desperately trying to broaden the tax base and regularly puts out feelers on how this could be done. Its latest effort came yesterday when some Liberal members supported applying the GST to health care and medication, which I think is pretty outrageous.

Does the Prime Minister share the position taken by his members who, in the course of their work on the GST review, came out openly in favour of taxing health care and medication?

Supply March 14th, 1994

Madam Speaker, I want to make a brief comment to bring out two points. First, I agree with the hon. member for Lethbridge when he says that the budget does nothing to reduce Canada's deficit and excessive debt. Indeed, in spite of unacceptable cuts of $7.5 billion which will affect the unemployed, the poor and the elderly, we will end up with a record deficit which will probably exceed even the least optimistic forecasts of about $45 billion.

However, I do not agree with the hon. member when he dares say that the gap between Canadian and American interest rates, as well as the difference in the two economies, are attributable to the fact that there is a sovereignist movement in Quebec. I also disagree when he claims that our bad financial situation and the sudden fluctuations in our interest rates are due to the existence of that movement.

I want to remind him that, during the debate surrounding the Charlottetown Accord, in the fall of 1992, the rise of interest rates and the lowering of Canada's credit rating were not due to the presence of sovereignists, but to the catastrophic situation of Canadian public finances and the inability of federalists like the hon. member to control government finances and the economic future of Quebec and Canada. This is the real problem.

If we go back to 1992 and 1993, we see that the problem is also due to the chronic inability of the Ontario government to control excessive spending, which had the effect of hurting Canada's reputation, and not only Ontario's, with foreign investors. The problem of interest rates and the economy in general is much more related to government finances than to the presence of a sovereignist movement. In fact, this is the real source of the problem.

To think and speak like the hon. member for Lethbridge is to bury one's head in the sand. And this kind of excessive talk, which stirs up emotions and is pure misinformation, will scare away investors, who will think that Canadians are not serious.

The Budget March 7th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, in light of the minister's answer and the budget, are we to understand that the Minister of Finance has abandoned the idea of cutting government spending and will deliberately maintain the squandering and tax leakage denounced by the Auditor General, relying solely on economic growth to curb the deficit?

The Budget March 7th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, before tabling his budget, the Minister of Finance told us repeatedly that he would be cutting expenditures, but he did not have the courage to follow through. Now he is telling us that it is going to happen next year, as part of a second phase. Even the Prime Minister, on tour in Western Canada, contradicts him on that point.

How can the Minister of Finance expect us to believe that he does want to reduce spending when the Prime Minister flatly contradicts him by saying that all cuts the government planned to make were made this year?

The Budget February 25th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, how can the Minister of Finance, who travelled throughout Canada saying that he was going to reduce the deficit, explain that, according to the Globe and Mail experts, other specialists and our own figures, next year's deficit will be the highest ever recorded in Canada, at almost $44 billion?

The Budget February 25th, 1994

Mr. Speaker, this morning, under the headline "Cheap tricks for tawdry ends", the Globe and Mail made two allegations: First, the Minister of Finance has knowingly inflated the deficit of last fiscal year; second, a close analysis of government spending shows that the deficit for next year will not decrease, but will increase from $41.7 billion to $43.7 billion because of the measures announced in the most recent budget.

When will the Minister of Finance stop trying to delude the Canadian people? When will he stop covering up the fiasco in our public finances, which his budget is only making worse?

The Budget February 24th, 1994

One question, was it?

The Budget February 23rd, 1994

Time is flying, but I was told I had unlimited time. I find that fantastic, although I would not want to exaggerate.

I would like to say a few words on international assistance. We did not talk much about that, and I think we should start. The budget contains a 2 per cent cut in international assistance. That is a $400 million reduction in the budget over the next three years.

The Bloc Quebecois, short of increasing the budget for this item, would have asked the government to keep the level of Canadian development assistance, because we are still quite far from the objective of 0.7 per cent of our GNP for international aid programs. As I could see during my years of employment with a farmers union, poverty in Latin America as well as Africa is not only still there, but it is increasing. The government could have corrected some of the administrative problems in international development that the Auditor General pointed out in his last report. We should, at least, have had the decency of maintaining the level of our international assistance, our commitment to helping the neediest on this planet. It seems to me that it is not much to ask of a country like Canada.

We should not forget that every time we teach people in the developing world to do something, they become wealthier and therefore, they acquire goods and services in Canada. Such a cut is therefore postponing possible growth in the demand for Canadian goods and services. From an economic point of view, the only one that the government ever takes into consideration, this fact should have been remembered. We deplore the $400 million reduction in international development assistance over the next three years, while children in Africa and Latin America continue to die every day.

In conclusion, I would just like to say that this budget is devoid of the measures that the government should have taken. Moreover, its spending reduction targets are ridiculous because as I said at the outset, in nominal terms, expenses will not be reduced over the next three years. In fact, spending levels will remain relatively stable.

This budget does not contain any serious measures which would allow the government to get its finances in order. As many observers have pointed out since yesterday, it is not a visionary budget. It does not contain any job creation incentives to give some hope back to the 1.5 million Canadians and 460,000 Quebecers who are unemployed. The middle class is being taxed to death, while the poor and the disadvantaged will feel the effects of cuts to social programs.

If I may digress for a moment, last week I was rereading René Lévesque's memoirs and a thought came to mind. As you know, in Quebec, Mr. Lévesque left us with a legacy whereby political parties can only accept contributions from individuals. I notice that the federal Liberal Party and the Reform Party have no such system in place. This seems to be the case just about everywhere in Canada. I wonder if the fact that the Liberals do not have such a system explains in part why they did not move in this budget to close the various tax loopholes which benefit large corporations or to do away with family trusts which benefit the wealthiest members of society.

I went and got a copy of the report the Federal Liberal Agency of Canada submitted last year to the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, only to discover that among the contributors whose names I will not mention -the report is public domain, anybody can refer to it- there are Canadian manufacturing industries which have contributed up to $68,000 to the election fund of the Liberal Party of Canada. Probably the same ones dodging tax in tax havens like Barbados and the likes. I also noticed that the Liberal Party of Canada received from banks and trusts companies amounts ranging from $12,000 and $45,000. They are the ones responsible for administering family trusts.

I wondered if that did not explain in part why the government across the way, the Liberals, did not eliminate this kind of preferential tax treatment for contributing friend of the Liberal Party of Canada. When you accept contributions like that, you have to expect to have your hands tied once you are in office. You must also expect that you will not really be free to make the right, timeliest and fairest decision. I wondered if that was not the reason. If indeed it is, I am outraged. If not, prove it to me. Let our friends opposite put in place a system based on René Lévesque's great legacy, a system similar to the one we, the Bloc Quebecois, have adopted.

Our hands are not tied. We can speak on behalf of middle-income taxpayers and those suffering the most hardship in our society, without the diktat of large corporations and the wealthiest families of Quebec and Canada being imposed upon us.

To conclude, I would ask the Minister of Finance to take off the work boots the Prime Minister has offered him, because I believe he is not worthy of wearing them.

I therefore move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word "That" and substanding the following:

"this House denounce the reversal of the Government's position on the budget which:

(a) tackles the problem of the deficit on the back of a middle class already bled white by the tax increases of recent years:

(b) gives up trying to control spiralling deficit-related expenditures by basing its fiscal analysis on unrealistic revenue projections;

(c) refuses to eliminate tax loopholes for the wealthy and for big business;

(d) abandons the poor to their fate by its readiness to slash funding for social programs; and

(e) continues the destructive policies of preceding governments by demonstrating a flagrant lack of long-term vision and by giving no hope to the jobless."