Nic Leblanc

[Petitions, May 17th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I was asked by a group of people to table a petition on their behalf. I am pleased to do so. These people are from a number of Quebec municipalities, mainly Longueuil, but also Terrebonne, Sainte-Monique, Montreal and Laval.

They are asking Parliament to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act so as to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.

[Human Rights, May 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Foreign Affairs has announced that Canada is preparing to start trading with certain countries regardless of their human rights violations. According to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the liberalization of trade is the best means of promoting the respect of human rights.

These words will be of no comfort to those on death row in Indonesia, China, Saudi Arabia, Burma and Iraq. The most ironic thing about the whole situation is that the Liberal government, with the Prime Minister showing the way, is so happy with this development that it is actually bragging about it. Money has no smell. As for the Liberal government, it has no scruples. It has traded them in for several million greenbacks.

[Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act, May 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this House today on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois to speak on Bill C-87, an act to implement the convention on the prohibition of the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons and on their destruction.

We appreciate that the convention is the result of a long and complex negotiation process that took nearly 20 years.

For more than 100 years, the international community has been seeking to outlaw these weapons, or at least their use, because they are inhumane and of rather limited military value.

We should also rejoice over the fact that the convention is the first multilateral disarmament agreement prohibiting an entire class of mass destruction weapons. Under this convention, it is illegal not only to produce, but also to acquire, stockpile, transfer, use or engage in military preparations to use chemical weapons or assist anyone in any activity prohibited under the convention.

The prohibition applies not only to chemical agents but also to their vectors and any equipment intended for use in relation to chemical weapons.

We are pretty happy with the wording of the convention, which strikes a balance in a mix of areas, such as the protection of sensitive activities and ready access for inspection teams.

The convention provides for a challenge inspection mechanism while at the same time protecting sensitive and legitimate activities by putting time limits on the inspections, and by providing for restricted access and measures to deter abuse.

A balance was also struck between the need to maintain control over exports to suspect states and the will to liberalize the chemical products trade. Members of the Australian group, which includes Canada, and which monitors the proliferation of chemical weapons and defines the guidelines for controlling exports to countries deemed to have chemical weapons, pledged to review their policy and eliminate controls in the case of those states which fully comply with the convention.

Another balance was struck between the requirement to destroy chemical weapons within prescribed time frames and the need to take economic implications into account. All those states which own chemical weapons will have ten years to destroy both the weapons and the production facilities. However, the convention allows for an extension of up to ten years, under more stringent controls which are tantamount to turning over the weapons and facilities to the international community.

The destruction of a chemical weapons production facility costs ten times more than its construction. Consequently, we are concerned about the financial implications, for some states, of this requirement. The problem is very real, even though the convention provides for the temporary conversion of some production facilities into destruction facilities, where this is

feasible and cost effective, thus making it possible to declare such production facilities as having been converted.

Indeed, one of the problems related to the implementation of the convention will be the destruction of arsenals, which is a complex and extremely costly operation. The cost of destroying the American arsenal of these weapons is estimated at $8 billion. Russia, which does not have the funds, has 40,000 to 60,000 tonnes of substances to destroy, which is quite the task and will undoubtedly take over 10 years and then again, only if western countries lend a hand.

By the way, we are not entirely satisfied with the verification system. However, we realize that they are the fruit of several years of negotiation and that they strike a balance between the need to have an efficient means of checking whether countries are respecting the convention and the legitimate need to maintain secrecy in defence and industrial matters which are not related to the prohibited chemical weapons.

We would have nevertheless preferred much stricter controls. The current convention is perhaps the best agreement possible under the circumstances. Regardless, we must admit that the Convention does contain the most rigorous controls ever included in a multilateral agreement. They permit the organization to confirm that substances and chemical weapons factories have actually been destroyed, to monitor very closely all operations authorized to produce certain toxic chemical products, to keep a database on the world chemical industry and, at the request of the signing states, to make inspections.

In addition, the on-site challenge inspection will in fact permit any signing state to request a universal inspection of a suspicious operation in another country by the secretariat of the organization and a multilateral inspection team.

We have concluded that the text of the convention is to be criticized for lacking coherence and logic in certain areas. In some cases, for example facilities used to stockpile or to manufacture chemical weapons, it goes into the greatest descriptive detail, and in others, for example the clauses prohibiting the development of chemical weapons, it fails to go into enough detail.

