Pauline Picard

[The Environment, June 2nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on Motion No. 385, which says:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should develop and report annually on a set of social, environmental and economic indicators of the health and well-being of people, communities and ecosystems in Canada.

I must indicate that we will vote against this motion, which well reflects this government's obsession with wanting to take control of everything and, once again, interfering in areas of provincial jurisdiction.

This motion follows the discussions held during the National Roundtable on the Environment and Economy. In its report, the national roundtable proposed that sustainable development indicators be adopted to ensure that calculations relating to present and future economic development be enhanced with six new measures: changes to the Canadian forest cover, freshwater quality, air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, extent of wetlands, as well as educational attainment.

It also wants calculations such as the GDP to be broadened to take human, social and environmental factors into consideration, while ensuring that the quality of environmental information is improved.

This is what Mr. Stuart Smith, co-chair of the Environment and Sustainable Development Indicators Initiative had to say about the six indicators:

You only manage what you measure. Other countries are looking at Canada. The OECD, for instance, and the World Bank are watching with interest—

What Mr. Stuart called:

—ground-breaking work.

He added that it was crucial to keep track of the human and natural capital in assessing our economic performances.

Mr. Smith greatly insisted on the fact that this study was commissioned by the former finance minister and prime minister in waiting and not the environment minister. I will come back to the ties between Mr. Smith and the former finance minister, and members will understand better why Mr. Smith is backing him.

The roundtable recommended that the finance minister play a leadership role by agreeing to use the new indicators and helping to set up new priorities in order to expand the system of national accounts. Statistics Canada has committed to producing an annual report on the recommended indicators and, as soon as it gets the resources needed, it will expand the system of national accounts to include all of the assets. As for Environment Canada, it has agreed to implement the Canadian information system on the environment.

What are we to think of this? It is all very well, but the hon. member for LaSalle--Émard has had 10 years to realize that, as far as the economy is concerned, environmental impacts must be taken into account, as well as the human and social capital of the world that surrounds us. Yet it is he who slashed transfer payments to the provinces, among other things.

It is rather odd that this report is coming out now, when the campaign to replace the outgoing Prime Minister is in full swing.

Do members know who this Stuart Smith is? He is the co-chair of the environment and sustainable development indicators committee. At a press conference, he praised the hon. member for LaSalle--Émard. According to a report by Charles Côté in La Presse , Mr. Smith is a personal friend of the hon. member for LaSalle-Émard and a former leader of the Liberal Party of Ontario.

That said, hon. members will understand my mistrust of this individual and the fact that we are distancing ourselves from the motion being debated.

We do basically support the recommendations of the round table, as the federal government has neglected to take these indicators into account, which should not be viewed as a novelty. When it comes down to it, it is surprising that it has taken this study to oblige the federal government to make the appropriate calculations for all these items.

There are some points that need to be clarified, however. What kind of consultations will there be with the Government of Quebec and the provinces?

We are told these indicators will make it possible to calculate the true value of the economic capital of Canada, but we must be cautious here. The population of Canada and Quebec lives in a concentrated area along the border with the United States, while huge expanses are virtually empty. We fear the statistics will be misused and will end up letting the federal ministers and their officials see things through rose coloured glasses.

Another interesting example given at the press conference related to carbon sinks, an area we know requires further study. The Bloc Quebecois favours reduction of emissions at the source. The effectiveness of these carbon sinks is not yet known. We sincerely hope that calculating forest cover in order to reduce the Kyoto objective is not one of things the aspiring successor to the outgoing Prime Minister and hon. member for LaSalle—Émard has in mind.

The concept of a consumption index, such as the “ecological footprint”, could have been chosen, for various reasons; the information collected could be used as the basis to draft legislation as required, and to encourage more accurate targeting by federal government initiatives within its fields of jurisdiction such as fiscal incentives, for example.

Quebec's jurisdiction must be respected, in health, the environment and management of natural resources.

The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development notes that the Liberal government, under the current Prime Minister and under the former finance minister and member for LaSalle—Émard, has not fulfilled its sustainable development commitments. This is seen in her October 2002 annual report. She says:

The federal government is not investing enough—enough of its human and financial resources; its legislative, regulatory, and economic powers; or its political leadership—to fulfil its sustainable development commitments.

