Lost his last election, in 2006, with 30% of the vote.
National Defence April 28th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence.
The auditor general has criticized the fact that 66% of military equipment expenditures are unnecessary.
How does the minister explain that, of three billion dollars in annual purchases, two billion dollars' worth of equipment are not required by the army?
Income Tax Amendments Act, 1997 March 26th, 1998
Madam Speaker, I heard about this document but, unfortunately, I did not have time to find out what happened to it.
However, I want to reassure the Reform Party member that, regardless of the language we speak, we are in a global market. We are in the process of signing all sorts of agreements with various countries, and I cannot see why Canada would refuse a business partnership with a sovereign Quebec.
All this is academic, but one thing is sure: when we have all the necessary levers, we will be able to negotiate on behalf of a sovereign Quebec, and the rest of Canada will also benefit from this new Quebec-Canada structure.
Income Tax Amendments Act, 1997 March 26th, 1998
Madam Speaker, the problems mentioned by the NDP member from Nova Scotia are quite similar to the ones we have in Quebec. My riding is also very regional; we have small and medium size businesses and we also have social problems. The government is not making any effort to reduce the tax burden of individuals and of small and medium size businesses, with the result that these people and businesses have a hard time being competitive.
In the context of globalization and free trade, the federal government should be more receptive to ordinary people, but I doubt it will be.
Income Tax Amendments Act, 1997 March 26th, 1998
Madam Speaker, I was reading from a text. That is why I departed from the rule. “Nonetheless, the Minister of Finance sponsored this bill and certain members have expressed the view that this constitutes an apparent conflict of interest”.
The hon. member opposite is not reading the same documents we read on February 17, 1998. If the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance is so certain that the minister is not in conflict of interest, why, when we asked the Standing Committee on Finance to hear witnesses on this state of affairs, was our request to hear from the ethics counsellor, Howard Wilson, the only one granted, but all our other requests turned down?
This is why we in the Bloc Quebecois and the opposition parties are once again raising the issue, because we feel that the word has gone out across the way not to shed light on this matter. A finance minister in a situation such as this must tell the truth.
Income Tax Amendments Act, 1997 March 26th, 1998
Madam Speaker, I have here Mr. Wilson's statement. On page 7, he says “Nonetheless, Mr. Martin sponsored this bill and certain members—”
Income Tax Amendments Act, 1997 March 26th, 1998
Madam Speaker, we are now at the final stage of Bill C-28, a bill that has been widely talked about this past month.
While this bill is just hours from being passed, the persistent doubt the people of Quebec and Canada have concerning clause 241, which would place the current Minister of Finance in an apparent conflict of interest situation, has still not been dissipated.
In spite of the dozens of questions asked by the Bloc Quebecois and the other opposition parties, the Prime Minister and his Deputy Prime Minister have been passing the buck to each other in this House, systematically refusing to provide answers to the opposition, which wants this matter clarified once and for all.
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 to say that there was an apparent conflict of interest.
In this respect, while the Liberals are doing their very best to protect their finance minister's image, I will take a moment today to quote exactly what the ethics counsellor said in his testimony before the finance committee; incidentally, he was one of the very few witnesses allowed to testify before the committee.
We will share with you what we have heard Harold Wilson himself say. On the subject of whether the Minister of Finance may receive information on his holdings placed in trust, he stated that all ministers “may receive is periodic information on the overall value but not the composition of their holdings, as well as data sufficient for the purposes of filing their taxes”.
He stated further “A blind trust agreement was not appropriate, however, in Mr. Martin's situation, since his holdings are not publicly traded. In this type of situation, my office requires the establishment and disclosure of a blind management agreement. This places in the hands of the supervisors or trustees the assets held by Mr. Martin in Passage Holdings. Mr. Martin is obviously completely aware of the nature of his private interests”.
No wonder the Minister of Finance is tempted to hide in Bill C-28 a clause which would benefit his little ships.
Mr. Wilson also argued that certain provisions of Bill C-28 were in fact dealt with by the secretary of state so that his boss, the finance minister, would not be put in an awkward position.
Mr. Wilson was clear on this. He said “It is the secretary of state who made all the decisions. Therefore, there was no real conflict of interest. Still, Mr. Martin sponsored the bill and some members were of the opinion that this in itself is an apparent conflict of interest”.
Mr. Wilson added “If I had been informed ahead of time, before the bill was introduced, discussions would have taken place on how to best proceed to introduce the bill on behalf of the Minister of Finance, who is responsible for all tax legislation”.
The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister continue to deny these facts. Why? As we know, the Liberals were told to keep their mouths shut on this issue. It is clear. The gag order given by the Prime Minister to his caucus has been complied with ever since the whole thing came up in the House.
Since February 5, when the Bloc Quebecois showed what is really behind Bill C-28, the opposition has had to deal with a gag order co-ordinated by the Prime Minister's office. Why do the Prime Minister and his government stubbornly refuse to give answers to the opposition on this issue? Why? Because they are embarrassed. They are trying to hide the truth regarding this issue.
Let us not forget that the ethics counsellor clearly said in his testimony that the bill had not been drafted in according with the rules and that, if this had to be done again, some specific measures would have to be taken to avoid a repeat of this situation.
Mr. Wilson is the Prime Minister's ethics counsellor. He is not an independent counsellor, he is paid by the Prime Minister. A historic precedent took place when representatives of the four opposition parties held a joint press conference to ask the government to get to the bottom of the issue. Again, the Prime Minister said no. He did not want to comply with the opposition's request. The Liberals stubbornly refuse to shed light on this very suspicious matter.
