Yvan Loubier

[The Budget, December 11th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased by the question from my colleague of the New Democratic Party, since I used to be an economist with L'Union des producteurs agricoles du Québec. I am still very much attuned to farming issues.

Today, the problem of farm subsidies remains unchanged. In recent years, and especially with the eighth GATT round, which led to the establishment of the World Trade Organization, it was decided to reduce trade distorting subsidies. That was in 1993. It concerned 140 countries belonging to the WTO. It was agreed to reduce these subsidies to a given level annually until they were finally eliminated and to retain only those subsidies that did not have a distorting effect on international prices and exports.

Unfortunately, some countries made greater efforts than others, and Canada is one of these. We were, to put it another way, more catholic than the Pope, as we would say in Quebec. We cut our subsidies more than the Americans and the Europeans, so that, at the moment, prices on international markets remain depressed. Western exporters are facing lower prices on the export market. These lower prices are the result of the unfair American and European subsidies.

So we again find ourselves in a situation like this, where competition hinges not on the quality of our agricultural products—wheat, pork, dairy products, and so forth—but on the subsidies provided by governments of the larger nations or regions in the world. It is essential that the current round of WTO negotiations correct this problem.

As for this government, it has thrown out the baby with the bath water. In attempting to do something about subsidies which were causing distortions, it jeopardized, and is still jeopardizing, the survival of farm families. Even though they are among the best producers in the world, with top quality products and an excellent price-quality ratio in a normal market, they are not able to compete with producers and exporters receiving billions of dollars in subsidies annually.

It is time that the government did something, stepped up its negotiations and took a stronger stand internationally, first, so as to reduce subsidies, which are distorting international prices and, second, to put a little money in the pockets of agricultural producers in Quebec and in Canada, to give them a new lease on life. This is what it will take to keep our agri-food industry going. Otherwise, its survival is at risk.

[The Budget, December 11th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, as usual, the parliamentary secretary is extremely cynical, and his words are verging on demagoguery and insult.

What I have here in my hands is a calculator. If our Liberal colleague were less lazy, he would take his out, as he did when an economist for the Royal Bank—and a little more objective then than he is now—and would do his calculations as we do, according to the economic growth forecasts by the major Canadian banks and financial institutions, the Desjardins movement, the Caisse de dépôt et de placement du Québec, the Royal Bank, the Toronto-Dominion Bank and so on. We come up with the same figures as the Minister of Finance for the growth of the GDP over the next few years.

However, while making use of the economists' hypotheses—we are intelligent enough here to do some calculations and use some non-partisan discernment—we also use this little thing I showed, called a calculator, and look at the government's funds coming in and going out, the month-by-month expenditures, and formulate certain hypotheses.

I would remind my cynical colleague that, every year for the past five, we have called a press conference to release our estimates of the surplus, six months or often even a year before the Minister of Finance releases his, or before the end-of-year surplus is announced. In five years, we have been out a total of $3 billion, while the Minister of Finance has, particularly since 1995, been $60 billion out in his predictions.

So, why should the public believe us instead of the Minister of Finance? Because they have been deceived by the Minister of Finance for the past five years. For five years, the Minister of Finance has made some unbelievable errors in calculation. For five years, the Minister of Finance has been concealing surpluses. Why now should they favour the transfer of tax points to the government of Quebec?

I can see why he is no longer with the Royal Bank. Because economic analysis is not his strong suit. Once tax points have changed hands, they no longer belong to the one who has handed them over. It is like selling a house; it is no longer yours once you have sold it. The tax points from the 1960s and 1970s for funding health care, education and so on were handed over to the government of Quebec.

If the hon. member wants these points to be taken into account, let us also take into account the tax points that the province gave to the federal government for the war effort, when it gave up its direct taxation field. If the hon. member takes into account the tax points given by both sides, he will be surprised to see how much the federal government owes to Quebec.

Why are we in favour of transforming federal cash transfers into tax points for the Quebec government? For two reasons. First, to protect ourselves against the political decisions and drastic cuts that the Minister of Finance has been imposing since 1995 in the Canada social transfer.

Second, we want the transfer of tax points for personal income tax, because it will grow in the coming years. It has been growing at an annual rate of 6% of federal revenues over the past four years. These are two good reasons.

