Suzanne Tremblay

[Parental Leave, February 27th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the federal government has indicated its intention of appealing the ruling by the Court of Appeal of Quebec confirming Quebec's exclusive jurisdiction over parental leave. There is no disputing that parental leave must be broadened and integrated.

Will the Minister of Human Resources admit that he is more interested in gaining a high profile for the federal government than in the welfare of young families and that, in the end, that is the main motivation behind the decision to go to the Supreme Court?

[Employment Insurance, February 19th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, 200 seasonal workers on the North Shore demonstrated their anger yesterday by blocking highway 138. The protesting Sans-Chemise have been hit hard by the softwood lumber crisis and the seasonal nature of their employment, and no longer have access to employment insurance. They cannot understand why the government is doing nothing, when once again this year the EI fund has recorded a $3 billion surplus.

When will the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development understand that now is not the time to reduce contributions, but rather the time to improve the program?

[Canada Elections Act, February 18th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak in this debate on Bill C-3 to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act following a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Figueroa. Mr. Figueroa is the leader of the Communist Party, who challenged the legality of the bill, and the court ruled in his favour.

In essence, he challenged a party's requirement to endorse at least 50 candidates in order to be recognized and be able to register with the Chief Electoral Officer. In this respect, the court found that the requirement was absolutely contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in that it infringed the right of citizens to vote for a party that did not nominate 50 candidates.

For example, a party might register and nominate only 10, 12, 15 or 18 candidates, but it was prohibited from doing that under the old legislation because it did not have at least 50 candidates.

I remember when the Bloc Quebecois was established. I was involved in the Bloc Quebec in the early 1990s. We were unable to issue valid income tax receipts to members who made campaign donations, because we were not officially a party at the time.

When the election was called in 1993, we rushed to register and file our official nominations to ensure we would meet the 50 candidate requirement as quickly as possible so that the party would be officially recognized by the Chief Electoral Officer as soon as possible and be able to issue valid income tax receipts to those who financially supported us.

In a unanimous decision, according to some, and a majority 5-3 decision, according to others—I do not know the specifics, but if it was five to three, it was at least a majority decision—the Supreme Court set a deadline: June 27, 2004.

The government must therefore amend the Elections Act by June 27, 2004. Otherwise, there will be a legal vacuum. What we have now will no longer be legal, because it will contravene the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. If we do not act now, we will have no replacement. Consequently, anyone could claim they can register a political party without meeting the requirements for recognition.

As the government House leader pointed out earlier in his speech, the government moved extremely quickly in this bill. The loophole was to be eliminated by June 27, 2004.

However, while we are debating this bill, which will go to the Senate and which will undoubtedly have to be passed before the House prorogues, this time for an election, it is important that this be done this time. The government is setting conditions for registering a political party. It also asked the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to examine this rather complex issue so that we can deal with it in proper fashion. Then, with a new government after the election, we could come back with a bill which, this time, would have been properly reviewed and which could set ideal conditions for the registration of a political party.

We will then be able to register a party that endorses at least one candidate.

The requirement is not unreasonable. For example, if an individual wants to be the leader of a party because he wants the experience, he can choose a riding and find 250 supporters and three officers to help him run his party. As long as there is a candidate and the two conditions that I just mentioned are met, the party could be recognized as an official party, and could recruit members, legally collect money and issue valid tax receipts, pursuant to what is provided for political parties as regards tax deductions.

The Bloc Quebecois supports the underlying principle of this bill, which amends the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act. However, as I said, although we support this legislation, we are convinced that we will have another opportunity to address this issue after the general election and after the government has let a committee review it and make any necessary amendments.

We support this bill because its seeks to make it easier for any citizen to play a major role in the electoral process, and not as a function of the election of a given government. It is important to facilitate the democratic process as much as possible.

As my hon. friend from Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île-d'Orléans was saying—and we have talked to each other about this—the government must not get into the habit of mentioning the democratic deficit the same way it talked about September 11 and post-September 11, so that it becomes a sort of hobby horse and eventually nothing but an empty shell.