Furthermore, the verification system for declared facilities seems unnecessarily cumbersome and costly, while the so-called challenge inspection system has far less clout.

A major drawback is that paradoxically, enforcement mechanisms will not be in place when the convention comes into force. The director general will still have to be appointed, inspectors confirmed and the list of inspection equipment approved. In other words, each state party to the convention will have the right to request and obtain a challenge inspection, but there will be no one to carry it out. This is only one of the problems the preliminary commission will have to consider very carefully.

Surely it would have been more reasonable to wait until the organization is in a position to fully exercise its mandate before the main obligations set forth in the convention come into force?

It is also unfortunate that the sanctions provided under the convention are not more specific. Article XII authorizes the organization to ask a state party to the convention that does not fully comply with it to take corrective action. If the incriminated country refuses, the organization can then apply a certain number of sanctions and recommend to states parties a number of corrective measures in accordance with international law.

However, the convention remains silent on the kind of sanctions that can be applied. Furthermore, in recognition of the ultimate responsibility of the UN Security Council for international peace and security, very serious cases may be referred to this body for possible further action, in accordance with the UN Charter.

I would like to take a few moments to consider the consequences for the chemical industry in Quebec and Canada. The convention would not appear to have a major impact. Since the second world war, Canada has not produced chemical weapons and has even destroyed its stockpiles. Under the convention, the chemical industry in Quebec and Canada will, however, be subject to regular monitoring. The national authority, an agency to be designated in each state party to the convention, will provide the link with the organization.

The signatory states are required to submit statements to the organization concerning specifically the possession of chemical weapons or the manufacture or export of designated chemicals. These statements will subsequently be used in on-site inspections.

As Canada has neither chemical weapons nor facilities for their manufacture, it would appear that the effect of the convention will be limited in its case to trade.

We believe that Canada should assume some leadership with respect to this convention. There is good reason to ask, in fact, what role Canada intends to play in encouraging its partners to ratify the convention as quickly as possible. Canada should assume some leadership in this regard.

Until now, nothing has indicated this to be the government's intention. If it intends to be consistent, it should announce a series of initiatives in this regard in the coming weeks. After all, only 28 countries have ratified the convention up to now, and there should be 65. Need I mention that neither the United States

nor Russia has signed yet? Furthermore, other important states that have yet to sign include Iraq, Libya and North Korea.

In the case of Russia, we realize that the costs of complying with this convention will be significant. However, without Russia and the United States, the convention will not entirely fulfill its role, since Russia and the United States have the biggest stockpiles of chemical weapons. Whatever the case, we believe that, if we support this bill, Canada will soon carve out a prime niche for itself within the various institutions of this new international organization.

In our opinion, the convention on chemical weapons constitutes a fine opportunity to eliminate the threat of chemical weapons. The other option would be to continue to take measures in isolation, an approach that would have neither the generality nor the global legitimacy of the convention. The convention gives traditional arms control a universal scope, with the added possibility of responding vigorously to non-compliance. It also calls for widespread support to determine who complies and who does not as well as what political action is appropriate.

We are therefore happy to support this bill, making Canada one of the first to sign the convention. In our view, this is far from an ideal document. The Bloc Quebecois appreciates however that it is the result of complex and comprehensive negotiations, during which several countries had to make concessions on issues they considered extremely important because they could not get the support of other countries.

Canada is probably one of the countries which had to make the most concessions in order to come up with this document, because it was strongly in favour of an efficient, comprehensive and global inspection scheme that would help build confidence. The Bloc Quebecois fully agrees with the position taken by Canada in the past. In fact, we still consider being able to request an inspection anywhere, anytime, and seeing this inspection carried out immediately without restrictions being imposed on inspectors as the best way of ensuring safety.

While, at present, few countries recognize possessing chemical weapons, notably the United States, Russia and Iraq, we know that many more have the means to use such weapons. We were all distressed by the pictures of Iranians and Kurds killed by Iraqi chemical weapons in the Gulf War. We also feared that chemical weapons could be used against not only troops, but civilian populations. We hope that the implementation of the convention will speed up the peace process.

[Supply, May 2nd, 1995]

Madam Speaker, thank you for allowing me to speak. As the hon. member for Lévis pointed out earlier, the federal government has cut transfers to the provinces while claiming this would give the provinces more flexibility to manage their own affairs.

