Antoine Dubé

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, March 30th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the new member for Brome-Missisquoi has adjusted quickly to the House of Commons. We can see this from the gratuitous insults he is flinging at the Bloc Quebecois. This member who, during the election campaign in Brome-Missisquoi, carefully avoided all the debates with his adversaries, is using some rather aggressive language for a new member, now that he is elected.

He prompts me to ask the following question when he says that the federal government has put its house in order in its budget and that the provincial governments should do the same. I would like to hear his comments on this matter. Of course we want to see the federal government put its house in order; that is what we have been asking it to do since we were elected.

I would like the hon. member to comment on the reduced transfer payments under the new Canada social transfer, with cuts of $2.5 billion next year and $4.5 billion every year thereafter. Does the member think that that it is a good way to reduce spending if, in the end, it costs the provinces more to maintain the services which their money was already used to provide?

I would say that yes, the federal government has been putting its house in order, but only by dumping problems in somebody else's backyard. Is this what it calls flexible federalism, the brand of federalism it prefers? I would like to hear the member's comments on this subject.

[Youth Strategy, March 30th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development.

The assessment made of the federal government's Youth Strategy in Newfoundland and in New Brunswick is devastating for this program. Part III of the 1995-96 Estimates indicates that the evaluations did not reveal significant improvements in terms of job opportunities, compared to what could have been anticipated without the Youth Strategy program. The Canada-New Brunswick Youth Strategy also increased the participants' dependency on social assistance.

Will the minister recognize that his Youth Strategy is a big flop?

[Maintenance Of Railway Operations Act, 1995, March 25th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, first of all I may recall that whatever hon. members opposite may have said, the reason we are here today and the trains are still not running is not because of the Bloc Quebecois but because the government refuses to accept a universal labour principle: mediation.

They want to impose arbitration, they want to impose terms and conditions of employment and give the public the impression that the Bloc Quebecois is to blame, although from day one, on Monday and the day after, the Bloc Quebecois, through its leader, offered to settle the dispute immediately if the government accepted mediation. We in the Bloc are just as aware as you that this is a serious matter. We realize, as you do, that the workers must get back to work as soon as possible. But that is not the point of this debate.

Today's debate is about the fact that the government absolutely wants to prescribe arbitration and impose terms and conditions of employment, not about mediation, a mechanism that works very well. Just this past week in the Port of Montreal, negotiations led to a settlement, acceptable to both parties, that will provide for good labour relations.

I speak here as a member of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development which examined this bill clause by clause on Wednesday, under a gag order. This is the first time in the history of this Parliament that a government imposed time allocation on the consideration of a bill in committee. And we only had four hours to consider it. We nevertheless proceeded to clause by clause consideration.

Also and above all, I speak as the member for a riding that has a high concentration of railway activity. I want to talk about the railway centre in Charny, created mainly because of that activity. I regularly meet people who work in this town. I visit them regularly, almost daily, although perhaps a little less, of late, because I have to be in Ottawa several days a week. I speak on the behalf not only of the rail workers but of the people whose livelihood depends on the railways. In my riding, there is no problem. Business people realize that the railways are important. The government obviously does not, since it let this dispute deteriorate.

Without wishing to make this a personal crusade, I want to say that I listen to what my constituents have to say and represent their concerns. CN workers in my riding are so concerned about the future of a business to which they are very much attached that they made the president of CN a purchase offer. Is this evidence of bad faith, when people believe so strongly in the business they work for that they want to buy it? They want to keep their company alive, unlike Mr. Tellier who ever since he was appointed has been doing a job on CN.

The hon. member for Beauport-Montmorency-Orléans said earlier that Mr. Tellier is now the highest paid public servant, with an annual salary of $345,000 plus a personal expense allowance of $51,000. He also asked his company for an interest-free loan so he could acquire a house in Westmount. He even said in the paper that if CN had not agreed, he would have turned down the job. Poor Mr. Tellier.

