Jean-Guy Chrétien

[Petitions, November 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition from several residents of the municipality of Stornoway in the riding of Frontenac-Mégantic.

Proposed changes to the calculation of the income security benefit are creating much concern and dissatisfaction among Stornoway seniors. This new bill that would base this benefit on family income will be particularly harmful to women.

We consider this as discrimination against most women. The people of Stornoway ask parliament to show more concern for the interests of seniors by withdrawing Bill C-36.

[Personal Information And Electronic Documents Act, November 2nd, 1998]

Madam Speaker, needless to say, I take great interest in joining with my colleague for Mercier at third reading of Bill C-54 to support and promote electronic commerce by protecting personal information that is collected. I will not read the title in full.

In my opinion, the primary purpose of this bill is to promote e-commerce. If there is time, and if the government and public servants are so disposed, an effort will be made to protect the personal information that has been gathered using the increasingly sophisticated electronic equipment available on the market.

Bill C-54 contains a number of shortcomings. Primarily, this is an extremely fragile and confusing piece of legislation that is liable to interpretation and to problems in determining divisions between the provinces and territories and the central government. This bill hands discriminatory power to the governor-in-council, or in other words the cabinet. What is more, the commissioner has no real power. Finally, this legislation will interfere with the Quebec legislation which has already been in place since 1982 and which has been reinforced in order to protect personal information not only in the public sector, in publicly owned corporations and in government, but also in the private sector.

For all these reasons, therefore, the Bloc Quebecois will most definitely object to Bill C-54, to which we are speaking this afternoon.

In this context, there is danger that the bill will limit Quebeckers' right to privacy , and no certainty that it will be capable of meeting the expectations of Canadian consumers.

Since ensuring homogeneity across Canada in the protection of personal information would appear to require the harmonization of legislation, one might well have expected the federal government to at least take some of its inspiration from what has been going on in Quebec for the past four years, from our experience with the protection of personal information. But it did no such thing.

Privacy is a fundamental right. The experts equate the right to privacy with other human rights such as the right to equality and justice.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations over 50 years ago and to which Canada was a signatory, states that everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person. It also states that no one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation.

Privacy is also protected in Canada, although only partially. This protection is not specifically included in the Charter, but that is how the courts have interpreted two important sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, sections 7 and 8.

I will take a moment or two to read these sections. Section 7 reads as follows:

“Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice”.

Section 8 provides as follows:

“Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure”.

This brings me to what happened a scant year ago in Vancouver, when the Prime Minister was host to APEC leaders. One of these leaders was Suharto, a head of state who was trampling the most elementary human rights within his own country.

While some 200 students demonstrated across from where the area where the meeting was to take place, the Prime Minister's Office and the Prime Minister himself issued no-nonsense orders to the RCMP to clear the area by 4 p.m. We all saw what happened. The duty RCMP staff sergeant gave orders to the demonstrators, students aged 17, 18 or 20 years old, several of whom were accompanied by their father or mother.

Imagine being with your daughter, who is exercizing her civic right here in this country to express her dissatisfaction with our Prime Minister for showing so much deference to a dictator like Suharto. This same Prime Minister then asks the police to give a warning, but 20 seconds later, the police go all out, using what our PM referred to as civilized methods, that is pepper spray. The next day, the Prime Minister mocked us by saying he only used pepper in his soup.

How do you expect our privacy rights to be respected in a country where even our civic rights are not respected? In this respect, I had the opportunity and pleasure to meet Roch Gosselin from East Angus Sunday morning. This middle-aged man was proud to tell me he got arrested, not under this government but under another Liberal government that was in office in 1970, when the current Prime Minister was a very high-ranking member of the cabinet that passed the War Measures Act.

Nearly 500 arrests were made among the Quebec elite, often without just cause. Roch Gosselin, of East Angus, was one of those who were detained for a dozen days without knowing why. His only fault was to want to give his children and grandchildren a country: Quebec. Like Pauline Julien, he was jailed.

Today, the government is apologizing profusely, but the same men and women are now sitting across the way and proposing Bill C-54 presumably to protect our privacy, our personal information. They want to see this legislation passed. Why do they not tell us the truth this afternoon? Why not say that the primary purpose of this bill is to promote the sale of electronic products?

Roch Gosselin is a distinguished citizen in his town of East Angus, yet his civic rights were trampled. He was jailed. What did the current Prime Minister, the member for Saint-Maurice, do when in cabinet at the time? Again, he mocked us.

In a free vote, this government refused to fund the legal representation of financially challenged Vancouver students by renowned lawyers. An artist slated to receive a $10,000 prize from the governor general, has agreed, and I congratulate him on this, to donate his prize money to the student legal representation fund.