The third reason is that even a federalist such as the leader of the Quebec Liberal Party is in favour of a transfer of tax points. There is a consensus on this issue in Quebec. The hon. member should know that, since he lived in Quebec for a long time. But it is true that, at some point, partisanship made him forget everything, including his past, his analysis and his qualifications as an economist.

Why should we favour a transfer of tax points? It is for these three main reasons. There may be a fourth reason, which is that we are convinced that the needs are in Quebec. The needs are in the Canadian provinces. These are urgent needs in areas such as health and education. This government does not have the brains to realize it. The budget it delivered yesterday shows without a doubt that it does not have a clue as to what people's priorities are.

[The Budget, December 11th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I move:

That the amendment replace all the words after the word “fails” with the following:

“to reallocate spending from low to high priority areas such as health care and education via the Canada Health and Social Transfer, employment insurance reform, support for seniors, increased international aid, practical measures to assist the regions and aboriginal peoples, assistance to agriculture and adequate support for a faltering economy, and because it may be supposed that this statement hides a six billion dollar surplus for the current fiscal year which can be used to achieve these objectives”.

[The Budget, December 11th, 2001]

It is shameful, yes. Last night I took part in an open-line broadcast. A gentleman called in and said that his family income was approximately $10,000 per year. He has a permanent disability, and a dependent. Last year and this year—this year, I am referring to last April—he paid $600 in federal income taxes. His income is $10,000, he is a person with a disability and has a dependent. Is this what a fair tax system looks like? Is this what tax breaks that help everyone look like? It is time to stop kidding us and taking us for fools.

We had asked that some balance be restored to these tax breaks to help middle and low income earners. Nothing. All this time, our Minister of Finance, whom we have been watching closely since 1993, with his shipping lines in Barbados for example, has been working on a tax convention between Canada and Barbados that has been denounced by the OECD.

The OECD is not full of members of the Bloc Quebecois. The OECD has said that tax conventions signed with countries such as Barbados, which is a tax haven, facilitate tax avoidance. They facilitate unfair tax practices. They even facilitate, to some degree, money laundering in a number of tax havens, which have been clearly identified by the OECD.

But the Minister of Finance pushes on, as though it were no big deal to allow this tax convention to be maintained. The auditor general recently said that in a sample of 53 of the richest taxpayers in Canada, among them, they had $800 million in assets in Barbados, completely sheltered from federal taxes, while back home, we are forcing a person earning a yearly income of $10,000 with a dependent and a disability to boot to pay. We are making him pay federal income tax, but $800 million in assets belonging to 53 of the richest people in Canada is tucked away in Barbados, sheltered from the Canadian tax system.

This tax convention is being allowed to remain in effect. It is shameful. Since 1993, we have been asking the Minister of Finance to reform the tax system to make it fairer, to close tax loopholes and put an end to injustices.

The Minister of Finance carries on as if nothing were amiss, as if he had done everything possible, as if his cumulative tax cuts of $100 billion, which he speaks of ad nauseam, were helping everyone. Easy, one accumulates funds for five years and ends up at some point with a huge sum. Who is going to benefit from this? His gang, not the people watching us here, not the people who helped put public finances back on an even keel. The middle income families and the workers with their contributions to the EI fund, as well as the employers, particularly small and medium size businesses, are the ones who financed part of the spectacular announcements our poor excuse for a Minister of Finance has been making to us for the past five years. This is disgraceful.

They are patting themselves on the back as far as international aid is concerned. It has been stepped up by $300 million per year. Under the circumstances that have been a concern to us ever since the events of September 11, it became evident fairly quickly—and to everyone, not just my colleagues in the Bloc Quebecois—that there are two ways of combating terrorism. There is force, via national defence and security, and then there is the ongoing battle we must be engaged in against world poverty. This is what produces the breeding ground for international terrorism.

Osama bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda recruit their future terrorists, the people who will become suicide bombers, and where? In areas fertile for terrorism, that is in areas where children and adolescents living through civil wars, or just plain wars, have been without hope since they were very young. Year after year, they have to deal with growing injustices. They have access to the media and see how rich the West is. They know our children are born with hope for the future.

The countries with pockets of incredible poverty, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, offer a fertile terrain for terrorism. There it is easy to recruit people who have nothing left to lose and everything to gain for the future of their people. Because of their vulnerability, they can readily be convinced that they will become heroes, immortalized by a glorious death.

It is easy to recruit terrorists in these breeding grounds, and this is why international aid becomes one of the key facets in any strategy against terrorism. What do we learn from the budget? That there will be $300 million more annually.