Last year, he came to Charny to explain to workers the reasons for cutbacks and job cuts. The workers told him they did not see why he was cutting positions because conductors were working overtime, were always on standby with a pagette and sometimes worked 14 days running.

Why cut jobs under these circumstances? It would be much better to have more people working in order for everyone to have better working conditions and a better quality of life. But no, he did not listen. Mr. Tellier is not the only one causing problems at the CN level. Some senior officers, though not many, have left, and each time it ended with an agreement of several hundred

thousands of dollars. In some cases, the amounts even came close to $600,000 in addition to pension benefits. Is that the sort of example to give when workers are being asked to tighten their belts? My constituents say no, and do not accept such poor service. I believe that if people knew what is going on at the CN, they would not accept it either.

What is lacking is information. But if you want information from the CN-I sat on the transport committee last year. Six months later, the president of the CN still has not given any answers to the legitimate requests made by the opposition in committee. He has not answered his employees either.

The amendments proposed by the Bloc Quebecois today relate mainly to mediation and seek to eliminate the word "arbitration", the process that the government wants to impose. The main problem is clause 12, which we want to amend in such a way that the commission it refers to will be guided by the need for good relations between the employer and unions and, to this end, promote terms and conditions of employment that take into account both the workers' acquired rights, the economic situation and the competitiveness of the whole Canadian rail system. But the government refuses to support such a balanced approach, which would take into account both the needs of the workers and the economic situation. No CN employee wants to hurt the economy, quite the opposite. But we can see that the government, that wants to privatize the CN, is eager to sell it off, bit by bit, to companies whose interests sometimes do not match those of the rail industry. We have seen people in that situation in the case of Murray Bay for example. Those people are truckers. What interests are they promoting?

There is no enthusiasm whatsoever. I have been saying it over and over again and I have been in contact with people in the rail industry in my region for many years. The poor labour climate imposed by management drags on and on. Unfortunately, the same executive team which was in place under the Tories is still there to finish the dirty job. This government said that it wanted to put an end to this situation, but in actual fact, through its decisions, it continues to implement the policies of the Conservative Party. People in Quebec have trouble understanding why it is so. There is something else Quebecers have trouble understanding. In Quebec, like anywhere else, there have been strikes, yet people have come to accept the principle of the right to strike. People understand the importance of mediation, and of negotiating working conditions. This creates a better climate and this is a more productive way of doing things. Recently, at MIL Davie, workers accepted the working conditions which had been negotiated that way, because they understood how important those conditions were for their company, its survival, and also its improved operations.

People balk at the working conditions the government wants to impose. The government is refusing to enforce appropriate legislation. There is a labour dispute at Ogilvie, which has been dragging on forever. Scabs have been allowed in, even though this is happening in Quebec. Why? Because of the federal legislation.

To conclude, I will say that Quebec is a distinct society. In Quebec, we refuse to work in a climate of confrontation. From now on, we want working conditions in Quebec to be democratically negotiated.

[Borrowing Authority Act, 1995-96, March 24th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I realize that my hon. colleague from the official opposition would have needed more time to deal fully with the subject at hand. Nevertheless, I appreciated his hint at the government's failure to keep its word with respect to defence industry conversion. As we know, in my riding of Lévis, MIL Davie's shipyard suffered greatly from the government reneging on its promises, with nearly 2,000 jobs lost last year.

My question will not be on this. Instead, I would like my colleague to give me his thoughts on the Minister of Finance making cuts last year to the Unemployment Insurance Program to reach the financial targets set in his budget, and using the $2.5 billion surplus generated by these cuts to reach his targets. I would like his to tell me: is it right for the Minister of Finance to hit on the disadvantaged to reach his financial targets?

[The Budget, March 14th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Madawaska-Victoria, especially for her easy victory over the former minister of unemployment insurance cuts. We will not mention his name, but I want to congratulate her for that. However, she does not get so much praise for her inconsistency last year, when the first budget of her government was handed down and she supported cuts similar to those proposed by the member she helped to defeat.