I myself have never seen a government cut funding to the provinces while claiming that such a reduction would give them more flexibility to manage the departments in question. As the hon. member for Lévis explained, the federal government gradually increased its interference by setting national standards, which it has finally realized are excessively costly to

implement. As has been demonstrated, the federal government's accumulated debt now amounts to $600 billion.

Now that the federal government has realized that the standards it has put in place in the last 20 years cost too much, it says it will now transfer responsibility to the provinces by reducing funding. Let me give you an example. When the Quebec government decided to establish its own health care system, the federal government was not very happy about it given its strong desire to impose national standards. The federal government tried to use that opportunity to impose national standards. Quebec and another province were then adamantly opposed to federal interference in health care. However, the federal government insisted and the provinces backed down, provided that it return 50 per cent of health care expenditures.

The federal government is now contributing around 30 per cent, while the provinces must make up the remaining 70 per cent. The federal government is still aying that federal standards must be maintained. This puts the provinces, especially Quebec, in a tight spot as far as health care spending is concerned. They cannot manage health care as they see fit, because they must comply with national standards while the federal government slashes health care funding in Quebec.

That is all I wanted to tell my fellow citizens in Longueuil and throughout Quebec. I wanted to inform them that the federal government is preventing us from managing health care properly. I ask the hon. member for Lévis whether he agrees with everything I just said.

[Supply, March 21st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it seems that the government has decided to axe the CBC. We are told that cuts of about $375 million will be made over the next few years.

The minister also seems unwilling to disclose these cuts, but we do not know why. That is the question that we are asking ourselves today.

As a member of Parliament who is promoting the sovereignty of Quebec, and seeing that the current government is axing the CBC, I ask myself this question: Would it be preferable for the government to simply privatize the CBC, so that the money saved could be used to reduce taxes in Quebec and to allow the government of Quebec to support Radio-Québec? Radio-Québec could then respond to the needs of Quebecers the same way as the CBC has done it before, since it will not be able to do so in the future.

What does the hon. member think of this suggestion?

[The Budget, March 14th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, after listening to the hon. member for Perth-Wellington-Waterloo talk about this excellent budget in terms of job creation by the business sector, I think that he is probably mistaken. We will continue to have an enormous debt and enormous interest payments on this debt and we will have to keep borrowing from the countries to which we already owe this debt.

Some say that the deficit has been reduced, but it has merely been passed on to the provinces. For example, in the years to come, Quebec will receive $1.5 billion to $2 billion less each year. The federal government says that it may return $1.5 billion less to the province of Quebec. We all agree with that and we would even have preferred that it not return anything to Quebec but that it not tax Quebecers any more.

Finally, what the federal government is doing is not only to continue taxing Quebecers as much as before, but to tax them even more. Moreover, the federal government is increasing the debt of Quebecers by $7 to $8 billion for next year alone. This means that Quebecers will again become poorer and poorer.

When the government says that it wants to transfer to the provinces the responsibilities that belong to them, it must also reduce their tax burden.

But all the government is doing is transferring to the provinces, and especially to Quebec, the burden of the debt and the deficit as well as the horrible task to manage the deficit, a bigger chunk of which Quebecers will be asked to take upon themselves, since the federal government continues to increase taxes while reducing transfers to Quebec. This is unfair and seems to me like a very clever trick designed by the government. I hope Quebecers will see through all this and will understand what the federal government is doing to Quebec by reducing transfers and increasing taxes for Quebecers.

[Borrowing Authority Act, 1995-96, March 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my friend, the hon. member for Dartmouth, a few questions. I had the opportunity to take a trip with him to Japan, during which we had long discussions. Despite that opportunity, I was still a little surprised to see that he was so proud and happy today, and so impressed with the Minister of Finance's budget.

I fail to see how anyone could be proud, for example, to say that most of the deficit reduction measures will be achieved by offloading the problem onto the provinces. Responsibility for a large part of the federal deficit will be squarely put on the province's shoulders. For example, the Minister of Finance says that Quebec will receive almost $7 billion less from the federal government, which will, of course, continue to tax Quebecers as much as ever.

How can he be proud to see that, in two years' time, Canada will have tacked on another $50 billion to its debt? How can he be proud of that? How can the hon. member for Dartmouth be proud to see that, in two years, Canada's accumulated debt will have climbed to $611 billion? How could we be proud of that? This does not make me in the least bit proud. Therefore, I would simply like the hon. member to answer my question.

