Antoine Dubé

[Harbour Dues, June 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, we learned this morning that the Minister of Transport will be announcing in July a significant increase in access fees for the ports he wants to transfer to local officials.

This is fairly incredible news, since today is probably the last day of the session, so that we will not be able to put any more questions to him. What fine transparency.

With the airports transferred, the railroads dismantled and bus transportation deregulated, this decision may well further empty the regions and have a major effect on shipping.

Let the Minister of Transport take it as read: despite the parliamentary recess, he will find members of the Bloc Quebecois in his path if he maintains this decision. He is not dealing with any ship of fools.

[Supply, June 7th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I understand why the member for Ottawa—Vanier would be annoyed when such things are said to him. With a third of the associations threatened, he has every reason to react.

In closing, I will read the text of the motion brought forward by the member for Longueuil. It reads as follows:

That, since the government ignored most of the recommendations by the Sub-Committee on the Study of Sport in Canada, a Sub-Committee of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, the House demand that the government place amateur athletes at the heart of its concerns and make a commitment to placing their interests before the interests of professional sport.

I ask for the unanimous consent of the House to make this motion votable.

[Supply, June 7th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate. As a trained recreation specialist who worked at the municipal level for 15 years, I am happy to see that the mover of the motion is a woman, namely the member for Longueuil. Too often in the past when open line shows dealt with sports it was mostly men who were interested in the topic.

I am happy that it is a woman who introduced the motion. The member for Drummond, with whom I sit on the Standing Committee on Health, also took part in the debate. I ask the following question: Why should we be involved in sports and physical activities? In my view, first and foremost for health reasons.

The provinces, the municipalities and also the federal government have a role to play in amateur sports. Decisions to compete in the Olympic Games or other international games are made at the federal level. It is too bad for Quebecers, because we would like to decide for ourselves, but in the present situation the federal government does it.

Is the present federal Liberal government really looking after our athletes? When we look at numbers we have to say no it is not. It made many cuts and I have countless examples.

Two weeks ago I attended the Canadian handball championship at Laval University. There were women's teams and men's teams. There were also community teams. Quebecers are particularly good at this sport. I spent part of the weekend there. I was supposed to be there only one day, but I went back the next day because of the high level of competition. The performances were outstanding.

I talked to the athletes and coaches. They told me how the competition had been funded. Guess how much money the federal government put into those Canadian championships. Not a penny.

The Quebec government, through various departments and health and education programs, and with help from the Université Laval, some Bloc members and a bit of publicity, finally managed to hold this Canadian handball competition. It is an absolute disgrace.

We could also talk about a third of the sports organizations, 22 out of 60, that cannot perform at the international level because of a lack of funding.

One of the recommendations of the subcommittee on amateur sport was that at least $100,000 a year be allocated to every association. What would that mean? It would mean an office, one regular employee, a knowledgeable professional in that sport who would be able to advise coaches and support volunteers. The proposal was turned down. It would have cost $2.2 million.

The hon. member for Ottawa—Vanier, who told us that everything is fine, should take a look at this problem. When we have a third of all sports associations doomed to closing down because the federal government has decided to drop its support and the hon. member tells us that everything is fine, is this not extraordinary?

I do not have much time left—

[Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act, June 2nd, 1999]

Madam Speaker, as the Bloc Quebecois representative, along with the member for Mercier, on the Standing Committee on Industry, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-54 at report stage.

It will come as no surprise to anyone if I say that I agree fully with the member for Mercier, whose strenuous and very articulate defence of our position was noticed by all members of the committee from both sides of the House. However, we have not succeeded in persuading everyone that we are right.

The main problem with this bill is that it was announced rather extemporaneously by the Minister of Industry at last fall's OECD meeting. The Minister of Industry was bent on showing leadership. He wanted to take the lead with a modern bill on e-commerce.

It is possible to want to promote e-commerce and still protect personal information. Personal information insofar as industry is concerned is a provincial responsibility. It is also a fact that the majority of provinces have not assumed their responsibilities in this regard, unlike Quebec, which for five years has had very effective personal information legislation.

It therefore comes under the jurisdiction of the province of Quebec—I use the word “province” because that is what we still are—which we call the state of Quebec. At the OECD meeting in question, during a reception at the Museum of Civilization in Hull that I attended, certain federal government officials had praise for Quebec's personal information protection legislation but still the Minister of Industry wanted to wow them with his bill.

