Antoine Dubé

[Supply, May 30th, 1996]

Fifteenth in the world.

[Supply, May 30th, 1996]

With the Prime Minister's blessing.

[Supply, May 30th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening carefully for the past few minutes to the Minister of Health, who, I must say, has livened things up somewhat in the House today. He has brought a little life to the place, and should be congratulated for doing so.

However, he is avoiding the motion by attacking the Reform Party and particularly its leader. He neglects to say that the motion in question talks about keeping promises. I will remind him of a few of them.

When it was in opposition, the Liberal Party promised to eliminate the GST-it did not. I do not know whether he was here at the time, but the people in his party criticized the unemployment insurance reform proposed by the former Conservative minister when they were in opposition. However, they went a lot further: $2 billion in additional cuts. They had promised to reduce, indeed eliminate duplication in the field of health care. I would like his response to that, as that is his particular concern.

I am a new member of the Standing Committee on Health. I have been on it for only a month and have discovered a series of duplications. Could he tell us what he plans to do during the time he has remaining as minister, between now and the election, about eliminating duplication in the area of health?

Finally, he spoke of integrity. He was Minister of Public Works, he knows the rules, because there are lots of rules, but we could go a lot further. For example, we know that there are rules for contracts of $30,000 and over, however in the case of contracts under $30,000, to encourage greater public confidence in the system of public administration, would he support, as an example, legislation on the funding of political parties by individuals rather than by corporations, as is currently the case?

The traditional parties are receiving considerable funding from big business and the banks. Six of the major funders of the political parties are banks. Does he consider this normal? In the interest of integrity and at the invitation of the Reform Party would he support legislation limiting the funding of political parties to that provided by individuals?

[Income Tax Act, May 29th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, on April 30 I put a question to the Minister of Transport about the Quebec bridge. As the reply did not satisfy me or the people of the Quebec City area, I hope that I will receive a better answer today from the minister or his representative.

Members will remember my question. In earlier replies, the minister kept repeating: "The Quebec bridge belongs to CN, and CN is now a private company. Since it is a private company, I, as the Minister of Transport, have no responsibility".

This is precisely what we want to challenge. In my question, I referred to the bridge between New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, in which the federal government has invested $2.1 billion, although it is being built by a private enterprise, a consortium. We were trying to show that there was a double standard. After all, the Quebec City area has six times the population of Prince Edward Island.

Today, I would like to argue my point, since we have a few minutes. Why should the federal government continue? It cannot, in our view, invoke the transfer of responsibility to CN because of privatization for the following reasons.

CN was to receive in exchange for one dollar lands worth $30 million for reconstruction and architectural restoration of the Quebec bridge, according to an agreement entered into in July, 1993. Earlier this year it was learned that Jocelyne Bourgon, of the Privy Council, the highest public servant in that body, had stated in a December 1993 letter to the Quebec deputy minister of transport, Mr Lalande, that the land would be fully transferred to CN only over a five year period.

In addition, the grant deed was signed only on November 7, 1995 by the federal Minister of Transport. This means, therefore, that the lands will not be fully deeded over the CN before November of the year 2000. The considerable neglect of the bridge occurred during the time that the federal government was still the owner.

By 1998, the federal government will have invested, and I give you these figures just as an example, $250 million in the Champlain bridge and the Jacques-Cartier bridge, both located in the province of Quebec. So, we think the federal government should do the same for the Quebec bridge.

Contrary to what the minister stated, the Government of Quebec has indicated that it was ready to reopen the agreement concerning vehicular traffic on the bridge, provided the federal government also makes a commitment within an agreement with both the CN and the Quebec Department of Transport.

The Quebec Department of Transport is ready to provide $1.5 million a year, over the next 16 years, even if its current contribution is only $25,000. Also, earlier this year, the Quebec bridge was designated a historic national landmark by the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Soon, Unesco will be designating the bridge as a world heritage site.

Under these circumstances, I do not think the federal government can argue that it is no longer its responsibility, as I said at the beginning, since it has yet to meet all the commitments it made to the CN.

