Pauline Picard

[Social Security Programs, October 24th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I had only one more paragraph.

On behalf of the people, the neediest and the middle class, we reject the proposal of the Minister of Human Resources Development and we urge the government to come up with real measures, measures to create jobs.

[Social Security Programs, October 24th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I will indeed share the allotted time with my colleague.

I am pleased to inform the House of the reactions and comments following the release of the details of the social program reform announced by the Minister of Human Resources Development.

First, I think this reform should be named more accurately. Indeed, the minister's initiative is not a reform of our social program system but, rather, an exercise which is part of an operation to cut into the budgets allocated for social programs. Ultimately, this exercise will result in cuts of $15 billion over a period of five years.

The paper released by the minister is very clear on this, at page 23, where it says: "Reform of social security cannot be contemplated in isolation from the fiscal realities facing governments in Canada". Three pages further, the document provides more details on the real intentions of this government: "A social security system that is financially unsustainable is a dead end". The minister can certainly not be accused of lacking in imagination; he wants to make profitable a social system whose raison d'être is to help those who are in need of assistance.

What we have before us is not an initiative to help needy Canadians and Quebecers. Nor is it one which will provide them with some security. It is not designed to make the world a better place for everyone. On the contrary, this is an initiative from a government which wants to cut its spending and reduce its deficit at the expense of the poorest ones in our society. In fact, this reform is a tool which the government will use to cut its expenditures and put its finances in order.

There is another purpose for this reform and it is to centralize powers in Ottawa. This is every federalist's dream. So, this reform will be a very useful tool indeed. Most of the options proposed in this reform tend toward centralization. All in all, the government's two main objectives are very clear: to drastically reduce its social spending in order to put public finances in order, and with what is left, to try again to centralize the powers in Ottawa, at least in the jurisdictions it sees fit, notwithstanding the provisions of the Constitution Act of Canada and the priorities of either Quebec or the other provinces.

Quebec and Canadian taxpayers give the federal government large sums of money, a portion of which is intended for health care and education pursuant to the 1977 agreement. The problem is that the federal government prefers to use this money not for its specified purposes but to reduce the deficit. The federal government must realize that by increasing the tax burden of Quebec and all the other provinces, it directly affects the whole social system the Quebec and Canadian people rely on. It is estimated that the federal government has saved $22 billion since it started to cut spending and to freeze transfer payments. The federal government has squeezed Quebecers and all Canadians to the tune of $22 billion.

Despite higher taxes, federal contributions to the health and welfare program via transfer payments have so drastically decreased that the basic principles of the health and welfare system are being questioned and jeopardized.

This reform confirms the federal government's intention to continue cutting transfer payments. Now, after reducing health transfer payments, the federal government is attacking education transfer payments with the reform proposed by the Minister of Human Resources Development.

Let us briefly review the implications of this reform for the education sector. The reform provides for the total elimination of education transfer payments for post-secondary education, meaning that the provinces will get, at the very least, $2.6 billion less than before.

This decision will have two consequences. First, the federal government will again reduce its deficit on the back of the provinces by substantially raising their fiscal burden. Second, this loss of revenues will force provinces and universities to contribute more to the funding of the education system. The rest is easy to guess: education costs and tuition fees will have to be higher and students will end up being the ones to pay for that by contracting more loans.

For Quebec alone, this loss of revenues will reach $300 million a year; that is, $300 million Quebec students will have to pay themselves because tuition fees will increase two-fold. While reaffirming the importance of university training, the federal government submits a proposal that restricts access to post-secondary education by increasing student indebtedness. This means that the proposed reform reduces the accessibility of post-secondary education for students whose financial means are limited.

We have been fighting for at least 20 years in Quebec to democratize access to post-secondary education and now the federal government is trying to undo what we have done. The government even goes beyond that by proposing dangerous and ridiculous ideas. First of all, it proposes to establish a central-

ized loan program in Ottawa. The game is easy to understand: first the federal government deprives the provinces of the funding it had promised them and lets them deal with their financial problems on their own, then it takes sole responsibility for the student loan program and wants to standardize it. Second, it goes as far as to propose that students use their RRSPs to finance their education. Mr. Speaker, do you know many students who have more than $25,000 in RRSPs? Personally, I do not know any.

This government who promised jobs to everybody, who talked about jobs, jobs, jobs for months, had a good opportunity to put in place a structure that would focus on job creation. Yet, we do not see any employment policy in this reform, any incentive to create jobs. While there is a consensus in Quebec and in the other provinces regarding the urgent need for a joint action plan for job creation, the Liberal government tables a discussion paper whose main objective is to cut social programs by several billion dollars annually.

The green paper tabled by the Minister of Human Resources Development first gives us an inventory of unemployment insurance, training and welfare programs and then tells us how to weaken them even further. To deal with structural unemployment related to inadequate manpower training, the federal government should have started by letting Quebec set up a sensible manpower training system. This is one of Quebec's traditional demands, one on which a consensus was reached long ago by employers, unions and politicians. It is truly unfortunate that this government failed to use this opportunity to get rid of a lot of the costly overlap produced by a federal system that is in very poor shape.

