Marcel Gagnon

[Budget Implementation Act, 2001, February 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak, not as tribute to the Minister of Finance, but to criticize Bill C-49.

In reacting to a budget, it is normal for each member to take advantage of the opportunity to address the matters of most interest to him or her. The budget is, after all, the basis from which we can see where the government's policies are headed. The budget also offers us a way of seeing whether we will be pleased or disappointed by what the government is doing. It is also normal for the opposition to point out the weak points in the budget. I must say that, on this score, we have a pretty easy job of it, because there are many of those.

I have been following the debate on Bill C-49 since the start. I have heard the discussions on EI and on the situation in the regions. Yesterday, it was transportation. We heard how unhelpful the budget is in this respect, how in fact it is harmful to regional development. Communications and transportation are vital to regional development. This budget hits the regions where it hurts, by adding a tax on air travel.

I have heard one of the hon. members on the other side indicating that he was somewhat scandalized by our reaction. He asked, “Have you listened to Canadians?” and told us that they had toured Canada before bringing down the budget, had asked Canadians' advice, and people were, according to him, in agreement.

I do not think we have been listening to the same Canadians. We are not on the same wavelength. My concern about the guaranteed income supplement is well known. I have spoken with a good number of Quebecers on this. I have visited some fifteen different regions of Quebec and consulted with people. I have attended many well packed meetings in those regions.

Not a single Canadian or Quebecer asked me to tell the government to take over the employment insurance fund, that it can have the fund. Not a single worker asked me to do so. There is not a single worker who is not deeply shocked at the $42 billion in the employment insurance fund—$42,000 million—that belongs to workers. This is a fund to which the government did not contribute one red penny. This fund is sustained by only a part of society. Not a single Canadian or Quebecer told me, “It is a good thing that the government is taking over this fund and is paying the debt that is owed by everyone, is solving the problem of the deficit that is owed by everyone on the backs of the most needy, of workers who contribute to the employment insurance fund”. I never heard that. If someone on the other side heard that, I think he or she did not hear well.

In working on the issue of guaranteed income supplement, I did not meet either a single elderly person who told me, “The government is right to take our money”. It has taken $3.2 billion in the last eight years, $400 million each year, that belongs to the most needy in society, to elderly people who are the most vulnerable. No effort is being made to go get this money.

I can tell you that I did not have any congratulations to extend to the Minister of National Revenue or the Minister of Finance. This is a scandal that must be condemned.

It makes no sense that in this country, which has a Minister of Human Resources Development precisely to humanize the government's actions, we cannot do more to locate these people to whom we owe money. On this issue, there is not one senior citizen who has asked me to congratulate the government.

As for developing countries, we have heard all world leaders talk of sharing wealth more fairly since September 11. In terms of security, we are told that the best insurance policy against terrorism is to share the wealth. Let us stop allowing the same people to accumulate the riches, thereby increasing poverty around the world.

I recall a speech given by the Prime Minister here in the House, and another given by President Bush. However, there is one speech in particular that struck me, that of Tony Blair when he stated that once and for all, developed countries must decide to share wealth.

Lester B. Pearson, when he was the Prime Minister of Canada, was the first to propose to the United Nations that the rich developed countries reserve seven tenths of one percent of their budgets to help developing countries. It was Mr. Pearson, who won the Nobel Peace Prize incidentally, who sold the UN on this idea.

But in this budget, Canada's great generosity is taking the form of an amount of $500 million for developing countries, provided there are surpluses. I can tell hon. members that some 30 years later, after the wish expressed and the work done by Mr. Pearson at the United Nations, we are not at seven tenths of 1% of the budget: we are barely at one quarter of 1%, or 0.25% of 1% for developing countries.

This comes after the government congratulated itself for its work. Not too long ago, in the fall, I attended a committee meeting where they discussed hunger in the world, food and a better sharing of the wealth. I heard public officials from that department say that, at the rate things were going and given our generosity, by the year 2015 there will only be 400 million people in the world who will die of hunger. This is nothing to boast about. It does not make any sense to accept such a situation.

With $500 million in this budget, it is obvious that we will never fulfill the wish of a former Prime Minister of Canada, who wanted us to earmark at least seven tenths of 1% for developing countries.

Those who congratulate themselves for this budget did not look very far and they cut corners. When we have to make representations as we are doing now so that, for example, the elderly get their due, when the idea is obviously to keep a low profile to avoid having people claim their due, when the mandate is obviously to take the workers' fund to pay off a debt that was incurred by everyone, I do not think the government deserves to be congratulated.

Someone said “We did lower the contribution rate to employment insurance”. What did they lower? They do not contribute one penny. They are simply telling workers “We have good news for you. Next year, we will take a little less from you”.

