Nic Leblanc

[Supply, February 14th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, I am happy to speak to the motion presented by the Reform Party which is supposed to be trying to provide the finance minister with some solutions, answers, and ideas on how to cut government spending and shift the fiscal burden.

Of course, I suppose that, by the very nature of its name, the Reform Party has set out to reform Canadian institutions. This is the reason why it is called the Reform Party. Before finding solutions to all of Canada's financial ills, one should find their causes.

I am going to give a brief background, starting in 1970, when Mr. Trudeau's Liberals were in office. I remember well that in early 1970, I believe it was in 1969, the federal government had a budget surplus. One must assume that the Liberal Party was not happy with the situation and that, with characteristic generosity, it found that Canada was not progressing fast enough on the economic and job creation front. In 1972, the deficit really started building up with Mr. Turner and under Mr. Trudeau.

The then Liberal government decided that the only way to create jobs and to have a decent standard of living was for the federal government to interfere in just about every area. So it started borrowing money and the deficit started growing. In 1972, 1973 and 1974, the deficit was respectively $5 billion, $10 billion, $15 billion and then $20 billion. It kept on growing well into the 1980s. In 1972, 1980, and especially 1984, we had huge deficits.

From 1972 to 1980, the government used borrowed money to create an artificial economy. It borrowed in order to pour large amounts of money into our society, which resulted in the economy becoming completely artificial. It was not a normal, natural economy. It was borrowed money that was injected into our society so that people could spend, which in turn led to job creation, but all that job creation was artificial.

Spending borrowed money created an artificial economy. This overheating of the economy generated inflation, which lasted several years. Members will recall that in the years 1975-1976, the annual inflation rate varied between 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11 per cent. Such high inflation was not normal. But instead of cutting expenditures at that time, the government kept borrowing, which continued to create this overheating of the economy.

What solution was available to the governor of the Bank of Canada? He had only one solution, as he said himself, and that was to raise interest rates. And the government, as ignorant then as it is today, continued to borrow money, thereby creating inflation.

So, in 1980, interest rates went up as high as 20 per cent. It ruined a large percentage of small and medium size businesses in Quebec. It created hardship and unemployment. It created impossible situations. People were discouraged. People lost hope, particularly in Quebec where there are a lot of small and medium size businesses.

The result, in 1980, was a horrible economic disaster. The government, which had not found a solution, tried to correct its mistakes by borrowing even more, putting in place programs to save the economy. It kept injecting money into our society to try and protect the poor, and it was right. Having created an economic disaster, it had to do whatever it could, so it then injected, between 1980 and 1984, some $100 billion in borrowed funds to try to save the economy and avoid a crisis like the one of the 1930s. So more money was injected to help people who the government had just put out of work by its sky high interest rates. So much for the federal government.

In 1984, when I was with the Conservative party which was elected, the federal government had tallied up an accumulated debt of $175 billion. It had completely lost control over its spending. Revenues were of about $70 billion and expenditures of about $110 billion, and at the time Mr. Lalonde had predicted a deficit of some $39 billion for 1983-84; the largest deficit in Canada's history. People were saying, "We are bankrupt. It makes no sense. We have lost control over spending in Canada".

When I hear members of the Reform Party refer to this today, they might do well to remember that this is nothing new; this federal system does not work, it no longer works, it is a big mess.

Returning to 1984, the deficit was $38 or $39 billion. We had completely lost control over spending. On 4 September 1984, the Conservative government took office declaring, "We have to get out our axe. We have to make cuts".

At that time, the Conservative Party was similar to the Reform Party in terms of its culture and habits. It had more or less the same policies. It was a party pretty much of the right. People said that it would clean things up, that it was made up of people with a sense of responsibility. They said the Liberals had made a mess in the previous 20 years and that the Conservatives would put a stop to things and fix Canada up.

Well, it was very difficult for the Conservatives, because the debt was extremely high. The Liberals had made a lot of long term commitments. It was therefore very difficult for the Conservatives to cut.

