Pauline Picard

[Committees of the House, December 13th, 2001]

Seasonal workers will no longer get any cheques either and they will have to rely on food banks. What is the government doing for them? It is utterly shameful.

I will conclude by expressing my sadness following this week's failure. This is a disappointment for all Quebecers and Canadians.

[Committees of the House, December 13th, 2001]

There is nothing. The unemployed will have to wait for their cheques before Christmas—

[Committees of the House, December 13th, 2001]

The unemployed, because these surpluses come from the employment insurance fund. This has been proven. Even the auditor general criticized this. The employment insurance fund, workers and the unemployed are currently paying off the debt. This makes no sense, when the government is not contributing a cent. It is actually stealing from them. This week all the newspaper articles on the subject were saying this very thing, not just the Bloc. All the analysts are saying it. This is cooking the books, this is theft, no doubt about it.

By falsifying the true picture of public finances in Canada, the federal government has also misappropriated considerable funds from the public domains of health and education, for example. It has also hindered public participation, since the public is receiving very mixed messages.

We condemn the alarmist tone of the report, the report tabled by the Liberal majority at the Standing Committee on Finance. We did not support it, because it does not contain the information and the priorities witnesses came before us to express. The report simply indicates the government's fear about the deficit, while we say this concern and uncertainty are mistaken. The figures were once again falsified, and the Minister of Finance is doing this deliberately.

If they really had good intentions, a statement to this effect would have helped maintain consumer spending at higher levels and would have sent a positive signal of an economy that can slow down without collapsing.

As well, we do not at all agree that there is a danger of slipping back into a deficit position. The budget surplus for the first six months of the fiscal year reached $13.6 billion. In six months, there was a $13.6 billion surplus. The economy was already slowing down before the events of September 11, but even with this slowdown, there is a $13.6 billion surplus. As far as I know, Canada is still in a downturn, but there has not been a collapse. Plus, there are all the current inflows. This is the holiday period and consumers are spending on consumer products.

So where is this crisis? We know that there have been layoffs in some plants, but the situation is not catastrophic. There was already a surplus of $13.6 billion. At the close of the fiscal year, at the end of March, there will be yet another false estimate of the surplus. This false estimate will allow the government to say that it has no choice, that it must put the money toward paying off the debt and creating a new infrastructure foundation instead of increasing the Canada health and social transfers for priorities such as health and education as the provinces had asked. This is but another way to stick their noses in the business of provinces.

Infrastructure comes under provincial jurisdiction. Instead of injecting the $2 billion promised into the existing program that the provinces are already used to, as there were already negotiations and there are already agreements, no, the government had to go and create yet another administrative monster. The directors have yet to be appointed, but we can safely guess that they will be friends of the governing party, those who contributed the most to election campaigns. We have no doubt about that. They want the public to believe that this process and this budget are transparent. Once again, this is hogwash.

How could the government make the entire $13.6 billion surplus disappear? Even with a downturn, this week's increase in military spending, and beefed up security, it is hard to imagine a balanced approach, which is apparently so dear to the government, pushing the bill as high as $13 billion.

In fact, for the country to slip back into a deficit situation, annual growth would have to drop below minus 5%, or spending would have to jump by 11%, showing just how ridiculous this alarmism is.

Finally, the Bloc Quebecois wishes to remind the Liberal majority on the Standing Committee on Finance, and the Minister of Finance himself, that a large portion of last year's federal surplus, approximately $7.5 billion, came from the EI fund surplus. We have spoken about this. According to the fund's chief actuary, this year's surplus will be in the neighbourhood of the $7.8 billion squirrelled away during the last fiscal period. This means that it will be $7.8 billion at the end of March. No small amount.

We would also have preferred to see the economy given a little boost in this budget. In the context of the present economic downturn and the impact of the events of September 11, the Bloc Quebecois proposed to the Minister of Finance a $5 billion plan for stabilizing the economy, without producing a deficit. That is what we proposed.

This plan is built around two key notions: supporting the economy and supporting jobs. It was realistic, effective and responsible. Sadly, the Minister of Finance did not draw from it.