When the contribution rate to employment insurance is lowered, it is the rate paid by workers and employers, not by the government. In fact, the government increases the possibilities of taking workers' money. This is a scandal that will not be forgotten. It is a scandal that is marked in time.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2001, February 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, what I find of great interest in the hon. member's speech is that he is critical, and apparently scandalized by the fact that the government is pocketing, via the EI fund, $42 billion belonging to workers, an amount that increases by $6, $7 or $8 billion yearly. The hon. member also said that students are being treated very badly as far as student loans are concerned.

I would like to know what the hon. member thinks about the fact that this same government is, year after year, pocketing $400 million that belongs to those in our society who are the least well off: the seniors who are entitled to the guaranteed income supplement. This means that, over the past eight years, this government has pocketed $3.2 billion, which it has used to pay off its debts at the expense of the least well off members of society.

I would like to know whether the member is aware of this, and what he thinks of it.

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, February 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would also like to hear my colleague say a few more things about this bill.

From a human perspective, the bill is badly flawed. I remember having assisted at a meeting between a stakeholder and a judge. The judge said to the adolescent, who was slightly delinquent “You are near the edge. But if you want to pick yourself up, the community loves you so much that it will set everything in motion to help you”. Today, that adolescent is saved;. He makes a good living and he is not a delinquent anymore.

In Quebec, we have legislation that meets our needs. Can my colleague, who has more experience than me in parliament, tell me why there is a nearly unanimous consensus in Quebec? She said that only 36 federal Liberal members did not get it yet. Why is it that their views are overriding those of an entire population whose experience must be taken into account in this bill?

[Guaranteed Income Supplement, December 14th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, we do not understand the federal government's attitude.

Seniors do not understand the government's stubborn insistence on denying them their rights either.

Does the government not think this is a good time to do the right thing by seniors and drop its present petty-minded attitude?

[Guaranteed Income Supplement, December 14th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, many seniors listen to our debates in the House. They do not understand why the Liberal government is refusing, despite what everyone would expect, to apologize to those who were deprived of their due and, worse, why it is refusing to pay them the full retroactive amount they are owed.

The federal government is cross referencing information in order to track down unemployed workers who leave the country or anyone who owes it taxes.

How is it that the government is refusing to do the same in order to track down those seniors—

[Nuclear Fuel Waste Act, December 14th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to mention this earlier but the time allotted me had run out. I am very pleased to come back to it. I was saying earlier that I had no confidence in the government, which thinks it is in sole possession of the truth, because too many mistakes have been made.

My colleague from Rosemont—Petite-Patrie has just mentioned the shells in Lake Saint-Pierre and the way highly dangerous products are managed. Some 350,000 shells are lying at the bottom of the lake with some 8,000 to 10,000 still armed.

Every spring, because of the ice and depending on how cold it gets—this winter there has not been much of a problem because of the warm temperatures, but the ice will come back—the shells stick to the ice.

In the spring, when the river rises as the snow melts, the ice carries the shells here and there. The proof is that the army follows the shoreline of the St. Lawrence River by helicopter right up to Quebec City and even further in an effort to find the shells. Those the army does not find are sometimes found by children. I think I hear someone opposite saying that this is not so important.

It is very important because it has killed people up to now. It has broken up a Lake Saint-Pierre family that was preparing a sailboat for a trip around the world. They held a celebration around the boat after getting it ready and a shell burst in a bonfire. If this is not really important I do not know what is. Last spring children were discovered playing with shells that could have exploded.

As my time is running out, I would like to raise another point as well. We are the only ones who do not take the environment seriously. I just returned from a trip to Germany. Everyone should see what is being done there to protect the environment. Nuclear energy, among others, is being eliminated. They are turning to research on cleaner, safer energies.

Why in Canada and Quebec, does the government not clean up and take precautions for the future of our children?

[Nuclear Fuel Waste Act, December 14th, 2001]

Someone says that maybe there is a Santa Claus. This is certainly the day for such a hope, with Christmas just around the corner.

In conclusion, that is pretty much all I had to say, not necessarily on the bill but on the approach in general, that is, the way in which the bill is being handled and the way in which the government operates, thinking it is in sole possession of the truth and ignoring everyone else, and making those who should not have to shoulder the burden alone foot the bill for things like paying down the debt.

[Nuclear Fuel Waste Act, December 14th, 2001]

I am told they will manage to find them something. I am sure they will.

Once again, I hope that the will will suddenly be there and that the government will decide before the vote at third reading, before this bill is passed—if it stays the way it is, the Bloc Quebecois will certainly be voting against it—to get serious and remember that the future we are talking about is not just the immediate future of the Liberal Party but the future of all Canadians and all the generations to come.

I am one of those who thinks that the management of nuclear waste should become more important for this government. There is still time. Someone said that this would perhaps be the nicest Christmas present the government could give Quebecers and Canadians, tell them that is withdrawing Bill C-27, rethinking it, taking another look at the consultations that were done, getting more information and examining its conscience, since everybody's future is at stake.