Nevertheless, the economy grew between 3 and 5 per cent from 1984 to 1988. It would have been very easy to cut expenditures by $5, $10 or $15 billion a year, and we would have had economic growth at the rate of 2 per cent, probably, instead of 4 to 5 per cent. This would have been a normal rate of growth. The economy would have been sound and natural, not artificial. Public finances would have been put in order.

However, the federal system does not work this way. The federal system is governments in power, which want to show their electors-and I have seen it, I have been there-that expenditures cannot be cut, because people had to be shown that the federal government was useful and necessary. Money just had to be spent to prove that the government was indispensable, that federalism was alive, and that, without federalism, we could not function and exist as a country, without federal spending. A government always has to justify itself to the people and it generally does so by its spending.

If the people do not get anything, they believe the government is useless. So, what is needed is a government sufficiently strong to say what its role is and what the role of the provinces in various sectors is.

But no! Because the federal government had the power to spend, it continued to borrow, continued to spend in order to prove to Canadians that federalism was the solution, and that was the only way to justify federalism's existence.

Therefore, by 1990, we were faced with the same problem. We had to raise interest rates because the Conservatives did not cut spending enough and set off inflation themselves and we were back at square one. In 1990, interest rates were increased to cause a recession. Intelligent, is it not? What a smart government. We created the problem ourselves and we aggravate the situation by saying: "We created inflation ourselves so, now, we will increase interest rates to slow the economy and create a recession".

But this time, people were not deceived. A short time before, they had just lived through a terrible recession. And people stopped trusting the federal government. They still mistrust the federal government. The recession has lingered since 1990. It is now 1995. People have lost faith in the federal government, have lost faith in the future and have lost all hope. There are more and more family problems, young people are becoming more and more desperate, they have no hope for the future because over the past 25 years the federal government has not learned how to assume its responsibilities in order to prove that it is indispensable.

And it was Trudeau's policy, that of the strong central governments of the Liberals of today and of the past, which has led Canada to bankruptcy. Canada is bankrupt, pure and simple. Thus, now that we know what we did wrong in the past, other problems have emerged, of course.

I was forgetting another problem: that, in this Canadian system, we have a structure designed to administer perhaps some 300 to 400 million people and there are now 28 or 29 million people in Canada. We have 11 political powers, 11 governments. There is a socialist government, an NDP government, in Ontario; there used to be a Liberal government in Quebec; there was a Conservative, then a Liberal government in Ottawa, with contradictory policies in most cases, so that the system cannot work.

At any one time, there is a government getting ready for an election. Since there are also Liberals in Ontario, the Liberal government in Ottawa tries not to hurt its Liberal colleagues in Ontario and vice versa. This means that the federal government never takes action, never does the right thing, never acts rationally, so that the country cannot function.

Let us stop putting our heads in the sand and believing that Canada is the country with the highest standard of living in the world. Such a claim is ridiculous and deceives people. Canada is now considered to be a third-world country in terms of its debt.

We are now considered to be at the same level as the third world, but we still call Canada a rich country. I thought that the way to evaluate a business is to look at its assets and liabilities. Canada is now considered a third-world country in terms of its debt. Let us stop putting our heads in the sand and look reality in the face.

That is why we in Quebec think that extensive decentralization is the key to saving Quebec and even Canada. Canada stands at the edge of the abyss but can be saved through extensive decentralization. We started to talk about it with the Meech Lake Accord, we said that we had to decentralize, we said the same thing in Charlottetown, and Canadians said no. Canada's future lies in small sovereign countries.

We in Quebec want to achieve sovereignty because we believe that with a single government and a smaller country, we will be better able to succeed. It is easy to understand. We are saying that in a small country with only one level of government, that government, the universities, as well as business and union people can arrive at solutions together. We will be able to set a joint economic and social policy for the mid and the long term.