Therefore, I would ask the representative of the minister not to give us the same arguments the minister used to turn down my request and to tell us if he has found the time, since the last time I asked a question on this issue, to meet with the Quebec Minister of Transport, who I know is very willing to do something about this whole situation.

I think the argument he used in his answer was also suitably addressed. So, can the federal government tell us what it intends to do about repairs to the Quebec bridge?

[Supply, May 28th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, although his request has been defeated, people are entitled to know why my colleague for Berthier-Montcalm proposed that this motion be put to a vote. Because it involved credits, I would like him to explain to me what prompted him to make this request.

[Supply, May 28th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, first I would like to advise you that I will share my time with the hon. member for Berthier-Montcalm, who will speak a little later.

Bloc members do not often support Reform Party motions. This proposal is a minimum since, as the hon. member for Berthier-Montcalm said earlier, we are in favour of abolishing the Senate.

The Reform member who moved the motion is saying that spending must be submitted to the scrutiny of this House, so that these expenditures can be made known to the public as much as possible. This seems to be a minimum, given the large number of recommendations made by the auditor general following a review of this issue. There are 27 recommendations, and all of them make a lot of sense.

In the context of expenditure reduction expected by all Canadians right now, and since the public debt continues to grow and will soon reach $600 billion, cuts must be made somewhere.

The Senate is not subject to any of the rules that usually apply to departments. This makes its activities somewhat less credible in the public eye. The auditor general's proposals made a lot of sense, and he did submit a whole series of recommendations. What the Reform Party member is proposing, that a report be tabled in this House, so that it can be scrutinized, is also a good idea.

However, we must look at the issue from another angle. Why have a Senate at all? I recently asked some of my constituents what the Senate meant to them. They did not really have an answer.

They also asked who the senator was who represented their area here. I was asked that some time ago and I now know who it is because I made some inquiries. I do not wish to dump on those who do this job, that not being the purpose of the question, but my constituents did not know the name of the senator who represented them here in Parliament.

At one point I was visiting a school class and I asked them what the Senate meant to them. "Oh sure we know the Senators. We see them a lot." I was a bit taken aback by that, so I asked them to name some names. They then started to give me the names of hockey players. Does that ring a bell for you, Mr. Speaker? Children, even young people in secondary school and Cegep, told me "The Senators are the Ottawa hockey team. They are not that

good yet, but they are up and coming. They will be a good team eventually". Young people know absolutely nothing about the regular activities of the senators here in the other place.

After having the fun of asking that question for some time, and finding so many people giving me the same answer, I asked myself what the purpose of the Senate was. I wondered about its mandate.

Moreover, the first recommendation the auditor general made in his report was the following: the mandates of the Senate and its committees needed tightening up, as they were too vague. So then I became more interested in the question: What is the use of the Senate?

Finally, we became aware that the function of the Senate, although this is not how it is written down, was to block bills, to prevent their being passed. In actual fact, it is to examine bills that have been passed by the House of Commons, but in certain cases they are blocked because that is the only means at the disposal of the Senate. For example, it might be of some use if it were to block Bill C-12 on unemployment insurance reform. The Senate has made use of that means in certain cases.

Why does this occur? Because the senators are appointed by the government, no longer for life, as the age limit now is 75 years, but there are still a certain number of senators over the age of 75, because of their vested rights which date back to the late sixties.

When a new government is elected, the Senate contains a majority from the time of the old government, and it is in the interests of the former government to block the work of the present government. It has become what I see as a pointless game of leapfrog, paralyzing, sterile. We in the Bloc Quebecois, as you well know, find the federal system sterile, so imagine another system on top of that one, slowing the legislative process down even more.

Quebec abolished its legislative council in the late 1960s, perhaps 1968. Since then, there have been no complaints in Quebec that the legislation has been less good, less well examined, less well worded. It is, however, less expensive. The figure given is $42 million, but when you include the expenses of all of the other departments concerned, the cost is $54 million, and by far the majority of Canadians do not know what that money is used for.

