Jocelyne Girard-Bujold

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I meant to say the Prime Minister of Canada.

Several of my constituents from the riding of Jonquière asked me how much this cost, referring to the ceremonies surrounding the Speech from the Throne, everything that goes on that day and the next day, when there is a great celebration at Rideau Hall.

I could not give them a precise answer, but I told them that it certainly cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and that the breakfast club in Quebec would have been very happy to get this money to serve breakfast to children who go to school on an empty stomach because they do not have milk, bread, butter and fruit at home. I think that this money would have helped meet the needs of our children and of the breakfast club for several months.

This shows how unreal what is going on right now in Ottawa is. The government is totally out of touch with reality. More and more children are living in poverty, and the need for social housing is increasing. We also need more money for health care.

The Liberal who spoke just now said, “It's not true, there is no shortage of funding for health. The provincial governments have even got money hidden away”. But that is not true, as the Romanow report will tell us.

All reports that have been tabled in recent months, along with the one that will be forthcoming once the Romanow commission report is finished, are going to say that health funding is lacking. Who has forgotten to put in its share? Always the same ones.

Let us keep in mind that close to 40% of Quebec's budget is earmarked for health. So who is the one who forgot to pay into it? Again, the same government that is accusing the provinces of bad management.

We have only to look at what is going on as far as fiscal imbalance is concerned. There was unanimity in the National Assembly, from provincial Liberals, ADQ and PQ alike, that there is fiscal imbalance in Canada. Then there was the premiers' meeting , where it was also said that there was a fiscal imbalance in Canada. In the past two days, the Government of Quebec has called together all those concerned directly or less directly by the potential effects of this fiscal imbalance, the civil community. They too have agreed that such an imbalance does exist. The only ones who deny this are the members of the Liberal Party.

The feds have the money, and the provinces have the needs. Even the Conference Board—which I cannot imagine to be in favour of Quebec sovereignty or of breaking Canada up, or to hold any grudge against the federal government—says the same, and yet no reference was made to it in the throne speech.

It is one thing to look after themselves, but they are saying that they want what is best for Canadians. If we look at the Speech from the Throne, we see they do not want what is good for Canadians, but what is good for the Liberals, the great Liberal vision, and the vision for Canadians is unimportant.

The Minister of Finance said that Quebec has only to close its embassies abroad. I have taken part in international parliamentary meetings with people from Canada. There are nine English provinces and one French province in Canada and I did not hear many people praising the virtues of what is happening in Quebec.

Personally, I think it is our right. We are a distinct society and we have the right, outside of Quebec, to promote Quebec and to say who we are. I think that what the Minister of Finance said is an insult to the intelligence of Quebeckers.

I believe that the Speech from the Throne is a dull, insipid, flavourless and colourless speech. Fortunately the Prime Minister had appointed a new Governor General, if the former Governor General were still there, he would have said, “It seems to me I have already read this Speech from the Throne”. He read it in 1993, 1997, 2000 and again in 2001.

I think the Prime Minister of Canada did a cut and paste job on the computer, he cut and pasted it. That is what he did. He took parts of the speeches from 1993, 1997 and 2000 and only changed some of the wording.

For all these and many other reasons, this Speech from the Throne does nothing for Canadian society. I think that the Prime Minister will not come out of this as a winner. Journalists are saying it, and everyone is saying it: the legacy of this Prime Minister is not very edifying.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today, on behalf of my constituents in the riding of Jonquière, and to take part in the debate in reply to the Speech from the Throne.

It is October 9, 2002. The Speech from the Throne was read nine days ago on September 30.

All the commentators, English or French speaking, said that this September 30 Speech from the Throne was a mixture of old ideas. It is a patchwork assortment of ideas taken from the throne speeches of 1993, 1997, 2000 and 2001. Once again, the government of the Prime Minister has promised to take action on poverty and social housing. Unfortunately, the result is more and more negative.

What can be said about child poverty? In 1999, we had almost 950,000 poor children in this country, while we had only 800,000 in 1989. Hence, this Liberal government did not take action. It is a failure across the board. Yet, in 1989, a unanimous resolution by all political parties was passed here in the House of Commons, saying that they were committed to eliminating child poverty by 1999, that is 10 years later.

