Gaston Leroux

[Manpower Training, May 10th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the federal government is launching a series of pilot projects at Canada Employment Centres in Quebec. In Jonquière, for instance, we have one of the first single-wicket operations, where the federal government wants to control manpower training by bringing all agencies that provide manpower training under the aegis of the Canada Employment Centre.

My question is directed to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. Does the minister realize that his government's pilot project directly contradicts a consensus in Quebec on the need for transferring manpower training to Quebec, and that this is an instance of direct provocation aimed at the Quebec government?

[Internal Trade, May 5th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, once again, we did not get it. Why is it that the Minister of Industry is the only one who understands? We have been told that he is the only one who does understand.

How can the Minister of Industry continue to claim that Bill C-88 complies with the Agreement on Internal Trade, considering that the two senior officials responsible for its implementation maintain that the legislation goes beyond the scope of the agreement?

[Internal Trade, May 5th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry. The Canadian provinces and the federal government agreed on the terms of an agreement on interprovincial trade. The federal government is now using Bill C-88 to give itself powers that were never discussed during negotiations or when the agreement was signed.

How does the Minister of Industry, who claims to be co-operating with the provinces, to be a reliable partner and to act openly, explain that at no time was the Quebec government, or the Ontario government, for that matter, ever consulted on Bill C-88?

[House Of Commons Security Services, May 3rd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, on the 75th anniversary of the House of Commons Security Services, I wish to pay tribute to all members of the staff.

Created in 1920, a few years after the old Parliament building was destroyed by fire, the Security Services are responsible for the protection of members, employees and buildings on Parliament Hill. They also welcome hundreds of thousands of visitors from Canada and Quebec every year.

I wish to remind everyone that security staff must not only ensure the safety of the public and the employees of the House of Commons but also process many visitors, at a time when vigilance is a must. They do their job effectively and professionally.

On the 75th anniversary of the House of Commons Security Services, I invite all my colleagues to join me in commending the security staff for their much appreciated services.

[Supply, May 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague says, it is a warm exchange of views.

Concerning the National Forum on Health, I wish to quote comments made by the member for Saint-Henri-Westmount when she was a provincial minister: "The federal government's behaviour is absurd". That is what the Quebec Minister of Health, Lucienne Robillard, said in an interview on the phone.

"How can we even think of reforming the health care system without the participation of the provinces who are responsible for delivering the services? It is simply unacceptable". That was reported in the September 27, 1994 issue of La Presse .

This is what your colleague said, the one that is now among us, your courageous colleague who was not elected but appointed as a member of Parliament. A member had been democratically elected, but he was given a plum position in the Prime Minister's office in exchange for his riding, where this courageous minister had to struggle fiercely to be elected.

I want to quote this same minister in response to your statement. Here is what she said as minister. "I say things as I see them",-this is what your colleague for Saint-Henri-Westmount said-"in Quebec the provincial government is still the level the most directly, exclusively and inextricably linked to the future of our society. A distinct society which, whatever we might think or say, is able to conduct its own destiny and prepare its future". That is what we want to do in Quebec-prepare our future by becoming a people, by becoming a country".

[Supply, May 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I thank the member for his question. I just want to remind him that the most vicious aspect of this venture is the use of the words "national standards", and we know why.

When the federal government had the power to spend money borrowed from future generations, there were no national standards. The federal government was spending money and interfering in provincial jurisdictions as much as it pleased.

Now that the federal government must slash its budget, it prefers to talk about flexibility rather than spending power. However, your government's flexibility is strictly a matter of passing the bill to provinces and telling them: "You will make your own decisions while applying our national standards". That is underhanded.

Now, regarding the quote you gave us, one of your colleagues-

[Supply, May 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, really, the things you hear in this House. As the critic of the official opposition for regional development it is with pleasure and interest that I rise during this official opposition day. The federal government's attitude, denounced by the Bloc Quebecois, which consists in restricting the provinces to a strictly advisory role by imposing new national standards following the budget of the Minister of Finance in February, has a direct negative effect on regional development in Quebec.

Bill C-76. an act to implement certain provisions of the federal budget for 1995-96, far from eliminating the intrusions of the federal government in areas under provincial jurisdiction,

allows it, by imposing national standards, to multiply its interventions while increasing the impact of its intrusions.

We know that following this budget Ottawa had decided to merge in a new "Canada social transfer" its whole package of contributions to the provinces in such areas as health care, social services and post-secondary education. This decision of the federal government represents in the short term some savings and Liberals call that a fight against the deficit.

The fact is that as a result funds allocated to the provinces are cut by $2.5 billion in 1995-96 and by $4.5 billion in 1997-98. In 1997-98 the Canada social transfer envelope is going to be allocated among the provinces according to a criterion yet to be negotiated. If the chosen criterion is the present mode of distribution, which is not very likely, Quebec will suffer a $1.2 billion shortfall.

Rather, the objective of the federal government and its Minister of Finance is to allocate the Canada social transfer envelope on a per capita basis, so that Quebec will in fact bear 41.7 per cent of the cuts in transfer payments to the provinces across Canada in 1997-98. With this distribution criterion, the loss of income for Quebec jumps from $1.2 billion to $1.9 billion.

With the new Canada social transfer and the implementation of new national standards, the federal government, while relegating the provinces to a purely advisory role and further centralizing action, will once again impoverish Quebec and threaten regional development.

In the last budget and in Bill C-76, we see that the Minister of Human Resources Development intends to use the savings from unemployment insurance reform-that is $5 billion in cutbacks in 1994 plus $700 million more in 1995-to create an human resource investment fund.