There will only be one government, instead of 11 different ones constantly fighting and implementing conflicting policies. We will work in harmony. We feel it is the only way to get out of this mess. As Quebecers, we do not want to sink with the rest of a

country, which has been mismanaged for a quarter of a century and is now bankrupt. I am not exaggerating when I say that we are bankrupt; I am merely telling the truth.

The Reform member who spoke earlier was quite right when he said that, in Canada, the accumulated debt stands at $1.2 billion. That figure includes the debts incurred by the federal, provincial and municipal levels of government, as well as by private companies. We are currently paying $100 million per day in interest to foreign creditors.

Surely we must have borrowed enough money if, every day, $100 million leave the country to pay the interest on foreign loans. We could do a lot with that money. Why is that? It is because the federalist structure did not allow us to manage the country in a way that would have been beneficial to everyone.

Consequently, we are struggling with this serious problem. As Quebecers, as members of a nation speaking the same language, sovereignty is the only option. Our culture is different from that of the rest of the country, whether we are talking about financial institutions, artists or creators. We are simply different. As a small country, if we work together, we will be able to have our own legislation, collect our own taxes, spend according to our priorities, and we will undoubtedly be better off. It is with that in mind that we embark upon our plan for a sovereign Quebec. We do not have anything against anglophones, Ukrainians, Italians or Jews. We do not have a grudge against anybody. All we want is to survive. We just want to keep at least a decent standard of living, which we will lose if we stay within the Canadian Confederation. It is with that in mind that we intend to embark upon our plan for a sovereign Quebec.

The future belongs to small countries. We will negotiate and we will succeed. I can guarantee Quebecers that even the hon. member from Quebec, on the other side, knows I am right and agrees with what I have just said. But, unfortunately, he will not accept this daily reality.

What I say today does not all come from me. In the study which was carried out by the Bélanger-Campeau Commission, in 1992, experts clearly said that there was only one solution, that is, that Quebec must recover the great majority of its powers. If not, it will have to become sovereign or risk losing its standard of living and becoming poorer and poorer. Since the rest of Canada said no, this leaves us with only one alternative.

In matters of public finance, changes of all sorts are no use. There is only one alternative for Quebec, and for the rest of Canada, that is, to have a sovereign Quebec, an economic association open to the world. This is the only way we will save Canada and Quebec.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for this opportunity to speak this afternoon. I am convinced that some federalists from Quebec, on the other side, have understood some of the matters I have discussed this afternoon.

[Supply, February 14th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca tell us a lot about federal expenditures. I must remind him that this has been going on for a long time and particularly since 1970, when the Liberal government of the time decided to centralize pretty well everything in Ottawa in an effort to boost the economy, so to speak. At that point in the 1970s, the government, by borrowing to create jobs and build up the economy, also caused the economy to overheat somewhat, which led to an appalling rate of inflation.

Do you remember the 1970s? Having created the inflation itself, the government was obliged to raise interest rates enough in the 1980s in order to reduce this appalling inflation, which had reached a rate of approximately 10 per cent per year. This means that the government created the inflation between 1970 and 1980. In 1980, it raised interest rates to reduce inflation and caused the recession. In 1984, the Conservatives continued to spend in the same way as the Liberals, who had set up certain projects to get through the recession between 1980 and 1984.

Between 1984 and 1990, the Conservative federal government continued to spend as the Liberals had between 1970 and 1980. They created more inflation, and, naturally, in 1990, they raised the interest rates and created another recession, which has lasted four or five years now.

It is easy enough to understand; this means that the federal government has caused all of Canada's problems. It is clear and precise. I will try to explain, in three minutes, that the real cause of the debt is the federal government itself which interfered in matters of no concern to it. It meddled in the economy, in all kinds of things.

I agree in principle with the Reform Party member who says that the federal government must stop some of its interference with the provinces if not most of it. And before him, the Reform Party member for Calgary-North said much the same. The government must disentangle itself and decentralize precisely to restore order in the country.

This is why I, for one, have taken the position that federalism has caused a tremendous amount of harm and has led Canada to bankruptcy and this is why I ask and we ask that Quebec become a sovereign nation in economic association with the rest of Canada, with Canada remaining as a type of committee or advisory board, a type of board responsible for managing areas the regions have in common. I would to hear the member's comments on this.