Today, in the Speech from the Throne, another project has been proposed for Canadians. The Speech from the Throne said that we must “—ensure that no Canadian child suffers the debilitating effects of poverty. Canadians and their governments have already taken significant steps in this direction”.

This Speech from the Throne rehashes old ideas. The people of Jonquière I met with last weekend realize that this government is laughing at them. They listen to the news, they read all the information and they say to themselves, “What they are saying makes no sense. We know there are more poor children. They have done nothing for poor children”.

When it comes to social housing, there has been nothing but inaction since 1993: no investments in social housing since 1993.

As for the environment, the government promised that we would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 6% from 1990 levels. That was supposed to be done by 2012. According to the Minister of Natural Resources, we have increased our greenhouse gas emissions by 35% since 1990. Inaction and failure across the board.

With respect to health care, I just listened to the Liberal member's remarks. As far as I am concerned, he is totally out of touch or is blinded by rage and can only see part of what is going on in that sector. The federal government is now putting in only 14 cents on every dollar. In the throne speech, it promised to convene a health ministers summit early in 2003 to lay the foundation for a comprehensive plan for reform. As we know, these are the same Liberals who made massive cuts in transfers to the provinces for health upon taking office in 1993. They will have waited 10 years and suffocated the provinces before taking action.

This means that, in return for the financial contribution it will make to the provinces in early 2003, Ottawa will give itself a free hand in deciding what the provinces should do in health care, when the whole area of health is a provincial jurisdiction.

In the throne speech, the government also promised to put money into infrastructure. In 2000, there was a Canada-Québec infrastructure program, and $1.6 billion was earmarked for the infrastructure program. It is well known how popular the program has been.

For the three parts of this federal-provincial agreement concerning infrastructure, the Quebec government received applications totalling $4.3 billion. This means that there is a shortfall of $3 billion to carry out all the projects submitted, and the Quebec government had to review all them, which it did very professionally, while determining which were the most important ones.

Again, instead of innovating, instead of creating new infrastructure projects in conjunction with the municipalities and perhaps looking after the provinces, this government says it will look after Canada's major cities. Why always major Canadian cities? The mayor of the major city in my region, Saguenay, says that it ranks sixth among Quebec's municipalities.

Why target only major cities like Vancouver, Montreal or Toronto? There are still applications totalling $3 billion on the table. If the government is serious about taking action, it should immediately put money on the table. Quebec said it was prepared to follow suit.

Last year, in the budget tabled by Ms. Marois, Quebec injected $500 million to allow municipalities faced with water problems to act quickly, should their projects not qualify under the Canada-Quebec infrastructure program.

Instead of reinventing the wheel, this government should put money on the table. We do not have to ask for projects. The projects are there, they have been examined and they are awaiting funding. Immediate action is required. With this program, I would see that they want to do something, that they are prepared to take immediate action. But after what we heard in the throne speech, I realize that this government is still saying “Perhaps; perhaps we will take action; perhaps we will do this”. What the government should do is take concrete measures.

Let us also talk about what they promised to do for public transit. During the last parliamentary session, I introduced a bill about which there was a consensus: the federation of urban carriers, the Canadian federation of urban carriers and the ACTU in the Outaouais region all supported this initiative. My bill went through second reading. It provided for a subsidy to public transit users.

When it was reviewed by the Standing Committee on Finance, Liberal members decided that my bill did not make sense. This is strange, because what is the Prime Minister of Canada doing six months later? He is going along the same lines as what is proposed in my bill and saying that everyone should contribute to improving public transit in Canada.

Why did the Liberals not take action when an opposition member made a similar proposal? Six months have gone by. During these six months, a lot could have been done to promote environmental issues, such as the plight of the increasing number of young Canadians who are suffering from asthma.

I realize that this government is making meaningless commitments, saying perhaps. It says, “Perhaps we will take action. Perhaps we will do something”. The Liberals are always right. They never take into consideration the proposals made by others. This is strange. We too were elected by voters who have common sense. They too have good ideas. In a democracy, one cannot always be on the side of power. It is very good for a democracy to have opposition parties.