Furthermore, despite the spending this plan would have entailed, the federal Minister of Finance would still have had ample leeway to meet the new security and international aid requirements.

With respect to international aid, we had a plan which could have boosted us to the 0.7% of GDP suggested by the UN. Instead, aid spending has gone up by a meagre one hundredth of 1%, to 0.26%. It is absurd, and then the government tells us about its wonderful foreign aid programs, when several millions of dollars went towards propaganda.

It spent a few million dollars on propaganda in other countries about our leadership in this, that and the other, and about how we are the greatest country in the world. Yesterday, someone even jokingly referred to Canada's greatest terrorists. This strikes me as a bit odd. Overuse of the word greatest will eventually prove one's downfall.

The plan we had proposed was based on more realistic estimates, since it draws on the most conservative scenario. Out of a concern for caution, because the Bloc is a responsible party and does not want to plunge Quebec and Canada into a budget deficit, we chose the hypothesis based on negative growth of 2% for the first two quarters of 2001-02.

As the case may be, at the end of the present fiscal year, as we have said, the federal surpluses would amount to $13.6 billion. We are not talking of the last months, but of the first six months. We think the surplus will be $13.6 billion. We already know the facts. We think it could be slightly higher, but these are conservative figures.

Our estimates reflect the tax cuts and transfers to the provinces. If we deduct from that the $5 billion required to implement the economic recovery plan proposed by the Bloc Quebecois, which represents one time expenditures, the Minister of Finance would still have a comfortable margin of $8.6 billion.

In this recovery plan, which I will discuss it briefly, because time is running out and I have only two minutes left, we proposed to provide $1.85 billion to support small and medium size businesses, and $1.15 billion for employment insurance. The Bloc Quebecois felt that the federal government should implement a series of measures to restore confidence and put back to work the thousands of Quebecers and Canadians who have lost their jobs since the beginning of the crisis.

The government should immediately implement the recommendations contained in the report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development. That report, which contained 17 recommendations, was unanimously approved by all committee members.

Out of these 17 recommendations, the Minister of Finance has followed up on just one, which is totally meaningless. It provides for a shorter waiting period for apprentices, such as a labourer or cook apprentice, but there is no new money.

[Committees of the House, December 13th, 2001]

He does indeed not know how to count. He is playing with the figures. He is trying to get us to believe his story, but we are not fooled, and neither is the public.

According to the accounting process, if no surplus is forecast, any realized goes to paying down the debt, so surpluses cannot be used because an accounting process is involved. These are fiscal measures, but who is paying for the surpluses that are being used to pay down the debt?

[Committees of the House, December 13th, 2001]

Plus secretarial staff, office space and so on. There are a lot of things we are not being told about like the expense account that goes with this position.

While there are people who will not even get a Christmas basket as the holidays are approaching, who have nothing to eat, parliament, with its full coffers, has pretentiously provided itself with a poet laureate. This too is a disappointment, and makes this the blackest week I have lived through here since 1993.

The Minister of Finance often says that he consults the public to come up with a very transparent budget. He sees to it that prebudget consultations are held by the Standing Committee on Finance, on which I sit along with other members from all parties, including the Canadian Alliance and, of course, the government party.

Several witnesses appear before the committee, which sits for hours and weeks. The Minister of Finance says that it is based on these consultations, based on this infamous report that he prepares his budget. That is hogwash. We saw this week that it is hogwash.

The Bloc Quebecois wants to emphasize the fact that, as in previous years, these prebudget consultations are, unfortunately, a somewhat hypocritical exercise, since the Standing Committee on Finance and the Minister of Finance do not really take into consideration the recommendations and grievances of Quebecers and Canadians on how federal surpluses should be used. No one is fooled by the government's approach. We know that the die has already been cast, as we saw this week.

Therefore, I wish to present—because I already spoke on the budget—the dissenting opinion of the Bloc Quebecois regarding the report on the 2001 prebudget consultations that was tabled by the Liberal government.

Hon. members will see that we were right. We do not merely condemn. We have figures. We work on these figures and we make reasonable suggestions to help the public at a time when everyone is a bit stressed out because of recent events. There already was a downturn before September 11. We had anticipated that and we proposed solutions in our report. This is what I want to explain to hon. members today.