There are some astonishing things in this bill. For instance, the CSA standards in the schedule to the bill were something industry members came up with voluntarily at the time, a code of ethics, as it were. Many of the verbs in this code are in the conditional.

Because the minister was in such a hurry to introduce this bill, he threw the voluntary standards used by people in the various sectors into the schedule as guidelines.

There is a difference between a voluntary code of ethics written by people from the industrial sector and legislation that is not only supposed to provide a framework, but also to prohibit and to regulate. This bill is too vague, a fact that a lot of people have condemned.

This bill is nothing but wishful thinking in many respects, but there are certain provisions that Quebec cannot not support.

For example, the minister may change any provision of the bill without consulting the House. The bill gives him this power. We will come back to this later on. It is unusual for a bill to give a minister the power to change the famous CSA code contained in the schedule to the bill.

The Reform Party usually adheres to the principle of respect for provincial jurisdiction and often defends this principle, as does the Bloc Quebecois. I am somewhat surprised that my colleague from the Reform Party, who took part in the work of the committee on Bill C-54, would not follow his party's usual policy. I am somewhat surprised and, I should say, disappointed.

Usually the Reform Party recognizes that the provinces have jurisdiction over certain areas under the Constitution and that the federal government must respect that. Reformers are not sovereignists, but they often talk about that in their speeches. However, in this case they decided to support the Liberal government. They decided that we needed this bill, as flawed and as vague as it may be, because many provinces have not passed legislation regarding the protection of personal information.

Constitutional experts told us that this bill could be challenged under the Constitution and that the government could lose its case. In spite of that, we are being told that this bill is good and that it must be passed.

The title talks about protecting personal information in the area of e-commerce. Of course, we are on the eve of the year 2000. Everyone is talking about e-commerce. We know abuse occurs, but laws do exist. The government could have dealt with the provincial ministers in other ways and more properly. All the provincial ministers have contested the fact that this occurred without their being consulted.

In Quebec, if only the Bloc Quebecois and the ministers of the Parti Quebecois were opposed, people could say “We know the traditional positions of these two parties”. However, there are also the Conseil interprofessionnel, the Barreau du Québec, the Chambre des notaires and the Conseil du patronat, all saying essentially the same thing we are. We cannot say that the Conseil du patronat du Québec is a part of the sovereignist movement or a branch of the Parti Quebecois.

There is a consensus in Quebec on this issue among the unions, management, notaries, lawyers, the Conseil interprofessionnel and consumer associations. This represents quite a lot of people. People in other parts of Canada too have said much the same thing.

A representative of the Ontario ministry of health said that this was excessive meddling and that they had something in the works that would better protect personal health care information. All this was said by many witnesses and many groups.

It is probably very difficult for such a proud minister, who announced to the people of the other countries of the OECD that he had a super bill and suggested they follow his example, to drop his idea now.

It is difficult for us too. We are looking at a real constitutional coup. It would take too long to relate all the examples, but this is often what happens. Once again the federal government is interfering in an area of provincial jurisdiction.

On the subject of personal information, Quebec has an excellent law, and everyone recognizes that. Even federal officials have said so to representatives of foreign countries. But no, the federal government continues to use its bulldozer style, ignoring the objections of the people in Quebec.

Our role is to represent the interests of Quebec and to remind this House that this bill fails to respect Quebec's jurisdiction.

[Shipbuilding, May 27th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, after putting several questions in the House and getting no answers or only evasive answers from various ministers, I wrote to the Prime Minister on December 22, asking him for a shipbuilding policy. Now, six months later, the Prime Minister still has not replied.

Considering that, today, a coalition of unions representing the shipbuilding industry delivered 150,000 postcards demanding a true federal shipbuilding policy, what is this government waiting for to finally take action?

[Shipbuilding, May 11th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the Minister of Finance.

Since two of the measures put forward in my bill concern taxation, what is the Minister of Finance waiting for before he finally takes some positive action with respect to shipbuilding, by ceasing to tax the benefits provided by the Government of Quebec and by adopting similar measures at the federal level?

[Shipbuilding, May 11th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, all those who have operated the shipyard at Lévis in the past, and those who might eventually acquire and operate it in future, are unanimous: the federal shipbuilding industry support measures are inadequate.

Does the Minister of Industry intend to take advantage of the unanimous support of the opposition, the industry, and his own Liberal party faithful, to support my bill, which would finally give the federal government an effective shipbuilding policy?