Opposition members are intelligent, maybe more than those who are in office. We, opposition members, propose concrete measures to help society move forward, but because these ideas come from the opposition, the government thinks they cannot work. This is sad.

What Prime Minister Chrétien, the Prime Minister of Canada, is proposing in the throne speech is to promote public transit.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I seek the unanimous consent of the House to share my time with the member for Saint John.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform you that I will use 15 of the 20 minutes that are allotted to me. I ask that the five remaining minutes be allotted to the member for Saint John.

[World Refugee Day, June 20th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, in 2000, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution making June 20 of every year World Refugee Day.

With the new immigration act coming into force next week, the government has decided not to create a refugee appeal division. The representative in Canada of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees has long been critical of the absence of such an appeal mechanism.

The negotiations under way for a safe third country agreement with the United States, which might allow Canada to avoid its obligations to many refugees, is of very great concern. These facts require us to be vigilant and to question the present actions of the government.

The Bloc Quebecois wishes to point out that refugees make a significant contribution to our societies and that the need for security does not excuse the adoption of measures which call into question the fundamental principles of protecting refugees.

[Infrastructure Program, June 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce that the Kénogami curling club in my riding of Jonquière has obtained $100,000 in phase 3 of the infrastructure program.

With this funding, the club, which was founded in 1920 and has over 300 members, will be able to renovate its four sheets of ice. The Kénogami curling club is affiliated with Curling Québec and is the oldest of the region's seven clubs.

This project, which was studied and recommended to Ottawa by the Government of Quebec, is evidence of the commitment of Quebec's department of municipal affairs to the development of sport in the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean region.

It is also tangible proof that an opposition MP is capable of obtaining funding for her region, contrary to what certain misinformed people may say.

[Regional Development, June 14th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok knew 11 months ago what would happen.

Therefore, does the minister not agree that this way of doing things is irresponsible and that the federal government does not care about the development of the Gaspé?

[Regional Development, June 14th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok said that the government knew 11 months before the official announcement by Noranda that Murdochville's smelter, Mines Gaspé, would shut down.

The federal government did not even deign to pass this information on to the Quebec government or to the mayor of Murdochville.

Does the secretary of state for regional development not find it unacceptable and irresponsible that the government should keep to itself information that was critical to the fate of a whole town, since this resulted in missed opportunities to preserve the future—

[Pest Control Products Act, June 13th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel.

All of the aspects that he mentioned to those who are listening to us today, including members of the House of Commons, are very important. In the riding of Jonquière, farmers have also taken a greener approach to ensure that the next generations have a future, as my colleague pointed out.

However, as he said and I would like him to repeat that, the government always ensures that it has a good image internationally, but instead of being true to that image, when the time comes to take constructive measures to go forward, unfortunately it chooses to go backward. It provides no money to give some real meaning to this small step that it is taking. It does not even provide, in this bill, for the re-evaluation of registered pesticides that are already available. It does not open the door to the use of organic pesticides.

I want to ask a question of my colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, who is the Bloc Quebecois transport critic. Having been president of the Union des municipalities du Québec for several years and having been in contact with Quebec municipalities, he knows how important banning the use of pesticides is to municipalities because of their effects on health and the environment.

I would like to know if, in his discussions with his colleagues from municipalities, he felt that they were ready to adopt these new methods and if they were anxiously waiting for the federal government to take action in that regard.

[Pest Control Products Act, June 13th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take advantage of my colleague from Rosemont—Petite-Patrie's intervention to congratulate him once more for the great work that he has done on Bill C-53. He has done a remarkable job representing my party, the Bloc Quebecois, and I would like to pay tribute to him for that.

As my colleague said, we have to recognize that this government does speak from both sides of it mouth. On the international scene, it is boastful but when the time comes to pass legislation, it backs off. And what are we presented with? Nothing but an incomplete bill, when what we needed was a super bill. What is the government doing? I do not dare repeat the phrase we use in my part of the country because it would be declared unparliamentary.

The government just turned around and said “You know, we can pull the wool over the eyes of Canadians and Quebecers; they will not notice a thing. But on the international scene, we have to look good”.

These are people with an empty shell. This government is nothing but an empty shell. It looks good wrapped in cellophane, but when you unwrap it, you find a lot of incomplete things.