However, as far as the status quo goes, we do not want any part of it. She misunderstood what I said at the end of my speech. We said that the federal government should mind its own business in the area of post-secondary education, respect areas of jurisdiction and transfer tax points because it is making expenditures in other sectors of education in Quebec. It should do what all the members of the National Assembly of Quebec are asking, even the Liberals.

[The Budget, March 14th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, my reply will be extremely simple. Why are they not changing the system? Because, for the most part, and here I must admit that the Reform Party may be an exception, Canadian political parties have traditionally been financed by big business.

Six of the 10 largest corporations which financed parties in power-the Liberal Party now and the Conservative Party in the past-were banks. And we should be surprised that banks have a

lot of influence on governments, interest rates, etc.? This obviously affects people earning low wages and farmers who need to borrow large amounts and it will affect students more and more because in the future they will have to borrow at least twice the amount that they currently need to pursue graduate studies.

[The Budget, March 14th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, it is as the official opposition critic on training and youth that I rise today to speak about the impact of the last federal budget on young people.

Like most of my official opposition colleagues, my initial reaction to this budget is that the federal government wants to transfer the blame for its cuts to the provinces.

On February 27, the Minister of Finance announced that, starting in 1996-97, he would reduce by $2.5 billion transfer payments to the provinces for health care, social assistance and post-secondary education.

By combining these three payments into a single consolidated block transfer called the Canada Social Transfer starting in 1996-97, the minister claims that "provinces will now be able to design more innovative social programs-programs that respond to the needs of people today rather than to inflexible rules. However, flexibility does not mean a free-for-all. There are national goals and principles we-meaning the Minister of Finance, of course-believe must still apply, and which the vast majority of Canadians support".

Such is the finance minister's flexibility. It involves national standards that Quebec does not want and never wanted in the first place. In this context, I think it would be a good idea to remind you of Bill C-28 respecting financial assistance to students, which was passed on June 23. This bill provides among other things that, from now on, the Canadian Minister of Human Resources Development, instead of the provincial governments as was the case before, will designate the appropriate authority in each province responsible for choosing educational institutions eligible for federal financial assistance.

Second, the provincial education ministers wanting the right to opt out with full financial compensation must convince the Minister of Human Resources Development that their provincial programs produce the same results as the federal programs in each of the areas targeted by the federal legislation.

Great freedom, is it not? You can develop programs, as long as they are absolutely identical to those decided on by the Minister of Human Resources Development, in an area of jurisdiction assigned to the provinces in the Constitution Act, 1867, an area of exclusive jurisdiction, not shared jurisdiction. Over the years, the federal government has encroached upon this exclusive provincial jurisdiction, pleading the right to spend the money of Canadians and of Quebecers.

Coming back to the cuts in transfer payments, it should be noted that the $2.5 billion figure quoted for all three categories combined in the Canadian social transfer is within $100 million of the cuts announced in the green paper with respect to post-secondary education. This leads to the conclusion that, give or take $100 million, the primary target of government cuts is post-secondary education.

By giving the provinces the choice while maintaining national standards, as it claims to do, the federal government will prompt the target groups benefiting from the three elements of the Canadian social transfer to turn against their provincial governments or fight among themselves to avoid cuts.

The federal government will create a situation where students will be competing with UI and welfare recipients. Our young people are the ones mainly concerned by these three programs.

In January 1995, there were 363,000 unemployed youth between the ages of 15 and 24 in Canada, over 100,000 of whom are in Quebec. If you add to that youth on relief-over 74,000 young people are on welfare in Quebec alone, but I do not have the total number for Canada-it makes for a terrible situation. It goes to show how little compassion this government has had for young people.

