Lost his last election, in 2011, with 8% of the vote.
Government Organization Act (Federal Agencies) June 21st, 1995
moved:
Motion No. 4
That Bill C-65, in Clause 6, be amended by replacing line 31, on page 2, with the following:
"Council as provided in section 4, following consultation with the government of each province and with the approval of the standing committee of the House of Commons that normally considers cultural matters.
3.1 The Council shall include representatives of the various regions of Canada."
Committees Of The House June 16th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present in the House the fourteenth report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. This report deals with the management of federal buildings. Their value has been estimated at between $40 billion and $60 billion, in 1985 dollars.
In its report the committee has included a series of recommendations for the Treasury Board Secretariat. The Auditor General concluded in his 1994 report that not enough attention was being given to managing federal property in accordance with Treasury Board guidelines.
Consequently, the public accounts committee has recommended in its conclusion that the Treasury Board Secretariat apply the policy directives set forth in its property management manual and ensure that they are complied with and their objectives are met.
Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee asks the government to table a comprehensive response to this report.
Committees Of The House June 15th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present today to the House the 13th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts concerning the Correctional Service of Canada.
At the conclusion of the report, the committee recommends that the auditor general monitor the efforts of the Correctional Service of Canada to improve its accommodation planning and supervision of released offenders, and that he report his findings when he considers it appropriate.
The committee believes that the recommendations contained in this report should be actively implemented. It also recommends that unless it is directed to do otherwise, the Correctional Service of Canada report on the progress made in implementing the report's recommendations by April 1996 at the latest.
Appended to this report is the official opposition's dissenting opinion on the policy of double bunking. In closing, I would like to quote two recommendations contained in this dissenting opinion: one, that the Correctional Service of Canada assess the short, medium and long term impact of the policy of double bunking on inmates, particularly its effect on inmate rehabilitation and that the results of the study be published by January 1996; and two, that the Correctional Service of Canada await the results of this study before making the double bunking policy part of its accommodation standards.
Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.
Committees Of The House June 12th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table today the twelfth report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. The topic of this report is the Department of National Defence, which has the largest budget of all federal departments.
It covers four chapters of the auditor general's 1994 report. First, Chapter 24, Defence Management Systems; Chapter 25, Information Technology; Chapter 26, Infrastructure Reductions and lastly, Chapter 27, Infrastructure Management.
The Standing Committee on Public Accounts concludes at the end of its report that the auditor general should review on a regular basis the Department of National Defence's initiatives to improve its management structure and methods regarding management information systems, information technology, rationalization and infrastructure management and that he should report his findings at an appropriate time.
Pursuant to Standing Order 109 of the House of Commons, the committee is asking the government to table a global response to this report.
Committees Of The House May 31st, 1995
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table the eleventh report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
Pursuant to the order of reference of Tuesday, February 28, 1995, our committee has considered the budgetary vote for the office of the auditor general in the main estimates and has agreed to issue a report. The public accounts committee has analyzed vote 35 under finance in the main estimates for the 1995-96 fiscal year and gives its unanimous consent.
World No Tobacco Day May 31st, 1995
Mr. Speaker, today is World No Tobacco Day, and I would like to take this opportunity to make parliamentarians as well as the people of Quebec and Canada aware of the importance of this day. This year, the theme of this annual event sponsored by the World Health Organization is "The cost of tobacco is higher than we think".
It is worthwhile reminding people that smoking is one of the main causes of potentially fatal respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. And what about the effect of second-hand smoke, not to mention the miscarriages suffered by mothers who smoke and the low birth weight of children born to these women? The need to educate the young and the not so young about the health hazards associated with tobacco use is unquestionable.
Today more than ever, we must make everyone, old and young, aware of the hazards of tobacco use. This campaign should have significant and lasting results.
Committees Of The House May 18th, 1995
Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present the 10th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. When the Auditor General of Canada tabled his report in February 1994, the issue of pension overpayments, which reached between $120 million and $200 million, in the auditor general's estimation, was raised repeatedly.
For the committee, behind the figures lay a more important issue: the department's ability to efficiently manage pension programs. This prompted the committee to meet twice with senior officials of Human Resources Development Canada and the Office of the Auditor General of Canada.
In this report, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts makes a number of recommendations, which, for the most part, have an implementation deadline. The dissenting opinion of the hon. members of Chicoutimi and Joliette is appended to the report.
Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.
Agreement On Internal Trade Implementation Act May 15th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, this bill is aimed at implementing the provisions of the Agreement on Internal Trade signed with the provinces last summer. To this end, the federal government must pass legislation to comply with the agreement before its coming into force, on July 1, 1995, as the minister said. Briefly put, this is the purpose of Bill C-88.
First, I would like to show that Bill C-88 assumes powers which were never mentioned during the negotiations with the provinces or when the agreement was signed. This indicates a strong desire on the part of the federal government to centralize.
In the second part of my speech, I would like to highlight some of the aspects of international trade which favour the political autonomy of the regions and the creation of economic unions rather than the establishment of great federations with a rigid and centralizing constitution such as the Canadian federation.
Last summer's agreement deals with 11 specific areas, namely government contracts, investments, labour mobility, consumer protection standards and initiatives, farm products and foodstuffs, alcoholic beverages, natural resources processing, communications and transportation, energy and the protection of the environment. However, the sections of the agreement Bill C-88 deals with are basically those regarding dispute resolution, as if all the federal government could do was put controls in place.
Articles 1601 to 1604 deal with the establishment of a committee on internal trade and its secretariat. The role of the committee will be to supervise the implementation of the agreement and to assist in the resolution of disputes. Article 1705 deals with the establishment of a panel at the request of the disputing parties. The panel is made up of five members who will have to decide on the validity of the dispute and on retaliatory action that the complaining party will eventually be authorized to take.
Articles 1710(4), (5) and (6) stipulate that, if the matter has not be resolved within one year of issuance of the panel report, the complaining party may request a meeting of the committee. The committee shall convene within 30 days to discuss with the complaining party the option of taking retaliatory action in respect of the party complained against. So, the complaining party may, until such time as a mutually satisfying resolution is achieved, impose to the party complained against retaliatory action of equivalent effect to the damage caused to the complaining party.
If I am reminding the House of these few rather technical aspects of the Agreement on Internal Trade, it is essentially in order to highlight the context within which the interprovincial agreement was reached. We must understand that the panel decisions are not binding, which implies that the committee governing the interprovincial trade agreement has no power.
If the party complained against does not comply with the panel recommendations, article 1710 applies. As we saw, article 1710 deals with retaliation action that the complaining party may take in respect of the party that did not comply with the agreement.
In fact, the main purpose of this bill is to implement the agreement on internal trade. The Bloc Quebecois has always been in favour of freer trade, which is the context in which states do business today. So, we support the principle of the agreement, but if the federal government is the aggrieved party under a trade agreement referred to in the agreement, it can impose retaliatory measures. However, that is not what is said in Bill C-88.
In fact, clause 9 goes well beyond the spirit of the agreement reached by the provinces last summer. This is why we are against the bill as it stands now. Clause 9 reads as follows:
For the purpose of suspending benefits or imposing retaliatory measures of equivalent effect against a province pursuant to Article 1710 of the Agreement, the Governor in Council may, by order-
And then it goes on. It says that the Governor in Council may act, by order, which is the method usually used by an autocratic government. This bill clearly shows that the Liberal government wants to govern by order in council.
Are we again facing Liberal totalitarianism? In fact, clause 9 means that, if a party is at fault pursuant to article 1710 of the agreement, then the federal government, whether or not it is party to the dispute, assumes the right to impose retaliatory measures against all of the provinces without distinction.
Bill C-88 clearly indicates that the federal government intends to interfere in interprovincial trade and be both judge and judged, to provide through this agreement the power to act by order in council, a power it alone can exercise, and to extend the application of any federal law to the provinces, as mentioned in clause 9( c ).
Governing by order in council, setting oneself up as the arbiter of interprovincial trade, are measures that go way beyond the spirit of the agreement signed with the provinces last summer. Nowhere in the 13 paragraphs of article 1710 of the agreement is there mentioned any right of the federal government to intervene in a trade dispute when it is not itself one of the parties to the dispute, contrary to the retaliatory measures described in clause 9 of Bill C-88, as formulated and tabled before us today.
The range of retaliatory measures the federal government has given itself in this clause is too broad. Its power of retaliation can affect the entire population of a province and is excessive. The problem stems, of course, from the fact that Ottawa has legislative power over all Canadians and can impose legislation on all the provinces.