This fund will be used, among other things, to finance manpower training programs, a power unanimously demanded by Quebecers. Clearly, this has a direct impact on regional development. With initiatives such as the Canada social transfer and the cuts in unemployment insurance, the federal government will use all the money it is going to save elsewhere for massive, centralizing and discretionary interventions, totally disregarding totally the policies of Quebec in the area of regional development.

In fact, the goal of the measures contained in the February budget is to direct the economic development of Quebec, to refuse to recognize the distinct character of that society by assimilating the evolution of Quebec into the Canadian policies on regional development.

In Quebec, companies, trade unions, local authorities and the co-operative movement no longer fear to take their development into their own hands. In forums such as the Bélanger-Campeau Commission, they reached a very wide consensus and demanded that the government of Quebec be the only one to control the economic development of these regions.

With the budget measures I already mentioned, there is no doubt about the intentions of the federal government. It wants to stimulate Canada's gross domestic product by promoting an area, an industrial region. So, the economic climate really takes precedence over the structural dimension in most of the interventions of the federal government in the regions.

We know that today, the federal government is interested only in small and medium size exporting and technology firms, in total disregard of the overall strategic regional structural development plans which concern all areas of activity in a society. This attitude, and the interference of the federal government in regional development, will be harmful, in the long run, to the development of Quebec.

We have to remember that regional development is not covered under the Canadian Constitution, and that forces Quebec to enter into endless negotiations to conclude agreements or "agréments", as the member for Brome-Missisquoi says.

Those agreements inevitably open the way to numerous awkward intrusions by the federal government in regional development. Bill C-76 proves that. These are obvious, clear and open intrusions. The Quebec regions suffer from the numerous interferences in regional development and from the lack of consistency of government policies.

While dropping its financial involvement in the provinces, the central government is leaving its administrative structures there. Consequently, duplication and overlap not only remain, but are sanctioned. Even if those administrative structures are becoming more and more symbolic, they are even more costly and hinder the dynamics of regional development in Quebec.

The Federal Office of Regional Development is a good example of squandering by the federal government. When will there be a comprehensive structural reform of the federal regime? In spite of the decentralization measures that the government announced at the beginning of the year, the Liberals have not made any changes. More and more, they are using national standards as a means to centralize. Centralization is the golden rule of federal Liberals.

The objective of the Bloc Quebecois, the official opposition, is to make the federal government realize that it has to withdraw completely from regional development in Quebec and recognize Quebec as the sole master of regional development. For over forty years, there has been, in the nation of Quebec, a much more

efficient and responsive attitude, in terms of regional development, to the needs of peripheral regions. I repeat that at present, there is a series of general agreements between the government of Quebec and its 16 administrative regions.

Each region has conducted its own strategic study on small business and industrial development. These genreal agreements confirm the importance for Quebec to be close to these regions and to decentralize within the province, contrary to the what the Federal Office of Regional Development-Quebec is doing, in the light of federal imperatives based on a mythical and centralizing vision of what industrial development should be in Canada.

The new role of the Federal Office of Regional Development is merely a duplication and overlapping of jurisdictions. Merged with the Department of Industry, it has become a business service centre, whereas there is already in Quebec a totally adequate information service and strategic assistance analysis entity available to small business, including exporting firms. The existence of a parallel network of 13 regional offices within the Federal Office of Development-Quebec is inappropriate, a duplication of services and, ultimately, a waste of public funds.

Because of cuts to provincial transfers as the result of the Liberals' February budget and Bill C-76 implementing it, financial transfers to Quebec will decrease by 32 per cent between 1994-95 and 1997-98. That is viable federalism, I would even say that is Ottawa's new administrative flexibility towards Quebec: cut, cut, cut.

It is important to understand that financial transfers are not a gift from the federal government, but are funded with our taxes. A sovereign Quebec would recover about $30 billion in taxes that Quebecers are paying to the federal government. It would recover this amount and administer it itself, according to its own priorities and its own strategic development plans. But because of cuts made by the federal government to provincial transfer payments between 1982 and 1993, taxes paid by Quebecers to the federal government increased by 143 per cent, while financial transfers from the federal government to Quebec only increased by 50 per cent. In terms of regional development, this situation has had the following effect since 1983: annual federal funds for regional development increased by only 50 per cent in Quebec, while they increased by 250 per cent in the Maritimes and by 300 per cent in Western Canada.

In conclusion, as far as Quebec is concerned, this means that the Quebec State and its regions should manage their own policy. And when Quebecers have decided their political autonomy by basing their development on education, professional training, dialogue between unions, businesses, universities and communities coming from the 16 administrative regions, then Quebec will have total control over the tools for its own development. There will then be an open and happy country.

[Telecommunications, April 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the way the minister acknowledges the direct link between the Prime Minister and his information sources is just incredible.

Given the admission that the Prime Minister's senior policy advisor, Eddie Goldenberg, was kept up-to-date on the matter affecting the Prime Minister's son-in-law, will the Minister of Industry admit that he and the Minister of Canadian Heritage were players in the Prime Minister's charade, in which he used his senior policy advisor to achieve indirectly what the law prohibits him from doing directly?

[Telecommunications, April 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister maintains that he did not put himself in a conflict of interest regarding Power DirecTv and continues to purport that he stayed at arm's length of the deal.

Now, the Minister of Industry said, in reply to my colleague's question, that he did not discuss the issue with the Prime Minister. That is what he claims. But we now know, and the Minister of Industry himself even admits it, that Eddie Goldenberg, the Prime Minister's senior policy advisor, was kept abreast of developments on the matter.

Will the Minister of Industry confirm that the departments of Canadian Heritage and Industry sent copies of all of the correspondence they exchanged regarding the Power DirecTv deal to the Prime Minister's senior policy advisor, Eddie Goldenberg?

[Readjustment Act, 1995, April 6th, 1995]

It was rejected everywhere.