And she continues:

The federal government says it is managing its fiscal deficits to avoid leaving a burden for future generations, but its failure to deal in a timely manner with the environmental legacy of contaminated sites in its own backyard passes on another burden.

She adds:

Our audit findings this year make me more concerned than ever about the environmental, social and economic legacy we are leaving our children—we are burdening them with a growing sustainable development deficit.

In conclusion, while the motion in itself appears worthwhile, we have doubts about the reasons for the continuing lack, 10 years after the Rio conference on sustainable development, of solid economic measures, as presented in the motion.

Since we have no guarantee that reporting on such indicators would not have an impact on Quebec's sovereignty in its fields of jurisdiction, because the government is not prepared to establish these indicators in cooperation with the provinces, and especially with Quebec, we shall vote against this motion.

[Agriculture, May 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the current mad cow disease episode has many repercussions. It has caused problems not only for cattle farmers and slaughterhouses, but also for laboratories that specialize in bovine semen and embryos, which are now banned by several countries. The news was confirmed by the Canadian embassy in Beijing and by the Canadian Livestock Genetics Association.

How could the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food tell us in committee that there was no ban when there has been one since May 21 that represents $20 million—

[National Defence, May 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, in light of the Canadian Forces' careless and unfair handling of the matter, some Canadian Forces members have gone to the courts to seek justice. They are basing their claims on two reports from the Canadian Forces ombudsman and demanding that the Department of National Defence take the post-traumatic stress syndrome issue seriously.

Could the Minister of Defence tell us how the Canadian Forces reacted to the litigation and whether or not he will follow up on the CF members' claims?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, May 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me the floor. I did hear the question but I had been told that an hon. member from the Alliance was going to speak before me. That is why I did not rise.

Ever since it was brought down in February, the budget before us has stirred up its share of commentaries and unflattering remarks. The farther we go in examining this bill, the more irritants we discover.

I shall begin with clause 64 of the Budget Implementation Act, 2003, which represents a serious problem not only for those directly concerned—the school boards—but also for parliamentary democracy.

This is a dangerous precedent; not only introducing a retroactive amendment to an act, but also permitting the government to get around the judgments already handed down against it by the courts.

This kind of manoeuvre, we should point out, was first attempted by the member for LaSalle—Émard, now a Liberal leadership candidate. After the judgments were handed down in 2001, the then Minister of Finance decided to introduce a retroactive amendment to the Excise Tax Act in his budget, which would have enabled him to recapture significant amounts of goods and services taxes from the coffers of the school boards.

The announcement caused such a stink that the former Liberal minister, the hon. Marc Lalonde, wrote to the Minister of Finance on behalf of his clients asking him to reconsider his position. In a letter dated January 15, 2002, he wrote:

On October 17, the Federal Court of Appeal handed down a unanimous decision to the appellant school boards, with the Commission scolaire des Chênes being the test case. The court ruled that school transportation constitutes a commercial activity that is eligible for 100% input tax credits—.

The board in question is the Commission scolaire des Chênes in my riding. For this board alone, the November 2001 ruling in its favour represents $500,000. If the government continues to refuse to grant school bus transportation tax credits, there will be an annual shortfall of $200,000.

Must we appeal to the Prime Minister's better judgment to get him to recognize that his government's position is indefensible, not because his party is not keeping its statutory commitments to the school boards to avoid unnecessary costs, but because the effect of clause 64 is to get around the courts' rulings. It is as if the government had decided to put itself above everything, even above the law. Such an attitude is dangerous, and the impact will, no doubt, be to discredit the judicial system.

As the hon. Marc Lalonde wrote about the school boards, and I will quote him once again:

—it is our clients' impression that the Minister of Finance is basically saying, “Heads, I win, tails, you lose”.

We will continue to speak out against this serious injustice that the government is preparing to inflict on the school boards.

This is an excellent opportunity to tell those now listening that only the Bloc Quebecois members have come to the defence of the interests of Quebec school boards. On the opposite side of the House, not a single Liberal member is prepared to act in the taxpayers' interests. This is proof of how important the Bloc Quebecois's presence in this House is.

