Pauline Picard

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1997, March 23rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, we are now in the final stage of debate on Bill C-28, which has made headlines since the House reconvened last month.

However, just hours before the vote on this legislation, the public is still not reassured about clause 241, which would put the Minister of Finance in an apparent conflict of interest.

In spite of the questions asked by the Bloc Quebecois and the other opposition parties, the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have avoided any debate by refusing to provide answers to the opposition, which wanted and still wants to have the situation clarified.

Moreover, all the efforts made to have the Standing Committee on Finance hear witnesses on this issue have been vain, except for the Prime Minister's ethics counsellor, who appeared before the committee.

[Health, March 23rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, when one makes a mess, one has a duty to clean it up.

Does the Minister of Health not realize that it is not by getting involved in home care, which is a provincial jurisdiction, that he will clean up the mess he created with his cuts in Canada's health sector?

[Health, March 23rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, some Liberal supporters found out that it is the government, through its excessive cuts, that created, to a large extent, the problems experienced in hospitals across Canada.

Has the Minister of Finance finally understood that his own supporters are, like us, asking him to use the government's financial margin to restore the level of the transfers to the provinces, transfers that are used to fund health care, among other things?

[Victims Of Hepatitis C, March 19th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, destruction of some documents, refusal to divulge others, court challenges, anything to hinder the work of the Krever commission.

This morning, we have learned that the federal government recognized, long befor the final report was tabled, its responsibility toward victims of hepatitis C.

Again, how can the minister justify his government's contemptuous attitude in recognizing privately its responsibility toward victims, while claiming exactly the opposite before the commission and the Canadian hepatitis C society?

[Tobacco Legislation, March 18th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the government has taken so long to honour the commitment it made during the election campaign to lighten its anti-smoking legislation that the papers are carrying all sorts of rumours about it.

Will the Prime Minister finally keep his word? How does he plan to do so, and when will he?

[Canadian History, March 16th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, recently the Canadian government marked the anniversary of the inauguration in 1848 of responsible government in Canada. In its letter of invitation to the ceremony, the government committed a major historical error. It implied that the rebellions of Upper and Lower Canada took place in 1848, whereas they occurred 10 years before.

In a Citizenship and Immigration brochure intended to give information about the history of Canada, the government has committed another historical faux pas. Instead of telling young people that Canada was created by the British North America Act, it tells them the Act of Union was our founding document. Let us recall that this Act of Union abolished the use of French in our institutions.

While the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs is busy boasting of his desire to rectify historical facts and tell Quebeckers and Canadians the truth about our history, his own government seems incapable of presenting the most significant events in Canadian history properly.

[Tainted Blood Victims, March 12th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, recently, a Quebec Superior Court judge ruled that hepatitis C victims had the right to launch a class action suit against the federal government, the Quebec government and the Red Cross. Yesterday, a group in Ontario took similar action before the courts.

This is food for thought for the Minister of Health and his finance colleague. After chopping federal transfers for health and piling up surpluses in the EI fund, this government does not have any legitimate reason not to follow the recommendations in the Krever report and develop a financial compensation plan for those directly or indirectly affected by this tragedy, regardless of when they were infected.

It is time this government stopped hiding behind the provinces and fulfilled its responsibilities to the tainted blood victims, who have been waiting far too long.

[Hepatitis C Victims, March 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the federal government, the Ontario government and the Red Cross are being sued for nearly $4 billion.

The announcement of the lawsuit coincides with the rumour about the federal government not planning to compensate those infected with hepatitis C before 1986 and after 1990.

Does the minister recognize that it would be unfair and discriminatory to compensate only hepatitis C victims contaminated between 1986 and 1990, when the people infected with the AIDS virus, directly or indirectly—

[Health, March 10th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, are we to understand that, after infringing upon education with the millennium scholarship, the federal government is now set to repeat its feat in health with a national home care program, in spite of the fact that health is an exclusive provincial jurisdiction?

[Health, March 10th, 1998]

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

Last week the minister stated that the provinces' priorities for health were not the right ones. Yesterday, the minister indicated that the priority was to establish a national home care program.

How can the minister responsible for billions of dollars in cuts in health care, via the Canada social transfer, be so arrogant as to contend that provincial governments have set the wrong priorities regarding health?