The goal we should be seeking in this amendment is to use the greatest possible care to create the best possible democracy, and not just a mock democracy. People must truly feel that it is possible to have divergent opinions within Canada and to express themselves within political parties.

In the bill, there is a definition of “political party”. Any citizen who wants to consult this bill, which I imagine will soon become law, will be able to find out that he or she may, with a group of like-minded people, create a political party if the existing parties do not offer an ideology and values that correspond to what that person is and what that person wishes for the society in which he or she lives.

It is important that every citizen have access to the necessary information. The bill sets out in the simplest possible terms what a political party is and the conditions for establishing one. It should be passed as quickly as possible, given the deadline the Supreme Court has imposed.

[Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, February 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it is very difficult to comment when there is no question.

I would like to say that I have two major problems in my riding, namely dairy production and softwood lumber. Unfortunately, the Liberals are going around telling people that these issues are not solved because I am a Bloc Quebecois member. In fact, all the problems that we have remain unsettled because of the ministers' inability to solve them.

The Minister for International Trade has spent three years travelling to the United States to try to find a solution to the softwood lumber issue. He finally left the file to his colleague. He did not solve anything. And nothing was solved either in agriculture.

If ministers can get to work and stop parading around, we may find a way to settle the issues that confront us in our ridings.

[Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, February 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a brief comment. The hon. member rose and I thought he would put a question to me. He began by congratulating us for debating an urgent national issue in the most elegant way, with all the parties involved.

What he did then is to praise the Prime Minister. The member's timing is off. He is totally off base. I do not understand why he would make such comments. I thought he had a question. I am a little disappointed that I did not get him more interested in my comments.

[Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, February 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

It seems clear that there was an announcement that at the end of the fiscal year, the government would have a $7 billion surplus. We are talking about a lot of money--$7 billion is not peanuts. Some $2 billion was promised for health, which leaves $5 billion. The government still wants to keep a $3 billion cushion for unexpected problems such as SARS, floods and the mad cow crisis. The mad cow crisis was unexpected.

I agree that we have to be able to find solutions for the short term, but we must also consider the medium and long terms. Always focusing on the short term means we will always be up against it. This is where the difficulties begin because people are not left with much hope.

I was agriculture critic during the scrapie problem. This too was a catastrophe. Yet, we were under the impression that things were under control, perhaps because fewer people raise sheep than cattle and we have dairy stock in Canada.

This time farmers are facing huge difficulties. What they want is for the government to do whatever is necessary so that consumers regain confidence in their products and they can start exporting again as soon as possible.

It is clear that herds in Canada have not been fed animal-based feed since 1997. It has been six years. So why could it not be agreed that cattle 30 months old or less could easily be exported? There is no risk whatsoever that these animals could have been contaminated.

It seems to me that the necessary effort is not being made to help restore confidence. The borders are closed, so we do nothing. If others closed their borders to us, we should do the same to them. I do not see why we should continue to be so generous with others if they cannot be generous with us.

In the short term, we must obviously find money to help people, to prevent bankruptcies, to avoid a situation where young people would be unable to take over from those who have reached the age of retirement. Indeed, as my colleague pointed out, I know people who do not have much in front of them right now because they receive about 6¢ a pound for their cull cows. My colleague from the Conservative Party of Canada mentioned that prices have not gone down at the supermarket, but that has not given anything more to producers.

There is something wrong that should be fixed to the satisfaction of producers. I think that everyone of us here is aware of the fact that, when the day comes that we have to import everything because farmers here are longer be able to produce, it will be too late to wake up.

[Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, February 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise during this take note debate. I received a number of calls from producers in my region who are understandably very concerned about the situation, and who find the way things are going to be somewhat unfair.

The moment that one case of mad cow disease was discovered, the American border was closed. The border was going to reopen, but a second case was discovered. Immediately, and without any evidence, the Americans claimed that the cow was from Canada. Unfortunately, once the evidence was in, it was confirmed that the second cow also came from Canada. Consequently, the border, which was to reopen in January, has remained closed.

