Jean-Guy Chrétien

[Supply, June 8th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the Reform Party member who just spoke about the Senate expressed very interesting views. His determination to stand up for the regions was one aspect of his speech that I found particularly striking.

I have here the list of Quebec senators with their mailing address. At the moment, Quebec is lucky enough to have 21 senators. Being myself a representative of a large riding far from the big urban centres, I insist on the rights of regions. If really the Senate is that important, our regions-Abitibi-Témiscamingue, the North Shore, the Gaspe Peninsula-should also have a senator to represent them adequately. According to this list, of these 21 senators, 13 are from the Montreal area. There is one whose address is Laval-sur-le-Lac. I wonder if he would not also be from the Montreal area.

[Supply, June 8th, 1994]

Yes, under the Constitution. I lived in Wolfe, where there were about 6,000 voters at the time, compared with nearly 100,000 in Westmount. There were six or seven protected ridings, and to revoke their protected status required a unanimous resolution of the Quebec National Assembly. So the members for these ridings agreed to vote their ridings out of existence and themselves out of a job. Of course, a number of mutually acceptable arrangements were made.

I think that is the price we have to pay, because after going back in time several hundred years during the very interesting overview the hon. member gave us earlier, when we get back to the situation today in 1994, and soon in 2000, well, the Senate- In any case, when I mention the Senate in Frontenac, people tend to laugh. I will not repeat everything they said, but they do not take the Senate very seriously.

I would appreciate hearing the views of the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra.

[Supply, June 8th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to what was said by the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra, and I would appreciate his comments on the Legislative Council of what was then known as the Legislative Assembly in Quebec City. In 1967, Premier Daniel Johnson senior abolished the Legislative Council. Well, you know how these things work. There was the usual wheeling and dealing, and finally the councillors agreed to be voted out of existence.

I would also like to recall for the benefit of the hon. member and this is another point, that I used to live in one of seven so-called protected ridings in Quebec.

[National Environment Week, June 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, as spokesperson for the Official Opposition, I am pleased to talk about National Environment Week.

The protection of our environment must be ensured in our daily actions. The various projects and activities of each level of government must be implemented in the context of sustainable development. Our society must meet this important challenge, and National Environment Week is the appropriate time to reflect on initiatives which can be taken to improve our environment.

I want to point out the work done by thousands of people who are members of environmental organizations, or who promote environmental protection in schools and recreation centres. Their contribution is essential and must be recognized.

[Points Of Order, May 31st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, over the past few weeks, I have heard numerous testimonies from various individuals and groups while serving as the vice-chairman of the committee on the environment and sustainable development.

Following debate which was quite lively at times, it became apparent that the positions of the Bloc Quebecois and Liberal Party were irreconcilable. Opinions differed not on the wording or the terms and conditions, but rather on the very substance of the matter.

The report which the committee tabled yesterday calls for the appointment of a new authority, whereas we advocate the use of a structure that is already in place and has proven its worth.

In our view, it would be more appropriate to broaden the mandate of the Auditor General's Office and grant it the required resources to deal with environmental issues in a proper, thorough manner.

To all those who would loudly denounce this alternative as reactive and not in keeping with sustainable development, our answer would be that the proposed solution is nothing but an attempt to impress.

An appointed official has no business making policy. Our democratic system allows Canadians and Quebecers to elect representatives to govern the country and lead it ably on the path to sustainable development. It would be too easy to have an additional authority, a whipping boy, which would be made responsible for all decisions.

In this instance, the mandate of the commissioner of the environment will in many ways overlap the mandates of other authorities, notably the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, certain Green Plan programs and even Environment Canada.

We are not opposed to virtue and we acknowledge the importance of protecting the environment in any way possible. However, we felt the honest thing to do was to criticize this proposed new position which would merely provide another way out for a government unwilling to carry out the responsibilities entrusted to it by its citizens.

[Points Of Order, May 31st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday afternoon, around this time, the member for Davenport, who chairs the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development, tabled our report which contained a dissenting report by the Bloc Quebecois.

I rose, pursuant to Standing Order 35(2), to present the Bloc's opinion, but the Deputy Chairman, who was busy doing something else, did not recognize me. Mr. Speaker, if you allow me, I would be very pleased to do so this afternoon.

[Thetford Mines Area, May 24th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I join the Leader of the Official Opposition in the Quebec National Assembly in denouncing the Premier's statement regarding the Asbestos area. On May 11 last, the issue of Metropolitan Gas expansion was debated by the National Assembly. Mr. Johnson stated at that time that it was not cost-effective to invest in that area.

People there have been ingenious enough to diversify and survive after the demand for asbestos dropped dramatically; Thetford Mines was even declared Industrial City of the year in 1992. We can see that Mr. Johnson is completely disconnected from reality.

I find it despicable for a politician, in his ivory tower, to hamper the efforts of our people who are doing their utmost to develop the area around Thetford Mines.

[Agriculture, May 10th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague from Huron-Bruce, and I am delighted to see that in this House there are several members who seem to want to defend the interests of our farmers.