We are fulfilling our duty in defending our communities against the repeated assaults of this centralist government. The people of the ridings of Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière and Témiscamingue must be made aware of this.

Let us now look at the employment insurance plan. The problems facing workers affected by the softwood lumber dispute or the fisheries crisis—soon to be joined by the victims of the mad cow crisis—are growing, yet the federal government is ignoring them, too obsessed with raking in money in the EI fund, where billions of dollars are being amassed.

For the past several years, the government has been helping itself to the fund, which has angered those who contribute to this fund, so much so that central labour bodies have started legal action against Ottawa. In the Superior Court, the CSN and the FTQ have launched a challenge against the constitutionality of the Employment Insurance Act. Transparent management is certainly not the reason we find ourselves in this situation today.

Despite unfavourable opinions by the Auditor General years after year, the Liberal government has continued to misappropriate money from the EI fund to finance other activities.

This is serious. What is at stake here is some very fundamental interests of the workers in Quebec, of overtaxed businesses, of men and women hoping that one day there will be a parental leave that fits their lifestyle, and of the labour force as a whole. What the Liberal federal government is doing to the EI fund is weakening the social safety net on which the public relies.

While billions of dollars are currently being raked in to be used later for purposes other than those for which the fund was intended, the provincial governments are obliged to find creative ways of supporting people who are going through serious crises.

The Government of Quebec had to dig into its own pockets to supplement the lost income of the fishers and processing industry workers in the Gaspé Peninsula. Why? Because the federal government has been sitting idly by while people were ending up out on the street, penniless. Quebec has been left holding the bag while the employment insurance surplus has reached more than $45 billion.

Need I remind this House that soon some workers will be the victims of the mad cow disease crisis? Yesterday, a Liberal, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources Development, told us that people could always collect employment insurance benefits, but this is 55% of their salary, based on a maximum of $39,000 a year. And let us not forget the waiting period. The compensation measures leave a lot to be desired.

Need I remind this government that, for the past 15 years, protection for workers who lose their jobs has diminished?

In Canada, in 1990, 75% of unemployed people were eligible for employment insurance benefits. Less than ten years later, this rate dropped dramatically, to 39%.

In Quebec, for the same period, the rate of unemployed who were eligible for benefits went from 81% to 47%, which means that half the workers in Quebec are no longer entitled to benefits, yet EI contributions are still being deducted from their paycheques. Let us not forget the government does not pay one cent into the fund. It is workers and employers who contribute to employment insurance.

While eligibility criteria for the plan have become stricter and the number of insurable hours to be entitled to benefits has increased, the government cynically decreased the amount of benefits from 66% to 55% of insurable income with a $39,000 ceiling, as I mentioned earlier.

Upon its creation in the 1930s, the unemployment assistance program was nothing less than an insurance policy. The nature of it has changed, as it has almost become a privilege to be entitled to it. This is outrageous.

Again, I will mention that the Liberal government does not contribute a cent to the fund, which is accumulating surpluses at a staggering rate.

The surplus in the EI fund is a clear indication of the existence a fiscal imbalance, and the provinces and the taxpayers are paying the price.

To counteract this plundering of the fund, which has been going on for far too long, the Bloc Quebecois has, on a number of occasions, proposed the creation of a self-sustaining fund. Instead of recognizing that this scheme no longer makes sense, the present MInister of Finance is perpetuating the bad habits of his predecessor. To prevent further protest, he has announced consultations, which will buy him time to continue raking in the surplus, to pay down the debt.

I invite the Minister of Finance to review his position and to seriously consider the Bloc Quebecois proposal. We speak for the workers and the business owners, when we say it is time the plundering stopped.

Let us now move on to part 6 of the act to implement certain provisions of the budget, which deals with the air travellers security charge. As we have done ever since this tax was implemented, we continue to speak out against it as unjustified. In fact, it is a hindrance to the mobility of the population and means just one more fee the travel industry has to collect.