Of course, some of them are hard-working. This is nothing personal, but the fact remains that, when there are a mere 42 or 45 sitting days in some years, when the Senate normally sits three afternoons a week, as compared to our five days in this House, that can hardly be called going flat out.

So, the basic question is: what is the use of the Senate? I submit that, when the public does not even know who the senators are and mistake them for the hockey team, we must ask ourselves very serious questions. The whole issue has to be reconsidered, especially since the Senate is so expensive to run.

In that sense, the motion put forward by the Reform Party is most interesting and appropriate because, if nothing else, appropriations would at least be scrutinized, which is one step in the right direction. The next step would consist in plainly and simply abolishing the Senate in order to save money, which could contribute to the public debt reduction effort.

I will conclude on this to give the hon. member for Berthier-Montcalm a chance to speak.

[Employment Insurance Act, May 14th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I know the hon. member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore well, having been on the human resources development committee with her for the past two and half years, ever since the Liberal government was elected.

I know how sensitive she generally is, and I know she feels a bit uncomfortable when she comes back to the House to tell us what we have heard several times in committee from the mouths of staff members of the Department of Human Resources Development. I would ask, on another level, how she felt as a woman who has always shown sensitivity and humanity, after hearing the testimony of the Fédération des femmes du Québec and other organizations representing women across Canada, who told us that this unemployment insurance reform made no sense, because it would penalize women.

Yes, with the hours principle, some 5 per cent of women will perhaps be able to take advantage of unemployment insurance in future, but 25 per cent will be excluded. The hon. member knows the reason: many who used to need 15 hours of work per week or

less will now need many more hours to be eligible for UI. In my region in particular, people will have to work a minimum of 26 weeks, at seventeen and a half hours a week. What is more, they will all have to contribute, but will not all be able to draw benefits.

The situation is so bad that the Fédération des femmes du Québec is contemplating going to court to raise the issue of discrimination against women, to prevent the act from being implemented. The same thing goes for young people.

I have trouble recognizing my colleague's usual character when she takes such a position, when she finds it normal to be harder on young people who have never yet drawn any benefit from unemployment insurance. Now she is letting herself be influenced by the arguments of the department's employees, who told her young people are potential cheats, potential abusers of the system.

I am appealing to her sensitivity, I am appealing to her sympathetic ear as a member of the human resources development committee, where 75 or 80 per cent of the men and women who came before us in the last two and a half years told us this was not acceptable. I am trying to find out, and I really do wonder, if she feels right about her party's line.

[Employment Insurance Act, May 14th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Provencher has made much of the fact that businesses and employers would, in his opinion, benefit, since two thirds of businesses would find themselves paying lower premiums.

I would like to ask him two things. First: Is he aware that the bill calls for employers whose workers abuse the system, in other words where there is fraud, to have to pay twice as much in some cases, and even three times in others, in the way of penalties? As a corollary to that: Is he aware that even the volunteer administrator of a not for profit organization could be considered guilty of fraud, should an employee cause some problem, some irregularity with

the government? Is he aware of the new and much stricter mechanisms for employer penalties in this connection?

Now, to the second aspect of my question. He has spoken of simplified procedures. I would just correct one thing. He has referred to how wonderful it is that students will be able to get a refund of up to $2000, whereas at this time they do not even have to contribute. I do not see where the improvement lies, when they will have to wait nine months to get any money back.

[Employment Insurance Act, May 14th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, in the same vein, I see that the Reform member has shared his time with an NDP member coming from the same region.

I would like to ask the hon. member whether this points to a new association between the Reform and the NDP around social programs.

[Employment Insurance Act, May 14th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, begging your pardon, but my colleague from Québec has not had her ten minutes, for I stopped at ten minutes to the hour. Moreover, and I do not know if you will accept this argument, she was constantly heckled by the parliamentary secretary, who showed his contempt for the unemployed, the victims of unemployment.