However, I would like to have him clarify a point which he stressed several times when he talked about ensuring the financial security of our farmers.

I too am familiar with the farmers of Quebec. However, you know that 49 per cent of the milk consumed in Canada is produced in Quebec. I therefore wonder how we can tell our farmers in Quebec that we are going to ensure their financial security when milk quotas are reduced regularly by a few percentage points each year, except last year, when they went up 2 per cent or rather, 2 per cent was loaned. Production costs are rising constantly, and our dairy farmers have been selling milk at practically the same price for the past five years.

The same holds true for veal calf breeders. The price of veal has virtually not risen at all since 1978, whereas production costs continue to rise.

I would like the person who spoke last to tell us, in all seriousness, how he can say to Quebec farmers that the Liberal government, which was just elected with a solid majority, is going to ensure their financial security in the foreseeable future, not in 50 years, but in a year or two. I would like to hear you talk about that.

[Pulp And Paper, May 10th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on the motion tabled by the hon. member for Davenport, who is also the chairman of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.

I am always impressed by the hon. member's appropriate and honest comments, which reflect a genuine concern for the protection of our environment.

Quebec and Canada must make a sustained effort to control the overconsumption of goods and services. The motion tabled this afternoon must be supported by every member in this House, since it aims to significantly improve the quality of water.

The motion is twofold. First, it proposes to develop regulations and a program to replace dioxin producing bleaching processes in pulp and paper mills in Canada. Then, it proposes to launch a campaign to educate the public about the advantages offered by non-bleached paper products.

The Bloc Quebecois fully agrees with the need to review regulations on the pulp and paper industry, even though the Pulp and Paper Mill Effluent Chlorinated Dioxins and Furans Regulations were passed as recently as May 7, 1992, under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

These regulations, which came into effect on July 1, 1992, regulate two types of chlorinated dioxins and furans. In fact, these two substances were the first ones on the list of primary interest substances to be evaluated in terms of their toxicity.

These regulations were the result of initial action taken by the government under the Green Plan to limit industrial pollution.

These regulations are particularly important, especially since the Pulp and Paper Effluent Regulations which were passed at the same time are related to the Fisheries Act which does not require an evaluation of the possible dangers of effluents to human health. Consequently, I think it is essential that the regulations on chlorinated dioxins and furans provide us with means to protect the health of every human being.

However, the issue of regulations in the pulp and paper industry is very complex. This industry has played an important role in our economy for a long time now. Although it has provided essential financial support, the pulp industry has also long been an important source of pollution.

Even though we still have a long way to go, the results obtained encourage us to continue on this road. Industry complains when the government forces it to use new equipment to meet stricter standards.

Let me remind you here that when a regulation is passed forcing a company to incur expenses to meet a new standard, it can reduce its taxable income by deducting a capital cost allowance and operating expenses from its profits.

However, I would like to voice a criticism of my colleague from Davenport. He has fine qualities, I admit, but he has a drawback: he is a Liberal. The Conservative government did some things that were beyond reproach, of course; it did some things for which it can be criticized, but one thing it did was to try to put pulp and paper mills on the road to environmental protection and sustainable development.

The Liberals were elected on October 25 and the House had not yet started to sit under the new Liberal team when I read in Le Soleil : ``Domtar has a year to comply with Ottawa's new green standards''. Now there are about 15 pulp and paper mills along the St. Lawrence River. Less than three months after they were elected, the Liberal Party granted the paper mills an exemption from a regulation that the Conservative government had passed here in this House.

Let me read you a paragraph or two:

Ottawa has just allowed Domtar to dump into the water until 1996 twice the amount of pollution that it usually produces at its Beauharnois plant-

-Beauharnois is in Quebec, my friends-

-says the Société pour vaincre la pollution, SVP.

In an interview in Le Soleil , its spokesperson, Daniel Green, denounced the one-year delay granted yesterday by the federal government for these facilities to meet the new ``green'' standards.

Similar permission was granted to most of the 60-odd paper mills in the province.

And water flows downhill. In my riding, close by, in East Angus, there is a paper mill, and there is one in Windsor. The waste, following the Saint-François River, flows by Drummondville and inevitably ends up in the St. Lawrence River. Nearly all of the 60 paper mills in Quebec have obtained a waiver from your government, my friends. I have not heard one of them get up and yell, not one.

I also wish to draw attention to a report that was just made public by the Quebec Department of the Environment and Wildlife. It is the annual report on environmental compliance for the pulp and paper sector, 1992.

The report shows that, while the Quebec pulp and paper industry probably experienced its worst financial year in 1992, the percentage of compliance with standards substantially improved and the quantities of waste discharged also declined significantly.

To say that financial constraints oblige us to go slow in our efforts to reduce the use of chlorine is therefore not as true as it once was.

As we recently discovered in reading the seventh biennial report of the International Joint Commission on Water Quality in the Great Lakes, the pollution of these bodies of water has a drastic impact on human health.

