Guy St-Julien

[Starred Questions, March 13th, 2000]

Since 1990 have Natural Resources Canada, Environment Canada or Atomic Energy Canada undertaken or had universities and/or other Canadian university institutions undertake research or visits in the province of Quebec north of the 48th parallel in connection with pluton and/or granitic pluton with the aim of burying nuclear waste and if so: ( a ) how many studies were done; ( b ) what are the titles of the studies; ( c ) how many visits were there; ( d ) what locations were visited; and ( e ) which Canadian universities and university institutions were involved?

[Mining Industry, March 13th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, RSW-Béroma of Val-d'Or will operate the first small scale mine in the Abitibi, with a modular plant for ore concentration.

The unique features of this concept, compared to a conventional plant, are its investment costs, its quick installation and its mobility.

This initiative was made possible thanks to the leadership of Laurent Bérubé and his team at the Val-d'Or plant, Charles Veilleux, Gilbert Rousseau and Roger Jolicoeur, and the involvement of the National Research Council of Canada and of the Secretary of State for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec and Liberal member for Outremont, through his IDEA-SME program.

The project is located at the Granada gold deposit, northwest of Val-d'Or, in the Abitibi.

[Government Of Quebec, March 3rd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, in 1999 the government of Lucien Bouchard ate up part of the allowance to Quebec children.

Today's La Presse contains an article by Marie-Claude Lortie under the headline “Griping from Stay-at-home Mothers”. Constance Dubeau, a mother of four: Noémie, 6 months, Amélie, age 2, Adrienne, 3 and Kim, 4, is quoted as saying “It stinks”.

Mrs. Dubeau, of Pointe-Calumet, is a member of one of the many families who do not want to see the federal increase in child benefits diverted into daycare or other programs by Quebec.

Lucien Bouchard is contemplating doing as he did last year when Ottawa announced increased payments for children at home, decreasing the Quebec allowance so that Mrs. Dubeau will not see any more money for her children.

Lucien Bouchard does not want any real family policy. He supports a guaranteed minimum income for Quebec artists, but nothing for mothers and fathers staying at home to rear their children.

Lucien Bouchard was in agreement with secretly holding the sum of $842 million in the Toronto-Dominion Bank in Toronto for 12 months. So how much is there going to be for Mrs. Dubeau's children, Messrs. Bouchard and Landry?

[Supply, March 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, one day people will talk about the Quebec minister of finance and his statement that “the health problem is not a matter of money”. That is what Mr. Landry said yesterday.

The hon. member has referred to trust funds. The amount was put in trust by the federal government, but Quebec could have immediate transferred that amount of $842 million for the care of all those people lined up in hospital corridors or on waiting lists, instead of sending them to the States. That is quite a substantial amount, $842 million, not to mention the interest. One has to remember the interest. We learned this last evening, 12 months after the federal government gave the money in question to the province of Quebec. And they talk of shortages.

Let us not just talk about trusts. Let us talk about the region of Abitibi—Témiscamingue. I have an excerpt here from a daily newspaper in the Vallée-de-l'Or region, the Parlemenu . The article by Denis LaBrecque addresses the shortage of physicians in remote areas.

The region is far from Quebec City and far from Ottawa, and there is a shortage of doctors. In part, the article reads as follows:

Representatives of the health, education and business sectors met together in Val-d'Or Tuesday evening to address the situation. At the same time, they reviewed all of the initiatives taken to date in an attempt to remedy the situation, none of them as yet successfully.

Solutions must be sought together. With all the political parties and all the provincial governments, new approaches must be found. Let us move on this, and perhaps we will manage to improve things for those who are sick.

[Supply, March 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP member told us about 1969 and made reference to the province of Quebec. He told us about how his sister-in-law had to go to the United States for an operation.

In 1994 Quebecers paid $28 billion in taxes to the federal government, which then gave back between $34 billion and $35 billion to the province. Quebec always stood to gain.

