Jocelyne Girard-Bujold

[Highway Infrastructure, April 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, today, the Mayor of Ville de Saguenay came to meet the leader of the Bloc Quebecois and myself to tell us that Quebec had done its homework regarding highway 175 by signing the protocol, but that the federal government is desperately dragging its feet.

Could the Minister of Transport tell us what he is waiting for to make good on his government's election promises, so that construction of highway 175 can begin at the earliest opportunity?

[Excise Act, 2001, April 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak again today on Bill C-47, more particularly on the amendment of my colleague from Drummond.

I would like to commend my colleague for her amendment. She has been insightful. Thus, she is allowing the government to get out of a mess that the committee chair put it in, and that it agreed to.

We know that, in the Standing Committee on Finance, government members suffer from the fish school syndrome. When someone on their side says something, they do not try to know what is happening; they follow, they follow the fish school approach.

I would like to read the amendment to the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-47, which my colleague from Drummond has moved:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:

“Bill C-47, An Act respecting the taxation of spirits, wine and tobacco and the treatment of ships' stores, be not now read a third time but that it be read a third time this day six months hence.”

This is working seriously: working to solve problems that have been created since 1997. Those who acted in good faith did not expect this. As the Alliance member said earlier, the excise tax is a major source of revenue for the government. The Excise Tax Act mentions wine, spirits, tobacco, and beer as well. Since 1997, there have been talks about modernizing the excise tax. The Bloc Quebecois was in favour.

My colleague from Drummond said that in clause 2, on line 15 of page 2, beer is mentioned. However, we realized during the debate in committee that beer was not mentioned anywhere else in Bill C-47.

Yesterday, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance told me that this would be discussed later on, that it was not necessary to discuss it now. When a bill deals with a particular issue, we must talk about it. Why take a small part of an act and put it elsewhere saying that it is going to be discussed later? We never know what later means. To reassure everyone, we must do a complete study of everything that is included in a particular piece of legislation.

That is not what the Liberal Party is doing, nor is it what the finance committee and its chair did. As my colleague from Joliette, whom I congratulate on his remarks, was saying earlier, the issue of microbreweries is a regional concern.

In my region—I said it yesterday and I will say it again today because it is very important—we have a microbrewery called Brasserie de l'Anse, which is located in the small community of Anse-Saint-Jean. This small community needs small businesses to survive and to retain its identity. The Brasserie de l'Anse enables that community to do that. It is located in the riding of the member for Chicoutimi.

He rose in the House yesterday. I said to myself “He is finally going to say something to defend the interests of his constituents”. But I was very disappointed. He talked about public funding, about members of the Bloc Quebecois who are lingering in Ottawa and who are not doing anything. I never thought that I was not doing anything here. If he is only a liaison officer for the Liberal Party, then it is not surprising that he should behave this way.

I can say that we are here and that we are working very hard to defend the interests of our constituents. As a member of the Bloc Quebecois from the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean region and as chair of the caucus of Bloc Quebecois members, I look after the riding of Chicoutimi—Le Fjord.

I am very pleased to support the brewers in L'Anse-Saint-Jean, and I take their interests to heart. That is why I support the amendment moved by my colleague. The government should pause and reflect. It has left out of this bill an important part, and it affects the interests of workers and communities as a whole in the regions. It should do its homework once again, and undertake a new examination of this bill.

We are not asking for anything special. We are not asking for something that did not exist before. We simply want to abide by the Excise Tax Act. That is all.

I am very happy that my colleague moved this amendment. If the government is serious, it will rise to the occasion, and we will have a real debate on the microbreweries issue.

Microbreweries are found not only in Quebec, but throughout Canada. Our communities are proud of them. As my colleague from Joliette said earlier, I am very proud of my sense of belonging, and I am very proud of my own identity inside Quebec. I am very proud to say I am from the Saguenay region. A microbrewery is in touch with the identity that has developed within a specific area.

Mr. Speaker, you come from another region. You have another sense of belonging and other tastes, and you are proud to express them. Microbreweries are small or medium size businesses that represent a region and they also play that role.

I want them to keep on doing that. I want the government to remove its blinkers and say “Yes, we will look at the bill again. We will look into this excise tax business, which concerns everything we wanted to deal with at the beginning”. The government should review the matter seriously.

As we were saying, we agreed with Bill C-47 before our colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe--Bagot realized what had happened. We could not let this go through as it stands; it was too important. The Bloc Quebecois members are here to defend their respective communities. This affects my province and other communities throughout Canada.

I am a sovereignist from Quebec, but I have always respected everybody else's sovereignty and identity. We want each and every element to have its proper place in this bill. We want to ensure that each person and each company concerned, whether by the beer or by the tobacco issue, and each association be taken into consideration. We want a serious review of this bill.

Let the government members remove their blinkers, recognize reality and say “Yes, we will do our homework”. The Excise Tax Act has not been reviewed for a long time. Let us update it. There will not be another review for a long time. We have to do our homework carefully. It is true that this is an important source of financing for the government. It is also true that small communities and the microbreweries, which are important in their area, need some help.

