Suzanne Tremblay

[Employment Insurance, February 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, each month, the media tell us about new cuts that are caused, among other factors, by the Asian competition, when it is not whole plants that are shutting down. For example, Drummondville lost 600 jobs, while in Contrecoeur 180 seamstresses will lose their livelihood.

Does the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development intend to create a special program for older workers who cannot necessarily retrain easily?

[Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, February 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak in this debate on behalf of my colleague, the hon. member for Laval Centre, who could not be in the House today and asked me to speak for her. Here, then, is the message she would have wanted to present to the House at this time.

There are certain debates in this House that require making decisions in the light of a particular context and realities that cannot be ignored.

Today, I have the opportunity to speak to such an issue, one which calls on our judgment and demands thorough reflection, in order to determine our position.

The purpose of the bill put forward by the hon. member for Vancouver East, Bill C-436, is to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The proposed amendment says, and I quote:

Subject to the regulations, a Canadian citizen or permanent resident may, once in their lifetime, sponsor one foreign national who is a relative but is not a member of the family class.

We are well acquainted with the hon. member for Vancouver East. This proposal reflects her humanitarianism and her great generosity. We commend her on the spirit behind this bill.

Unfortunately, we cannot support her bill as it is currently formulated. Three major reasons underlie our position: the lack of clarity of the bill; immigration priorities, particularly Canada's role in refugee protection; and finally, budgetary constraints and the resulting choices for the allocation of resources.

However, the Bloc is prepared to discuss this further before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

The reason the Bloc is expressing its reticence about this bill is its lack of clarity. When we say that the proposal by the hon. member for Vancouver East lacks clarity, I wonder, for example, what she means by:

—one foreign national who is a relative but is not a member of the family class.

What are the acceptable limits of the definition of “a relative”? For example, is a third cousin counted as a relative? Is there a requirement that they share a genetic ancestor and, if so, in what percentage? What is the dividing line between an acceptable relative and one who is not, if the list of admissible persons has not been defined?

We easily see that there is a great deal of room for arbitrary decisions. If the hon. member for Vancouver East wishes to broaden the family class to include other specific family members, she should state that in her bill, because without that, it is too vague and does not make it possible to determine which cases are admissible and which are not.

For example, we know that certain cultures consider family much more broadly than blood relations. For some people, a very close friend or neighbour is like a brother or at least like a member of the family.

The current list of persons admissible in the family class is already well defined. How could we justify an amendment this far-reaching without including some limits?

The hon. member should be able to show how many people would be affected by this new measure. Has she any credible and relevant studies on this? For now, we can only presume that this kind of proposal would have allowed 229,091 additional sponsorship applications in 2002.

With respect to the priority given to asylum seekers, Canada's immigration plan is split 60-40. In other words, immigrants are selected as follows: 60% are economic immigrants, meaning businesspeople, and self-employed and skilled workers; the remaining 40% are family class immigrants, asylum seekers and so forth.

Of this 40%, more or less 30% are family class immigrants, 9% are refugees and 1% others.

Clearly, it is the asylum seekers who will pay for the new measures to increase the number of people who qualify for family class. Anyone tempted to decrease the 60% should consider the fact that before family members of a permanent resident or Canadian citizen can be brought here, the primary applicant must qualify to enter Canada first, as part of the 60% in the economic class. So, this proposal, which would reduce that percentage, does little to improve the situation.

With respect to the 40%, the headlines show deportation cases for asylum seekers being dismissed almost every week. Clearly, the numerous conflicts and civil wars in a growing number of countries—Colombia, Algeria, Palestine-Israel, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan—should make democratic countries listen more carefully to people seeking refugee status. Because of inadequate budgets, Canada turns away thousands of asylum seekers every year whose lives are in danger in their homelands. With larger budgets, Canada could better meet its obligations as a signatory of the Geneva convention with respect to protecting refugees.

By allowing more immigrants to sponsor “distant” relatives, we are using resources that could save lives by accepting more asylum seekers. Politics and public administration are no exception; as with daily life we have to make responsible choices while taking various constraints into account.

Would it be better to bring a cousin to Canada or offer asylum to a Colombian family whose members might be tortured or killed if they were returned to Colombia?