It is deplorable to see patients in hospital corridors and people being transferred to the United States. But we learned one thing yesterday: it is not strictly a matter of money. The fact is that Quebec left money dormant in the Toronto-Dominion Bank, in Toronto. Meanwhile, the Quebec minister of health, Pauline Marois, was making every attempt to get money in February of last year. There was none for the hon. member's sister-in-law. The money was dormant in Toronto and people were not receiving the treatments they need. This was dereliction of duty on the part of the separatist government in Quebec.

[Supply, March 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, let me set the record straight as to the level of priority our government places on health care, particularly with regard to federal transfers to the provinces and territories.

On February 18, for the fourth consecutive year, our government chose to increase transfers to the provinces and territories through the Canada health and social transfer.

In the 2000 budget, we announced the transfer of a further $2.5 billion to the provinces and territories to be used over four years for post-secondary education and health care.

The $2.5 billion is in addition to the greatest investment in the history of our government that was announced in the 1999 budget, an investment of $11.5 billion for health care alone.

The 2000 federal budget proves once again that the health of Canadians and the future of their health care system are among the federal government's top priorities.

The Canada health and social transfer is the most important federal transfer to the provinces. It provides cash transfers and tax points to the provinces and territories to support health care, post-secondary education, social services and welfare programs.

The Canada health and social transfer is a block funding mechanism. It allows provinces and territories to grant funds to social programs according to priorities.

Why am I taking part in this debate on the issue of transfers? Because these last few weeks in my region, Abitibi-Témiscamingue, the members of the Parti Quebecois have often talked about the issue of federal transfers, and I wish to present a summary of what was said.

In 2000-01, the Canada health and social transfer to provinces and territories will reach a new height, $31 billion. Of this, there will be $15.3 billion in tax points and $15.5 in cash transfers.

A transfer of tax points is an important part of the ongoing support provided by the federal government to provincial and territorial social programs. A tax point transfer occurs when the federal government reduces its tax rate and allows the provinces to raise their tax rate by an equivalent amount. With such a measure, the provinces can get more revenues without increasing the total tax burden of Canadians.

By next year, CHST transfers to provinces and territories will be $960 per person and, by 2003-04, $985.

My friends of the Parti Quebecois in Abitibi-Témiscamingue should know that, under the CHST, the Government of Quebec will obtain $992 per person in 1999-00, $1,026 in 2000-01, $1,011 in 2001-02, $1,024 in 2002-03 and $1,038 in 2003-04.

However, as the government has said many times, we cannot stop there. The challenge facing the health care sector does not involve only money, it primarily involves changes to the health system.

In its last throne speech, the government reaffirmed its commitment to move forward with its provincial and territorial partners and with the health care sector on common priorities.

Those priorities include testing of innovations in integrated delivery of services in areas such as home care and drug insurance, making sure that citizens from every region of Canada, and rural areas in particular, have improved access through a modern health information system to up-to-date information on health issues and treatment options, to enable them to make better informed choices, and protecting the health of Canadians by strengthening the Canadian food safety program.

The challenge for the government is to identify what changes are required and how the various governments can co-operate to meet the health needs of Canadians now and in the future.

The federal government took the commitment to protect the five tenets of health care as stated in the Canada Health Act. These are: public administration, comprehensiveness, universality, portability and accessibility.

They reflect the will to give all Canadians reasonable access to insured hospital and medical services in accordance with the prepayment formula and under the same conditions everywhere.

This past year, the health ministers of Quebec and the other provinces made substantial progress in identifying what must be done to meet the short and long term health needs of Canadians.

They acknowledged unanimously that co-operation was the best way of ensuring Canadians of access to quality care and to the information required to make informed decisions for enhanced health and well-being.

We realize that dollars and cents are not enough. There must be investment in health care in order to have an accurate idea of the quality of care provided and the extent to which the system yields good results as far as health is concerned.

Quality of care is not merely a matter of funding. Consideration must also be given to the efficiency and appropriateness of care, treatment and services delivered to the Canadian people, and the integration of those services.