[Interest Act, February 9th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support my colleague in this respect, and I think the hon. member of the Reform Party should realize this is a bill to protect the individual consumer who borrows money, not companies. If I understood correctly, the bill is not concerned with companies but individuals.

We all know that financial institutions, with their expertise, can easily predict the vagaries of interest rates and are in a better position to take advantage of that expertise than the average citizen who has to make a living and does not have the resources to be able to judge when he should pay up his mortgage or take out a mortgage and for what period of time, and so forth.

That is why I think the flexibility the hon. member for Chambly is seeking, to allow people to pay back their mortgages and renegotiate them at a lower rate, would give the average citizen, for whom a mortgage on his home is the only equity he has, a chance to borrow a certain amount using the mortgage as collateral, in order to save some money for later on when he retires.

As the hon. member for Chambly explained, in the past we have often seen people lose huge sums of money, mainly because here in Canada we have a major problem. If we look at the mid-seventies we had interest rates at fairly reasonable levels of 7, 8 or 9 per cent. In 1981, 1982, 1983, interest rates rose to 20 per cent and then went down to 7, 8 and 9 per cent, and then down to 6 per cent in 1994. Last year, you could get a mortgage at 6 per cent, and now we are up to 11 and 12 per cent.

Imagine what we have to cope with. I did not do a serious analysis of the situation in other countries, but I know that in the United States, you can still get a 30-year mortgage at a much lower rate than we pay here. This kind of stability means that wage earners with fairly stable incomes can budget their money better. In this country, however, with these tremendous variations in interest rates, people never know where they stand.

So if we gave individuals, since we are talking about private mortgages, if we gave individuals a chance to at least budget for their interest payments, it would help them balance their budgets generally, give them greater confidence, and make them more inclined to engage in real estate transactions, and in the process, this would help the economy. I think that this is what the hon. member for Chambly had in mind when he introduced this bill, and I think this is important, but unfortunately, it would seem this bill is being snubbed.

I think we should have had more time to discuss the bill and a chance to improve certain guarantees available to individuals.

Once again, financial institutions are very well organized. They have their own experts who are able to evaluate the trends and the way interest rates are going, but the average Joe who has to learn a living does not have the resources to do this. That is why I support the bill standing in the name of the hon. member for Chambly.

[Supply, December 8th, 1994]

Yes, after Meech, of course. It was no longer possible to defend the interests of Quebec in Ottawa from within a federal party. It is not possible. To do so, you have to be free to speak. And the only way to speak freely on behalf of Quebec is to belong to the Bloc Quebecois, of which I am one of the founding members. This is why we can now speak freely on behalf of Quebec.

We are the legitimate representatives of Quebec, since we won 54 seats out of 75. I consider that a strong legitimacy. Quebecers trust us and that is why they voted massively for us, especially French Canadians, I mean French-speaking Quebecers. Unfortunately we have not succeeded yet in rallying allophones and anglophones to our cause. I understand and respect their position.

Regarding French Canadians outside Quebec, I must say that we made more statements and asked more questions regarding the interests of francophones outside Quebec than the Liberals ever did when I was sitting as a Conservative. What we want to do is help French-speaking communities all over North America.

[Supply, December 8th, 1994]

First of all, Madam Speaker, I must say that I am proud to have been with the Conservatives for six years. It is not because I am against private enterprise. I am in favour of a suitable environment for the private sector, in order to create jobs. I think that party did a good job in this regard, even though it did not have the guts, no more than the Liberals today, to cut spending. I would have wished that they cut more spending.

Nevertheless, in 1990 I had the courage to resign, because I realized that there was nothing more to expect-

[Supply, December 8th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased today to speak to this motion which reads as follows:

That this House enjoin the government to recognize the legitimacy of the democratic process initiated by the Government of Quebec in order to allow Quebecers to chart their own political and constitutional future.