Now, to touch on the budget limitations. Last of all, although the humanitarian intent of the member for Vancouver East is praiseworthy, her bill does not take into consideration the realities of Citizenship and Immigration Canada's budget.

Canada's immigration objective is to admit the equivalent of 1% of the Canadian population, or 310,000 immigrants annually. There are two key reasons for this: compensating for the drop in population and filling the need for skilled workers, particularly with economic class immigrants.

In 2002, Canada admitted 229,091 immigrants, compared to the 2001 figure of 250,484. The drop was in part a result of the department's inability to process any more because of budget restraints and the costs related to settlement and integration. It is not enough just to admit people into the country; it is also important to ensure that they receive proper services for a smooth integration into the host society.

This is the major problem with the whole immigration issue. The virtual absence in the recent throne speech of any reference to insufficient resources for immigration is the reason we support this bill in order to have the opportunity to discuss it in committee. In fact, if it is passed on second reading, there will have to be a debate in committee and we then be in a position to prove that the Department of CItizenship and Immigration is incapable of meeting its responsibilities because of insufficient funds. What it more, an analysis in committee would enable us to propose some essential points to be incorporated into the bill of the member for Vancouver East.

By recognizing the humanitarian aspect of Bill C-436, and by accepting its referral to a committee, the Bloc Quebecois would help prove that common sense and responsibility dictate that we ask for sufficient funding to provide proper settlement services for those who are admitted, while not ignoring our humanitarian duty to asylum seekers. They must be given priority access to resources.

[Government Contracts, February 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, of all the ministers who are guilty of complicity in this scandal, the Prime Minister is one of the most deeply involved.

Will the Prime Minister recognize that, in his duties as finance minister and Treasury Board vice-president, he not only was in a position to correct the situation but had a duty to do so?

[Government Contracts, February 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General reaffirmed that it is hard to believe that someone could have outsmarted the controls for 4 or 5 years. She added that people had to have known.

Does this not prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Prime Minister, who was right there as Minister of Finance and Vice-President of the Treasury Board, knew but did nothing?

[Employment Insurance, February 11th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, once again the Auditor General deplored the way the employment insurance program was managed. She denounced the fact that, year after year, the government takes in more money than it needs to properly run the program, and suggested that the $44 billion surplus is a real tax grab, a hidden tax.

Given that the unemployed have been treated very unfairly over the past few years, does the government intend to repair the harm it has caused by correcting the shortcomings of the system, since there is money available to do so?

[Reinstatement of Government Bills, February 10th, 2004]

No, Les Bougon comes on tomorrow. Tonight its Le Bleu du ciel , written by Victor-Lévy Beaulieu from my riding. It is a very good drama. I recommend it to anyone listening, it is worth watching.

We will be allowed to speak until 8 p.m. because the government wants to introduce legislation such as Bill C-49, among others. We wasted so much time in November that the Senate had to stop before they were finished with Bill C-49 and Bill C-53. These bills will probably have other numbers because we are now in the third session. Numbers will change, but not the objective.

The new Prime Minister, with his outdated mentality, made promises. He wants to be elected, so he made promises. He promised western Canada four more representatives, two for Alberta and two for British Columbia. This requires changing the legislation. The electoral boundaries that were not to come into effect until August, have to come into effect in April if he wants to have these new ridings to keep his promise and hold an election in the spring.

He thinks that with four ridings he will be able to defeat the Conservatives in the West. It seems to me that he has miscalculated. It will take him more than four to get a majority in western Canada. I hope, for the people watching CPAC in the west, that the translation is very good and that they realize there is no guarantee in electing the new Prime Minister because he is even more outdated that the last one. That says a lot. If we did not want the other one before, why would we take this one now?

With 177 members, the Liberal Party is so weak that they cannot believe they can win in the next election and set up a solid cabinet. They are challenging several of their own members, telling the older ones that it is time for them to go. Several members are being challenged. We know what is happening to my friend, the hon. member for Hamilton-East. The Prime Minister might have a little surprise on March 6. He is pushing aside some of his members, telling them, “You have to leave your seats, we need a clean slate, new blood, because I do not think we can form a good cabinet with you along”. That is the message he seems to be sending out.

It is not very pleasant to have your own party tell you that your time has run out. As for some of the parties, members and future candidates who think that some parties, including my own, no longer have a purpose here, they too might be in for a surprise in Quebec. We know very well some of the people who will be running in the next election and I fear that the riding of Outremont might get shortchanged.