Early in the week, in order to solve this impasse, which is totally the doing of the Prime Minister, the Bloc Quebecois proposed a reasonable solution: to take clause 241 out of the bill. Again, the Liberals said no. When the vote was taken last evening in this very House, the Minister of Finance, the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister were all conspicuously absent. Pure coincidence? No, rather part of the Prime Minister's day-to-day plan to continue to protect the image of the Minister of Finance in this case.
A few minutes ago, my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot introduced another amendment to refer Bill C-28 back to the Standing Committee on Finance. That would enable us to question witnesses so as to clarify the situation for once and for all. I therefore wish to state that I fully endorse the amendment proposed by my colleague for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, which in my opinion reflects the numerous opposition interventions over the past month or more.
Moreover, it is in the same vein as the proposal made in this House by the Prime Minister. When he was being questioned about Bill C-28, he said: “If you are not satisfied with the answers, use the Standing Committee on Finance to ask all the questions you want to ask”.
That is what we are calling for today. We are asking the Prime Minister to move the debate back to the Standing Committee on Finance. We will see then who is right.
Allow me to add that, if the Prime Minister and his government refuse this new request from our party as well, they will have to face negative public opinion.
I hardly need point out that the position of Minister of Finance in a Parliament like ours is a vital one, and its incumbent cannot draw even a hint of suspicion. He must have the full confidence of the public, particularly since we are well aware that this particular finance minister aspires to be Prime Minister some day. He would have no problem following in the footsteps of our present Prime Minister, mind you, since the PM contradicts himself continually in his statements in this House, except in the case of Bill C-28. That is another matter. He is protecting his Minister of Finance.
The Prime Minister has an opportunity to rebuild his credibility in the matter. He must accede to our latest request, otherwise we will continue our research. And so long as we have not obtained what we are after on behalf of the people, we will keep digging.
I would also like to raise other important points in this bill, including the points concerning transfer payments to the provinces. This government is stubbornly maintaining its planned cuts to the provinces. What the Prime Minister is trying to get us to swallow is twisted.
In fact, the Prime Minister is saying simply that the planned cuts of approximately $48 billion have been reduced to $42 billion. That means that the provinces and the people will have to face $30 billion in cuts, $12 billion of which will be in Quebec alone.
The additional billion and a half dollars announced by the Prime Minister and his Minister of Finance represents nothing more than a purely vote getting move. Who is going to pay the social costs of the budget policies of the present Liberal government? The sick, the unemployed and society's most disadvantaged. These are the people who are the true artisans of the balanced budget delivered last month by the Minister of Finance, not the Prime Minister or the Minister of Finance. The people are doing the work.
This new social injustice is unacceptable, and the Bloc Quebecois will vote against Bill C-28. We already know the Liberal reaction: the opposition will vote against a budget that gives more than planned to the provinces. We are familiar with it, the demagoguery of the current Prime Minister.
The truth is that this government refuses to admit to its responsibility for the state of health care services. When a government like the Liberal one cannot even acknowledge a poor choice in its latest budget, when we see the federal Liberals encouraging the government to debate a matter of provincial jurisdiction, we begin to understand why this government and its disastrous Prime Minister are trying to hide the truth in the Minister of Finance's apparent conflict of interest in Bill C-28.
In closing, if the Prime Minister really wants to show his good faith in this matter, he should return Bill C-28 to the Standing Committee on Finance, enabling this Parliament and the people to see the situation in its entirety.
Ottawa Sun March 19th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, Conrad Black owns half the newspapers in Canada, including two French-language papers in Quebec.
But it is only in his English-language newspapers that can be found all the substance, content, and depth of the federalist arguments for Canadian unity.
This morning's Ottawa Sun carried two columns that are real gems. Earl McRae has all kinds of nice words to describe sovereignists: seditious rats, dumbs, loud-mouths, devious, anti-Canada, treacherous turncoats.
As for Linda Williamson, she compares the sovereignist movement in Quebec to ethnic nationalism in Yugoslavia.
These brilliant columnists want the Bloc Quebecois out of the House of Commons. That is exactly what we want too. In case they did not realize, we are working toward an independent Quebec. Conrad Black should publish editorials such as these in his French-language papers in Quebec. Their wish to do away with sovereignists in Ottawa would be fulfilled even sooner.
Supply March 17th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I think what the Reform members are suffering from is a lack of discernment.
They have trouble differentiating between a desk in the House of Commons and a podium in a public meeting. They are far from the same. In a public meeting, a partisan meeting, a person can do as he pleases, spout whatever propaganda he pleases. But what is involved here is a desk in the House of Commons. There are rules, this is an existing institution. The Reform Party is therefore suffering from an inability to differentiate.
As I see it, we in the Bloc Quebecois, and the other opposition parties, are in a position to see what the real problems are: employment insurance, the budget surplus.
I would ask the hon. member for Halifax if she sees the problems which are facing us, at this time, and which are doing enormous harm to the Canadian and Quebec economy.
The Budget February 26th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I note the question put by my colleague from Frontenac—Mégantic. Not only did the Minister of Finance do nothing for agriculture, he did nothing for SMBs. It is as if six rural ridings like our own were wiped off the Liberal government's list of priorities.
But things are coming to a conclusion. When Quebec is sovereign and a country, it will look after the real interests of Quebeckers, and I am sure that agriculture and the future of SMBs will be among the priorities of its government.
The Budget February 26th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, the other side of this House has some problems understanding.
I have just told his colleague that education is a Quebec jurisdiction. You have no business getting involved in it. Is that clear?
In the 1867 Constitution, education is a provincial matter. Mind your own business. You will see that Quebec will take proper care of its young people.