[Canada Customs And Revenue Agency Act, October 27th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, with Bill C-43, the Minister of National Revenue is proposing today the establishment of a new Canada customs and revenue agency. The federal government seems to be abdicating its primary responsibilities.

At this rate, why not privatize the Canadian Armed Forces and establish a government agency responsible for looking after the well being of Canadians? Why not privatize the RCMP while we are at it? Is there no end to this government's absurdity and irresponsibility?

As an educator, I can give you an example: the Post Office Department. Control over this organization was transferred away from the government when Canada Post was established. Naturally, this agency is accountable to the minister responsible for Canada Post. This minister is also the minister responsible for Public Works and Government Services Canada.

Canada Post rents a number of buildings from Public Works and Government Services Canada. In my riding, the tenant is not too happy. Dozens of residents of Disraeli have paid special attention to the grounds in front of the existing post office on St-Joseph Street, in Disraeli. This post office has been for sale for many years. There is a “For Sale” sign on the decrepit building and the cedar hedge is all dry.

As a member of parliament, I took upon myself to write the Hon. André Ouellet, the former minister who resigned to make room for the new Minister of Human Resources Development. As a reward, he was offered the title of chairman of Canada Post Corporation, which comes with an annual salary of $154,000 and a bottomless expense account.

I sent a letter to André Ouellet to draw his attention to the fact that the exterior of the Canada Post building, a building rented by Canada Post Corporation but owned by Public Works and Government Services Canada, was in a sorry state.

My letter to the Minister responsible for Public Works and Government Services Canada was mailed in August, and the reply arrived two days ago. It read in part “In response to your letter of August 18, 1998, addressed to Mr. André Ouellet, chairman of the Canada Post Corporation, regarding the appearance of the Disraeli post office, which is owned by Public Works and Government Services Canada”.

The letter goes on to say “First of all, the fact that it has been planned for some years now to vacate this building has had an impact on the approval of renovation projects. In 1995, certain repairs were recommended in an expert evaluation, but since the building had been declared surplus, only priority projects were undertaken, among them the installation of an automatic door opener to bring the building in line with accessibility standards”.

A short paragraph follows that will definitely be of interest to the people of Disraeli. “Moreover, I will take advantage of this opportunity to inform you that this building is about to be sold. A purchase commitment was accepted on September 30, contingent on financing”.

The danger that lurks behind the creation of an agency like the one here, which would collect taxes, including the federal GST and the provincial sales tax, is that everything will be allowed to deteriorate. The building I have referred to here is located in a town of 3,000, but serves most of the surrounding rural municipalities as well, and it has been totally neglected. It is an embarrassment to Canada Post.

Canada Post says “But, you know, this building is not our property. It belongs to Public Works Canada”. Public Works Canada says “It is pointless to repair the building, we want to sell it”. You can see what happens under a government led by the Prime Minister and member for Saint-Maurice, who gets bad, very bad advice.

In this regard, I want to quote a statement made not too long ago by the President of the Treasury Board, who said “Creation of the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency is an essential component of the government's commitment to modernize the federal public service”. The minister did say “to modernize the federal public service”. He should come to Disraeli. The member of parliament had to ask that a totally dried out hedge be removed to get things moving. Everything is neglected.

After the building in Disraeli is sold, what will Canada Post do? It will sign a long term lease, probably for a period of 10 years, with an option to renew at conditions that are usually very reassuring to the new buyer.

As with the statements made by the Prime Minister to La Presse a few days ago, one can see that they are totally out of touch with rural areas and people who want a certain quality of life.

The Prime Minister should get out of his bubble and meet ordinary people. If he does not want to come to Frontenac—and I can certainly understand why—he should at least go to his own riding of Saint-Maurice. His constituents only see him once every four years—when he is seeking re-election—along with about 100 people working for him.

There is another point I want to make. At first, the agency will be created by converting the existing revenue department into a semi-independent government agency. That agency will have the mandate of negotiating, with the provinces and municipalities that are interested, the collection of all taxes in Canada.

Let me give you another example, that of the RCMP and the QPP in Quebec, or the OPP in Ontario. As members know, the RCMP, which provides police services in the other eight provinces and in the territories—and even in certain large cities—only charges those provinces and cities 77% of its actual costs. This means that Quebec and Ontario indirectly pay 23% of the RCMP services in New Brunswick, British Columbia, Alberta and the territories.

That could happen. The provinces and municipalities not using this new tax, revenue or customs collection agency—if Quebec or Ontario fail to join—will pay indirectly for the other provinces using its services. An injustice will occur, just as is the case with the RCMP.

On the other hand, they say it will be the same thing and that they will comply with the Access to Information Act, the Privacy Act and the Official Languages Act. The Department of National Revenue is not even able to comply with the Official Languages Act now. I have had dozens of complaints in my riding from passengers and truckers going through Lacolle, who claim that the officers they see are unilingual English.