Nobody will be surprised to see the Bloc Quebecois vote against this bill to bring forward the effective date of the new electoral boundaries. That bill would be a great disservice to Quebeckers. The people in Quebec will not be better served by this bill.

For instance, the riding of my hon. colleague from Manicouagan will keep its name, but, under the new boundaries, it will encompass an area 58 times the size of Prince Edward Island, which has four MPs and four senators. He would represent a riding 58 times the size of Prince Edward Island.

In my riding, there are exactly 225 kilometres between the city of Rimouski and the farthest village of Saint-Athanase, located in a rural area, with no major highways to get there. The roads are in rough shape because there is not enough money to repair them. Depending on which side you are coming from, roads covering the last 30 kilometres are not always paved.

The hon. member for Oak Ridges told us that he is kept very busy, because his riding has close to 200,000 constituents. I would point out to him that it is easier to serve 200,000 constituents living within 10 blocks of each other, but it is not as easy to serve 71,000 or 96,000 constituents scattered throughout a vast area. I am aware, Mr. Speaker, that your riding is fairly large, as are those of several members. It is not easier to serve fewer constituents, because you often have to travel long distances.

As you might have realized, we are not very supportive of this bill, especially since, with seven new ridings, the political weight of Quebec will be reduced compared to the rest of Canada. If you look at the ratios, 75 out 301 and 75 out of 308, the shift is obvious.

My hon. colleague told the House he used to be a teacher. In his history classes, he must have learned that politicians play politics. He accused us of playing politics. There are 301 of us here and playing politics is the only thing we do. He himself plays politics all day long. That is the only thing he does, but with the blinders he is wearing, he thinks he has a monopoly on the truth.

I know many people, on our side, who believe they do not have all the answers all the time. We are prepared to listen to intelligent comments, but nothing that would insult human intelligence. This is simply an insult to human intelligence.

It is rather important for the people to realize that those who are wasting time and delaying the process here are not in the opposition but rather on the government side.

[Reinstatement of Government Bills, February 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for recognizing me at this point. For the people who are watching us and for those who will read this some day, I would like to read again into the record the motion before us:

That, during the first thirty sitting days of the present session of Parliament, whenever a minister of the Crown, when proposing a motion for first reading of a public bill, states that the said bill is in the same form as a government bill in the previous session, if the Speaker is satisfied that the said bill is in the same form as the House of Commons had agreed to at prorogation, notwithstanding Standing Order 71, the said bill shall be deemed in the current session to have been considered and approved at all stages completed at the time of the prorogation of the previous session.

I would like to briefly come back to some of the comments made by the hon. member for Oak Ridges. He said among other things, “Public interest is not served by the delay—”. I wrote down exactly what he said. He added that we should not be wasting time, going back to the drawing board or reinventing the wheel, because “everything has been done”.

We do not wholly recognize the right to consider that everything has been done. It was done by the old government. Now we have had a new one announced to us. We find ourselves faced with a new government that is serving up to us as leftovers what the old one served up to us as something modern. It is pretty strange that no one has figured that out. And we are being accused of being idiots because we do not want to go along with this government scam which wants to reinstate all the old bills while pretending to be something new.

Let us look at the reality properly. Who is making us lose public interest? Who is wasting government funds? Who has held up passage of bills, held up the royal assent on bills? Who indeed? I know you cannot answer my question, Mr. Speaker, but if you could you would know the answer, considering how often you are present for the debates in this House.

The government over there is responsible for this decision. It is the one responsible for the delays. It is the one holding things up. It is the one asking us to start all over again. Since it is a bit embarrassed at making us waste our time, it is asking its friends to agree to act as if we had not prorogued last November 12 and to continue where we left off, as if it were still November 12.

In the motion, you will note one thing has been forgotten: private members bills. Some of those had got to committee and we had voted on them. But no, the private members bills start all over again from scratch. It would have just been far too democratic to include them as well, to save us the waste of time of starting all over.

At 5:30 p.m. we will start the first hour of debate on a bill that has already been debated. We will also debate one of my bills, Friday afternoon at 1:30. I have already debated it and I will ask my assistant to print out for me the first speech I gave, and I will just reread it in the House. I will not make a different speech, because the bill is the same. I have not changed my mind about it since, and I am going to read it verbatim. That is what I call wasting people's time. It is really a total waste of time.

