Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral

[Privilege, May 1st, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am indeed aware that the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan did apologize in this House, but I insist that apologies are necessary. The fact remains that the comments made by our colleague infringe on the dignity of the people of Canada and Quebec, and I really think that this statement-

[Privilege, May 1st, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I feel that my privileges as a member of Parliament have been breached by the unacceptable remarks made by a member of this House.

The discriminatory and racist comments made by the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan prompt me to ask you to suspend him from this House until his case is reviewed by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

In an interview to the Vancouver Sun , the hon. member said that if he ran a business and if he had a homosexual employee-

[Budget Implementation Act, 1996, April 29th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, members of the official opposition will vote yea on the amendment to the amendment.

[Tragedy In Hobart, April 29th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, 34 people in Hobart, Australia, have been shot down in cold blood by a madman, and another 18 wounded. Among the wounded are two Canadians, Simon and Susan Williams of the Canadian High Commission to Australia.

Regrettably, this event calls to mind the recent tragedies in Vernon, B.C., and in Dunblane, Scotland, as well as the École polytechnique massacre in Montreal, in 1989.

On behalf of my colleagues, and on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois, I wish to express our most sincere condolences to the families of the victims. We hope that they will be able to find in themselves all of the courage and energy required to get through this terrible ordeal.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1996, April 26th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege today of taking part in the debate on Bill C-31. It is a privilege since the debate at second reading began late Wednesday and will already end today. Obviously, the Liberal government prefers to gag the Bloc Quebecois in the House regarding Bill C-31, just as it did when the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development considered Bill C-12 on unemployment insurance reform.

The Liberal government is in such a hurry to pass these bills that it resorts to undemocratic measures rather than taking part in the debate and explaining the real objects of these bills, as well as their negative impact on Canadians.

Bill C-31 seeks to enact a series of controversial measures which will hit Quebecers and Canadians hard, and which will result in the continuing deterioration of their living conditions. All this in the name of the fight against the deficit.

Sure, order has to be restored in public finances. We are all aware of the situation. However, this must not be done on the back of the poor and the unemployed. Shovelling into the provinces' backyards is not a solution either: winter is over.

Part III of Bill C-31 amends the Unemployment Insurance Act so that maximum weekly benefits will drop from $445 to $413. This change will make claimants even poorer, and this means young people and single mothers mostly.

Moreover, the maximum insurable gains are being lowered to $39,000 per year. This means that it is primarily high income earners who will make lower contributions to the unemployment insurance fund. The change will result in tax savings of $900 million for high income earners. These measures directly affect the unemployed and will be applied retroactively to January 1, 1996.

Oddly enough, these two provisions are also found in Bill C-12 on unemployment insurance reform. Is the government trying to use the back door, in case the UI reform does not go through soon enough?

Despite all the demonstrations against this reform, particularly in Quebec and the eastern provinces, the party in power, the Liberal Party, is reiterating its intentions and including measures that will penalize the unemployed in Bill C-31.

This bill also affects the Canada social transfer, especially in Quebec. Unfazed, the government will continue to cut social program funding, which in Quebec will mean a shortfall of $5 billion over the next four years. The government is cutting but, in the same breath, maintaining national standards so that it can tell the provinces what to do. We have said this over and over: the government must withdraw from social program funding and give

the provinces what they need to fund these programs. All that the government is doing now is reducing the deficit on the backs of the provinces, by cutting transfers and continuing to call the shots on standards.

What is more, social program transfers will now be based on the population of provinces, instead of taking real needs into account. It is therefore the richer provinces who will benefit from the social transfers. Finally, with this bill, the red book government is reforming the GST.

The announcement by the finance minister this week concerning the agreement reached between the federal government and the provinces of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick showed us without a shadow of a doubt how this party really governs.

During the last election campaign, the Liberals made the abolition of the GST one of the main planks in their electoral platform. Back then, the Prime Minister told the public that the GST had to be scrapped.

The Deputy Prime Minister, for her part, was heard on CBC on October 18, 1993, just a few days before the election, saying, and I quote:

"I have already said personally and very directly that if the GST is not abolished I will resign".

