Chris Axworthy

[Child Care, December 14th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the child care initiative announced yesterday by the Minister of Human Resources Development is a small step in the right direction, but only 12 per cent of Canadian children who need licensed child care have access to it, compared with 80 per cent in many European countries. The 362,000 regulated child care spaces in Canada barely scratch the surface, as there are 3.1 million children in need.

The Liberal government is using budgetary restraint as an excuse for not developing a real national child care program and it has already slashed $7 billion in social programs, thus compounding the problems the less well off children in Canada face.

The government has also chosen to download its responsibilities on to the provinces, which are already strapped for cash. Plainly some provinces will not be interested in participating in this offer of child care partnership, and then what will become of the children in those provinces?

Unfortunately the government does not understand our children are our future and that now is the time for real and full commitment to Canada's greatest resource in the form of universal, accessible and non-profit child care.

[Employment Insurance Act, December 11th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, some time ago I asked the Deputy Prime Minister some questions about health care and post-secondary education social program cuts.

I pointed out that Liberal members were in opposition to similar but not so deep Conservative government cuts, but once they moved to the government side there had been a change of heart. I asked whether or not tearing down the institutions of health care, post-secondary education and social programs was a way of building a unified country. The answer was no, yet the cuts continue.

The reports and analyses we have show that the government's cuts to health care, post-secondary education and social programs are the deepest we have seen in the last 50 years.

The race is on to decentralize the federal government and to slash social spending, so say the slashers, to save Canada. Unfortunately the decentralizers and social program blood-letters may well destroy the country before they save it.

In the wake of the rather narrow no vote in the referendum the government feels compelled to carve up pieces of Ottawa's powers as a show of good faith to Quebec and provincial politicians are champing at the bit for more power.

How can the country achieve unity when the government continues to destroy our safety net? We do not have to be experts to realize that we cannot save Canada if its very foundations are being undermined.

What about the interests of Canadians, particularly the interests of vulnerable Canadians? Lest we forget, social programs helped create a compassionate society and support the robust economy that now seems almost a nostalgic memory. Lest we forget, social programs greatly reduced the glaring inequities between rich and poor Canadians and between have and have not provinces. As we have seen those greater cuts, we have seen the inequities between rich and poor grow larger. Above all, lest we forget, Canada's health care and social system would never have come to be without federal leadership and federal dollars.

Alas, Conservative and Liberal governments have forgotten that between 1984 and 1993 the Mulroney government killed universal old age pensions and family allowances. It also made two deep cuts to unemployment insurance and reduced the social housing budget. The government of the hon. member for Saint-Maurice has continued down the path of cuts and devolution. It has made unprecedented cuts to unemployment insurance and has announced dismantlement of the Canada assistance plan. The government has clearly forgotten the path which took us to unity.

Throughout these changes Canadians have had no say in reshaping their social policy. As a result, allow me to voice the views of millions of Canadians who are trying to remind the government which path to take. Canadians are saying whenever they are asked that social programs played a major role in building Canada's society, economic system and political system over the last 50 years. Canadians are saying that social programs make Canada a distinct society and play an essential part in rebuilding Canada.

Canadians are screaming that we need strong and efficient social programs for a strong economy and a strong Canada. The most effective social policy is an effective economic policy that invests in job creation, community economic development and skills development.

Canada will not achieve unity under the government because it refuses to listen to what Canadians are saying. In the difficult months and years to come, the government must remember how social programs have helped to define the country. Social programs such as unemployment insurance embody the values of a civil society, one in which people care for and care about each other.

Most important, in these unstable political times and insecure economic times it is crucial to remember how much social programs have contributed to Canadian unity. If Canada is to survive, Ottawa must provide courageous and effective leadership

along the path to rebuilding Confederation. It must stop slashing social programs.

[Federal Government, December 11th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, two announcements in the past week demonstrate that the government's approach to reducing the deficit protects the rich and punishes the poor.

The Minister of Human Resources Development picked the pockets of unemployed Canadians to the tune of $1.9 billion, yet all the top banks in Canada have announced billion dollar profits for the last year. Clearly the federal government is forcing the burden of paying the huge debt, which it and the Conservatives have created, on the least affluent in Canada.

The federal government provides absolutely no funding for the UI program and one wonders what moral authority it has to attempt to reduce the deficit with money contributed to the UI fund by ordinary Canadians. Ordinary Canadians are being forced to do more than corporate citizens to reduce the deficit. With obscenely high bank profits, the government is not taking any measures at all to ensure that they too are paying their fair share of the deficit.