[Competition Act, May 7th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Standing Committee on Industry, I am pleased to speak in this debate. Bill C-393 is intended to amend the Competition Act, 1998, which concerns industry.

On first examination, the objective of this bill appears to be a praiseworthy one. But we in the Bloc Quebecois see a number of problems in it, particularly the issue of jurisdiction. The bill is intended as an interference in the relationship between commercial operations and consumers, which is clearly an area of provincial jurisdiction.

This bill proposed an amendment to the Competition Act, and is aimed at prohibiting negative option marketing, which means billing consumers for products or services without their express consent.

In fact, it proposes to prohibit such marketing practices by banks, trust companies, credit unions as well as telecommunications and broadcasting companies. When reference is made to credit unions, of course this refers mainly to the caisses populaires, of which there are many in Quebec. Almost all Quebeckers belong to a caisse populaire.

This is the third attempt by the member for Sarnia—Lambton to ban negative option billing. In 1996, the member for Sarnia—Lambton introduced Bill C-216, the purpose of which was to amend the Broadcasting Act.

I would remind members that the Bloc Quebecois was opposed to the bill for three reasons. First, it represented interference in commercial relations between businesses and consumers, a field of provincial jurisdiction. Second, the bill would have required the explicit consent of all subscribers for a new channel to be broadcast. Third, the bill had a particularly unfortunate effect, not only in Quebec, but in our opinion also in other regions with a sizeable francophone population.

The other place was concerned about this, and amended the bill in order to protect francophones. It died on the Order Paper, however, when the election was called.

On November 25, 1997, the hon. member for Sarnia«Lambton introduced Bill C-288. Its goal was similar to that of Bill C-216, and its contents almost identical. But the House did not get to vote on this bill.

He is now coming back with this legislation. We can attest to the tenacity and perseverance of the hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton, who insists on presenting a bill, which he feels targets broadcasting companies. But this time, the hon. member does not seek to amend the Broadcasting Act but, rather, the Competition Act. However, the fundamental purpose of the Competition Act is not to regulate relations between consumers and businesses, but to monitor deceptive practices used by competing companies.

As regards deceptive practices, the Bureau of Competition must of course receive complaints. When it is established that a company or a business is resorting to deceptive practices, it can be subject to stiff penalties.

But, in this case, this clearly does not come under the Competition Act. The objective is different, that is to deal with relations between consumers and companies. This, in our opinion, comes under the CRTC, which is accountable to the Minister of Industry, and the issue should be dealt with at that level.

There is a major flaw in that the proposed change is not aimed at the proper act, but at another one, whose objective does not have to do with this type of relations.

In spite of the laudable goal pursued by the hon. member, the Bloc Quebecois will nevertheless oppose this bill, primarily because trade and consumer protection come under the jurisdiction of the provinces.

We believe that this issue should be dealt with by the CRTC, which already has the powers to prohibit negative option marketing if it deems that it is appropriate and in the public interest to do so.

This bill would reduce the powers of the CRTC and give the Bureau of Competition powers that could adversely affect the Canadian broadcasting policy, limit consumers' options, increase their bills and kill the development of French language broadcasting in Quebec and Canada, in regions where francophones are present.

I will stop here and conclude by saying that we will oppose this bill.

[Shipbuilding, May 7th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, last Wednesday evening, the Liberal members voted against the Progressive Conservative motion calling upon the government to develop a new national strategy to support the revitalization of the Canadian shipbuilding industry.

There is nothing surprising about that, hon. members will agree. The Liberals have a habit of voting against the opposition.

What is disconcerting is the inconsistency being shown by the government. The Progressive Conservative motion was an almost word-for-word copy of one passed by the Liberal Party faithful at their March 1998 convention. Most of the Liberal MPs supported it at that time.

Not only is this behaviour inconsistent, but worse than that, it indicates an unequivocal lack of respect for the Liberal Party faithful.

No one would ever have believed that the Liberal MPs would treat their party faithful to the same medicine they dish up for us regularly in this House: lack of respect plus inconsistency.

[Lévis Shipyard, May 5th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the Lévis shipyard has just been given a four month reprieve to resolve its problems and find a buyer.

The person with one of the main keys to the solution is the federal Minister of Industry, who is refusing, however, to lift his pinky to help the shipbuilding industry, even though Liberal supporters are encouraging him to do so.

Does the minister realize that, if the Lévis shipyard closes, it will largely be his fault?