The government is increasing international aid from 0.25% of the GDP to 0.26% of it, one tenth of one percentage point. Is this not incredible? The objective proposed by the OECD of 0.7% of the GDP is the figure proposed by former Prime Minister Pearson, winner of the Nobel peace prize and initiator of Canada's peacekeeping force. At the rate we are going, we will never achieve this objective. We calculated the growth of the GDP with spending at the rate presented yesterday. At the rate of $300 million a year, we will never reach 0.7% of the GDP.

People have to understand that we must, of course, look after the poor and our fellow citizens. However, the events of September 11 should perhaps make people give thought to the wars going on overseas, in the middle east and elsewhere, and the human suffering involved. Globalization brings human suffering closer, through the media and unfortunate events such as those of September 11. In this case, we can no longer say that the events are happening elsewhere and do not concern us.

They are taking place elsewhere right now and they concern us. The government, which has not been pulling its weight in international aid—this fact is recognized worldwide—should have further increased international aid, and did not do so in the latest budget.

In the case of infrastructure, things are shameful. The government said it was going to invest in infrastructure in order to stimulate the economy and get the jump on projects. In Quebec, in the most recent budget, Ms. Marois, the finance minister in the Landry government, with few means at her disposal, decided to push projects along in order to stimulate the economy and help people get through the economic slowdown.

In this case, the government has the means, but not the ideas. It is incredible. It is putting $600 million new dollars into infrastructure over the next three years. It talks about a foundation that will perhaps one day be receiving funding. But it has budgeted nothing for this period, when what was required was rapid action to stimulate the economy. Now it is talking about creating a foundation, which it might fund in the future. Why has it not used the money at its disposal? Why has it not put it directly into the trilateral agreement with the provinces and municipalities? It would have been so simple. But it would not have been a good idea politically.

This is a government that is interested in appearances only, and that resorts to propaganda. It actually says that health and education are its priorities, when for every dollar the government of Quebec spends on health, it spends only 13 cents, and for every dollar the government of Quebec spends on education, it spends only 8 cents. And it calls these priorities? Right.

It mails out propaganda to everyone saying that it considers health and education priorities. Is this not a shocking misrepresentation?

In the case of parental leave, the budget contains nothing in the way of a transfer to Quebec City for the young families awaiting the introduction of Ms. Goupil's parental leave system. Is it not disgraceful to put one's popularity as a manager generating spectacular unexpected surpluses ahead of the needs of young families? It is reprehensible.

Let us talk about aboriginals: $185 million over two years is peanuts. Following through on the recommendations in the royal commission of inquiry would have required a minimum of $500 million, and $238 million this year alone to help young aboriginals with their post-secondary education.

It is all very fine and well to say that one wants to help aboriginals and support their initiatives. But when one says before the budget is brought down that it will be a budget for aboriginals as well, and then announces spending as paltry as this, it is a disgrace.

Did the Minister of Finance have the means to do this? Of course. We will repeat again what we have been saying for the past five years, namely that, this year again, the Minister of Finance has systematically underestimated the surplus. This year's surplus will not be $7 billion, with nothing under these new initiatives; it will be $13 billion.

So, the minister is again hiding a net surplus of $6 billion. This is $6 billion he could have invested in health, to help the elderly, in education, and in employment insurance reform, to help the unemployed. This is rather incredible.

For the past eight years, the Minister of Finance has been telling people “Help me put our fiscal house in order; help me deal with our deficit; help me make sure that we have a sound tax system”. The public said “Yes, we are prepared to make sacrifices”. But when the time comes to help these same people make it through difficult times, the Minister of Finance runs and hides. He has abdicated his responsibility.

After nine years of economic growth, this once we asked him to come up with innovative ideas to support the economy, to do his job as manager of the public treasury, so as to get us out of this recession as quickly as possible. But the Minister of Finance is not proposing anything to support the economy.

He thought he would confuse us with his defence and security issues. People are not stupid. Defence and security, sure, but economic security is also important. Helping the unemployed and those who will join them in the future because of the economic slowdown is also important.

But no. The minister claims that he has done everything he could, that he does not want to have a deficit again. What a joke. It is ridiculous to say that we could have a deficit this year or next year. We have looked at the worst case scenarios for economic growth. We did a thorough analysis of the government's expenditures and revenues, and concluded that it is “i-m-p-o-s-s-i-b-l-e” to have a deficit, particularly with yesterday's budget. It is plain impossible.