These two contrasts simply show how natural it is for the Liberal government to look after its corporate friends. Maybe some day we will have a government for the people, by the people.

[Unemployment Insurance, December 5th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development.

The last government walked away from the unemployment insurance fund and this government has done nothing to bring itself closer. Would the minister tell us why he thinks he has the moral authority to take another $1 billion out of the pockets of unemployed Canadians on top of the $7 billion he took out last year to use to pay down the deficit, which those people made no contribution in creating?

[Criminal Code, November 30th, 1995]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-363, an act to amend the Criminal Code (juvenile prostitution).

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today to introduce this private member's bill for first reading. It provides that a Canadian citizen be tried in Canada where that citizen has sexually exploited children overseas.

We all know there is a multibillion dollar sex trade, particularly in Asia. Other countries, in particular the United Kingdom and Sweden, have taken measures to ensure that their citizens who commit crimes against children, which is surely one of the most heinous crimes we can imagine, are tried in their home country.

Article 35 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Canada was instrumental in implementing, states that governments have the obligation to ensure that children are protected from all forms of sexual exploitation.

I recommend the bill to the House. I congratulate an organization called End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism, which has worked very hard to ensure that this trade be stopped.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed.)

[Auditor General Act, November 20th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, a little while ago I asked the Minister of Human Resources Development what he thought of Statistics Canada reports that Canadians with lower levels of education are having serious difficulties in the workforce. How did he see the serious, significant reduction of funds to post-secondary education and how did he think it would affect the generation of opportunities Canadians need.

Education is a right of all Canadians. Research studies suggest that technical institutes, colleges and universities offer Canadians the most fertile ground for future prosperity and a place in the workforce. In today's information economy, the job prospects of Canadians and their earnings are increasingly dependent on what they know. The success of Canadians and, indeed, of Canada's future rests on the notion of accessible and affordable post-secondary education for all who can benefit from it.

This unfortunately is not the case in Canada. With the present government's policies these crucial objectives are farther from being met than ever before.

Studies reveal that the majority of post-secondary education students originate from an upper middle class socioeconomic background. Higher tuition fees and increasing living expenses are creating huge debt loads for students and reducing accessibility for potential university and college students.

More effort, not less, needs to be directed to ensuring that young people from sections of society which are presently under represented in our post-secondary education institutions are provided with opportunities to study. Post-secondary education must be available to all Canadians if Canada is to prosper.

A recent Statistics Canada study reveals that educational requirements have risen so sharply that young Canadians now need a university degree to earn roughly as much as a high school graduate in the same age group earned a decade before. Over the same period the earnings of high school graduates decreased by about a quarter. Those without high school certificates have an even more difficult time of it.

Young people have lost significant ground over the last decade. However it is also important to recognize that the incomes of university graduates have grown rapidly with work experience, while high school graduates have only seen modest gains.

The broad point is that future economic growth for Canada and for Canadians will depend on how much education Canadians attain. The country and the government need to commit themselves to the notion that all Canadians have a right to accessible and affordable education. Quality education should not only be available to the rich.

Over the last 15 years under successive Liberal and Conservative governments this right has been eroded by drastic cuts to funding. Considering that only 43 per cent of young Canadians in the 25 to 29 year old age group had a high school diploma in 1993, the future of Canada's economy does not look bright unless we turn the situation around.

In 1995 university applications were down about 5 per cent on average for first year university places. This is the sharpest drop of its kind in more than 20 years. We are going in the opposite direction to what Canada needs. With nearly half of young Canadians facing a future of low or stagnant incomes, high unemployment and diminishing opportunities for full time work, we are headed toward a polarized society and an economy functioning at well below desired objectives if we do not reduce the educational deficit.

Despite all the evidence showing that higher education is a prerequisite to prosperity both for Canadians and for Canada, the federal government continues to cut funding for post-secondary education; a 25 per cent cut to health, post-secondary and social programs, the deepest cut since the second world war.

The government states that we cannot afford the cost of investing in our young people and of investing in the future. It must start listening to common sense. The government must not cut Canadians' lifeline to future prosperity. Instead it must start listening to young Canadians who want a quality future, a quality workforce and the opportunity to contribute to a quality economy and a quality society.

These drastic cuts to post-secondary education cannot be justified. Since the government has forgotten, I will remind it once again that funding for post-secondary education is a critically important investment in Canada's future. Canadians and Canada deserve better.