In light of a $2.5 billion cut in transfer payments to the provinces, combined with an additional 10 per cent cut in the UI program, the Minister of Finances was able to save enough last year to meet his targets. To meet his deficit reduction target for this year, the minister had to use the unemployment insurance fund, which now shows a surplus.

So to compensate for his improvidence, the Minister of Finance made cuts in unemployment insurance. The neediest in our society have to compensate for the incompetence of the Minister of Finance. This is appalling.

So what does the minister do to make his budget look good? He announces a temporary tax, for two years, that will raise $100 million from large deposit-taking institutions. But meanwhile, the government also makes cuts totalling $2.5 billion at the expense of the unemployed.

I see members of the Human Resources Development Committee who toured Canada with me. Like me, they were met by demonstrations in all major cities. Like me, they listened to the complaints of young people and the unemployed, especially in the Maritimes, about the cuts that will affect them. We will not be able to last until spring, was what we heard from the victims of seasonal unemployment. We heard them all, especially young people.

Today, as a result of a reduction in benefit periods, many are starting to feel the impact of cuts that were introduced last year. However, the $2.5 billion saved were, I repeat, used by the Minister of Finance to meet his budget target.

This is shocking, especially when we realize that last year, the banks made a record profit of $4.1 billion, and some banks managed to avoid paying any taxes at all. I am about to finish, Madam Speaker.

There are also the tax shelters. What did the minister do? Yes, indeed, the response to the official opposition's call for this for the past year and a half, was the announcement that implementation would take effect in 1999. That is impressive. They make the announcement four years ahead of time to the people who enjoy the benefit of family trusts, so that they can consult experts and find other ways to avoid paying tax. Four years ahead of time.

When could a Minister of Finance provide a better example, when does he tell interested parties four years ahead of time? We are not talking about the disadvantaged here. He did not warn the disadvantaged last year. He cut $2.5 billion dollars and, again this year, he is waiting for his budget speech to take effect and another 10 per cent cut is announced. We are supposed to find this funny? I do not find this funny at all, because I come from a riding where MIL Davie shipyards, among others, is located and where 2,000 jobs were lost. These people, who lost their jobs, are affected by the cuts to unemployment insurance and are now on social assistance. They are not finding this funny.

In the proposed reform, 90 per cent of associations, in addition to demonstrations, said no to Axworthy's reform and said no to the so-called improvements to the system. We know that increasing educational costs increases the debt load of students, at a time when there have already been 1,000 student bankruptcies in Quebec. Over 10 per cent of personal bankruptcies in Canada involve students or young people.

We ask them to give thought to the future. A fine message. A fine message, indeed. As the hon. member for Rosemont said, more and more Quebecers are realizing that, with no measures to enable people who want to return to the labour market, no active measures, a choice will soon have to be made. More and more Quebecers are realizing that the choice they have to make in the Quebec referendum in order to get out of this system that offers them little for the future is to vote "yes" in the referendum on sovereignty.

[Post-Secondary Education, February 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I remind the Minister of Human Resources Development that the motion was unanimously approved; in other words, it was also supported by the Quebec Liberal Party.

Are we to understand that, by refusing to provide a clear answer, the federal government persists in wanting to eliminate cash transfer payments and instead allocate part of these funds to the Canada Student Loans Program, without any regard for the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces over education?

[Post-Secondary Education, February 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.

Last Thursday, Quebec's National Assembly passed a resolution denouncing proposed federal cuts in post-secondary education and asking the federal government to withdraw from that sector and give Quebec the tax points equivalent to the level of Ottawa's current financial contribution to that sector.

Given the differences of opinion of the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Human Resources Development, can the Prime Minister tell us if his government will give a favourable reply to the National Assembly's request?

[Ferries, November 30th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, when we started our first session a year ago, I asked the same question and today, the answer is still the same.

Considering how the government deals with matters that concern MIL Davie, how can the minister expect us to believe that the government is not making a concerted and deliberate attempt to close down MIL Davie?