House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2008, with 50% of the vote.
Funding For Cdecs March 17th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, given the critical role that these development corporations play in job creation, will the minister responsible for development in Quebec put an end right now to the uncertainty and reassure the CDECs that the federal government will sign the tripartite agreement already reached between the three parties, and end the uncertainty and sign the agreement?
Funding For Cdecs March 17th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.
The Corporations de développement économique et communautaire de Montréal, or CDECs, are funded by Ottawa, Quebec and municipal governments. While the provincial and municipal governments have committed themselves to funding the corporations for the next three years, the Minister of Human Resources Development will only guarantee funding for six months. After this date, the department will no longer be responsible for funding CDECs.
My question is the following: Are we to understand that, after hitting the economy of Montreal so hard in the last budget, the federal government will also refuse to commit to funding these frontline economic development organizations for more than six months?
St. Patrick's Day March 17th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, today, March 17, is St. Patrick's Day and we want to share the pride of those hundreds of thousands of Canadians and Quebecers of Irish descent whose ancestors left their country in often difficult circumstances to find a new home among us.
With the intermingling of people over time, many of us now have friends and relatives of Irish origin. Their presence has enriched our lives and our societies.
We salute the invaluable contribution of the Ryans, Lanigans, Regans, O'Reillys, Johnsons, Kirkpatricks, Rowans and many others to the development of Quebec and Canada.
Happy St. Patrick's Day everybody!
West Coast Ports Operations Act, 1995 March 15th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, you will, however, understand that my speech will differ from that of the Reform Party, even though we are both speaking in opposition.
I would like to say that it is always difficult moment for Parliament when its elected members are obliged to adopt special legislation to force people back to work, since we agree, hope and say that, in the workplace, there is nothing better than a collective agreement that is wanted, negotiated and implemented by the parties.
Therefore, I believe that the Minister of Labour cannot be particularly proud of starting her career here in this House, by imposing special legislation. She will be quite free in the coming days to go down in history by allowing us to adopt anti-strikebreaker legislation, legislation sought by the official opposition from the time there were eight of us, and we continue to think that this must be done.
Therefore, we are saying to the minister that the best way for her to continue her work as Minister of Labour is not to introduce more back to work legislation, but to follow in the footsteps of one of the greatest Quebec democrats, a person she should seek to emulate, I am referring, of course, to René Lévesque who gave the province of Quebec an effective anti-scab legislation.
Since I mentioned anti-scab legislation, I should remind you that in a province or country-the Labour Minister in nodding in approval to the position of the Bloc-there is a direct link between such a legislation and the length of strikes and also, I should say, healthy labour relations.
This is what we are saying to the minister: it is unbelievable that, in 1995, no anti-strikebreaking legislation is in place at this federal level of intervention. I know that she realizes such legislation is necessary and wants to put it in place. She said herself that preliminary consultations were under way and she was committed to consulting the parties. So, she will have the chance in the days to come to go down in history as having given this country an anti-strikebreaking act.
With this in mind, as the hon. member for Laurier-Sainte-Marie said and the hon. member for Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup after him, we, the official opposition, fully grasp what a shame it is to have a lock-out bring the West Coast to a standstill. We know how important port activity is to the economy of the region. That is why we hope that a back to work agreement can be signed.
The difference between the labour minister and ourselves is the fact that we do not want a back-to-work order at any cost. Our concern with this bill is that it will shamelessly resort to arbitration. The minister should be consistent with herself. She was very pleased to tell us earlier that the discussions have resumed, that both parties have come back to the negotiation table, although their efforts might be a bit timid. She even linked the resumption of the negotiations to the statement she made in the House during question period.
We should be pleased about the efforts, albeit timid, made by both parties to resume negociations. We take comfort from the fact that, with the resumption of the negotiations, we might be able to avoid arbitration and rely on the mediation process.
It is certainly not because we are naïve or overly tolerant that we in the official opposition continue to believe that mediation would have been possible. Why would mediation have been possible and why is it desirable? Because in the delicate balance of labour relations, arbitration means acting unilaterally. A third party outside the dispute is given the extraordinary power to make decisions on the application and the validity of each clause of a collective agreement. We think that this is not desirable, that the use of arbitration where a person will be able to impose a collective agreement that will be effective until December 1996 is not desirable. I will say it again, we would have preferred being able to continue the mediation process.
A link should also be made with another fact. We believe things would have been different if we had had anti-scab legislation in Ottawa. This debate provides us with an opportunity to do something. The hon. member for Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup reminded us that this is the second time the House passes special legislation concerning operations at the west coast ports.
At the time of the first legislation, the present labour minister had other things on her mind, and I am sure she had no idea that she would some day be the member for Saint-Henri-West-
mount in the House of Commons. But she must not forget that, at that time, we were already debating back to work legislation.
Why is it that her government, a government that she obviously supports, did not take the opportunity of that first labour dispute to set up a commission of inquiry on labour relations that were already a cause for concern.
Why did we wait so long? Why did we not learn from that first labour dispute and the passing of special legislation several months ago. It is because of all this deteriorating process that we are puzzled by the action taken by the minister.