If Parliament had not been prorogued when the member for LaSalle—Émard became the new Prime Minister on December 12, he could have convened Parliament on January 12. He could have done so on December 15 and we could have been back in session. The then Prime Minister could have carried on until the new one took office, as is normal practice. We could have continued sitting, since the new government simply wanted to take up where the old one had left.

What was the reason for that charade of a prorogation on November 12 and for the recess until February 2? The Liberals now want to make up for lost time because they cannot wait for an election to be called. They have known for a long time that the legislation would not take effect until August. They just wanted to change that to April 1 in order to be free to call an early election.

Given the marvellous report the Auditor General just tabled, an April election would be an excellent thing. It will still be fresh in people's minds how corrupt this government was. Since the new government is a clone of the previous one, people will remember and vote accordingly in April, sending the Liberals back to the opposition benches to be treated as they have treated the opposition. For ten years now, they have been arrogant with us and have spoken to us as if we were morons and only them were right. They will not even listen to reason.

The member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot is frustrated. He rose in the House and said, “Mr. Speaker, I have experience. I was a member of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and I am really knowledgeable about this issue we are about to review”. He is talking about the Auditor General's report. He is very familiar with such reports. When Groupaction was involved in little scandals which have now been confirmed, he was sitting on the committee.

He said, “Mr. Speaker, I suggest you seek unanimous consent. I would like to put my skills at the service of the committee”. Who is stopping him from doing so? The government is stopping him, because that member speaks his mind. He is an efficient member.

Once again, we have a Prime Minister who is talking about having more democracy in committees, provided that committee members are puppets, people who keep their mouth shut. Committees are for puppets. Competent members do not sit on committees.

When a member requests the unanimous consent of the House to sit on a committee, he gets a clear no. Mr. Speaker, consent was refused. This competent member will not sit on the committee. Who is wasting our time? The Liberal Party, this bogus new government, is wasting our time.

What does the government want to reinstate? A lot of bills. Last Fall, there was much division in the Liberal Party. Mr. Chrétien wanted to stay as Prime Minister until February, but he had to leave before that. He could not take any more cheap shots and stabs in the back. There was no room left for more stabs. He was thoroughly thrashed, and he had to leave early. That is what he did. He left earlier than he had planned.

That caught the new Prime Minister by surprise. He did not think he would have to face the music this soon. He was surprised, because his initial plan was this, “Chrétien will leave in February, I will have three or four weeks to form my government and prepare a budget. I will recall the House, table a budget, and call an election”.

The calculations were foiled. Now we have a Prime Minister who had to come back to this House earlier than planned, with the Auditor General's report today to boot. It is a total and utter disaster because they have to apply closure. They tell us that, if we have more to say, then we have until 8 p.m., but we cannot go much later than 8 p.m. because their television shows come on at that time. There is a good serial drama at 8 p.m.

[Radiocommunication Act, February 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I was told that, after the Liberal member, someone from the Conservative Party of Canada would speak, and only then would it be my turn.

Now that we have figured out how things will work, I want to thank the Chair for giving me this opportunity to speak on Bill C-2.

It is just amazing to see that this bill has now become an emergency. Usually, Bill C-2 is a piece of legislation designed to deal with a very well-defined emergency. However, all of a sudden, at 9:30 this morning, it was decided to put Bill C-2 up for debate today.

This bill is long overdue. When I was first elected to this House, in 1993, I was designated Canadian heritage critic for my party. One of the main problems we identified at the time was the whole black market issue surrounding broadcast signals. With DIRECTV in the picture, we asked that this be stopped, because it was costing us a lot of money and jobs throughout Canada and in Quebec.

However, as DIRECTV was owned by friends of the government, there was not a lot of interest in asking them to put a stop to their activities. The government was aware of the situation, but tolerated it.

Now that the former owners of DIRECTV have become the new owners—at least in part—of ExpressVu, not to name names, they are upset to lose all that business. So, these same friends are telling the government, “You should introduce a bill to make this a terrible thing, to make it illegal to import, steal or pirate the airwaves”.