This motion was initiated by the Government of Quebec. Of course, what we are witnessing here today is an attempt to discredit the Government of Quebec, to claim that it is undemocratic, that it does not know what democracy is and that it does not respect democracy in Quebec.

At the outset, I have to say that I, as well as other Quebecers, are clearly shocked to hear the Quebec Liberal Party, the federal Liberal Party and the Reform Party declare that Quebec's proposal is illegitimate. Need I remind you, Madam Speaker, that the Parti Quebecois is one of the most democratic parties of all time. The Parti Quebecois was democratically elected and forms the government.

The Parti Quebecois has a tradition of parliamentary democracy. It is one of only a handful of parties in which members elect their leader by universal suffrage. It has passed laws governing the way in which political parties are financed. It is the only party in Canada to have done so to ensure that each and every Quebecer can make a contribution to a political party and that the government that is elected is free to act. It is not a party controlled by the big interests or by the big unions. When the government makes a decision, it is made freely No other government in Canada can make such a claim.

The Parti Quebecois is responsible for passing of the Referendum Act. It participated in the work of the Bélanger-Campeau Commission which, of course, was set up by the Liberal Party of the day. It participated extensively, intelligently and regularly in the commission's work. Moreover, the outcome of the commission's activities was very positive for Quebec. The Parti Quebecois also took part in the Charlottetown debate. It never refused to participate in this process. This, despite the fact that the federal government was proposing renewed federalism, a kind of draft project. We participated even though we were opposed. We were also involved in the 1992 referendum, as I just mentioned.

The Parti Quebecois has also taken an innovative step by introducing legislation to establish a permanent voters' list. Why then is the federal government refusing to co-operate with the party in power? It is all rather incredible. In my opinion, the main reason why the federalists do not want to take part in this democratic debate is that they have nothing more to say. It is that simple. They have nothing to offer.

Over 35 years ago, Mr. Duplessis used to say we should get what belongs to us from Ottawa because we were cheated out of our areas of jurisdiction. That was back in 1936. I have a cassette tape in my car. I often listen to it, and I can say the speeches of today are exactly the same.

Mr. Lesage said: Masters in our own house. Mr. Johnson, Sr. said: Equality or independence. Mr. Lévesque said: Sovereignty-association. Mr. Bourassa tried twice to improve things. He passed Bill 150 and gave it up later on. What a disgrace.

We have been talking about this for a long time. The subject is definitely not new, at least not for me. In 1984, when I was elected with the Progressive Conservative Party, we talked about decentralization and accountability.

The then Prime Minister, Mr. Mulroney, did all he could to give some dignity back to Quebecers. You will admit he paid a steep price for that. He tried to give Quebecers fairness, not privileges, but legitimate rights that they had been asking for, for decades. Mr. Mulroney's Progressive Conservative Party was completely thrown out of Canadian politics by English Canada. There are only two members left. Why? Because Mr. Mulroney tried to give Quebec some form of legitimacy. That man ruined his political career to fight for the little legitimacy Quebecers need to develop further. This is the main reason why his party disappeared, and it is a well-known fact.

In 1984, while I was campaigning in my riding, Mr. Lévesque, who was my MPP at the time, sent his people to support me. It really happened. Mr. Lévesque talked about the "beau risque" in those days. He said: The Tories seem well-intentioned, we will give them the opportunity to grant Quebecers the legitimacy they have been requesting for so many years. He said: Let us give Mr. Mulroney a chance. I just explained to you what happened to Mr. Mulroney for trying. In 1990, when the Meech Lake Accord failed, when the present Prime Minister of Canada made sure that it failed, it was just because he wanted to get into power and to win the election here in Ottawa. He won his election, but winning that way, on the backs of Quebecers, is not an honour. That is exactly what is going on.

