Nic Leblanc

[Supply, October 24th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, when federalists do not know what to say, they say the problems are due to the fact that we want a referendum. They refuse to face the facts. The Liberals say we are against everything, but that is not true. We are not against everything. We are just monitoring the federal government.

I was on the government benches when the drug patent bill was passed. Bill C-22 and Bill C-91, that was when I was a Conservative, and we worked very hard to bring pharmaceutical research to Montreal. It was a vicious struggle. The Liberals took advantage of their position in the Senate, and it was a year before this legislation was passed. They did not want to see these projects in the Montreal region and especially right next to the riding of Lachine-Saint-Louis.

Hundreds of millions of dollars were invested, which created thousands and thousands of jobs. The Liberal government at the time did everything it could to prevent the passage of this bill. For the first time in Canada's history, researchers from Montreal demonstrated on Parliament Hill and persuade the Liberals to adopt this bill in order to create jobs in Montreal.

You think we can trust the federal government. You think we are against everything. In fact, we know we cannot trust the government. The evidence tells us we cannot trust the federal Liberal government. I repeat, the past shows what the future holds in store. That is why Quebecers had so little confidence in the federal government that they elected 53 Bloc Quebecois members to represent them in a worthy manner and to protect their interests.

My answer to the minister who was formerly a minister in Quebec City and said we were just a bunch of complainers is that Montreal is not in such a bad shape, on the contrary. I have confidence in the people of Montreal. I know there are people in Montreal with extraordinary intellectual capabilities that can accomplish great things. We have done some great things, and if we did not have a federal government that destroys everything as soon as we build it, we would be better off.

I repeat, the OECD says that Quebec ranks fourth on research and development, which means that although we get less than $2 billion from the federal government, as a province we do more research and development than almost anywhere in the world. We are fourth in the world. Why? It means the Quebec government has to pay twice as much.

They tell us they give us more in Quebec City. Sure, they give us more as far as unemployment is concerned. Do we want money for our poor because we will never be rich, because the federal government prevents us from earning an honest living? I do not think that is what we want. Quebecers are people with dignity who want to work and are resourceful. I believe in Quebecers. We want to be sovereign because we think that once Quebec is sovereign, it will be in a far better position to develop its potential. It is blessed with outstanding natural and human resources. But we do not get the help we need.

[Supply, October 24th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, politics is not as simple as it looks. It implies many attitudes. One must look at history a little. A country cannot become impoverished in the span of six months, three days or five weeks. One must examine the history of the last 30 years to understand the current plight of Quebec, which is plagued by a 15 or 12 per cent unemployment rate and an almost equal number of welfare recipients. This is a reality.

When I say the last 30 years, I am speaking of the current Prime Minister, who was in the government then. He is responsible for this situation.

[Supply, October 24th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, what we are doing is very simple: we do what we are doing today. First, we call to order the people who tell us lies about Montreal. It is important to do this first.

Second, this thing about political uncertainty is old hat. Every expert and business and every poll on the subject said that political uncertainty has nothing to do with Montreal's situation. This has to be made clear once and for all. Everybody said so. Experts said it again last week on television. We read about it every day in the papers. The political situation has nothing to do with the loss of jobs in Montreal.

As we all know, the problem with Montreal is that the federal government never took care of Quebec for the last 30 years.

It is mainly the fault of this Prime Minister who, for 30 years, has been trying to please western Canada and Ontario to be able to win votes, because he is a Quebecer. That is the true reason.

This same Prime Minister scuttled Meech because Quebec had obtained a little more freedom to manage its own things. He became the leader of the Liberal Party and to run down the Conservative government that was on the point of realizing one of the finest Canadian projects, he scuttled the whole deal, and only so he could become Prime Minister.

Power took precedence over the interests of Quebec. This Prime Minister ruined Montreal. This is clear. Everybody can say so, and prove it: his attitude toward Quebec was terrible. He has been active in politics for 30 years and he has been working against Quebec for 30 years. This is why the members of the Bloc, all 53 of us, are now here in Ottawa. We are here because we could not get members from Quebec to really represent us. To get elected, they would do anything to please western Canada, Ontario and the Atlantic provinces.

This is the old way, the old story of Canada. It was this way under the Trudeau government, under the Saint-Laurent government and under this Prime Minister's government.

Unfortunately, my time is up, although I would have so much more to say on this subject.

[Supply, October 24th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I always like to review the historical background of an issue before beginning to speak about it, in order to explain certain things for the present and the future. One always has to remember a little what happened a few years earlier. I have always thought that the past is something of an indication of what the future holds.

Judging by what happened a few years ago, I can say that the federal government has surely not been the engine behind Montreal's economic development, quite the contrary. I will give a few examples. I will back a rather long way, but the problems arose since then; as you know, there was the so called Borden line established by the oil energy legislation. During the period the Prime Minister was Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, that Borden line cost Montreal between 8,000 and 10,000 jobs. We have to remember that.