I continue to argue that charges relating to security and policing must be met by everyone via public funds, and not through a disguised tax imposed on those who travel by air. Security is a national affair. Of course, a terrorist on board a plane is a threat to the passengers but, as the tragic events of September 11, 2001 have demonstrated, people on the ground are also in danger. We all stand to gain from enhanced security measures. Imposition of a specific tax on the travelling public is unfair and abusive.

In December 2002, the Standing Committee on Finance, of which I am a member, acknowledged the negative impact of this tax in its prebudget report to this House.

The Tourism Industry Association of Canada met on numerous occasions with committee members to explain why it sees this tax as “an instance of poor public policy”.

The Minister of Finance received no fewer than 300 briefs, all of which were opposed to the security charge, from provincial departments of tourism, airlines, airport authorities and industry associations. I have not found a single individual or organization in favour of this measure; no one, apart from this government, is.

In response to dissatisfaction, the government announced in its budget a reduction in the charge for domestic flights only, a reduction made possible thanks to a change in accounting methods. What the government is really doing is not reducing the amount of money it is taking from the airline industry, but rather amortizing security equipment costs over a 15 year period instead of five years, as originally planned. This is unacceptable.

The Minister of Finance decided that it should be airline passengers who finance security measures that benefit everyone. While he is lowering the charge on domestic flights, the charge on international flights has not been reduced.

If security measures at border crossings are paid for by the government from the consolidated revenue fund, and not by the people or businesses who cross the border, then why should it be any different in the case of air travel? What is the reasoning behind the government's position?

In its report on the viability of Canada's airline industry tabled on April 11, the transport committee recommended eliminating the security charge for airline passengers, since transportation security is a critical national need that must be funded federally.

Just this weekend, the current Minister of Finance and candidate for the Liberal leadership inferred that he might go ahead and lower the special airport security taxes. Can the minister tell us what he is basing these intentions on? Could it be that he has seen studies that he forgot to present to the Standing Committee on Finance?

While we are on this topic, I must point out that I was concerned when I read in a Quebec paper that the federal government is reviewing the airport security charge without even telling us about it.

A reporter found out about this review through a request under the Access to Information Act. What is the minister waiting for to table these studies in the Standing Committee on Finance and the House? Unless the hush hush surrounding these studies is a sign that the minister is hiding something? Could it be businesses operated by friends of the Liberal Party with deep pockets who have contributed to the party?

Finally, I would have liked to come back to those who were forgotten in the budget. I would say that this government has not lived up to its commitments with regard to the elimination of child poverty. The figures published recently by Statistics Canada show that the rich still get rich and the poor still get poorer, which reflects badly on the hon. members opposite.

When a government no longer cares about the messages sent by its citizens, when a government is ready even to defy the justice system, when a Prime Minister says that he does not need parliamentary debates in order to make decisions, this is cause for worry. Faced with such a dangerous attitude, I can only invite my constituents and all the people of Quebec to think hard about their future.

When the federalist government in Quebec City denounces the federal government's inaction with respect to the people who have lost their livelihood, when it denounces the brutal reality of the fiscal imbalance and its effects on the province's ability to provide services to the population, one possible solution remains, an exciting project that will bring people together, that of creating our own country.

For some time we have been hearing people talk about change. As far as I am concerned, the only real change for us, for Quebec, is our sovereignty.

[Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, May 26th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, as I rise to speak in this emergency debate, a number of people in my riding are going through difficult times, and some may find themselves unemployed. Since the media reported the case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, better known as mad cow disease, discovered in Alberta, events have unfolded very rapidly. The crisis in the Canadian cattle industry does not respect provincial boundaries.

I forgot to mention that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Jonquière.

Cattle producers in Quebec also say they have been just as affected by the American embargo and the drop in prices as their counterparts in Alberta and Saskatchewan. The announcement of the bad news was immediately followed by an American embargo on Canadian beef. A number of other countries, including Australia and New Zealand, followed Uncle Sam's lead.

The consequences of this embargo were immediate. The price of beef dropped from $4.03 to $3.19 per kg. The price of cattle ready for slaughter fell by 21% in less than a week. These figures come from the committee of 250 fed cattle producers of the Fédération des producteurs de bovins du Québec.