These effects, to name only two, include congenital malformations and learning disabilities. We are no longer talking about fish. This winter, opposite Trois-Rivières, at Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade, a third of fish in the channels, the tommy-cod, were blind. A third. But we are no longer talking about fish, but human beings. Children are born and it is known, at birth, that they will have a learning difficulty that can be determined. This is no laughing matter.

When birds were affected, the females laid eggs with shells that were too thin to ensure reproduction and people said, "It is sad about the birds". But in this case, human beings are involved. It is estimated that one person in three will develop some form of cancer at one time or another in his lifetime. One person in three. And you know where that comes from, cancer, from carcinogenic agents, including these we are talking about.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I see that my 10 minutes are already nearly up. I will conclude by saying to the member for Davenport that the Bloc Quebecois is, of course, in agreement with his private member's motion. It remains to be seen whether his party will have the courage of its convictions and go all the way with a bill that has teeth.

[Pearson International Airport Agreements Act, May 9th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would not want to sound like a discontented child, but it seems to me that I had more than four minutes left. I hope you will show some indulgence if I ever need a few seconds more.

As I was saying earlier, a government is responsible to its electors first and foremost. Since we are elected by Canadians, we are responsible to them. If, in addition, we were to be bound hand and foot by the multinational corporations that are financing political parties, we would not have much room to maneuver, especially when the people's interests do not necessarily go hand in hand with those of the corporations.

If financial considerations did not motivate those who govern, people would listen with greater attention to explanations of nebulous situations, as is the case here. Since they know perfectly well that corporations contribute to the electoral coffers of political parties, people put their fingers in their ears and do not want to hear anything. And rightly so, Mr. Speaker, rightly so.

It is obvious that situations like that would not happen if people financing political parties were ordinary people, the electors, not the corporations investing where it is profitable for them.

At this point, I would like to talk to you about the executive of the Bloc Quebecois for my riding, under the direction of Éric Labonté, Vincent Carrier, Raynald Paré and myself. We have visited or called most of our 2,049 members. Those are the people financing the Bloc Quebecois in the riding of Frontenac. As the member for Frontenac, I am accountable to my constituents who with their donation of $5, $10, $20 and, exceptionally, $100, will help us collect between $15,000 and $20,000 for the Bloc Quebecois. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that as the member for Frontenac, I owe absolutely nothing to the multinationals or to our big corporations. I am proud of my constituents, and I am proud of the members of my party who help us finance our election expenses.

During the last election campaign, all Bloc Quebecois members in this House accepted contributions only from registered voters, not from interest groups or companies.

We cannot blame the companies, because their purpose is to make a profit. However, we have a different situation when we look at the Liberal government and the groups to whom the political parties are accountable which are no longer the average citizen but the big multinationals.

Since this government came to power, it has blamed the Conservatives for every peccadillo that might hurt the party. Now it has a chance to shed some light on a number of questionable procedures and to remedy the situation. Why has the Liberal government opposite, in the six months it has been in power, not done that?

Is there more than meets the eye? Is it afraid of a commission of inquiry that would find out the real reasons behind the privatization of Pearson airport, the only airport that was profitable and self-financing? Why did it not privatize the other airports?

No, they privatized the only one that was making money. As the farmers in my riding would say, they privatized the best milk cow. It was easy, you see. They sold the best milk cow to friends of the government. So they stuffed their pockets at the expense of the taxpayer.

On the weekend I went to a meeting. There were 47 people there. The meeting was organized by the regional committee for the Thetford Mines region and was chaired by Nicole Jacques. Monsignor Couture, the archbishop of the diocese of Quebec City, was there, together with local authorities. These included the industrial commissioner, several mayors and the presidents of various interest groups in the riding of Frontenac.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss how to get Quebec out of the poverty cycle, and Saturday morning, several speakers blamed poor management. And we heard the same comment this afternoon.

There was a question on the trips taken by ministers on government jets. My constituents wonder how the government can raise taxes and try to cut assistance to people who, unfortunately, have to go on welfare or on employment insurance, while the hon. member for Hull-Aylmer, spent nearly $170,000 of taxpayers money just so he could make a short ten-minute speech on good management in the public sector.

People in my riding who live on the poverty line have trouble understanding this kind of poor management. It does not make sense that taxpayers have to pay for the government's mistakes. When the investors signed the contract, the Conservatives were on their way out. The investors were taking a calculated risk.

Of course, there were Liberals as well as Conservatives among these investors. As you know, when there a buck to be made, people often set aside their political allegiance and, just to make sure they are not on the wrong side, they give to both. They gave as much to the Liberals as they did to the Conservatives.

That way, they were guaranteed a place at the public trough. And you know perfectly well that when an investor gives $1 to a political party, it is in the hope of getting back not $5, but $100, $200 or even $1,000. It always sounds strange to me to hear about the Minister of Justice attending a $1,000 a plate dinner for 23 guests. Those people do not really pay $1,000. Besides, none of them earn $25,000 or $30,000.

My time is already up, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank you for giving me a few minutes more since I had been interrupted before Question Period.