The Minister of Finance tells us that we must be careful. He is also budgeting a surplus of only $3.7 billion for this year in the employment insurance fund. He must really think we are stupid to come up with something like this.

We are condemning this budget and, on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois, I will propose an amendment to the amendment presented this morning. We will work very hard to explain to the public this budget, which does not include any measures to help those who will the worse off in the coming weeks.

[The Budget, December 11th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, today we are still wondering why the Minister of Finance brought his budget down now instead of waiting until March. Two months ago, he was asked to move it ahead, particularly with respect to defence and security, and to support the flagging economic and employment situation.

A person did not need to be a genius—and I include the minister in this group—to figure out that the economy was in a downturn. That is why he was asked to move up his budget.

Yesterday brought a rude awakening, however. An examination of the budget shows that it contains nothing significant for the economy. This budget even includes one totally ridiculous measure, which demonstrates this government's lack of finesse and intelligence.

As we know, the first industry hit by the economic slowdown, and even more so by the events of September 11, was the airline industry. We were expecting the government to help this industry. It did the opposite. It imposed an additional tax of $2.2 billion on air travel.

What prompted the government to slap another tax on the sector hit the hardest by the economic slowdown and the events of September 11, as it was claiming to be supporting the economy? Where is the logic? This measure alone shows how ridiculous and illogical the budget is. It also shows how little impact it has on the economy.

The Minister of Finance had the means to support the economy. We will return to this a little later, when we talk about the surpluses and the tradition that has established itself in parliament since the Minister of Finance took office. I refer to the systematic annual underestimation of the government's true surpluses and the real manoeuvring room available to him, as of this year, to assume his responsibilities as the Minister of Finance and support the economy and employment.

Everyone looked for support for the health and education sectors. In Quebec as in the rest of Canada, everyone has been calling for the past year for an infusion of money into health care and education. Last year's agreement was not enough.

With the provinces and the government of Quebec drained, obviously even the slightest increase is immediately welcome, because health care and educational needs are growing.

Despite the means at the disposal of the Minister of Finance, nothing in the budget provides for the return, through the Canada social transfer, to the government of Quebec and the provinces, of the wherewithal to enable them to meet their obligations in providing health care, education and income security.

It is really quite incredible that, given today's headlines about the lack of resources for seniors and the sick, the Minister of Finance is unmoved by their fate and that reserved for education. Our Minister of Finance is cold and insensitive.

The Minister of Finance has cut the Canada social transfer by $35 billion since 1995. This is approximately the amount by which he has paid down the debt. He has used the sick, the elderly and the most disadvantaged members of our society to pay down the debt. And he has used these unexpected surpluses in the EI fund—$7 billion again this year, which the Minister of Finance will pocket instead of helping the unemployed—to produce these surpluses and these annual performances.

Let us talk about employment insurance. From a strictly logical point of view, we would have expected to see the government act on the 17 recommendations made by the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and reform the EI system so that the majority of workers who find themselves unemployed are not disqualified from receiving benefits.

Now we are facing a major downturn, or a recession, to call it what it is, where thousands of people, and there will be more in the weeks to come, will join the ranks of the unemployed.

Instead of helping these people through a difficult period, the Minister of Finance has decided to maintain the status quo and continue to deny them benefits.

With this economic slowdown, many people will find themselves in a tough spot tomorrow morning, thinking that they are entitled to EI, because they have never had to apply for benefits during the last eight or nine years of economic growth. They will be in a tough spot when they find out that they do not qualify, because the criteria are too restrictive.

The actuary has just given his forecast a few days ago; the ink on the documents is not yet dry. The actuary said that the surplus would be $7 billion. This is $8 billion less the $1 billion set aside by the Minister of Finance for reductions in premiums; the balance is $7 billion. In his budget, the Minister of Finance notes that the surplus in the EI fund is barely $3.7 billion. This is cooking the books. This is what we have come to expect of him in the past five years; that he will underestimate the surplus. As MInister of Finance, he is not doing his job.

We were also expecting announcements to be made to help and support regions that are experiencing problems. Instead, the Minister of Finance mentioned the transport tax that will hit the airline industries. The regions will be severely affected by this measure. A person flying from Gaspé to Mont-Joli will pay $24 more on a return ticket, as though air fares in the regions were not high enough to begin with.