The duplication and administrative overlap that exist between the Government of Quebec and the federal government are partly responsible for the disastrous political and economical situation facing Quebecers and Canadians every day. The federal government, which insists on pushing its centralist approach, is largely responsible for the costly and inefficient proliferation of duplication and administrative overlap between both levels of government. Through massive use of its spending powers, the federal government is gradually and deliberately encroaching on Quebec's jurisdiction over health care, while ignoring what has already been done by the Government of Quebec.

According to a study introduced in 1991 by the federal Treasury Board, 45 per cent of the programs of departments, Crown corporations and federal agencies, representing a total of $40 billion in spending annually, were introduced although similar measures had already been initiated by provincial governments. This wasteful use of financial resources caused by duplication and administrative overlap between Ottawa and the provinces, is to us a clear indication that the disastrous state of public finances and the deteriorating competitive position of the Canadian economy are a direct result of the crisis in Canada's political structures. This wasteful spending must stop. Quebec has always demanded that the federal government stop encroaching on its jurisdictions.

Recently, Quebec again asked the federal government to stop interfering in manpower and occupational training, which cost Quebec taxpayers $250 million annually. Instead of realizing this and withdrawing from this area, the federal government has decided to use this reform to interfere on an even broader scale and make this administrative mess even more costly.

In this area as in so many others, the federal government should stop being stubborn and start acting in the interest of efficiency and effectiveness. Our level of indebtedness, the failure of the present policies as illustrated by the unemployment rates, and the number of people on welfare do not permit us to allow this wasteful overlapping of jurisdictions to continue only to satisfy the federal government's desire to control everything.

Today, because of overlapping, we are unable to implement efficient programs geared to social and economic needs. Therefore, we must come to the conclusion that if the federal government was really concerned about the welfare of Quebecers and Canadians, it would cancel its ill-conceived reform and concentrate instead on dealing with the issue of overlapping. In so doing it would realize that, in the area of social services, most stakeholders come under provincial jurisdiction, and that the federal government has no business getting involved. Quebec and the provinces are already there and in spite of under-funding, are more successful than the federal government.

Far from trying to deal with these cases of counterproductive overlapping, with its ill-conceived reform, the federal government is creating more overlapping by proposing to regroup under one roof all manpower programs managed by various levels of government.

It goes without saying that, as opposition health critic, I am looking at the health aspects of this ill-conceived reform.

We of the Official Opposition believe in maintaining the five major principles which are universality, comprehensiveness, accessibility, portability and public management. However, what we are decrying is the fact that the federal government still insists on imposing these principles while at the same time cutting funding, especially since these cuts which, on many occasions, the Quebec government has called unacceptable and inconsistent, have not been followed by a drop in Ottawa's meddling. It is sticking steadfastly to its national standards and continues to intervene in areas where Quebec and the provinces

have jurisdiction, by creating parallel programs and therefore more problems of overlapping.

The link between poverty and health has been clearly demonstrated by several studies. Low-income people are more often sick, consume more drugs and require more care. We know that in the last few years poverty among young people has increased dramatically. Not only will these children cost more in health care, they will have learning disabilities and will be twice as likely to drop out of school as their wealthier friends.

In the end, these children will depend on welfare instead of contributing actively to the development of our society. To better control the general state of health of the population in Quebec and Canada, and therefore reduce health costs, we must start by fighting poverty to the finish. What does the federal government propose in this regard? I can see nothing. The reform even proposes to reduce family benefits of low-income families. This reform will only aggravate a situation already tragic for the over 1.2 million children in Quebec and Canada who live in poverty.

By refusing to acknowledge the link between poverty and health problems, the federal government is jeopardizing the effectiveness of our system.

[Immigration Act, October 24th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise in this House to speak to the motion put forth by my hon. colleague from Calgary Northeast, a proposal that came as a surprise to me, and I must say right away that I am totally opposed to it.

Before preparing my remarks, I read with a great deal of attention the speech the hon. member for Calgary Northeast made before this House to try to understand where he was coming from, and I must confess that a few of the things I read made me jump.

At first glance, the member seems to justify denying entry into Canada to HIV-positive applicants for economic reasons. But a closer look revealed deeper and more troubling underlying reasons. For one thing, the cost argument is not really relevant in this debate, and this for two reasons: first, as regards the real cost of treating AIDS patients, my colleague inflates the figures. Based on available estimates, the cost to treat each patient is certainly not a minimum of $200,000; it is actually closer to half the amount quoted by my hon. colleague.

In addition, nothing proves that more money will be saved by subjecting immigration applicants to HIV screening than to screening for other diseases. An extensive study by a group of researchers from the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law shows that if Canada were to decide to systematically test all immigrants to determine if they are HIV positive, this would be a political decision rather than one based on economic considerations.

As part of their study, the researchers compared AIDS and coronary disease using available data concerning all immigrants admitted to Canada in 1988 to demonstrate that these two health problems weigh equally heavily on the Canadian health system.

To target only the HIV virus is discriminatory, I believe.