Bill C-88 is another example. In our opinion, the retaliatory measures contained in clause 9 must be toned down considerably and the focus limited strictly to matters of trade. The federal government would thus not be able to retaliate in the social sphere, by attacking the Canada Social Transfer, for example.
I would have one last word concerning the intentions of the Liberal government reflected in this bill. Clause 14 of the bill provides, in the best Liberal tradition, that appointments to fill any position that may be necessary or advisable for carrying out the purposes of the Agreement be by order in council. To prevent any form of patronage on the part of the Prime Minister, the Bloc Quebecois requests that appointments be systematically ap-
proved by the House of Commons, as they should be in a democratic system.
There is no doubt in our mind that this bill is highly centralist. It is a sign of a retrograde vision of trade relations between the various regions of the same continent. We are living in an era of trade globalization, of the dissolving of tariff and non tariff barriers, of open markets and not of the heavy, unilateral regulation by order in council of a continental market by a single state like Canada.
More and more, a new competitiveness can be found at the local, regional and provincial levels, which goes against the federal centralizing model. The new regional international model of economic development is an example of the globalization of economies, in which regional economic trade areas are swallowed by the global market.
Fernand Martin, from the department of economic sciences of the Université de Montréal, is unequivocal regarding this regional international reality. He says that local businesses are realizing that they are competing not only with domestic businesses but with all other businesses, and that they no longer benefit from the buffer of national borders.
This new reality on the world market underlies a second economic phenomenon: the role of local economies in the competitiveness of businesses. Regional space takes on a strategic importance. In this context, the intervention of a national state structure is no longer needed. By wanting to give unprecedented powers to the regions, the Government of Quebec fully grasped the new parameters of international trade, something that the government in Ottawa failed to do. NAFTA will decrease the federal government's power to intervene in economic matters even more.
Even now in the area of international trade, agreements such as the GATT prevent Canada to a large extent from imposing tariffs and subsidizing exporters. These international agreements promote globalization of the economy and thus reduce, along with regional economic development, the federal government's control over the national and interprovincial economy.
Globalization of trade was first and foremost the product of the emergence of the multinationals. They initially turned the states toward new economic spaces, such as NAFTA. Today their ability to restructure an economic space is well established. Accordingly, they confer international stature on the cities and regions they locate in. These cities and regions in turn form networks giving rise to decisions and economic policy previously the domain of central states.
The federal government's regulatory authority, in these circumstances, becomes less and less important, and it is clear that clause 9 of Bill C-88 runs contrary to the current course of international trade. This point is all the more relevant, and, once again I quote Fernand Martin: "-since economic development is based on competitive development, which counts on the quality of labour and on the infrastructures and economics of large population centres and urbanization. These levers come under provincial jurisdiction, because health, education and land use planning do".
Thus, in terms of economic development and international competitiveness, membership in a centralized economic union is today, at the dawn of the 21st century, of little importance. However, the same cannot be said when it comes to belonging to a region. Since Trudeau, the traditional federalist vision of the federal Liberals has never gone beyond the level of a strictly nationalist analysis. Like those from the Trudeau school of thought, this liberal government is obsessed by the fact that it is powerless to stop the national economy from being regionalized under the influence of multinationals and the newly created continental trade areas.
It should not be forgotten that as interprovincial trade is increasingly following a north-south axis, Bill C-88, and more specifically clause 9, are nothing more than the reaction of this government without an economic agenda to this phenomenon and, by and large, to the present changes.
Auditor General's Report May 11th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, given that 12 per cent of all senior officials see nothing wrong with altering contract specifications to give a certain tenderer the edge, a very serious act, will the Deputy Prime Minister acknowledge that the government hierarchy is riddled with problems with ethics and that, unfortunately, the example comes from on high?
Auditor General's Report May 11th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister.
Yesterday, the auditor general released a report-to which my colleague alluded moments ago- regarding ethics in the government, which was based on a survey of 329 federal public servants. It revealed that 46 per cent of those surveyed would not intervene to prevent a member of their family from being hired and that 33 per cent of them feel that they would be putting themselves at risk if they were to point out a conflict of interest implicating their boss.
Will the Deputy Prime Minister admit that these figures are unacceptable and that they are the symptoms of the very serious problem that the public service has with ethics? Is it not the government's responsibility to react quickly to remedy the situation?