It is high time we took a serious look at the impact of this mad cow situation on us. It is unacceptable that in Canada, whose area is so vast that it could include 10, 12 or 13 sovereign countries, people in the east are affected by what is going on in the west or, conversely, that people in the west are affected by what is going on in the east. We should have greater autonomy.

What is surprising is that when chickens are slaughtered in the southeastern United States, the border is not completely closed to American chickens. Chickens from the west continue to be shipped. But if the situation were reversed, I wonder if we would have permission to export our chickens. For example, if chickens were slaughtered due to bird flu, for example, in Ontario. Probably, the entire border would be closed.

What producers want, at least those in my region who talked to me, is for us to find a way to restore public confidence, confidence in exports and of importing countries. How can we do this?

Europe has decided to test all animals slaughtered. It would be an extremely costly measure if we decided, tomorrow morning, to test all animals slaughtered in Canada. We have decided to randomly test 30,000. This measure seems insufficient to restore the confidence of importing countries in our production.

It is possible, using DNA testing, to identify pork sold on supermarket shelves and verify if that animal could have a problem.

Quebec has a tracking system too but the Canadian government is not really interested in what Quebec is doing. I used to be my party's agriculture critic. I sat on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and each time I talked to producers, they said, “If only Canada would adopt some of the same agricultural practices as Quebec”. Obviously not all its practices, but some; Quebec does things differently than Canada, and this is quite an advantage in light of what is happening in the rest of the country.

Since this is a Quebec solution, people will say that it is not good for Canada. What they are trying to do instead is to bring Quebec in line with Canada, but rather they ought to be allowing us our specificity, and making the policies in use in Quebec, which are avant-garde, efficient and productive, a model for Canada.

That way we could continue to cross-pollinate our ideas, so as to improve the situation in agriculture, rather than spend all of our time and energy battling a government that wants to prevent us from doing things our way and to impose its made-in-Canada approach to agriculture on us, without realizing that it may not necessarily suit us.

What is unfortunate is that, in my opinion, over the 10 years I have been here, we have never managed to find an agriculture minister who appeared to have an understanding of what was going on in Canadian agriculture. Odd, that. Yet one of them was even a farmer himself. The one in the portfolio now comes from a farming region. Strangely, one might think that they lose any ability to understand agriculture as soon as they become minister.

A person does not have to be a genius to realize that agriculture is different in Saskatchewan, in Alberta, Manitoba, B.C., Quebec and Ontario. Our climates differ. Our snowfalls differ. Our rainfalls differ. Our dry spells differ. Our exposure to the sun differs, because the earth is round, so we do not all get our sunlight at the same angle. They appear to doubt that. We are not all at the same angle to the sun all the time.

So there cannot be one wall-to-wall agricultural policy. It has to be adapted to each province. If one province works well in one area, the others should be ask to adopt that approach. They will be encouraged to use the same method. The government needs to decentralize agriculture more, instead of trying to have a one-size-fits-all approach, and to think that agriculture is the route to Canadian unity.

That is not how Canadian unity works. “This little piggy went to market” has to be the way to productivity, not unity. So if there are problems, we need to sit down and seek solutions together. All the steps being taken now are nothing but stop-gap measures. Here, we will give you $450 million, or $500 million or $200 million, and think the problem is solved.

That is not the way it works. We need the creativity to find solutions. We need to properly identify the problems, see where they are, and find solutions.

I see that the border with the United States is still closed. They have promised us better relations between Canada and the United States. It does not look as if things are working better between the Prime Minister and Mr. Bush, because nothing has changed on the mad cow issue. Nothing has changed on softwood lumber. Nothing has changed about any of the problems we have with the Americans.

Nevertheless, I hope that Ottawa will soon be in discussions with the provinces to decentralize things and to find sustainable solutions to economic issues, rather than thinking that this year they will hand over $200 million to solve the problem, and next year find another $200 million.