I want to take this opportunity to really invite my colleague to make an impression as Minister of Labour. We all know that she is a determined and brilliant woman and that she is able, if she wants to, to take advantage of this labour relations review process to bring the parliamentarians to participate in this debate on whether or not we should have an anti-scab legislation at the federal level. We believe so and we have an opportunity to evaluate a model which is the one established by the Quebec National Assembly.
The Minister of Labour, who is a few years older than I am, will recall that this anti-scab legislation has proven right in Quebec, which used to be the champion for lost hours and days of work. The anti-scab legislation played a crucial role in pacifying labour relations. This is what we must aim at in the days to come.
We have to keep in mind, because it is important to do so, that we have two classes of workers, since three provinces have passed anti-scab legislation: Ontario, British-Columbia and Quebec. Thus, this is to say that some 60 to 65 per cent of the Canadian workers are protected by anti-scab legislation. Therefore, there are two classes of Canadians. This situation is far from healthy or acceptable.
To conclude, I want to say to the labour minister that she and I have something in common. Like her, I represent here a Montreal constituency. As hon. members for Montreal, we are obviously concerned with the continuing situation in the port of Montreal.
The minister says she is confident that we can avoid resorting to special legislation and that a negotiated agreement can be reached. I am sure the parties involved will take advantage of the mediation offer aimed at a negotiated settlement, so that we can have a collective agreement that is desired.
To avoid the kind of situation we are now in, it is important to maintain the optimum conditions for dialogue. However, these optimum conditions, that we would like to see for Montreal, can obviously not be maintained on the West Coast, because if the bill is passed, working conditions, non-monetary clauses as well as salary clauses, will be imposed by arbitration.
The Reformers' impatience is hard to understand, because it must be said that they have been behaving in a very unruly manner tonight, and I am sure that my colleagues will agree with me because everyone knows that the members of the Reform were unruly.
In conclusion, we agree with the return to work, but we would like to see ideal conditions for dialogue maintained, which is incompatible with a special bill.
The Budget March 14th, 1995
Madam Speaker, I would certainly like to thank the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce for his speech, but at the same time remind him that we have one thing in common: we both represent ridings in the Montreal region. And someone who represents a Montreal riding is automatically sensitive, like the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, to the issue of poverty and to the hardship that the past two recessions, the last one being the 1982 recession, imposed on a good many of our constituents.
I find the hon. member very courageous, because he belongs to the government majority and it is to his honour that he is able to rise above the prevailing opinion. However, I told myself that he is asking us to remain keepers of the social conscience. He is asking us to make sure that we have an interventionist government and that we maintain one of the government's reasons for being, namely redistribution.
However, we have diverging views on the causes of the deficit. What I found surprising and very pleasing about the hon. member's speech, and I say this without any ulterior motive, was that he states that his government has no other choice but to cut transfer payments. By doing this, his government could destabilize provincial governments and force them to cut services which are basic necessities and financed through the Canada assistance plan.
I would like to hear the hon. member's opinion on the causes of the deficit. As far as we on this side of the House are concerned, the deficit is caused by the fact that it is impossible to maintain a continental country like Canada: Canada is the first and last example of a federation with a narrow ecumene stretched out between two oceans. We say that one of the causes of the deficit-when we analyze how we got into debt-is that we have had a strong central government which meddled in jurisdictions in which it had no right to. The hon. member will recall that he was a member of Parliament when Ottawa created, for example, a department for urban affairs and for recreation, which, under the constitution, were in no way related to the powers granted to the central government.
I would like to know if the hon. member will agree with me that it would be much simpler for Canada and for its financial situation to reorganize the country to give Quebec more power and for Quebec to create its own national government and for us to begin dialogue on the basis of our status as associated states.
Petitions March 14th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, I have a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36 asking the Canadian government to conform to the decision of the courts, which have ordered that the Canadian Human Rights Act be interpreted as also prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
The petitioners therefore ask Parliament to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act in order to protect people against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and I support this petition.
Human Rights February 10th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, Quebecers and Canadians have been hearing this answer for over a year. Even businesses like Bell Canada, a federal business, has announced today the adoption of an non-discrimination policy.
Why does the Minister of Justice not simply admit that this issue is blocked in cabinet because the government is unable to convince many Liberal caucus members to stand by its election promise?
Human Rights February 10th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, I have a third question for the Minister of Justice.
The Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice made a solemn commitment to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. They promised to table a bill by June, then September, then December, when the Minister of Justice told us that we had to wait for the strategic moment.
My question to the strategically-minded Minister of Justice is this: Can the minister tell us if he has completed his strategic calculations and is now in a position to let us know when the bill will be tabled?
Fight Against Aids February 9th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, how can the minister rise in this House and justify the fact that seven community projects are waiting on her desk, when they have been approved by her officials? Can the minister tell us whether or not she will help community groups and authorize these projects, which have been waiting for her signature since October?
Fight Against Aids February 9th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Health.
The Minister of Health has obviously been overtaken by the events and stubbornly refuses to assume her responsibilities with respect to AIDS. This minister shows her staggering incompetence by displaying her inability to understand what those afflicted with this terrible disease must go through.
How does the Minister of Health explain that, two weeks before the federal budget is tabled, an amount of $1.1 million earmarked for the fight against AIDS is still unused and that, after waiting for 10 months, the minister still refuses to allocate this amount so that people with AIDS and community field workers can get help?