In his September 23 speech the hon. member continues to surprise us by saying: "When implemented the motion would be a significant step in the war on AIDS". This shows how little my colleague knows about AIDS. AIDS is an international plague that hits indiscriminately without sparing any society, culture or country.

How can the hon. member think for one minute that closing off our borders will solve the problem? According to this logic, we should also require all Canadians coming back from abroad to take this test. And what about the open border with the U.S., diplomats and the cost of all these millions of tests?

As the Official Opposition critic on health, I am, needless to say, concerned about AIDS. This terrifying disease is spreading at an alarming rate. According to the most conservative estimates, over 30 to 40 million people will have AIDS by the year 2000, less than six years from now. It is predicted that 30,000 Canadians will develop AIDS within the next five or six years. These figures are alarming and closing our doors to immigrants will not change this reality in any way.

So what can we do? While we wait for a cure, the only tools available to try to stop the spread of this terrible disease are awareness and prevention. That is why the Official Opposition is asking the government to create a committee to review the Canadian AIDS strategy, Phase II.

That is also why I regularly ask the Minister of Health to allocate her budget better, because cutting transfer payments for health-care to the provinces every year is no way to help them launch effective awareness and prevention campaigns.

Spending $12 million on a forum that will be totally useless is no way either to protect people in Quebec and Canada. If the federal government took the AIDS threat seriously, it would have invested the forum's $12 million in research or in assistance or awareness programs. Despite several years of efforts to sensitize the population, there obviously remain many prejudices about this terrible disease and the virus associated with it.

The motion before us reflects very well this lack of understanding and the prejudices attached to it. Some still think that HIV can be contracted through casual contact, just like the flu. We know that such is not the case. Others even see this disease as God's punishment. It is high time to sensitize everyone to this disease that will become increasingly present in our society.

What is worse is that those who support this motion seem to mistakenly believe that an HIV-positive person can no longer make a contribution to society, that they can only be a burden to society. This attitude is regrettable and even shocking for Canadians with this terrible disease who must learn to live not only with the virus but also with the prejudices, lack of understanding and fear of others.

We in the Bloc Quebecois reject this attitude of denigrating and attacking everything one fears or does not understand; of closing our minds instead of opening them; of telling Canadians: "Let us keep our heads in the sand and maybe when we stick our heads out again, the AIDS problem will be gone and we will be spared".

No, Mr. Speaker, that is not the attitude we should take. It is not Quebecers' attitude and it is certainly not the attitude that the vast majority of Canadians would want to take.

This motion betrays ignorance about the terrifying AIDS problem. Should it be implemented, this backward initiative would take us back to the dark ages and that is why the Bloc Quebecois and I vigorously oppose this motion.

[National Forum On Health, October 19th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, how can the Prime Minister refer, as he did yesterday, to establishing national standards, when health care is the exclusive purview of the provinces and at a time when his government, the federal government, is contributing less and less to health care financing?

[National Forum On Health, October 19th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. Clearly, without the participation of the provinces, the National Forum on Health will be just a lot of useless talk about health issues, and the Prime Minister admitted as much when he said, and I quote:

The forum is not a decision-making body. Its purpose is to look at the issue and make recommendations. This exercise is not binding on the federal government nor on the provinces. . . I invited these people to discuss the issue.

Since the fact that the provinces will not attend makes the National Forum on Health an exercise in futility, will the Prime Minister cancel the forum and save $12 million in taxpayers' money, to show he is really serious about dealing with waste in government spending?

[National Forum On Health, October 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, at a time when the government is looking for ways to eliminate wasting, does the Prime Minister realize that, in the absence of the provinces, the National Forum on Health will be a totally futile exercise which will cost over $12 million to Canadian taxpayers?

[National Forum On Health, October 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, in a last-ditch effort to convince the provinces to participate in the National Forum on Health, the Prime Minister has written to his provincial counterparts inviting them to attend on a consultative basis. The Minister of Health sent a similar invitation to her provincial counterparts but never received any answers.

How can the government persist in trying to hold its National Forum on Health when it is so obvious that the provinces do not wish to participate in that forum in its present form?

[National Forum On Health, October 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have another question for the minister and I hope to get a clear answer this time. Does the Minister of Health not realize that, if the provinces refuse to participate in her forum, it is because they will not be able to participate fully and because they have uncovered the true intentions of the federal government, namely to cut provincial transfer payments for health care?

[National Forum On Health, October 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Health.

The National Forum on Health will open on Thursday in Ottawa. The federal government and the provinces are still deadlocked as, according to a spokesperson for the Minister of Health, not one of the provinces has accepted her invitation to participate in the Forum under the terms set by the government, that is to say only in an advisory capacity.

Does the Minister of Health not recognize that, without the provinces, which where invited by Ottawa only out of courtesy, her National Forum on Health will be nothing more than a masquerade to justify interfering further in an area of exclusive provincial jurisdiction?

[Community Action Program For Children, October 5th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, as she is very much aware, the delays caused by the minister are unwarranted and unacceptable.

Could the minister explain why her office refuses to give the Official Opposition the list of projects which were submitted and of those which were approved? What is she trying to hide?