[Nuclear Fuel Waste Act, December 14th, 2001]

They have indeed already been appointed. This is the main problem we have with the management of nuclear waste, the nuclear future, and my colleague from Verchères—Les Patriotes has made that clear. He said that nuclear fusion is simply like trying to stuff the sun in a bottle. It is extremely clean energy, energy of the future that should be useful if we continue research. I also recall this matter, because, when we debated nuclear fusion and the importance of researching nuclear fusion, I was assistant to the Quebec minister of the environment.

While it spends millions on the nuclear industry in general, the government in its great wisdom has decided, as far as cuts are concerned, to go after what is unimportant. It cut some $7.5 million a year in research on nuclear fusion. The wisdom of the government leaves something to be desired. What it does for me is leave a bitter taste in my mouth.

The $3 billion saved over the past eight years will also be used to pay down the debt.

The minister has said “We will look into the matter, and the committee will look into it too, and you will make recommendations”. The recommendations have still not been followed up on. We are not in possession of the truth here. And those who do not, like us, pay for it.

I now want to come back to Bill C-27. One of the committee's recommendations, as I mentioned earlier, was not to give the job of managing nuclear waste to the industry because of the risk involved. Waste management must be given to independent and competent bodies by municipalities and people who will live with waste management, and not to the industry. However, we discover that the bill provides that the industry will manage this waste.

It surprises me that the government did not establish another foundation for that. It would provide work for the friends of the government.

[Nuclear Fuel Waste Act, December 14th, 2001]

Indeed. One only has to think of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. Yesterday I was surprised to hear a member, who is supposedly an expert on this, say that there was really no danger whatsoever in managing a nuclear power plant. I wondered if maybe the victims of Chernobyl did not die by some simple mistake. Perhaps people were not being careful enough. Perhaps there was so little danger that the accident that occurred at Chernobyl was almost a minor one.

It is hard to imagine that there are people out there who think this way about products that will influence our lives and the lives of those who will come after us, that is, if we become aware of the planet enough so as not to bring about its destruction in the near future. One wonders sometimes how long the planet will exist, when one sees how little attention we pay to the environment.

I was saying earlier that the government had made mistakes in the past. Toward the end of the 1970s and in the early 1980s I was a member of the Government of Quebec, Mr. Trudeau was the Prime Minister of Canada, with the same Liberal government, and the current Prime Minister was a key minister in the Trudeau cabinet.

In Quebec we did not want a nuclear plant. Finally an agreement was reached between the two governments, because Mr. Trudeau wanted to sell Candu reactors, to build a nuclear plant in Gentilly, just to “join the club”, as they said. This meant that 3% of our energy would come from that nuclear plant.

In order to convince us, Mr. Trudeau said “If you do it, I will build a heavy water plant in LaPrade”. Three-quarters of the plant was built. Three-quarters of a billion dollars were spent in 1980. An economist could tell us what it is worth today, but it is around two or three billion dollars.

I had the honour of having these candles just in front of me until last spring, when it was decided to tear down the plant and sell it for scrap. Three-quarters of a billion dollars for the LaPrade plant. And the government got as much mileage as it could in terms of patronage. Such was the result of the agreement on the LaPrade plant, on the heavy water plant that was going to supply nuclear plants in Quebec and in part of Ontario.

This decision was made by a government that claims to be in sole possession of the truth. We can trust governments like this one. Last year, when I saw a plant that cost three-quarters of a billion dollars to build in 1980 being demolished, I found it rather painful to watch. And this government boasts about being a good manager. This is rather extraordinary.

I was told that the government will follow the recommendations of the committees that review these issues and make recommendations to the minister. I no longer have much faith in this process, and this bill reinforces that impression, because I attended the sittings of other committees. I did not have the opportunity to attend sittings of this particular committee but I attended those of other committees, including agriculture and human resources development.

When we studied issues such as employment insurance in the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development, the Liberals, the Canadian Alliance, the Bloc Quebecois, the New Democrats, and the Progressive Conservatives unanimously condemned the theft from the EI fund. The report was tabled in the House. The minister told us that she was going to study the issue, the recommendations and the report.

We can see that the EI money has disappeared and that the workers, who paid their premiums, are the ones who are now paying down Canada's debt in part, if not in whole.

What is rather surprising about all this, Mr. Speaker, is that neither you nor I, nor the Minister of Finance, nor the Prime Minister, nor any of the ministers, nor any member of this House are paying EI premiums. The EI fund belongs to workers and to industry, which contributes to it.

Those who are deciding to help themselves to this fund and to use it to pay down government debt are not paying into it. Who else is not paying into it, apart from us? Our staff here in Parliament pay into the fund. They and other workers in Quebec and in Canada are paying down Canada's debt to the tune of about $40 billion.

I saw the same thing on the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development, where we realized that approximately 20% of seniors eligible for the guaranteed income supplement are not receiving it because they cannot be found.