In an interview with a daily paper, the group's president, Jacques Desrosiers, himself a steer farmer said, and I quote:

For now, feeders can continue to feed the animals. We can survive for a few weeks, but if it lasts more than four weeks, if it lasts for months, we will lose more than half of our stocks. This could represent a million dollars for me, and I am unable to sustain that kind of loss.

The shock wave has spread all the way to my riding, which has a huge agricultural base. A major producer, Entreprises agricoles Saint-Joachim Inc., has ended up with some 3,000 head of cattle on its hands because of the embargo. When you consider that it costs between $2 and $3 a day to feed an animal, you can imagine the losses that Mr. Autot, from Saint-Joachim-de-Courval, and this company will sustain if the situation does not improve soon.

Producers are holding on to their herds, which is bringing meat packing plants to a standstill. Again, in my riding, in the municipality of Saint-Cyrille-de-Wendover, employees of the Colbex meat packing plant owned by the Dubé family could lose their jobs. Fifteen have already been laid off and management has had to give advance notice to all workers, which is 196 people in this company alone.

The harmful effects of the ban have gone so far as to impact exports of cattle embryos. Embryotech, the third Chinese company to locate in the Drummondville industrial park, specializes in the development of an embryo culture technique that ought to provide China with a 10 million-strong herd of good dairy cattle within 10 years. China being one of the countries that has closed its doors to our exports, Embryotech's activities are, at the very least, compromised for the moment. As well, the hiring process to staff 50 positions in this company has been slowed down.

The federal Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food claims embryos are not affected by the ban. That is not the reality as described by the management of Embryotech to a journalist in my region. That is a brief overview of the situation in my riding.

Let us now examine the Liberal government's attitude. The day after the announcement of the beef export ban, representatives of the Fédération des producteurs de bovins du Québec were at the door of the federal Department of Agriculture and Agri-food calling for it to put in place emergency financial assistance programs to compensate producers for the losses sustained.

The federation feels that this financial assistance should also include other segments of the Quebec cattle industry such as auction yards, abattoirs and the like.

Yet the Prime Minister himself has refused this form of assistance, and this afternoon in oral question period, the Liberal member for Shefford had nothing more to say than that the workers in this industry will be able to draw employment insurance after a waiting period of 15 days, and at about the 55% level, not 55% of their actual earnings, but 55 of the actual value of the employment.

Clearly, this form of assistance is not serious.

As for the Minister of Agriculture, a few hours ago, he told the committee that the investigation now going on to trace the origin of the sick animal would not lack for funding. That is fine for the investigation, but what about the producers, the slaughterhouses that have been shut down, the distribution network, the auctions, the transporters? In short, everything has stopped. The president of the Union des producteurs agricoles du Québec, Laurent Pellerin, says it is a catastrophe.

The embargo is not only on beef, but on all ruminants; veal, goats, sheep, lambs, and farm-raised bison and deer. There is a bison farmer in my riding. He has the same problems.

The questions we hear from everyone affected are: Does the government have an assistance program? What should the industry expect from government? Will there be compensation for the losses?

How did we get to this point? Simply because this government decided to make draconian cuts to agriculture. We have a shortage of laboratories and veterinarians. The faculties of veterinary medicine at the universities do not have the funding necessary to hire professors and buy state-of-the-art equipment.

The situation is a paradox. Canada is one of the world's largest cattle producers. And yet there are only two specialists in mad cow disease in this country.

My hon. friend from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot and I fought to get federal funding for the faculty of veterinary medicine at the Université de Montréal, so that it could get accreditation from the American Veterinary Medical Association. Weeks have passed. The Liberal government is still humming and hawing and the faculty of veterinary medicine is left with partial accreditation.

As to why it took more than three months to get results from the tests carried out on the animal's carcass, let us just say that it is a consequence of Liberal cuts. Brain samples from the animal waited a long time for testing in Alberta's only public laboratory. There is only one laboratory to look out for the interests of an industry worth nearly $4 billion. Ten years ago, there were four, but budget cuts have done away with three of them, and saved $10 million.