This does not bode well at all for a new government that was supposed to be different. The report that the Auditor General will table tomorrow is going to give us an idea of what the former government was up to. It might a good thing for the new Prime Minister to read that report very carefully, to avoid being tempted to head in the same direction and protect his friends.

Bill C-2 poses some problems. There is no doubt that it will improve certain things. However, clause 5 creates huge problems. This provision gives great powers to an inspector and clause 5(1)( a ) reads as follows:

enter and inspect any place in which the inspector believes on reasonable grounds that there is any radio apparatus, interference-causing equipment or radio-sensitive equipment, any other thing related to such apparatus or equipment, or any record, book of account or other document or data relevant to the enforcement of this Act.

If we look at section 8 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protects us as regards private property, private rights and privacy, we wonder where the department is headed with clause 5. This clause will give sweeping powers to the inspector and, in many cases, these powers may well exceed the limit set by section 8.

Clause 5(1)( b ) reads as follows:

examine any radio apparatus, interference-causing equipment or radio-sensitive equipment found there, as well as any other thing related to such apparatus or equipment;

The government goes even further. Indeed, clause 5(1)( c ) reads:

examine any record, book of account or other document or data that the inspector believes on reasonable grounds contains information that is relevant to the enforcement of this Act and makes copies of any of them.

And then we have clause 5(1)( d ):

open or cause to be opened any package or container that the inspector believes on reasonable grounds contains anything referred to in paragraph (b) or (c).

We are interfering quite a bit with the privacy of citizens, and this seems to be an extremely dangerous element in this bill.

Another danger is all the authority being granted to the minister. The existing legislation already provides numerous powers to the minister, but this bill adds more. It is always very dangerous to give the minister an even greater discretionary authority when we know all the risks that are involved.

The minister will have the authority to decide who should get an import certificate. But we think the criteria the minister will have to use to make those decisions are not well enough defined.

We are willing to increase ministerial authority, but the government should be reassuring parliamentarians by setting out the criteria the minister will have to abide by. Criteria would be reassuring. We would be more aware of the situation, and we could debate those criteria and see whether they are reasonable. We could count on the minister to be able to apply those criteria. When you are kept in the dark, it is easy to have suspicions. Can the minister really be counted on to always be reasonable?

Earlier in her speech I heard the minister talk about the fines provided for under the legislation. She said that they would not be the major emphasis, but I am not sure what else can be done.

Then she goes on to say that the fines would be $200,000 for a company and $25,000 for an individual. There are limits. If these types of provisions are included in the legislation then there has to be the means to enforce them. There is no point in giving the impression that there will be penalties, if it is unclear how they will be enforced.

There is something quite extraordinary in one of the clauses of the bill. If, for instance, a $2,000 computer is seized and the fine happens to be $2,500 then the guilty party has only to pay back the difference between $2,500 and $2,000. There is no mention of what would happen if the fine were $2,500 and the value of the confiscated goods $10,000. Will the difference be paid out to the guilty party? That is out of the question.

Imposing heavier fines to make them more of a deterrent only works if we have the means to enforce these provisions. Otherwise, there is no point in leading people to believe that we are going to be able to put an end to this type of situation.

There is another element of the legislation that reinforces the broadcasting industry's current right to a civil remedy. There is the option under the legislation to receive statutory damages not to exceed a set amount. Clause 10 will replace subsection 18 of the Broadcasting Act. It is important to refer to subsection 18(1) of this act. This subsection states that anyone incurring a loss, or statutory damages, as the result of an offence, can pursue a civil remedy against the violator.

This bill has many problems. It is good in principle, but many questions need to be answered and this government also needs to agree to make changes if it wants the Bloc Quebecois to support it at third reading.

[Social Programs, February 5th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the minister who addresses Quebeckers in French is saying that the federal government is prepared to negotiate. However, in order to negotiate in good faith, one must respect the ruling made, which clearly states that the federal government is interfering in Quebec's jurisdiction. This is the basis of any negotiation.

Consequently, will the Prime Minister confirm that he will not appeal the decision on parental leave and that he will begin negotiating in good faith with Quebec at the earliest opportunity?

[Social Programs, February 5th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the former minister of intergovernmental affairs finally recognized that, as regards the issue of parental leave, the federal government was on slippery ground because of the Constitution.

Is the government prepared to announce that it will not appeal the ruling on parental leave and that it will recognize Quebec's jurisdiction in this area?