The ball is in the government's camp. It is up to the government to do something. I hope that all the members will support the amendment moved by my colleague from Drummond.

[Excise Act, 2001, April 30th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I would like to use the questions and comments period to ask the hon. member what he thinks of the motion brought forward by my hon. colleague from Drummond, that this bill be not now read a third time but that it be read a third time this day six months hence.

I believe the member is from Manitoba where a lot of microbreweries had to close down. I would like to hear what he has to say about what happened. We have been asking for a review of the excise tax legislation since 1997 in order to include beer. I know that microbreweries in Manitoba had to close their doors due to unfair competition from the larger beer companies like Labatt and Molson. I would like to hear what he has to say about this irritant and what has been left out of the bill.

[Excise Act, 2001, April 29th, 2002]

He is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance.

Personally, I have always been very honest and I will not allow this individual to question my honesty or the honesty of the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe--Bagot.

Initially, in 1997, when it was decided to review the Excise Tax Act, the beer sector was part of the review. However, following a letter of the Brewers Association of Canada asking the chair of the Standing Finance Committee not to include beer, this is precisely what happened. I am not imagining things. This is the truth. If there is another truth it is not part of Bill C-47. Beer was supposed to be covered by Bill C-47 but it is not.

The parliamentary secretary should go back to square one and tell the government to include beer in Bill C-47. This would satisfy us and allow us to hold a dispassionate debate.

[Excise Act, 2001, April 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I do not accept the premise of the statement by the parliamentary secretary of I do not know what.

[Excise Act, 2001, April 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the attitude of the parliamentary secretary is truly deplorable and very mean. Initially, the beer sector was covered by the bill and by the excise tax. The Brewers Association of Canada wrote to the chair of the Standing Committee on Finance to suggest that the beer issue be set aside, which is what was done.

I do not know under which minister's authority this parliamentary secretary is working, but I hope it is not the Minister of Finance. If this is the case, I see that he does not understand anything and this is because he probably does not follow what is going on in the Standing Committee on Finance.

My colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe--Bagot does good work. He carefully analyzes everything that concerns finance. My colleague wanted everything to be transparent. He was right to ask for transparency but the Liberals did not want it.

The member should not say that the issue will be discussed elsewhere. On the contrary, it should have been and must be discussed during consideration of Bill C-47.

[Excise Act, 2001, April 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for Saint-Hyacinthe--Bagot. I believe that, yes, the more conditions there are imposed, the more equity there will be within this House of Commons. Let us not forget that the number of women in positions of command will be increasing, both in the government sector and in the private sector. There will also be men.

On the other side of this House, they boast of transparency. With the powers Motion No. 2 confers upon the chair of a committee, I believe the code of ethics should include chairs of committees, their spouses and anyone within their close circle who could influence decisions. I am not saying that this would be a good thing sometimes and a bad thing sometimes but there must be evidence of transparency.

According to a poll carried out last week, 70% of Canadians felt that politicians were not to be trusted. This government, being in power, must tell Canadians “Okay. You say we are not to be trusted, so we will take steps to make things clearer and to be more transparent”.

That is the solution. It is one of the solutions that must be advanced so there will finally be some worthwhile debates here in the House of Commons.

[Excise Act, 2001, April 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to continue with my speech on Bill C-47. As I said last Thursday, when I began my speech, I would like to give the House an overview of the situation. This bill deals with the taxation of spirits, wine and tobacco and the treatment of ships' stores.

The bill was also supposed to deal with beer. Unfortunately, when my hon. colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe--Bagot looked into it, he realized that the government had excluded beer from this legislation. He put forward amendments in committee so that the issue of beer and microbreweries could be considered.

We all know what happened then; everyone has heard about it. It created quite an uproar in the House of Commons. The chair of the Standing Committee on Finance, the hon. member for London West, determined that the amendments brought forward by my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe--Bagot were not in order.

Because of the new criteria set out in Motion No. 2, which was tabled by the Speaker when the House resumed, when amendments are moved in committee, they cannot be brought forward again in the House at report stage or at third reading.

So we can see that the chair of a committee wields a great deal of power, even more than a minister, since a minister cannot accept or reject amendments to a bill in committee.

Everyone knows what happened. The chair received a letter from the Brewers Association of Canada recommending that beer not be included in Bill C-47. Unfortunately, her spouse sits on the taxation committee of the brewers association.

We, in the Bloc Quebecois, have said—and I think it is perfectly normal—that when a person is approached directly by a family member or a close friend regarding an issue that has to do with regional development in particular, because microbreweries are most often found in the regions—that person must use his or her right to withdraw. Therefore, the member for London West, with whom it has always been a pleasure for me to work in the past, should have used her right to withdraw to give her place to someone else so that the committee could analyze the amendments proposed by the Bloc Quebecois. However, she did not do that.

That is why we said that there was the appearance of a conflict of interest and the appearance of collusion.

After taking all these factors into consideration, we, in the Bloc Quebecois, decided that the time had come to modernize this piece of legislation. At this time, we will not be able to vote in favour of Bill C-47. Why? Because microbreweries had to be included.