In 1986, the federal government inaugurated a large airport called Mirabel. The following year, it decided to deregulate air transportation, which brought about the fall of Mirabel-Dorval airport and a further loss of ten thousand jobs in the area of Montreal. All because of the federal government. There too, these were badly targeted expenditures by the federal government.

A tremendous amount of money was spent between 1970 and 1980, and programs were not necessarily well directed, which meant that they were not consistent with the development of Montreal. Once again, we did not get the funds needed to develop normally like the other regions of Canada. It is for these reasons that I like to look back. We must always remember that, as I said earlier, the past is something of an indication of what the future holds.

When I heard the Prime Minister say this week in Montreal that his "government is targeting its investments to make Montreal a leader in the new technologies of the future", I did not think he was very credible. I do not have much confidence in that rhetoric. It was a speech meant to please, a pre-election speech to make Quebecers believe that he was very much concerned, but we know very well that he has been the main source of the problems the metropolitan area of Montreal is having. It is not very amusing to see a Prime Minister or a government making great speeches when we know very well that it will not make much difference.

I will explain why I do not trust the government. First, only a few months ago, the federal government decided to shut down the Montreal offices of the Atomic Energy Commission of Canada. The Bloc Quebecois raised this issue several times. We have managed to keep almost half the employees of the Atomic Energy Control Board, but what the federal government really wanted, as was announced, was to close down the board's office in Montreal. When the Prime Minister says he wants to turn Montreal into the city of the technology of the future, and when at the same time he is closing down the board's office, I fail to see how he can have any credibility making that speech in Montreal.

That is why we have decided to spend this day talking about his visit there and the actions taken recently in Montreal to regain some credibility. But we have to emphasize the gap between what is said and what is actually done.

They wanted to close down the Atomic Energy Control Board office, and we managed to keep half of it. We know that in this area Montreal will definitely take a back-seat. We also know that gradually, as the years go by, there will be no one left in this Montreal office. How could we trust that kind of speech?

We wanted to condemn this rhetoric, and that is why we are here. Quebecers have elected 53 members of the Bloc to represent them

in Ottawa. We are here to condemn this kind of rhetoric, because we know it is just a sham.

I have another reason to think we should not trust this rhetoric, and that is the fact that the natural resources minister has decided to stop subsidizing the Tokamak project in Varennes, near Montreal. This Tokamak project is one the most advanced facilities in the world for scientific development. Europe, the United States and Japan are partners in this project to develop nuclear energy.

We have extraordinary skills to develop in this area. It is the energy of the future. But the natural resources minister said that the energy of the future and nuclear fusion are not her priority. It is easy to understand, because she stands up for the oil industry in western Canada. She stands up for the uranium plants in Ontario, which is the type of industries she wants to develop.

She has forgotten that nuclear fusion is tomorrow's source of energy. Twenty or 25 years from now, petroleum products will not be used that much any longer. Electrical power consumption will be on the decline. We will still use electricity, but it will be produced through nuclear fusion.

On the one hand, they say they want to help the Montreal area, but on the other hand, they cancel some projects and stop funding very significant sectors, like nuclear fusion and the Atomic Energy Board. So, we cannot believe a word the Prime Minister says in his speeches.

I met with the general manager of the Tokamak project, who told me and proved to me that the $7 million the federal government was investing each year in this project had much more significant economic spinoffs. Some of the new products that had to be invented to develop this form of energy are proving to be useful to several businesses in the Montreal area, which, in turn, are developing other new products. The products developed through the research carried out by the Tokamak project generate much more than the $7 million investment made by the federal government.

By cutting this subsidy, the federal government is running the risk of putting an end to this extraordinary Tokamak project and stands to lose some money. The Minister of Natural Resources did not take the time to properly assess this project. The Prime Minister said he has a technological vision of the future, but his words do not match the reality.

Yesterday or was it this morning, I read in the paper that, according to the OECD, Quebec ranks fourth among all the countries as far as research and development is concerned. However, we know that this government does not invest as much as it should in research and development in Quebec.

This means that Quebec has to invest its share in R and D, plus the $2 million it is not getting from the federal government.

Did you really think that we could create jobs when the federal government is not paying its share, which comes to $2 million a year? If times are tough in Montreal, which has extraordinary intellectual resources, people who unfortunately do not have much work due to a lack of money, it is precisely because the federal government is not paying its share in R and D.

[Supply, October 24th, 1996]

Why does he say such things in the House? Why not try to say the truth to Quebecers and Montrealers? Why not the truth? I do no know. I think he is taking up the same speech his leader delivered in Montreal this week. He probably prepared half of it himself. It is more or less the same speech that was given by the Prime Minister in Montreal, this week, and parts of it are simply not true.

