André Harvey

[An Act To Give Effect To The Requirement For Clarity As Set Out In The Opinion Of The Supreme Court Of Canada In The Quebec Secession Reference, February 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I must admit that the hon. member saw things in their true perspective and that he has a good grasp of history.

The member has an accurate recollection of what happened and, as a matter of fact, positions which received the support of the Quebec caucus usually dealt with the future.

I invite those from the other side to reflect on the consequences of this bill because I am convinced that, not necessarily in the short run but in few years from now if there is another referendum, this bill will be an asset for those campaigning for the yes side, and I am convinced that the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs will bitterly regret what he has done.

I therefore ask him, in a very friendly way, to withdraw this bill. It would be the best proof of goodwill and I ask unanimous consent to do so.

[An Act To Give Effect To The Requirement For Clarity As Set Out In The Opinion Of The Supreme Court Of Canada In The Quebec Secession Reference, February 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the least I can say is that I invite the minister to give second thought to the strategy adopted by his government in the last 30 years. The figures are clear. The sovereignist vote in Quebec went from 20% to 49.4%. What will it be next time?

I ask the government to focus less on the needs of professional hockey teams and on those of our banking system, which is closing branch after branch our regions. I ask the government to focus on the real issues that concern people and every family tonight, instead of proposing a bill which is simply redundant and which shows a lack of respect for the national assembly and for every legislative assembly in Canada.

I am sure that, in order to do productive work, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs will have to work closely with the provinces.

We heard a lot about social union. Nobody understands it. If social union can be instrumental in establishing a guaranteed minimum income for the poorest in our society, it could be a very interesting initiative for the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, and I can assure him of our support and our willingness to analyze this issue, which is presently being looked at all over the world.

Even in the United States, the Americans established an inquiry which decided that this was probably the way to go. They did not implement the report, but it does not mean it was not good.

I ask the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs to put aside for a while his constitutional obsession, to work on real issues and to find solutions that will get the big and small regions of our country out of poverty.

[An Act To Give Effect To The Requirement For Clarity As Set Out In The Opinion Of The Supreme Court Of Canada In The Quebec Secession Reference, February 7th, 2000]

This year, tax revenues from the GST, which was supposed to be abolished, will be $24 billion. The House should be reminded without demagoguery that the purpose of the GST was supposed to be to reduce taxes. Unfortunately, we did not remain in office long enough to complete the tax reform. Taxes have never been reduced.

Concerning the poverty issue, our party, through a committee that is co-chaired by my colleague for Shefford, and with the co-operation of the Bloc Quebecois—we should give credit where credit is due—has undertaken to examine seriously the issue of a guaranteed minimum income. The current situation is not normal, and we will not be content with 2%, 3%, 4% or 5% increases in certain small programs in the next budget.

We want the government to consider, as it is being done in Europe and in many other countries, the issue of the citizens' right to an income, commonly called the guaranteed minimum income. We are ready to co-operate with the government, because our dozens of programs are totally inefficient. We should fight poverty, not the poor. We are ready to co-operate on issues such as this one, but do not count on us to wholeheartedly endorse Bill C-20, which is making use of the supreme court decision as a means to win the next election. I could go on and on.

[An Act To Give Effect To The Requirement For Clarity As Set Out In The Opinion Of The Supreme Court Of Canada In The Quebec Secession Reference, February 7th, 2000]

I am proud to be a Progressive Conservative because my party has always drawn on the noblest feelings of Canadians, including reconciliation. I am happy to quote our present leader, the Right Honourable Joe Clark, who said that the Prime Minister has been playing a dangerous game for the past 30 years and that he will never be able to hold Quebec back.

Whatever applies to Quebec also applies to Alberta and British Columbia. Whether in a family, a region, a province or a country, it is impossible to force people to remain within an institution against their will. Unfortunately, we underestimate the impact of this bill on the subconscious of all Canadians, starting with that of Quebecers, but also that of our English speaking counterparts, because this will leave a mark.

Canadians have a number of concerns, not only down to earth ones, but also profoundly existential ones. It is not right to monopolize the energies of all politicians in the country, particularly those in this House and in the national assembly, to discuss an issue that does not interest our fellow citizens at this time.

My feeling is that this is pure provocation motivated by political gain because they cannot, in earnest, copy the supreme court decision and make us believe this is in the best interest of Canada.

This is my guess—I could be wrong and, if I am mistaken, my colleagues will let me know: the present government got 38% of the votes and, for it to maintain its current status, there has to be at least four or five opposition parties. There has to be some forty members of the Bloc, the Reform Party, the NDP and the PC Party, and the best way to achieve that is to play that chord.

The chord still elicits a response, but I am not sure that the government will make it to the next election with the 1997 scenario, two weeks before the election, when the Prime Minister said that 50% plus one was not enough. We remember what happened in election terms. I am sure that this government will not be able to draw on the same sentiments, Canadians' strongest.

What I fear at the moment is that, when most of the considerations and concerns of our fellow citizens have been improved—the concerns of our fellow citizens must be considered. Imagine people at home without a job, with young children, who have a hard time meeting the basic needs and who see us debating a matter of clarity and significant majority. It is crazy.

