Jocelyne Girard-Bujold

[Main Estimates, 2002-03, June 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Chambly. This speech makes good sense and comes from the heart.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister says that the Prime Minister's Office costs $6.2 million. That is what he says in general terms. The Privy Council is looking for a budget of $101 million. There is a discrepancy of $95 million.

I would like to know what, in his opinion, this amount covers. Are there more sponsorships for good buddies? Does it include all the cases that the Bloc put on the table and for which it still has no answers? Are the good buddies all getting a bit?

[Main Estimates, 2002-03, June 6th, 2002]

Unbelievable. This makes no sense whatsoever.

[Main Estimates, 2002-03, June 6th, 2002]

Advisers.

[Main Estimates, 2002-03, June 6th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have an opportunity to take part in the debate on the main estimates. Six motions related to them will be debated and voted on in the course of this evening.

Since all of his Quebec colleagues made a commitment in the last federal election to invest close to $1.9 billion in strategic highways in Quebec, could the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister tell me where in the estimates the $2 billion figure for the strategic infrastructure program appears? The minister responsible for infrastructure tells us that some guidelines will soon be forthcoming to indicate when we will have the opportunity of getting some projects included in this program.

[Supply, June 6th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I have just witnessed au unimaginably inconsequential speech. This is an issue that is extremely important for the provinces. As for the members opposite, be it the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, or the Secretary of State for Financial Institutions, I do not know what they are doing over there.

I will have to ask the new Minister of Finance. He says “I am examining the situation. I will not be taking a position immediately. I am examining the situation to think about what I will do”. I appeal to him, to his heart and to his reason at the same time and I say to him “If you want to distinguish yourself, if you want to take into account a problem that is extremely important for the provinces, which are currently experiencing such great needs in health and education, then be serious and examine this quickly, but make the right decision”.

It is not to them that I address these remarks, it is to the Minister of Finance. My message to him is to act in the interests of the provinces to ensure that they are all treated equally. Is the Minister of Finance ready to take this into consideration and say that they will not require reimbursements from those who received overpayments and they will ensure that all of the provinces are on a level playing field? It is the minister I am addressing.

[Supply, June 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague in the Canadian Alliance and add my voice to his in questioning the new Minister of Finance.

This overpayment of billions of dollars is not the fault of the provinces. The error is the government's. I question the new Minister of Finance. He says he is giving serious thought to the situation. I call on him to do so quickly and to come to a decision, because this is a very serious matter.

The provinces are facing enormous problems in health care and education. The Minister of Finance is also responsible for infrastructures, and I think he should distance himself from the former Minister of Finance. He should say that they will not recover the overpayments from the provinces and that the government will establish a compensation mechanism to ensure fair treatment of all provinces.

This would be one way to say that he understands the situation, to admit that an overpayment was made and that it is not the fault of the provinces. He should give the provinces a shot of oxygen.

If the Minister of Finance did this, would my Alliance colleague agree to join with me in telling him it is a good thing to do and that this minister is reaching out to the provinces?

[Supply, June 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to take this opportunity to congratulate the Canadian Alliance member and to tell him that his remarks are responsible and make sense.

I cannot say the same for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister of Canada or the secretary of state for financial institutions.

It is unbelievable what this government expects people to swallow. Are we being led by illusionists, clowns who have no idea how ordinary people live, as my Canadian Alliance colleague has pointed out?

It is true that the government is only putting in 14 cents on the dollar in health. They can deny it all they like, but it is true. There is a fiscal imbalance in Canada, and they deny that too. They deny that they have paid down the debt and that they have a budgetary surplus because they have helped themselves to $44 billion out of the EI fund.

I would like to ask the Canadian Alliance member to give us other examples in the health sector.

[Highway Infrastructure, June 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, on Monday the Deputy Prime Minister said in the House, and I quote, “much of the strategic infrastructure fund will flow to municipalities”. However, commitments made by Liberals with respect to funding for Quebec highways are in the order of $1.9 billion.

Given that the fund only contains $2 billion, it is clear that the Deputy Prime Minister will not have enough money available to fund all of his colleagues' commitments.

Given this fact, will he tell us once and for all what the real intentions are for this fund? Which projects will be a priority?

[Pest Control Products Act, June 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-53 concerning pesticides.

At second reading stage, I spoke in support of the bill, but also suggested a number of improvements that should be included, including a re-evaluation, by 2006, of all pesticides registered before 1995. Unfortunately, Bill C-53, as it now stands, does not contain such a provision.

The Bloc Quebecois also proposed an amendment to prohibit for three years the registration or any new registration of pesticides used for cosmetic purposes.

Unfortunately, the government rejected it. I also raised concern about the lack of support for biological agriculture research. I always thought we should do everything in our power to end our dependency on pesticides and have a more biological and environmentally harmless agriculture.