First, let us talk about the government's fiddling with the figures. Unfortunately, the federal budget process has become a cover-up operation instead of an information tool on the state of Canada's public finances. As we were all able to see over the past few years, the Minister of Finance has this nasty habit of underestimating budget surpluses. This year, he not only underestimated revenues, he also overestimated expenditures. This is even worse.

Since 1996, the federal government has accumulated budget surpluses of about $35 billion. Instead of making everyone happy through good governance, this government has shown its inability to anticipate its deficits by artificially increasing them while underestimating budget surpluses, as I mentioned earlier. The government did the same thing again this week.

It excluded from all public debate nearly $60 billion in manoeuvring room, which the Bloc Quebecois with considerably fewer means had managed to estimate more precisely. For five years now, with the figures and means we had, we have been out by about $4 billion with the actual figures we were given. The Minister of Finance is out by about $60 billion. Is this transparent?

[Committees of the House, December 13th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I will start with a comment. This week has been the most disappointing week of any I have spent in this House since my election in 1993-94.

The first reason for this is that we have had a very disappointing budget, and the public is worried, particularly in view of recent events. We were expecting a budget that would have reassured them and provided some measures to get the economy back on its feet.

No such budget was forthcoming. There is nothing for seniors, nothing for businesses, absolutely nothing at all. Nothing for women, for old people, nothing to deal with poverty. That is the first disappointment.

The second reason is that last Tuesday the House passed a bill originating in the other place, creating the position of parliamentary poet laureate. No one ever died of ridicule, fortunately, or we would have lost a number of our colleagues here in the House. This is totally scandalous.

When this becomes known, the Liberal government will have something to answer for. This is totally abhorrent; not one cent to help people, to provide them with some security in a time of economic downturn, and yet we have a bill to create a poet laureate for parliament. They are thumbing their noses at Canadians. It is not supposed to cost that much, a salary of $30,000 a year—

[Committees of the House, December 12th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, although the Bloc Quebecois supports the broad outline of this report—and we consider essential to further action the broad consensus in it on the dignity of the human being, the non-commercialization of human reproductive material, informed choices, accountability and transparency—we have reservations about the federal government prohibiting certain activities.

We must remember that large areas of medically assisted reproduction come under provincial jurisdiction. I am thinking of the delivery of health care services, including the establishment of fertility clinics, the status of descendants, which has to do with family law, and therefore civil law and, of course, counselling for surrogate mothers and for potential donors, which directly involves the provincial health care systems.

The government must tread carefully in these regulatory areas. It must consult the provinces and work with them in establishing certain regulations, because it is the provinces that deliver the services.

[Committees of the House, December 12th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, like the Canadian Alliance member—

[The Budget, December 11th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I think I have spent the past 20 minutes demonstrating just that. There is nothing in this budget to boost the economy. I am not the only one saying that. Based on the articles I have had a chance to read today, analysts across the country agree that the Minister of Finance missed the mark in terms of stimulating the economy.

There is nothing. The tax reductions were already planned. There is nothing new, no new money. What would have been really important is an increase in the Canada social transfer to help the provinces faced with serious problems in the health sector. The rate of funding for education has never been so low. Something should have been done in that sector as well.

Investing in services stimulates the economy, because more people can be hired to provide these services, particularly in hospitals.

There is nothing, apart from the instalment payments called for by the Bloc Quebecois. This was also a measure favoured by Mrs. Marois in her last budget. Apart from the deferral of installment payments for six months, there is absolutely nothing to help industries or companies.

There are many companies in my riding. I think that all entrepreneurs are now starting to dip into their reserves because of the economic downturn. We must not mince words. We are now in a real recession. These people are worried. They expected the Minister of Finance to help them out until the economy rebounds. This is not what is being offered in the budget brought down by the Minister of Finance yesterday.

In our view, this budget does nothing but make announcements regarding security, defence and so forth. We have nothing against the federal government taking meaningful action to ensure the safety of Quebecers and Canadians. But we were expecting more. The Minister of Finance is still keeping us in the dark and fiddling with the books. In our opinion, he had another $6 billion available to reinvest and put the economy back on track.