Problems are not solved by throwing millions of dollars at them. Producers must be able to live. Producers must be in a position to know that their efforts will be rewarded in the end, and that they will continue to be able to export their products abroad.

If a producer's domestic market collapses because there is a monopoly, for example, such as one slaughterhouse for all of Quebec, then let a second one be opened to encourage competition, if that is what it takes to increase the prices received by producers.

Solutions must be found. Our colleague proposed the Competition Bureau. They probably cannot do any studies. What I think is important is that we find solutions that suit the nature of the problems, once they are examined in detail.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, February 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, should there not be a 10-minute period for questions and comments?

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, February 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in this debate on Bill C-18 and the side issues. It is an act respecting equalization and authorizing the Minister of Finance to make certain payments related to health.

My good friend opposite was letting off steam and having fun. However, I think the true hypocrisy is on that side of the House across from us. A bill like this one smells of an election. Every time an election is on the horizon, the government always manages to put forward a bill that opposition parties are often forced to vote against. There is always something in the bill that does not make sense.

This time, the government could very well have paid out the $2 billion for health. If a bill were needed for that, to say that this sum should be put into a trust, as clause 6 suggests, a simple bill with very little in it would have sufficed for paying out the $2 billion.

The Liberals will be able to travel across the country, and particularly in Quebec, during the election campaign and say, “The Bloc Quebecois voted against the bill that provided $2 billion for health”. Nonsense. We are opposed to the fact that, over a period of five years, this government did not manage to negotiate equalization.

Earlier, the government chief whip and deputy House leader told us that the Minister of Finance had made a promise. When we see that ministers opposite have no memory, we cannot really trust their promises.

When we see in the bill, under clause 3, that payments are extended to March 31, 2005, without any mention of this retroactivity to April 1, 2004, we do not believe the Minister of Finance; we no longer believe this government. It has fooled us too often in recent days. We can no longer trust it.

So, a proper amendment must be included in a clause to point out that the new equalization formula will be retroactive to April 1, 2004. We cannot take any risk. If there is no retroactivity, Quebec, among others, will lose $1.5 billion. We cannot run that risk. If this formula is going to be retroactive, then let us put it in writing in the legislation. It does not cost much to include these things. Why not do it? We cannot put our trust in a promise.

What is important, as the hon. member for Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques pointed out, is to split the bill in two. Let us vote on the amount of $2 billion. Everyone here agrees with it. Then, the government should propose the equalization formula with an important amendment, namely the guarantee that the formula will be retroactive to April 1, 2004. If we do not have that guarantee, logic tells us to vote against this legislation. It is simple. The Liberals think they are doing fine with their majority, but they only have the support of 38% of the voters. Incidentally, I am curious to see the next poll.

I am not sure that many Canadians are proud to be Liberals today. I am not sure at all. They will have trouble finding candidates to run against us in Quebec. More and more people are hiding the fact that they are Liberals. It is a shame to have a government that would not stand for taxpayers, but would rather look out for itself, its own party, its friends and its growing bank accounts.

Again, this bill is only a parody of democracy that would have us believe that the government is generous. However, in the last five years, the former finance minister who is now Prime Minister could not reach an agreement with his provincial counterparts about an equalization program criticized by all of the provinces.

It is not only Quebec but all of the provinces that are criticizing the equalization program.

The chief whip told us that we would come to an agreement before March 31, 2004. Who does he think we are? Take a good look at me, I am no dummy. What they are doing does not make any sense. They could not come to an agreement in the last five years, but they are now sure they can make a deal within a month. It does not make any sense.

I urge the government to seriously reconsider the issue. And if the Prime Minister is really serious about a new approach to governance, a new way of doing things, he should stop acting like the previous government did and he should be more transparent and tell us exactly how things stand.

[Employment Insurance, February 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the pilot project initiative for older workers that was signed by Quebec and Ottawa on October 4, 2000, has resulted in the completion of 55 projects in 13 regions, between October 2000 and March 2004.

Is the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development prepared to extend this program for another year, as his Quebec counterpart is asking him to do?