All things being equal, it is the regions that will be hardest hit by this new tax. Another tax. This is another fee being charged that relegates people living in the regions to the status of second class citizens.

Let us talk about tax breaks. Yes, last year's tax breaks have been maintained. That is precisely what we did not want. We wanted the minister to restore some balance to the tax breaks, because the tax breaks introduced for the next five years help those in very high income brackets for the most part.

Let me provide an example. This year, Mr. Speaker, you would be lucky if you earned $250,000 or more, because you would save $9,000 in federal taxes. I know that this is not the case for you, Mr. Speaker, but those earning $250,000 were coddled by our millionaire Minister of Finance. He will be saving $9,000 in federal income taxes this year. A person earning $40,000 however, will save $300. Last night I took part in—

[Competition Act, December 7th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-23 at report and second reading stage.

First of all, I would like to say that we support this bill. Amending the Competition Act, certain provisions of which go back to the last century, is a step in the right direction.

However, we find it somewhat unfortunate that every time there is an opportunity to improve a situation, to improve a bill, to give it more teeth, and there are often arguments in favour of a complete overhaul, the government prefers a strategy of baby steps.

As I mentioned, this bill is a step in the right direction. But it is the same as the reform of the criminal code, where the government had to take two runs at it before it finally came around to what the Bloc Quebecois had been arguing for a long time.

So it is with the Competition Act. It is entirely to the minister's credit that he accepted these amendments to the Competition Act, which is toothless in Canada, if we compare it to the U.S. legislation. But the government could have gone much further.

As for what is good about this bill, one good idea is encouraging private access since, in the previous legislation, competitors were not allowed to take a case directly to the competition tribunal on their own behalf. I think that this is one notable improvement. It also improves the effectiveness and handling of complaints.

This is limited to four areas. However, they are major ones, if compared to all the complaints referred to the competition tribunal in recent years, including complaints regarding the refusal of suppliers to sell in an anticompetitive context, exclusive dealing, tied selling, and market restriction.

Tied selling is a very important matter. There was a loophole in the legislation with respect to the definition of tied selling, as well as the precise situations in which tied selling could be said to exist, and the measures which were proposed to reduce the risk of the practice.

I will give an example of just how important tied selling is. You are clients of a financial institution. You go to this institution for a loan and you are forced, or strongly encouraged, as a precondition to obtaining the loan, to buy insurance or other financial products offered by the same financial institution.

This kind of tied sales strategy by financial institutions or others is illegal. In that regard, we now have an additional tool to at least reduce the possibility of tied sales, without eliminating it completely, of course, since that is practically impossible.

The fact that interim orders can be issued in cases where a business is suspected of anti-competitive practices is a good idea. Monetary penalties also give more teeth to the legislation, particularly with regard to air carriers.

As I was saying, this is not enough. A few moments ago, the minister promised to continue reviewing the act and to look at further amendments. I would like to mention to him that the first improvement that should be made concerns section 45 of the act. This section, which dates back to the end of the 19th century, allows some form of collusion between multinationals to fix prices or to carry out other anti-competitive activities, such as predatory practices or market segmentation. These practices are totally shameful when one considers what has happened over the years in the oil industry.

Then there are price fixing practices. Our legislation does not have enough teeth to prevent that. We may have our doubts about certain price fixing practices, but we do not yet have the necessary tools to lodge formal complaints in that regard. We saw that in the oil industry in particular.

There is another element missing, namely the merger review process.

Two years ago, there was a major debate on mergers, particularly bank mergers. The debate was very productive, because it gave us a better understanding of what was going on in the industry and what its future might be in light of globalization and the opening up of markets.

On that point, we discovered some flaws in the legislation dealing with competition and we also discovered that parliament lacks the authority to review these merger issues, other than through the Minister of Finance's office, which has the final say on any merger plan and on the analysis resulting from its refusal or approval.

Moreover, when mergers are approved, we do not have the required criteria, analysis mechanisms or legislative tools to deal with any unfair practice that might occur once the mergers are completed.

The minister should examine the issue more thoroughly and maybe, in a way, copy the U.S. legislation, which offers several more remedies than the Canadian legislation.

Finally, as the minister mentioned earlier, the Liberal member for Pickering--Ajax--Uxbridge put forward amendments pertaining to normal trade conditions.