[The Budget, December 11th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the budget presented yesterday by the Minister of Finance is very disappointing. We already knew that would be the case. Last October, when the finance ministers met, this government suggested that there would be no new money for health and education. It did no more than commit to protecting projected transfers. Quebec still believes that Ottawa has enough money in its sock to offer some help.

As always, we think that the minister overestimated his spending and underestimated his revenues. He says that the surplus will amount to $11 billion for the two fiscal years covered by the budget but, according to our estimations, it will be $24 billion. We can come back to this later because we have been pretty accurate these last five years. We were off by about $4 billion for the last five years, meaning for the last five budgets presented by the minister, whereas his projections were off by $60 billion. Who is right? We can discuss it at the end of this fiscal year.

There is not one measure in this budget to get the economy back on its feet. As I said earlier, the Minister of Finance is hiding behind his inability to estimate his revenues and surplus to put this budget over on us. Once again, he is providing us with proof that he has serious credibility problems. Recently, once again, the federal surplus reached the level we had predicted, $13.6 billion. Now, he tells us he has no room to manoeuvre. Even the surplus in the EI fund was $3.7 billion, when the chief actuary had said it was $7 billion.

In our opinion, a budget was appropriate, but it ought to have been far more proactive. The real challenge to the Minister of Finance ought to have been to put together a body of measures that were more likely to bolster consumer confidence, and this he has not managed to do.

In the context of September 11, an investment in border security constitutes a strategy decision that cannot be avoided. This we admit. Yet we hardly need point out that, even before September 11, when there was no problem with air security, we were already at risk of a recession. In order to counteract the economic downturn, capital projects need to be accelerated, small and medium-size businesses in difficulty given assistance, and investment encouraged. In all, with a margin of maneuverability that is far greater than that of Quebec and the other provinces, the federal government ought to be sending out a clear message, demonstrating its leadership in reviving the economy so as to minimize job losses in the coming months.

The exercise has missed its target, and the minister has settled for presenting a budget just for the sake of form. As a number of analysts have been saying today, what we got yesterday were advertisements, rather than the budget we were entitled to. It is as if the government had bowed to the pressure, and did not want to be accused of doing nothing to deal with the recession. In fact, it was never convinced that budgetary intervention was needed. The Minister of Finance is counting on the billions of dollars invested by the Americans to stimulate our economy. As for the rest, he hopes that the drop in interest rates and the tax reductions announced last year will have the desired effect.

His lack of originality and courage can be seen in his decision to invest $2 billion in a new strategic infrastructure foundation, if, and only if, he records a surplus this year or next. It was not even included in the tables he presented yesterday. This foundation depends on there being a surplus. Instead of providing for a measure in the event of a catastrophe, the Minister of Finance is going to take money, cut the amount in half and create a foundation. We can see there is no point getting excited over this foundation just yet.

Municipalities must not count on it right away, because legislation will have to be passed in the House, and we know how long the procedures are. After a bill is tabled, it has to go to committee for study and then, after it has been examined in committee, it has to be passed by the Senate. So we will not see this foundation tomorrow.

Clearly the Liberal government is pursuing its strategy to establish a centralizing government, acting contrary to consensus. The foundation is an intrusion, further interference in areas of provincial jurisdiction. It is inconceivable that non elected officials could be given the task of negotiating directly with elected municipal officials.

It is outrageous to think that the Quebec transport minister would have to negotiate with board members of a foundation instead of his federal counterpart. Is it not the role of government to decide which roads, congress centres or water purification plants get priority?

What the public must understand is that the sole aim of these foundations is to give jobs to pals of the Prime Minister. A lovely parting gift. The public also has to know that these foundations will be funded by budget surpluses, one way of getting hold of the money left over at the end of the fiscal year.

The auditor general is critical of these foundations because they alter the government's financial data.

As we all know, since the idea of a ministry of state for urban affairs came up in the 1980s, the federal government has not been able to hide its intention to bypass the provinces and negotiate directly with the municipalities. Therefore, the objective of the infrastructure foundation is twofold: to exempt significant amounts of money from being monitored by parliamentarians, and to strengthen the federal government's authority to influence the Canadian economy.