Canada is paying the price now for cuts made in the past. In fact, it would be fair to say that it is Quebeckers and all Canadians who are footing the bill because of this government's lack of long-term vision.

How much will this crisis cost? How much longer will it take to trace the origins of the infected animal?

The minister is talking about the risk management program that is already in place, but he seems to be the only one who believes in the program. When answering my questions at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, the minister said he wants the problem to be resolved as soon as possible to limit the damage, but he did not elaborate on possible compensation.

Quebec farmers are currently being unfairly penalized by the onset of mad cow disease outside of Quebec. Cattle farmers are being hard hit by the embargo declared by several countries on importing ruminants and ruminant products. This situation is especially frustrating to farmers, who have been subjected for a long time to a series of restrictions aiming specifically to ensure the health of livestock and the irreproachable quality of their products. For many years, farmers have avoided importing products from countries at risk for spreading the disease and have also undergone all the detection procedures that were implemented for mad cow disease and other reportable diseases.

In conclusion, since the Quebec prevention system is very effective, what is the federal government waiting for to do everything it can to reassure importing countries and to allow Quebec farmers to resume exporting?

I would like to point out that if Quebec were sovereign at this time, we would not be in this situation. We would not be caught up in this crisis in Quebec.

[Bloc Vert Drummond, May 26th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to applaud the 2,000 households in my riding that recently participated in the hazardous household waste collection organized by Bloc Vert Drummond.

The ecological spring cleaning recovered 32,500 kg of tires, 26,250 kg of paint, 19,615 kg of solvents and oils, and other products that need to be disposed of safely to protect the environment.

Most of this waste will be recycled and the rest will be eliminated in specialized centres.

To show appreciation, the participants were sent home with a sapling as part of an effort to counter deforestation.

I would also like to mention the contribution of the 130 volunteers without whom Bloc Vert Drummond's 11th hazardous household waste collection would not have been such a success.

[Landart Festival, May 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, for a second year in a row, two of my constituents will take part in the 5th Landart Festival in Grindewald, Switzerland, from June 5 to 12. Marc Bergeron and Daniel Levasseur, of Drummondville, are the only North American ambassadors at this international competition.

Landart is an artistic movement characterized by the artistic use of the landscape as raw material. As such, the works that are created may be ephemeral, or more durable. However, they must be harmoniously integrated into the location chosen for their creation. It is a contemporary art form that sets itself apart in that it is done in and with nature.

Buoyed by their experience last year, where Marc Bergeron and Daniel Levasseur won the first public prize and the second jury prize for their work, they will represent us again this year with strength and determination.

I invite members of the House and the public to join me in supporting them and wishing them the best of luck.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, May 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Quebecois' amendment reads as follows:

That Bill C-28 be amended by deleting Clause 64.

The amendment that I am moving in the House would delete this clause from Bill C-28, the Budget Implementation Act. More specifically, what we would like to remove is the element of retroactivity.

In his budget, the Minister of Finance announced his intention to retroactively amend provisions of the Excise Tax Act related to school buses. By doing so, the minister could establish a new rate for all school boards, despite judgments rendered by the courts since December 21, 2001.

The government is simply planning to override judgments that recognized that school boards were right on the issue of the refunding the GST paid for school transportation. This retroactive measure is a very serious departure from the rule of law and from the authority of a final judgment. This could be precedent setting in Canadian parliamentary practice.

In order to give members some context on this and to help them understand the scope of this situation, allow me to sketch a brief history of this issue and the actions the Liberal federal government has taken against the school boards.

From 1996 to 2001, Quebec and Ontario school boards submitted GST claims for the transportation of students. On November 17, 2001, the federal appeal court brought down a unanimous decision in favour of the first 29 Quebec school boards. I have the judgment relating to a board in my riding, Commission scolaire des Chênes.

Normally, school boards with cases pending at the time of the judgment ought to have been paid.

On December 21, 2001, the Minister of Finance announced his intention of making a retroactive amendment to the Excise Tax Act, which included pending cases. This measure is legal, but unfair. The school boards, and their federations, opposed it.