The federal, provincial and territorial governments cannot afford to use our limited resources for health care in an inefficient manner.

That is why the federal government is vigorously in favour of striking a partnership for reforming and renewing the health system.

The provincial and territorial ministers of health have been invited to meet together in May of 2000 to discuss three key issues that must be settled in order to fully resolve the recurring problems in the system and to restore public confidence in health insurance.

The first issue is this: to change the way primary care is delivered, in order to improve access and to adapt human resource-related policies in order to facilitate change.

The second: to enhance home and community care and to examine national objectives in order to integrate these types of care into the health system.

The third one: to strengthen co-operation between the federal government, the provinces and the territories in accounting for the system's performance for the Canadian public, in releasing information on the results obtained and in establishing the bases for public debate on the standards for health care.

As the 1999 and 2000 budgets have shown, the federal government recognizes that stable and predictable federal funding in the health sector is important to ensure the provinces and territories can meet the immediate needs of their residents and plan for the future.

The Canada health and social transfer provides this stability and predictability by guaranteeing an annual financial transfer of $15.5 billion starting in 2000-01 and an overall transfer that will increase to nearly $33 billion in 2003-04.

It is time the governments stopped debating about levels of funding of six or seven years ago and began facing challenges of the Canadian health care system before them today.

The federal government, like the provincial and territorial governments, recognizes that in the future decisions on investments in health care will have to be based on a plan reflecting this desire of Canadians, that the approach to health care will have to be better integrated, new resources will have to be used to meet this need of Canadians, which is to have a quality system.

We have to work together to achieve this shared objective of revitalizing our health care system so it will provide accessible, viable and high quality health care to all Canadians.

In closing, to the nurses, hospital staffs in Canada and to all the doctors who, today, are caring for Canadians, I say thank you for your support.

[Federal Transfers For Health, March 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, while it continues to cry out for more federal health transfers, the Government of Quebec of Lucien Bouchard and his deputies Rémi Trudel and André Pelletier has done nothing with the $842 million allocated in the 1999 federal budget that was available to them anytime.

These PQ officials have let $842 million sit in the Toronto Dominion Bank, in Toronto, in the province next to Quebec. They did not even have the courage to transfer it to a caisse Desjardins or to a bank in Quebec, which might improve health care in hospitals in Abitibi—Témiscamingue and throughout Quebec.

According to the government of Lucien Bouchard, “The health care problem is not a money problem, it is a planning and management problem”.

So, Messrs. Trudel and Pelletier, why leave this money sit in the Toronto Dominion Bank in Toronto? The people of Abitibi are still waiting for you to wake up and transfer the money to Quebec.

[Gasoline Prices, February 29th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the government should make sure that the service stations of all the major and independent oil companies and all businesses in Canada display the base price per litre of gasoline or diesel at the pump, free of the federal and provincial taxes, in the same way as consumers see the base price of food and household products they purchase.

[Trucking Industry In Quebec, February 23rd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, following the tabling of the synthesis report of the forum on the trucking industry in Quebec, the Quebec Minister of Transport, Guy Chevrette, will meet this week with the truckers' representatives to inform them of his policies.

The CSN and the CSD agree on a minimum, namely that the Quebec labour code should be similar to the federal labour code, which allows self-employed workers to organize themselves.

Yesterday, the federal Minister of Labour confirmed to me in a letter that a Labour Canada official attended the forum as an observer. The minister is aware of what is going on in the trucking industry in Quebec.

According to the minister, so far, no request has been received from the Quebec Minister of Labour or her officials to amend the Canada Labour Code.

On February 25, progress must be made for the benefit of Quebec's truckers, through long term solutions to correct problems experienced by these truckers.

[Starred Questions, February 21st, 2000]

Can the government produce a list of all applications made by individuals and/or groups in the federal riding of Abitibi—Baie James—Nunavik to programs of the Department of Justice for the following periods: ( a ) April 1, 1997, to March 31, 1998; ( b ) April 1, 1998, to March 31, 1999; and ( c ) April 1, 1999, to October 31, 1999?