When it created these foundations, the Liberal government explained that they would attract capital money from the private sector. This is true in the case of the Canada Foundation for Innovation, while for the others, contributions from major companies are rather rare.

At the time, we were told that these foundations were ad hoc measures, which would not be in place for more than 10 years. But the interest accumulated in these bank accounts suggests that these foundations are not going to run out of money anytime soon.

As for international humanitarian assistance, we expected Canada to show its intention to set a timeframe to reach the OECD's objective of spending 0.7% of the GDP on assistance to developing countries. We have already called for this in the House. As we all know, a $1 billion investment in international aid has a much greater impact than the same amount spent on defence.

As I have already stated in the House, in order to be effective, the fight against terrorism must involve not only military operations, but also a fight against poverty, which is a breeding ground for violence.

This lack of inspiration is also reflected in the unacceptable decision to not invest more in health services. How can the Minister of Finance tell the Canadian Press that health has without question been the number one priority of the federal government, when he is merely meeting his October 2000 commitments?

Is this the government's priority? There is nothing in the budget. There is nothing for health care and education. There is nothing for the poor. Nothing. There are no measures to fight poverty.

Health care funding is a huge challenge for provincial governments. The federal government's withdrawal from health care is unacceptable. The federal contribution has been shrinking steadily over the past 25 years. It is now only 13 cents on every dollar invested. This is what the government calls its number one priority.

Yet health care programs in Canada are not a federal but a provincial responsibility. Ottawa does not have to administer hospitals, pay nurses, negotiate with physicians, develop payment schemes or decide which services need to be funded; the provinces look after all that.

In spite of that, yesterday's budget did not contain any measure aimed at increasing health transfers to the provinces.

Since 1993, this government did not put one penny of new money into the system. Even medical specialists in Quebec blame it for problems in that province's health care system. The Fédération des médecins spécialistes du Québec supports Canada's provinces in their request for an increase in federal health transfers.

They say that there is a true fiscal imbalance in that sector. The fluctuations in federal transfers from one year to the next do not allow players in the health care system to do proper planning. Moreover, these transfers should be indexed because of increased costs related to new technologies, the aging population and escalating drug prices.

The opposition and the Bloc Quebecois are not the only ones complaining that the government is not meeting these priorities, that is increasing transfers to provinces and indexing these transfers because of increased costs related to the aging population and new technologies. So are Canadian nurses federations and the Canadian federation of physicians and health workers federations in Quebec.

By letting the provinces fend for themselves, the federal government is being very disgraceful. By refusing to pay its fair share of health care costs, the Liberal federal government becomes the greatest danger that threatens the universality of our health care system.

Now for the situation with the unemployed. Not one word about them in this budget, except for the fact that the unjustified and unexplained surplus from the employment insurance fund will be used to finance the government's current spending instead of helping those who need it.

It is unthinkable that the unemployed are paying off the Government of Canada's debt. How does the government do this? By maintaining premiums at levels that are too high, by limiting access to benefits and the length of the benefits period and by thumbing its nose at the program's objectives.

The auditor general stated in her report that the management of the fund's surplus did not respect the spirit of the Employment Insurance Act. The surplus has had a direct impact on the government's financial situation. Without it, the government would have had a surplus of $8 billion rather than $17 billion by the end of the fiscal year ending in March, 2001.

The government has not even come up with a program to help older workers who have been laid off. The re-evaluation of the federal government's position to follow up on the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development on employment insurance can be summed up as tens of millions of dollars for education.

In fact, the only good news on this front is the shorter waiting period for apprentices, but this government continues to pilfer from the fund.

The Minister of Finance boasts that he has kept the tax cuts already announced. The Bloc Quebecois was expecting much more. This government has not come up with any significant measure to rebalance the tax cuts in favour of low and middle income households. Again, it will be the richer members of society who benefit from the cuts, the rich friends of the members opposite.