More than a year later, the school boards of Quebec and Ontario have obtained favourable final judgments that represent eight and ten million dollars respectively.

On February 18, 2003, when the Minister of Finance brought down his budget, he proposed a retroactive amendment that would go still further than the proposal of December 21, 2001, since it goes against the judgment obtained by the school boards of Quebec and Ontario.

School boards want the rights they had before December 21, 2001, which they protected by filing theirs claims with the Tax Court of Canada before that date and for which they received a successful final decision before the February 2003 budget, to be restored and respected.

What is it important to remember? Through clause 64 of Bill C-28, the federal government is preparing to disregard a court decision. Informed of this plan, the Barreau du Québec and the Canadian Bar Association responded quickly, describing the finance minister's plan as a dangerous approach that could undermine the public's confidence in the courts. It would seem that both associations wrote the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Justice, saying that they opposed the legislative change proposed in the last budget.

Here is what President of the Bar in Quebec, Claude G. Leduc, had to say about the federal government's approach:

It does not respect any of these decisions or commitments, which, in our view, seriously erodes the principle of the authority of a final judgment and is contrary to the sound management of justice. Such a legislative approach discredits the judicial process and is likely to undermine taxpayers' confidence in the courts.

Along the same line, Simon Potter, of the Canadian Bar Association, stated, and I quote:

—we are persuaded that the policy behind any such retroactivity is deeply flawed and dangerous.

In October 2001, 29 school boards in Quebec, including the Commission scolaire Des Chênes, in my riding, won their case before the Federal Court, the court recognizing that school bus services were indeed a commercial activity within the meaning of the act, which entitled them to recover all the GST paid. The federal government must therefore refund the overpayment on the GST. We are talking about approximately $18 million.

The case was next heard by the Tax Court of Canada last January. The case appeared to be over because the federal government agreed in a settlement to abide by the judgment of the lower court, on condition that the school boards withdraw their demand for an appeal before the Federal Court of Appeal.

To the astonishment of the school boards, the federal government did an about-face, pointedly ignored its obligations and, in the recent budget, introduced a clause that would completely change all its promises. At the Standing Committee on Finance, the present secretary of state did his utmost to try to remind us of what the federal government had published in a press release on this subject, but was unable to adequately defend the government in view of the letters from representatives of the bar.

The government's decision may not be unconstitutional, but the government should realize how dangerous such actions are to parliamentary democracy and the judicial system. The Minister of Finance should recognize that he made a mistake and give his support to our amendment which states:

That Bill C-28 be amended by deleting clause 64.

If the government takes a hard line, it will have to live with the consequences. This clause will do nothing less than weaken one of the pillars of democracy, which is the authority of a final judgment.

It has always been the case that school boards pay the GST. The government should rebate the tax because it is part of the commercial purpose of school transportation. But in this case, without warning the school boards, they withheld the GST and said, “The rules of the game have changed. And in addition, we are going to hold on to the four or five months you have already paid in advance”. That is what is known as retroactivity.

The school boards went before the courts and won their case because they are entitled to GST rebates. But in this case, the government, in addition to no longer providing rebates, is making this a retroactive measure.

There have been two decisions by the Court of Appeal, and the government is creating a precedent. This has never before been seen in the history of Canada. That is why we ask that clause 64 be deleted.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, May 12th, 2003]

moved:

Motion No. 13

That Bill C-28 be amended by deleting Clause 64.

[Smoking, April 10th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw your attention to the participation of 1,210 people from the Centre-du-Québec region in the “Quit to Win Challenge”, an initiative of the ACTI-MENU health program, in cooperation with many partners.

More than 30 days have now passed since the challenge began. Once the discomfort of withdrawal has lessened, participants should not overestimate their ability to resist the desire to smoke. To help them persevere, “Quit to Win” offers many tips from ex-smokers.

In addition, whether or not one registers for the challenge, it is possible to get help and support seven days a week through the “J'ARRÊTE” hotline.

No matter how many people register for the challenge, there will always be winners: the people who have a chance to become future ex-smokers.

I encourage all the participants to remain smoke-free, and offer them another incentive: the only way to escape increased tobacco taxes is to “butt out” once and for all.