All these suggestions came from the environment committee report entitled “Pesticides: Making the Right Choice for the Protection of Health and the Environment”, to which I had contributed. Unfortunately, Bill C-53 includes none of these proposals, which is quite deplorable. Nevertheless, this bill is a step in the right direction, considering that the most recent legislation, the Pest Control Products Act, dated back to 1969.

At least the bill contains positive elements, and I would like to mention a few.

The bill provides for better health and environmental protection through special protection for the newborn and children.

It takes into consideration the overall exposure to pesticides, including exposure through food and water and exposure to pesticides used in the home and school.

The bill also takes into consideration the cumulative effects of pesticides which have the same mode of action.

It encourages the reduction of risks posed by pesticides. For example, only pesticides contributing significantly to pest control are registered, and the dose and frequency of use have to be the lowest possible.

The bill also favours registration of low risk products through comparative risk assessment.

The bill would make the registration process more transparent by making it public and allowing access to detailed assessment reports on registered pesticides.

Thus, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, or PMRA, will be allowed to share scientific data with provincial, territorial, and international regulatory agencies. It will make for a better international joint review process by giving Canadian producers equal access to new and more secure pesticides that will help them be more competitive on the market.

The bill would provide more stringent controls on pesticides after their registration by requiring from the producers a statement of the negative impact of pesticides on human health.

It would require a re-evaluation of older pesticides 15 years after their registration. The minister would have the power to ban pesticides if the required data was not provided.

The bill would also provide increased powers of inspection and higher maximum penalties of up to $1 million for the most serious offences, when pesticides are not marketed or used in accordance with the law.

The bill would allow public input in the regulation of pesticides through consultations held before important decisions are made concerning registration.

The public could also contribute to the regulation of pesticides through special reviews and re-evaluations. Under the 2002 PCPA, everybody can ask the minister for a special review of a pesticide.

Moreover, the public could have an input through the reconsideration of a registration decision.

Under the 2002 PCPA, anyone may file a notice of objection to an important registration decision. In addition, the review will be open to the public, which will have numerous opportunities to participate and will have access to most of the information received by the review panel.

A public registry will include information on registrations, re-evaluations and special reviews, including the PMRA's detailed evaluations of the risks and values of pesticides.

With respect to test data, the public may inspect the results of scientific tests submitted to justify registration applications.

I applaud all these measures, but we could go further still. We are at report stage and we still have an opportunity to put forward amendments to improve the bill.

Our goal today is to have Bill C-53 reflect the recommendations in the report of the standing committee on the environment, which I cited earlier, or the measures which Quebec is getting ready to take. I would like to mention a few of these.

Last March, Quebec created a focus group on the use of pesticides in urban areas, which has released a report proposing various measures. One of these measures is to increase research and development budgets for alternatives to pesticides in order to encourage all initiatives in this regard and to help make them accessible to the public.

The group also called on the government to implement a communication plan including—and I am still speaking about Quebec—a periodically repeated national campaign to inform the public about the risks of using pesticides and about managing the environment; and to develop information tools, brochures, and a website aimed at citizens who wish to buy pesticides or services requiring the use of pesticides, or who wish to use alternative methods.

The government of Quebec has already approved several of these measures. Right now, the national broadcasting service is televising warnings about the use of pesticides in an urban setting. A number of municipalities in Quebec are getting ready to introduce motions prohibiting the use of pesticides to improve the appearance of lawns within their jurisdiction.

These are tangible measures which this government should have taken in Bill C-53, but it did not go far enough. It stopped short. One might think it had made commitments to pesticide manufacturers.

Why does the government not join Quebec? Why does it not provide funding to Quebec to lead an even more effective campaign so we can stop the use of pesticides in urban areas?

These are positive measures that can be taken, and I find it unfortunate that the federal government does not go that far in Bill C-53. There are alternatives to pesticides, but the government has to promote them. From what we have heard from the Minister of Health, she seems to think that the mere passing of this bill will be enough. People will keep spraying their lawns with carcinogenic chemicals just for the sake of having a nice lawn, without being informed by the federal government of the potential, but nonetheless real, danger of using pesticides.

We must go further, and the amendments before us today would take us there. If the government, particularly the Minister of Health, believes in the precautionary principle, if it wants to protect the health of children and pregnant women, it will have to adopt these amendments as soon as possible.

I think that right now, at report stage, the Minister of Health should make a necessary addition by including a date in this bill. It should be specified that the cosmetic use of pesticides in urban areas will be banned within three years.

I hope that the minister will be proposing other amendments before this debate is over.

[Nuclear Safety and Control Act, June 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to second what my colleague from Sherbrooke just said. It would be a good idea to start in this very chamber. Just imagine how much we could improve the quality of the environment in Quebec and in Canada.

I urge the Minister of the Environment, who is here in the House, to take the necessary steps to finally ratify the Kyoto protocol and develop wind energy, especially in the Gaspe peninsula.