[The Late Mr. Justice Emmett Hall, November 20th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it is indeed an honour for me to rise today on behalf of my colleagues in the New Democratic Party caucus to pay tribute to one of Canada's and Saskatchewan's greatest sons, Mr. Justice Emmett Hall.

It perhaps seems trivial at a time like this to simply talk about a great man's achievements and to reiterate the many honours achieved in his lifetime. As the Very Reverend Len Morand said in delivering the homily at Mr. Justice Hall's funeral service in Saskatoon, if we were to simply list the man's honours he would have more medals than a Russian general.

As important as these honours may be, there is something more important and more enduring for each of us to take from Justice Hall's life. He was a visionary and a pioneer. In his professional and personal life he created many landmarks which now serve to mark our course as a great country, as a caring and compassionate country; guide posts and landmarks which still guide us today.

He is perhaps best known for his historic and heroic Royal Commission on Health Services which paved the way for the rest of Canadians to enjoy the universal health care service that was born in Saskatchewan.

Even then, in 1964, Justice Hall was looking far into the future, talking about the second stage of medicare, about enhanced services to seniors, dental care, pharmacare and much of what we in Saskatchewan now call the wellness model.

He foresaw a Canada with an ongoing, permanent commitment to a universal and improving health care system. He served as an inspiration to those who continued to battle for just that.

It would be unfair to ignore some of Justice Hall's other great accomplishments. His sense of justice and his belief in our sense of community guided him to make a number of other remarkable changes to this nation and to our culture.

He was an early advocate of the equality of women. He set that concept into law with his precedent setting 1961 decision which ruled that a homemaker's contribution to the household was no less than that of the income earner. It was groundbreaking in 1961 and still is guiding us today.

A religious and spiritual person, Mr. Justice Hall also believed it was important to keep promises. His courageous Nisga'a land claim decision of the 1970s helped the nation keep its promise. It was courageous in the 1970s and still is guiding us today.

There were, of course, many political leaders in attendance at Justice Hall's funeral service in Saskatoon last week. The Premier of Saskatchewan was there. The Minister of Health and the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food were there. I hope that each of them used the occasion to commit himself or herself to the vision of a caring nation of supportive communities of which Mr. Justice Hall so ably spoke and for which he so determinedly fought.

More important than the dignitaries who were in attendance is the fact that hundreds of ordinary people joined in to pay tribute to a man whose many deeds have touched the lives of every Canadian.

One of the scriptural readings at the service was the letter from Timothy, in which he talks of fighting the good fight. Justice Emmett Hall committed his life to fighting that good fight and it is up to each of us to continue it.

[Social Programs, November 20th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development.

I was looking through Hansard and found that when the budget was debated in 1991 the then member for Winnipeg South Centre criticized the cuts by the provincial government in health care, social programs and post-secondary education. He said:

As a result, the ability to have any kind of national system of education and health care now stands in jeopardy.

He also said that these cuts cut the very fundamental institutions on which people depend and that they were being dismantled.

Since the minister was so critical of measures considerably less harsh than those his government has taken, could he say why the cuts to education, health care and social programs, much deeper than the last government's, are so good when the last government's cuts were so bad?

[Louis Riel, November 20th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, last Thursday I had the honour to be invited by the Metis Nation of Saskatchewan to join them to commemorate the 110th anniversary of the hanging of Louis Riel, a most important date on the Metis calendar.

That the Metis community would come together to mark one of the gravest crimes ever committed by the Canadian government against one of its leaders says a lot about the determination and the patience of the Metis people.

To some degree history has put Riel's contributions to Canada into perspective. The House has pardoned him of the crime for which he was executed and now he is rightfully recognized as a Father of Confederation. While we have made some retribution to Riel's memory we have failed as a nation to properly recognize the role that the Metis have had in building this country and their rightful role in its future.

Riel was twice elected to sit as a member of this House and it is an honour to be in the same House as someone whose commitment to justice and to the west was so firm.

Last Thursday's ceremony was a reminder of the continuing struggle for justice that the Metis people are waging and the need on the part of Canada to redress the years of injustice. Each of us in this House has an important role to play in that struggle.

[Education, November 9th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development.

StatsCanada has recently confirmed that young Canadians with lower educational qualifications have suffered very badly in the job market over the last five years. The statistics confirm that without a post-secondary education the doors for employment have been slammed shut for young Canadians. We know that education is the pathway to the future for young people, yet the government has been cutting billions of dollars from transfers to post-secondary education to the provinces.

How can the minister justify these cuts to the tens of thousands of young Canadians who are seeing their opportunities choked off by the government's actions?