Today, they are trying to tell us that the Parti Quebecois is not credible, that its bill is not legitimate. We know very well that what they are trying to do is strictly an excuse, because they do not know how to justify why Quebecers should stay in this federation. This federation is costing Quebecers an enormous amount of money. I will give you an example. It is an easy one that everyone knows, but they just need to be reminded. Quebecers are not naive. They are not drawers of water any more. They have been out of there for a long time. Quebecers are intelligent people. They are educated, they understand things. They understand very well that the Canadian federation has put a huge debt burden on their shoulders. Quebecers make up 25 per cent of the Canadian population. That means that the federal government is creating a debt of $10 billion a year for Quebecers, without their permission, because they are still a minority in this country.

Canada has an accumulated debt of $550 billion and they are trying to convince us that this Canadian federation is good, that the country is rich. When we look at whether a country is rich or poor, we must also look at its debts. When they say that Canada has the highest standard of living in the world, we must remember that it is a standard of living that was bought on credit. Each year, we borrow money to buy food. If a family borrows every day to buy its groceries, it will maintain its standard of living but one day, it will go bankrupt. Canada is on the verge of going bankrupt.

Just on the subject of money and the economy, we Quebecers do not want to be on this sinking ship. We must take hold of our destiny to be more efficient, to be more successful and to preserve our standard of living. To say that Canada still has the highest standard of living in the world is pure hypocrisy. It is crazy to think that.

That standard of living has been bought on credit and they still keep doing it. The government does not have the courage to cut spending, because of the coming referendum. They continue to borrow on the backs of Quebecers to maintain an artificial

standard of living. We built an artificial economy and we make people believe that the Canadian economy is doing well. It is pure hypocrisy. What we are going through is terrible. It is a disgrace. It is worse than the Second World War. If we continue on this road, Canada will be totally bankrupt in a few years. We are starting to feel it a little more every day.

[Supply, December 8th, 1994]

To become masters of our own destiny!

[International Civil Aviation Organization, December 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the international civil aviation organization, or ICAO, the only UN agency based in Canada and one of its oldest components, is celebrating its 50th anniversary today in the presence of the UN Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

Based in Montreal, like more than 30 other international organizations, including the International Air Transport Association and the secretariat for the Montreal Protocol Multilateral Fund on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, ICAO exemplifies the vitality of Quebec's chief city internationally.

It is this internationalism that the federal government was forced to recognize last winter by allowing the head office of the NAFTA environment committee to be based in Montreal. Dynamic, cosmopolitan and open to the world, Montreal will make a proud chief city in a sovereign Quebec.

[World Trade Organization Agreement Implementation Act, November 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have a short question for the hon. member from western Canada. I would like to know what he has to say about the fact that we are still paying the cost of shipping western grain, in other words, Canadians have to subsidize the transportation of western grain. I always thought we should subsidize the transportation of grain in proportion to the distance involved. The fact is that although we subsidize the transportation of western grain, there are no subsidies for the transportation of grain from the East. I always thought that was unfair. I would appreciate some explanations from the hon. member from western Canada.

[World Trade Organization Agreement Implementation Act, November 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Louis-Hébert for his kind words.

I think that we must be very careful in helping the poorest countries, because we tend to think in the short term and to pay more attention to trade than to the poorest in the world. I think it is obvious that if we increase our productivity, our trade, our ability to pay, we will be in better position to help the poorest countries.

In many ways, we must be very careful not to work only with the countries from which we stand to gain the most. We must also develop markets with the poorest countries, thus helping them ensure their own development.

I made several trips to developing countries with External Affairs officials. The ambassadors I met told us that one way to help developing countries was to trade with them.

Since Bill C-57 is aimed at opening up trade, I think that if we do it with dignity, we can increase trade with these developing countries, thus helping them become better traders. There is nothing better than practice to learn how to do business.

If we can show developing countries how to borrow, how to lend, how to do business, how to make goods, I think it would be one of the best ways to help them.

This does not mean that we should not help those in need, those who must be fed every day, those who need help to become better farmers, and so on.

In this regard, I think that opening up markets to the entire world will give developing countries better opportunities to trade and to learn from successful trading countries. I am convinced that this will help them a great deal in the future.