That is why we are here as representatives of Quebec in Ottawa, and we want Quebecers to know the truth about what the federal government does to help Montreal. The worst thing is that this government is the one that most hindered Montreal's development in the past, and it is still doing so today.

[Supply, October 24th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I did not say that the minister was a hypocrite. I said that his speech was hypocritical. That is different.

I wanted to say that we, Montrealers, know the minister's rhetoric has very little impact. He spoke about the federal government's contribution in research and development contracts, but in all, they amount to 18.5 per cent. He mentioned National Defence. He mentioned areas where the investment was higher than the Quebec average, but still, the average is 18.5 per cent. This is figure provided by Statistics Canada, and it means at least a $2 billion shortfall in research and development. He says his department also gives $1.2 billion to the unemployed. Do the Quebecers, the Montrealers, want to be supported on welfare and unemployment premiums? We want to earn a decent living, as any other living body in North America.

That being said, I think the present minister should withdraw his statement and tell the truth, for once.

He must tell the truth, because 18.5 per cent while we represent 24 per cent of the population means we got $2 billion less than what we should have had for research and development. These figures are from Statistics Canada.

Ontario receives 53 per cent of the federal research and development envelope while Quebec has 18.5 per cent-and the minister is perfectly aware of it.

[Supply, October 24th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, to say that Montreal is not in such bad shape, I agree. It has its problems, but it is not in such bad shape. But to say that Montreal is in a good shape, referring to the action of the federal government these last twenty years, I think that the speech the Prime Minister made in Montreal this week does not reflect the reality. I will not go so far to say that such a speech is pure hypocrisy.

If Montreal is in a somewhat better shape now, it is certainly not thanks to the federal government. Let us look, for instance, at what the present Prime Minister did when he was Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. He cut part of Montreal's oil supplies. What did the Prime Minister do? What did the federal government do in respect to inflation and the extraordinary interest rates of 20 per cent in 1981-1982 for example? I think such a situation rapidly ruins a city.

What did the federal government do recently when it shut down the Atomic Energy Commission of Canada in Montreal? What did the federal government do when it shut down the Tokamak research centre in Varennes? What is the government doing? The federal

government is doing everything possible to harm the economic development of Montreal, and we have lots of evidence.

Therefore, when the Minister comes and tells us that the Prime Minister made an extraordinary speech-yes, the Prime Minister said extraordinary things such as "We are targeting our investments so that we can help Montreal become a leader in the emerging technologies of tomorrow", I say: What hypocrisy! What a hypocritical speech!

[Competition Act, October 22nd, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I would like to say a few words on Bill C-266, introduced by the hon. member for Nickel Belt. This is in fact an amendment to the Competition Act.

I am not saying I oppose this measure, but I do have some concerns. I believe that, in principle, it is a step in the right direction to allow employees, people who work for certain businesses, to enjoy an environment that is better, more fair and more honest. We cannot lose when we seek to promote honesty.

Honesty is the key to the establishment of stable, balanced and lasting societies. In this sense, the fact that the employees or contractors of an employer will be allowed to report injustices and to speak freely on illegal tactics by the company can bring some stability in businesses and promote fairness in our economic system.

But I do have some concerns. I fear that a business could be infiltrated by employees from competing companies who could then find all sorts of motives to blame the business. The hon. member referred to oil companies. We know that these are powerful corporations. It could happen that, from time to time, companies of this type might secretly delegate individuals to

infiltrate the competition and make accusations that could be harmful to their operations.

That may occasionally happen, but probably not often enough for me to want to oppose the bill. I think that overall the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

Similarly, I also wondered whether certain dishonest, mistreated employees, if they had complete freedom to criticize their employer, might also abuse the privilege and blow the whistle on their own company, their own employer, and create an unpleasant atmosphere within the company.

Once again, having examined this question, I think that it would be a minority of these employees who might act in this way. Generally, an employee works for his employer, for the company. He does what he can to help the company operate as well as possible. For these reasons, I think that it is still a good idea to support Bill C-266.

There is also the fact of having employees or contractors, consultants within a company who act as watchdogs. As I said at the beginning of my speech, this also helps the company to continue to operate honestly, and to observe the Competition Act.

Sometimes an employer does not realize he is doing something wrong, but if all his employees have the right to point this out nicely, to advise their employer that they are in contravention of the Competition Act, they might avoid serious consequences for this company.

The fact that the employee has the right to advise his employer of fraud, of a tendency to commit fraud or of the fact that he is not complying with the Competition Act will also give the company a chance to quickly adjust its behaviour. Employees will be able to work in an environment where honesty is appreciated. And finally, this would give the industry a chance to clean up its act, and in the long run, everyone would benefit.

It is always important to have watchdogs, although sometimes people may find this unpleasant. It always leads to more fairness, a better balance and better continuity in the industry or the company in which we work.