Instead of making fiery speeches, he may be better advised to come down from the clouds and realize that, in two years, Canada will obviously have to collect more income tax and impose other taxes. The country will give much less to its citizens, since the interest payments on the debt alone will be at least $50 billion. How could we possibly be proud of that?

[Borrowing Authority Act, 1995-96, March 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. member for his excellent speech. I think he takes the interests of the Quebec transportation industry at heart, and he represents them well.

I would like him to touch on the possible implications of these cuts in transfer payments to the provinces, which the Minister of Finance indicated will be to the tune of $7 billion over the next three years. Transfer cuts mean less money being paid to Quebec. At the same time, the federal government continues to tax Quebec at the same level. Moreover, tax hikes are imposed on Quebecers, representing a deficit of about $6.5 billion for Quebec in taxes alone. Add to that some $2.5 billion less coming back to Quebec every year, and this makes a shortfall of $9 billion for the people of Quebec.

Instead of cutting taxes in Quebec, the federal government is cutting the share Quebec used to get. This makes for a rather significant shortfall, in fact a very significant shortfall for Quebecers. How can this be offset? As the Minister of Finance said, Quebec will have to either reduce public expenditures further or impose tax hikes Quebec taxpayers who are not only seeing their taxes go up instead of down, but receiving about $2.5 billion less from the federal government every year, which is utterly unfair. It is important that the people of Quebec be reminded over and over again of this fact.

How does the transport critic see the transportation industry in Quebec being affected by this drastic drop in overall revenue?

[Borrowing Authority Act, 1995-96, March 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Public Works said that using $2 coins would result in savings of some $225,000. I wonder how much it will cost to repair our pockets though, because it is going to be a heavy load to carry. My comment is somewhat in line with the sense of humour displayed by the minister when he alluded to the possibility of having his face appear on the new $2 coin.

The closing of some CMHC offices is a more serious issue. I agree that the government must reduce spending. However, I find it hard to understand why the minister decided to close the CMHC office in my riding of Longueuil, since some 1.2 million people live in the Montérégie. I think it would have been justified to keep an office to manage CMHC affairs in that region. That region has a larger population than the province of Nova Scotia where, I imagine, there must be at least one CMHC office. So, I ask the minister: Why he is taking that step and, second, from where will he manage all the properties in the Montérégie?

[Supply, February 14th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be asked this question. The member said there were several conditions. Yes, of course, there were several conditions. However, I want to point out to the Reform member that we have been working hard

for 10 years and, personally, when I was a member of the Progressive Conservative Party, I worked hard to get approval for the Meech Lake Agreement.

I can tell you that we worked for two and even three years, because it took three years, a lot of discussion and efforts, to get this agreement approved. Let me remind Reform members that we spent almost $500 million. The Canadian government spent almost $500 million to try to explain how this country could be managed. The overall process, the ads, the whole thing cost almost $500 million and took several years. In the end, the federal government and English Canada did not want any changes.

So, do not say we did not try. We did and we spent a lot of money we did not even have. We borrowed to try and get approval for this agreement and it was rejected. What else can I say, we did everything possible. Mr. Mulroney put all his heart into trying to renew Canada, but he failed. Maybe the Reform Party will succeed, I do not know, but I have lost faith. Any way, I can tell you that we tried our best, but we failed.

Do not try to convince me that I made a mistake in becoming a sovereignist member in this House. From an economic standpoint, it is a matter of life and death. I believe, and I will repeat it, that the only solution for Quebec is to become a sovereign state, to collect its own taxes, to make its own laws, to sign its own treaties and to have an open economic association with the rest of Canada, just as we have today. If Quebec continues to do business with the rest of Canada after it achieves sovereignty, there is not one Canadian that will see a difference. People from Montreal will continue to go to Toronto to do business, and people from Toronto will continue to come to Montreal just as they do now.

It will not change a thing. The only difference is that we will have only one government, we will have only one set of laws, we will collect our own taxes, we will spend according to our own priorities and we will make progress. And the rest of Canada will also benefit from that because a strong Quebec will share its wealth with the rest of Canada and help Canadians to continue to live well. We will stay good friends.

I can assure you that I will continue to ski in Whistler and I will feel very good about it. I have no problem with that. It is in that sense that we will succeed in helping the rest of Canada to survive economically so that it does not become a kind of third world country, as we already are in terms of our debt.