The budget is immoral when it says nothing about the use of tax havens. Here again, the government is allowing large sums of money, which have a major impact on the Canadian tax base, to leave the country. Need we remind the government that fewer than 2% of non-residents of Canada filed a tax return last year. In addition, under the Canada-Barbados agreement, it is apparently possible to transfer capital gains totalling more than $800 million.

By contrast, what has this government announced to alleviate the housing crisis? The budget confirms a $680 million grant. This is nothing new. It has been known since the federal-provincial conference on this topic. Is it enough? Apparently not. The housing crisis continues to worsen, according to the latest CMHC report. We are experiencing an unprecedented housing shortage. The vacancy rate in Canadian cities is 1.1%, the lowest since 1987. In the riding adjoining mine, in Sherbrooke, the rate has dropped from 4.7% to 2.3% in the last year.

My Bloc Quebecois colleague, the member for Sherbrooke, could say more about this. Certainly, the federal budget brought down yesterday provides for $680 million, including $162 million for Quebec. This money will cover only 6,500 new social housing starts in partnership with municipalities.

In Montreal alone, 11,000 more units are needed. The federal government's withdrawal from social housing funding in 1994 has deprived Quebec of some 50,000 units.

This budget announces the introduction of the first new tax since the GST. This one should be called “the September 11 tax”, and it will enable the government to recover the $2.2 billion it has put into improving airport security. I should point out that any permanent resident wishing to obtain the secure identification card, which is to come into force in June, will have to pay $50 for it. On top of that, next April 1, travellers will have to pay an additional $12 each way, $24 for a round trip within Canada, to be collected when plane tickets are purchased. This will help impoverish remote regions still further.

What the public needs to keep in mind is that the government is going to move ahead with new air security measures, but above all that airline passengers will be the ones paying for them. This new tax is likely to have a very damaging effect on an industry already very hard hit by the terrorist attacks of September 11.

In this respect, Canadian measures are far from matching those announced by the U.S. government, which is giving a credit to everyone taking domestic flights. We are far from doing what representatives of ACTA, the association of Canadian travel agents, called for when they presented their brief to the Standing Committee on Finance.

This tax will apply equally to a $800 Air Canada ticket and a $150 WestJet ticket. It will be over and above all other charges travellers have to pay, such as fuel surcharges and airport improvement fees.

This government would have done well to follow the proposals that we made in our economic stabilization plan. Quebec's ideas are good: when it comes to taxes, allowing businesses to defer their corporate tax installments for six months is a measure the Bloc Quebecois asked for two months ago.

We commend this measure, just as we commend the tax credit for apprentice mechanics that we proposed and defended here in this House. The only problem: these measures are clearly insufficient without other meaningful measures to support business.

In closing, allow me to briefly recap yesterday's sad spectacle here in the House.

The Minister of Finance generously helped himself to the employment insurance fund surplus to finance newly announced measures instead of giving workers a real break on employment insurance premiums. This government could also have given employers a break on premiums. Everyone is tired of paying more than is needed to the employment insurance fund.

Environmental groups felt abandoned; meanwhile, everyone is concerned about pollution related problems. The government seems to be ignoring the fact that each year, 16,000 people die because of poor air quality. It is far from achieving what the Bloc Quebecois asked for in order to make good on the Kyoto agreement, with the exception of wind energy.

In keeping with his practice of sprinkling investments over various areas, the Minister of Finance brought down a budget as a matter of form and to please our American neighbours. It is as if his intent was to reassure the Americans, who wanted increased security for the continent.

The minister could have done a lot more for the provinces. From taxes on tobacco alone, he will take in an additional $400 million in 2002. He could have worked with the provinces to prevent their having deficits and support their initiatives to stimulate the economy quickly pending the economic recovery.

As is his wont, the Minister of Finance is considerably underestimating the budget surplus and withdrawing $13 billion from public debate.

He is not giving even a cent to health care and education and is leaving the provinces to struggle with funding for these priorities, including those of Quebecers.

As the time allotted me is going quickly, I will conclude by saying that, apart from providing investment to strengthen security measures and defence, the Minister of Finance's budget is timid. It lacks vigour and vision. It contains nothing of note for the economy. It does not even offer a cent to the middle class. It is a failure.