Microbreweries have enjoyed a nice share of the market these last few years, but it is decreasing. Why? Because they are the victims of unfair competition from large Canadian, American and also European brewers.

The excise tax for large breweries in Canada is 25 cents per hectolitre in Canadian currency, whereas it is 28 cents per hectolitre for microbreweries. In the United States, it is 24 cents.

Microbreweries there pay only 9 cents per hectolitre. We can see how unfair competition is and how it is killing our microbreweries.

As I said last week, in my area, in the Saguenay, we have a microbrewery located in Anse-Saint-Jean. Called Brasserie de l'Anse, it produces three different brands of beers: Illégal, Folie Douce and Royale. The current excise tax is extremely discriminatory for this small business in the Saguenay. As a matter of fact, seven years ago it was producing seven different brands. We can see how, through the years, because of how much money it must give the government, it has become less and less able to face the situation it is in because of the excise tax.

The amendments put forward by my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot at the Standing Committee on Finance would have at least made sure there was fair competition between Canadian, American and European importers. The Standing Committee on Finance chaired by the member for London West turned them down. It is deplorable.

As we know, microbreweries make an extremely important economic contribution to regions such as mine. For the most part, it is in the regions that microbreweries have developed. This has expanded a new niche, which helps the regions develop.

With Bill C-47, we are seeing in the House of Commons something I find unfair for an industry that should have been taken into account, as my colleague, the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, said last week.

It is rather deplorable to hear the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, in whose riding the brewery is located, claim to be concerned about the region's development, yet approve the decision by the member for London West and the absence of tax advantages for microbreweries. If the excise tax was lowered, as requested by the Bloc, it would help the Brasserie de l'Anse.

This is unfortunate, and I am truly disappointed by what is happening in this House. We are told to go to committee and put forward amendments. We do the work. We do it honestly. We review the bills. We try to improve them. However, I do not know what is the matter with this Liberal government. It thinks it knows is all. No matter how much we say how important something is, when the time comes to vote on the amendments, a score of Liberal members gang up and turn them down.

The government no longer shows any open-mindedness. What is going on now is beyond me. I can understand the frustration of some opposition members with the government. Enough is enough. Our role is to stand up for the interests of ordinary citizens, not those of the big shots, who have lawyers, associations and friends to help them out. We are here for the ordinary citizens. My role is to stand up for the people in L'Anse-Saint-Jean. They are the ones who create jobs for workers in the regions and who develop new expertise.

I do not know what we will have to do to bring this government to its senses. Our colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe--Bagot explained the situation last week. He painted the whole picture of what happened. The Standing Committee on Finance is the most important committee of the House, the one with the most power. This blunder happened in the Standing Committee on Finance, which should have the greatest sense of fairness. Such an incident cannot be ignored.

If there were not something fishy, the Prime Minister would not have reacted the way he did when my colleague and my leader exposed during the question period last week what happened in the Standing Committee on Finance. I can accuse some people of being sexist, but I am not, and I do not think my colleagues are. This was not a gender issue, but a fairness issue.

It was in order to be able to say that we had done a good job.

Today, the government has not done a good job on Bill C-47. The opposition parties, my colleague in particular, wanted to do a good job because it was important. Since 1997, we have been thinking that there would finally be changes to this excise tax.

Yet, in the most important area—and the Brewers Association of Canada said they represented microbreweries, these small businesses for whom we need to show a little compassion, and who need to be taken into consideration—this very association recommended to the chair of the Standing Committee on Finance not to include the excise tax on beer in Bill C-47.

As far as I am concerned, enough is enough. The government will have to withdraw the bill, go back to square one as my colleague asked, and include an industry that is extremely important for Quebec and for all of Canada.

Thirty-eight microbreweries in Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba have closed their doors. They created employment. In the past, the regions depended on big business to survive. Today, it is not the biggest businesses that are creating employment; it is small and medium size businesses that are creating employment; it is small and medium size businesses that are fuelling growth in our regions. Shutting these employment generating companies down is an affront to the regions, to the people who live there, to the people who want to take charge of the economic survival of their communities, which are important to them.

As my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe--Bagot said, Bill C-47 contained some good provisions. Unfortunately, it did not have the essential elements it needed. When we fail to do the essential in everything we do in our life, we need to step back and ask ourselves, “What have I done that is not right?”

I urge this government to withdraw this bill and redraft it, so that people can benefit from what this bill really should contain, support for microbreweries.

[Wind Energy, April 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, Murdochville has all the technical facilities for the manufacture of wind charger components. There are consortiums already in place and Hydro-Québec has made a commitment to purchase wind generated energy.

Does the government not believe it has a duty to do as much for the Gaspé and wind energy as it has done for Newfoundland and oil?

[Wind Energy, April 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the government claims to be committed to reducing greenhouse gases in Canada and helping the Gaspé. Since 1970 it has subsidized the oil industry to the tune of $66 billion, $3.7 billion of those for Hibernia, which is the equivalent of $7,000 for each person in Newfoundland.

Is the government prepared to expend the same financial effort to assist in developing the industry of manufacturing wind chargers in the Gaspé that it has for the oil industry in Newfoundland?