In closing, I promise one thing, and I have a pretty reliable memory. The member for Verdun—Saint-Henri will run into me when he speaks. He is one of the most vulgar and rude members of the Liberal Party.

[Supply, October 26th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I want to point out that I was elected democratically in the riding of Frontenac—Mégantic, just like the Liberal member opposite, and I must represent—

[Supply, October 26th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I think my distinguished colleague is totally disconnected from human reality in this country. She must surely live in a posh neighbourhood, and she probably does not meet her voters in the places where she should.

In 1997, Quebec paid $475 million more than it received. Federalists can no longer use the argument they relied on in 1980, when they tried to scare people by saying “We cannot separate from the rest of Canada, or else we will lose access to the unemployment insurance program”.

The hon. member spoke about poverty. I would like to know what she thinks of the people in my riding who work as volunteer firefighters. These people clean fire trucks, hoses, etc., on a volunteer basis. The fifteen or so volunteer firefighters in Black Lake spend hours of their free time doing that work and maintaining a volunteer firefighters unit in the community.

When they fight a fire, they are paid $14 or $15 per hour. There is a volunteer fireman who helped fight 12 fires. He suffered a shortfall of $1,534. Because he earned $526, the government knocked $1,534 off his benefits. This is a volunteer fireman who does volunteer work and who contributed $1,534 to the $20 billion accumulated surplus. Is this what we mean by poverty?

This government is taxing poor people to death in order to lower its deficit. EI contributions are too high, given the benefits paid by the government to the unemployed.

[Supply, October 26th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I remind my distinguished colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence, that the pilot project is currently being tried out in only 29 regions. The poverty to which we often allude in this House does not exist only in these 29 regions of Canada. In my riding, for example, the government refused to recognize the region of Thetford Mines, using the pretext that it was part of a very large region, Region No. 13, Chaudière—Appalaches, and also part of the Estrie region, where the unemployment rate is artificially lower.

I ask the parliamentary secretary whether an unfair practice is being used to penalize certain regions where the unemployment rate is high, but which have a lower unemployment rate when taken together. There is a reason why, within a period of four years, EI contributions have allowed the government to accumulate a surplus of $20 billion. If there is a $20 billion surplus, it is because there are people who make EI contributions, but who do not collect benefits. It is somewhat like being insured against fire, having your house burn down, and being told “You did pay premiums, but you were not covered, so you should have avoided that situation”.

It is not very bright on the government's part to make the poor even poorer.

[Supply, October 26th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, when the Liberal government agreed to bundle small weeks to have more acceptable weeks, it agreed to do it in only 29 regions where the unemployment rates were the highest.

If the unemployment rate is 10.5% in one area and 9.4% in the neighbouring one, this does not mean poverty and hardship do not exist there.

I would ask my distinguished colleague whether he would support a motion asking the government to extend the program to every region in Canada where small weeks could be bundled to have more acceptable weeks so that a former miner at the BC Mine, Louis-Philippe Roy, is not penalized for having been of service by acting as a pallbearer for the funeral parlour.

[Supply, October 26th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I had the pleasure of visiting the riding of the member for Malpeque, who is also Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. His riding is similar to mine in many respects, with a rather high unemployment rate.

I would like to have his comments as the representative of the Minister of Human Resources Development. A former BC Mine worker from my riding came to see me. During the period when he received EI benefits, he worked as a pallbearer at the funeral home, earning $22 each time. So he had 10 small weeks with $22 in income, one with $44 in income since he did it twice that week, and another with $66 in income since he did it three times that week. When he applied for EI benefits for the second time, the department took the last 26 weeks with earnings, which meant 12 small weeks and 14 weeks when he was working as a miner.

Louis-Philippe Roy, from Black Lake, earned $375 as a pallbearer, and his EI benefits were cut by $1,734. He lost $102 a week. Therefore, because this unemployed miner earned $375, he lost $1,359.

That means that Louis-Philippe Roy contributed, involuntarily of course, $1,359 to the $20 billion in accumulated surplus.

Because the unemployment rate exceeds 10% in the riding of my distinguished colleague from Malpeque, small weeks can be adjusted into one single week, but this cannot be done in Thetford or in Black Lake because these communities are part of the greater Chaudière-Appalaches region, which includes the Beauce region where the unemployment rate is very low.

I just wanted to draw to the attention of the House the flagrant injustice of which Louis-Philippe Roy was a victim.

[Petitions, October 26th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table a petition organized by Albini Lafontaine in Frontenac, which is in my riding.

This petition calls for abolition of the Senate. This would mean an annual saving of $50 million, as well as making the operations of parliament more democratic, and more efficient as well.

[Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act, October 22nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I want to re-read the amendment put forward by my hon. colleague from the Bloc Quebecois.

That Bill C-54, Personal Information and Electroinic Documents Act, be not now read a second time but that the Order be discharged, the Bill withdrawn and the subject matter thereof referred to the Standing Committee on Industry.

The purpose of this bill is to protect personal information. It is a very timid piece of legislation that could hurt a lot of Quebeckers.

In 1982, the Quebec government passed an act respecting the protection of private information in the public sector. All the other provinces and the federal government eventually passed a similar act. Let me remind the House that those acts only protected private information in the public sector.

In 1994, the Liberal government in Quebec, first under Robert Bourassa then Daniel Johnson, improved the 1982 legislation by passing an act extending the protection of private information to the private sector.

Therefore, the Quebec government is the only administration in North America to have an act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector, which has been in effect for four years now.

Bill C-54 comes as the federal legislation to protect personal information in the private sector which we have been promised many times.

I do not want to reread the title of the bill, since I only have 10 minutes, but the previous speaker, the oustanding member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, did take the time to read the very legalese title, which is eight lines long. At the end, we realize that the purpose of this bill is not really to protect personal information in the private sector, but to promote the sales of electronic equipment.

Bill C-54 is a very timid bill. Indeed, it could, as I said before, deny many Quebeckers rights that they had in the legislation passed in 1994 by the Liberal Party.

A little while ago, my colleague gave the example of an Eaton employee in Montreal and the parent company in Toronto, where all personal files are kept. The Eaton employee who would like to check if there are errors in his file can now do so under the Quebec legislation. But once Bill C-45, as proposed by the government of the Prime Minister and member for Saint-Maurice, passes third reading in the House, that employee will no longer have that right because the legislation says this is not a matter of commercial relations, but of labour relations. So he would lose that right.

If he really wants to see his file, he will have to go before a federal court This makes no sense.

This legislation should at least be greatly amended or better yet, struck from the Order Paper . The members for Sherbrooke and Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière only suggested that the bill be referred to the Standing Committee on Industry, where government and opposition members could make sensible and meaningful amendments.

What hurts also are the excessive powers given to the governor in council in section 27(2)( b ) of Bill C-54. This is dangerous. As I become more familiar with the evolution of this Parliament and of the whole country, I realize that we should not give more power to the Prime Minister, especially this one.

I will never forget—and I am sure all members will remember—the significant role played by the current Prime Minister in the Trudeau cabinet. They had agreed to apply the War Measures Act and almost 500 public figures were imprisoned in Quebec, including the late Pauline Julien. She was in jail for eight days without ever being accused of anything but only on the pretence that she might be dangerous. Those are the absurd situations that happened under the Liberal government in the early 1970s.

Orders originating from the Prime Minister's office show that, on November 25, 1997, in Vancouver, the Prime Minister himself ordered the RCMP to clear the place by four o'clock in the afternoon. Twenty seconds after the RCMP officer gave these orders, young students accompanied by their parents were pepper sprayed.

Fortunately, the RCMP had foreseen this. They had already brought with them not only pepper spray but also wet towels to alleviate the harm done to those students who are the ones who will succeed us tomorrow, who will be our elite, possibly future prime ministers, members of Parliament, speakers of legislatures or of the House of Commons.

This government will invest more than $2 billion in education. Appropriations have been voted and money has already been invested in the millennium scholarships, in an area which is not under federal jurisdiction. The government does this to make itself look good to students and then, a few hours later, it goes off and roughs up several hundred students before throwing them into jail. A student said that he was kept in prison for eight hours without any charge being laid against him and, worse yet, he was forced to sign a form saying that he would not go back to the APEC summit to demonstrate.

The Prime Minister misused his power. Bill C-54 gives him powers which will be transferred to future prime ministers. I think that this man can sometimes be dangerous. We must not give him powers. The Prime Minister went so far as to say that it could have been baseball bats instead of pepper spray. The next day, he said that the RCMP could have used water cannons instead. So why not do as China did in Tiananmen Square and use tanks and simply kill the protesters. He is a dangerous man and I do not understand that some of my colleagues refuse to pay lawyers so that we can finally know the truth about what happened on the 25th of November of last year, almost eleven months ago.

Therefore, I find it hard to believe that the government seriously wants to protect our personal information with Bill C-54, when it does not even respect our civil rights. In Canada, the right to express one's opposition to a dictator on an official visit or to applaud Queen Elizabeth II when she comes to Ottawa is well recognized.

Where is the government leading us? To a dictatorship perhaps? Mr. Speaker, I invite you to exert all the pressure you can on the government to convince it to withdraw Bill C-54 as soon as possible.