In the legislation, with regard to suppliers, for example, who are in a monopolistic situation where businesses have to buy their input from them, or in an oligopolistic market where three or four suppliers control most of the market, a provision allowing recourse to the Competition Tribunal, which requires, however, that complaints be made in a context of normal business conditions, is not good enough for this kind of market.

I will give an example. In the oil industry, the major oil companies control 85% of the wholesale market for oil products. Then what are the normal conditions in their case? Can they rely on the fact that there are abnormal market conditions, which prevent them from supplying independent retailers, small retailers for example, with crude oil or more refined oil? They can argue that conditions are abnormal, but they forget that they are the ones setting the conditions, determining the market conditions.

So, we would have liked the minister, right from the start, to accept the amendment, which came initially from one of his colleagues and which was picked up by the Bloc, because we are non partisan when the time comes to stand up for the interests of consumers and the industry.

We accept the notion that a Liberal can have a good idea. It happens from time to time. But we would have liked the Minister of Industry to accept this amendment of ours right away. There is still time to do so.

The minister could accept this amendment, which would better protect independent retailers, particularly in the oil industry. It is not really any big deal, just a small additional amendment for the government—the minister is able to do it—to remove the issue of normal conditions, and that is all.

But you can rest assured, Madam Speaker, and I would ask you to speak for us to the minister, that we will make a positive contribution to improving the legislation, because it has needed to be updated for years. It needs to be given some muscle, more teeth, in order to better protect independent retailers in a market often dominated by the big boys. We especially need to protect entrepreneurs and consumers, ultimately, from anti-competitive predatory practices, such as price fixing, as we have seen over the years in the oil industry.

By the way, the price of gas today is at 55 cents per litre, approximately. But we are still not protected—due to shortcomings in competition legislation—from practices that we believed to be predatory in the past, and that allowed gas prices to be set at unprecedented levels, to the detriment of consumers, independent truckers and the economy as a whole.

[Tax Conventions, December 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is not possible to avoid double taxation with Barbados since the rate of taxation there is zero, by the way.

While the Minister of Finance merrily helps himself to the money in the EI fund, while the government is depriving seniors of $3.2 billion, this same minister is encouraging people to avail themselves of the tax convention with Barbados, which is a boon to eight of the eleven subsidiaries of his own shipping company.

My question for the Prime Minister is this: Is this not a real conflict of interest?

[Tax Conventions, December 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, according to the auditor general, while the government is depriving 270,000 of the most disadvantaged members of our society of $3.2 billion, Canada is maintaining its tax convention with Barbados so that 53 of the richest members of our society can claim more than $800 million in capital gains deductions.

Will the government listen to the demands of the auditor general, which echo those of the Bloc Quebecois, and end its tax convention with Barbados?

[Supply, December 4th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot make such a claim. However, I can say to this economist, who has been conditioned by only a few months of politics, that our forecasts are based on the forecasts of Quebec and Canada's major institutions on the growth of the GDP. These rates of growth, in real terms, are those we applied to the growth of spending.

In case he is not aware of it, the Royal Bank continues to publish forecasts, which we have used for this year and the next two years. We have used the forecasts of the Bank of Montreal, the Scotia Bank, the Toronto Dominion Bank, the National Bank, the Mouvement Desjardins and the CIBC. If that is not official and solid, I would like to know what is.

When he was a member of the group of economists consulted by the Minister of Finance behind closed doors, I never heard him speak of the annual surplus. It is easy to step behind closed doors and let the Minister of Finance say “I have consulted economists and here is what they had to say”. But they have a responsibility.

On the Standing Committee on Finance, economists came to testify and they laughed at the Minister of Finance's forecasts. These were the same economists who discussed with him behind closed doors. Somewhere there are issues of competence and honesty.

[Supply, December 4th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague that there must be major investments, even to allow us to catch up as far as national defence is concerned.

That said, however, we find it excessive that there is suddenly a 25% budget hike in this area, while international aid is being neglected, particularly since 1995. It even started a bit earlier than that, under the Conservatives. If we have responsibilities as far as international conflicts are concerned, we also have them as far as international aid is concerned.

Let us remind our colleague that it is possible that terrorism may be fought by increasing security and defence budgets, but it will primarily be fought by reducing as far as possible the breeding ground for terrorism, that is world poverty.

I believe Canada has a role to play in international aid, one it is not playing at the present time. The country cannot pat itself on the back about its G-8 membership while at the same time, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs put it, leaving for the restaurant restroom when the bill comes to the table.