This morning's newspapers show that, surprisingly enough, the Deputy Prime Minister herself admitted talking through her hat when she made that statement. In this morning's Le Devoir , the Minister of Canadian Heritage gives her own version of history with respect to the GST: ``I never said it would be scrapped without being replaced; no one ever said that''.

Barely six months after being elected, the Prime Minister repeated on May 2, 1994: "We hate this tax and we will kill it". I think the statements made by the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister could not be any clearer. As recently as last Wednesday, the Minister of Finance himself admitted that promising to kill the GST had been a mistake. In fact, the real mistake is not that the Liberals promised to kill the GST, but that this government, which has no qualms about reneging on its most important election promises, was elected.

The hon. members for York South-Weston and for Broadview-Greenwood did not hesitate to condemn the government's refusal to honour its commitments. There were at least two members on the other side of the House who did not suffer from collective amnesia.

No matter what is written in the famous red book, all the people in Quebec and Canada heard key government figures promise to kill the GST. Not only does the agreement between the three Atlantic provinces and the federal government not kill the GST, it reinforces it.

The Minister of Finance talked about harmonizing provincial and federal sales taxes; in fact, provincial taxes will not be harmonized with but absorbed into the GST to become a national tax fully administered by the federal government, depriving the provinces of their autonomy in controlling their own tax rates.

To add insult to injury, the Minister of Finance is making the other provinces pay for this agreement. In fact, $960 million will be paid to the three Atlantic provinces concerned, including $250 million taken directly from the pockets of Quebecers. And this is only the beginning, as this measure will be implemented in the same way after the federal government negotiates agreements with Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island.

To top it all, the government is paying to renege on its promises while pretending to honour them. The GST stays, and the government continues to dump its deficit onto the provinces. Obviously, things could not be any better.

[Chernobyl, April 26th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, April 26, 1996 marks the 10th anniversary of the tragedy in Chernobyl. According to the Ukrainian authorities, this tragedy has, in the ten years, killed over 4,220 people, more than half of whom had been assigned to decontaminate the site after the explosion.

The official opposition wishes to offer its most heartfelt condolences to the survivors of the tragedy and to all those who lost someone near to them in this accident.

In addition, it is estimated that more than 3.5 million people, including thousands of children, have been seriously affected by radiation, which continues to wreak its devastation. We wish all these people the courage they need to get through this terrible ordeal.

The members of the Bloc Quebecois, on behalf of all their constituents, wish to thank all people and governments providing technical and financial assistance and comfort to the Ukrainians affected.

Chernobyl is a tragedy with a lesson for us all. It must lead to a tightening of standards and safety requirements for nuclear power plants. However, most importantly, we must not forget that no technology is perfect, however sophisticated it may be.

Political decisions compounded the effects of the catastrophe at the time it occurred and subsequently. While the events at Chernobyl may be due to a technical error, they were due just as much to political error, from which no government can claim to be exempt.

The recent incidents at Pickering, Ontario, although of a very different scope, show that the Government of Canada is not above trying to hide information from people on the potential dangers they face.

We hope that the minister's speech today will encourage the heads of this power plant to respond to the pressing questions of people in the region and of environmental groups, who are entitled to answers.

Today we are recalling the 10th anniversary of Chernobyl. May it be an event that is the last of its kind.

[Human Rights, April 26th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, it seems clear that the government is taking full advantage of an out of court agreement. The problem nevertheless remains unresolved. It also seems clear that the government does not wish to take any action against sexual harassment committed by subcontractors. Would this by any chance be because the government thinks that the Canadian Human Rights Act is worth no more than the paper it is written on?

[Human Rights, April 26th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State responsible for the Status of Women.

Ann Raney is an engineer. Until quite recently, she had a job repairing the Peace Tower. The victim of sexual harassment, she is now without a job, as are the colleagues who supported her. Her harasser, however, still has his job.

Can the minister tell us when the Canadian government will decide to terminate its contract with Fuller Construction, which is responsible for hiring the subcontractor, Colonial, by invoking the clause which states that a company committing discriminatory actions breaches that contract?

[Department Of Human Resources Development Act, April 23rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the members of the official opposition will vote no.

[Department Of Health Act, April 23rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the members of the official opposition will vote nay.