It is totally embarrassing for parliamentarians who are supposedly responsible to agree to this debate when we realize that the real clarity our fellow citizens want us to debate, want us to take a stand on, pertains, among other things, to health care. It is totally dramatic, and not only in Quebec.

And all this time the government is busy talking about home care when we know very well the source of all the surpluses it is currently using to create new programs, prepare its platform and play wildly partisan politics.

They were eked out of measures put in place by the Progressive Conservatives. With respect to the free trade agreement, which enabled us to increase our exports in a few years from $90 billion to $250 billion, have you considered the net profit from these trading activities?

I notice my colleague from Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, who does not have a selective memory. He remembers very clearly the matter of the GST. We have paid dearly for the matter of the GST. Some members beat us because they promised to do away with it.

[An Act To Give Effect To The Requirement For Clarity As Set Out In The Opinion Of The Supreme Court Of Canada In The Quebec Secession Reference, February 7th, 2000]

I will skip the years 1984 to 1993, because I am not at all ashamed to be a member of the Progressive Conservative Party. Our predecessors drove the debt from $18 to $200 billion. They have managed to increase it elevenfold in nine or ten years. We only doubled it.

The constitutional issue was another mess. Had the Meech Lake accord not been a failure, we would not be here discussing this issue.

The failure of this agreement was not co-ordinated by the Canadian people; it was the doing, once again, of a few politicians.

At the time, polls were conducted across the country, not only in Quebec, and 92% of Canadians supported the agreement. But some politicians, and they were not members of the Progressive Conservative Party, made the whole thing fail.

[An Act To Give Effect To The Requirement For Clarity As Set Out In The Opinion Of The Supreme Court Of Canada In The Quebec Secession Reference, February 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I intend to preface my comments not with a quote from the executive director of an NPO or other community organization but with one from the International Monetary Fund managing director Michel Camdessus. He urged northern countries as well as Southern countries to think about the fight against poverty, which he feels must become the priority of all governments.

When we look at what has been going on here, in this country, in the past few days, with the government tabling a bill that is essentially a duplication of the supreme court decision, we have the right to wonder what the government is really trying to achieve. It talks about a clear question without defining it very much. I think a question can be clear without being trivial or trite.

It talks about a substantial majority and a qualitative majority. Note that this is not specified either. There is nothing we can do about that as democratic parliamentarians. In the European common market, the Maastricht treaty was passed with a majority of 50% plus one.

This is totally incredible. We are coming back from a parliamentary recess. If there is one member of the House who met people who told him it is important to discuss the constitutional issue, I would like to have a chat with him tomorrow morning in my office.

We know that Canadians are facing huge difficulties. I believe that, in the last 30 years, the problem in Canada, in Quebec and in all the regions of the country, had to do much more with the demagogical attitudes of some politicians, and not of all Canadians.

An analysis of Canada's history in the recent past shows who was elected from 1968 to 1984. There was always provocation to crush Quebec's profound aspirations.

[Committees Of The House, December 15th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take advantage of the rationality of our colleague, the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot. I believe this bill was not introduced for very noble reasons.

I would like to know his opinion on the following. Is it possible that this bill was introduced for purely political reasons?

The Prime Minister reads the opinion polls. He has seen the outcome of provincial elections in the Atlantic region: three Tory governments out of four. He sees the polls in Ontario. He sees the relatively good showing of his long time enemy, Mr. Clark, who is certainly doing better in the polls than one year ago.

Would my colleague agree with my analysis, which, albeit superficial, is logical? That strategy reminds me of the declaration the Prime Minister made two weeks before the 1997 election, when he talked about 50% plus one. I say this for the benefit of my Bloc Quebecois colleagues.

Unfortunately, at the time we lost several ridings to the Bloc in Quebec. I suspect the Prime Minister is now using exactly the same election-minded strategy and is thinking “I need at least 40 Bloc members in Quebec and 60 Reform members in western Canada so that we can squeeze through with 38 or 40% of the vote”.

I have a feeling this bill was introduced for very practical reasons and not for reasons relating to the referendum.

[Points Of Order, December 15th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I ask for the unanimous consent of the House to table a document which will be inspiring for the government. There are parts of this document that deserve to be read very carefully. I ask for the unanimous consent to table the red book of the Liberal Party, in particular, those parts regarding cultural identity and cultural development.

[Bill C-20, December 14th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs.

After 30 years of provocation, what are the results? The percentage in favour of sovereignty has gone from 20% to 49.4%.

Does the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs want to know what the next step is? Is he aware that, if he did not exist, he would have to be invented to serve as the primary winning condition for the next referendum?

[An Act To Give Effect To The Requirement For Clarity As Set Out In The Opinion Of The Supreme Court Of Canada In The Quebec Secession Reference, December 14th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, in any parliamentary debate the NDP leader is considered to be, as a rule, very sensitive to social issues such as health care, education and poverty.

Would she not agree that the government is wasting our time with such a bill giving effect to a supreme court's decision?

It is going to drag on for months and months. In the meantime, the House will be monopolized by this one issue. Does the NDP leader not believe it is a waste of time not to deal with more practical issues the NDP usually cares about?