I do not want to take up much more of your time with my speech on this bill. I will simply say I support the bill. It is a free vote, so I suggest hon. members support this bill in order to improve competition, as the hon. member for Nickel Belt pointed out, especially in the oil industry.

We know that in this industry, there are often cases of unfair competition, but perhaps when the rules are more clear-cut, when employees are able to advise their bosses or the shareholders that they are engaging in unfair competition which basically is harmful to the economic stability of the industry, this will benefit everyone, both the consumer and the companies. I will stop here, and I repeat that I support this bill.

[Administrative Tribunals (Remedial And Disciplinary Measures) Act, October 22nd, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I would like my colleagues to talk about the enormous powers the federal government is giving itself. As my colleague pointed out, the power to appoint tribunal members seems excessive. I think the power to change very quickly and without any compensation, as the federal government sees fit, the commissioners or chairs who do not meet all its requirements is really excessive.

I would like my colleague to elaborate on this, which I think is very important. Especially since this bill specifies that the provinces have no say in the appointments. As we know full well, the decisions taken in certain economic, social and other areas often affect one province more than another, and nowhere in the bill is it mentioned that a province could have a say in the appointments. I think this further centralization of powers benefits the federal government at the expense of the provinces, especially Quebec, which is a very important province.

Energy is a case in point. As we know, a tribunal could side with an energy industry against Quebec, for example with western oil interests at the expense of Quebec, whose main source of energy is electricity. I think the government is granting itself excessive powers by failing to consult with the provinces on appointments.

I would like my colleague to elaborate on this. Personally, I think there is danger of further federal centralization. The government claims it wants to decentralize powers, but I think that, with this bill, it is taking concrete action to further centralize powers.

[Supply, June 13th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, who is a good friend of mine, but I really have a hard time

understanding how he can suggest that the Bloc Quebecois despises francophones, when in fact it is trying to defend them.

Let me remind him that the one who showed the most contempt for francophones is one of his former leaders, Pierre Elliott Trudeau. In my view, this man is the one who had the most contempt for the French speaking community in Canada. Why do I say that? Because, with his multiculturalism policy, he has tried to trivialize francophones. He put them on the same level as all newcomers. That is the policy that has been the most scornful of francophones ever, and it was put forward by the hon. member's former leader, Mr. Trudeau.

When you put on the same footing the francophones in Canada and a small Montreal Italian community-for whom I have a great deal of respect-you are showing contempt for one of the founding peoples in Canada. Concerning the problem with promoting French in Canada, we should perhaps pause and as ourselves if this has not been one of the main reasons why French has been losing ground, as confirmed by Statistics Canada. Multiculturalism has been the most scornful policy for the francophones in Canada.

Canada is now said to be multicultural. It is no longer a country with two nations and two peoples. This is the doing of his former leader, Mr. Trudeau.

Two weeks ago, I attended a meeting of the Standing Committee on Official Languages. Ministers make nice speeches. The Prime Minister issues nice statements saying that French has to be protected in Canada, that it is useful, etc. Nice speeches, and nice statements. But if we stop and think about the resources the federal government puts into the promotion of French in Canada, it is quite another story.

I will not name names but there are even some deputy ministers who find that francophones are rather a nuisance in Canada. When a deputy minister responsible for the promotion and implementation of the Official languages Act thinks that way, we have a problem.

What I am saying is that the rhetoric and declarations of love are there, but when the time comes to give ourselves the means to protect and promote the French language in Canada, nothing happens. That is what representatives of the Association des francophones hors-Québec told the official languages committee not more than two weeks ago.

When the time comes to give ourselves the means to protect and promote French in Canada, then there is a total blank. The minister should at least have the decency to fire a deputy minister who does not abide by the rules. In many cases, the ministers themselves are hand in glove with the deputy ministers who are supposed to enforce laws and regulations.

When it comes to the French language, rhetoric and love declarations are there, but not the means. It is quite obvious. The very people whose job it is to promote French have said so.

While the Bloc Quebecois is sincere in saying that francophones outside Quebec must be protected, it is a shame that this degenerates into a political debate and that we are scorned for wanting to promote and safeguard the Francophonie in North America. I would go as far as to say that we want to save not only the Canadian Francophonie but the North American Francophonie. Because we are surrounded by an English speaking society, we must give ourselves the tools we need to protect French in North America.

In Canada, nothing is really done to protect francophones outside Quebec and this is what we are saying to the government. We are asking it to stop its rhetoric and to start giving francophones the tools to survive in Canada.

This is what I wanted to say to the member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, whom I respect a lot, by the way. I have known him since 1984; we have been here, together, for 12 years. We went to Paris and we spoke French. I know his wife. He is a good friend. But the member has to be careful when he uses words like "scorn". Maybe he should look at the situation within his own ranks.

The most influential and scornful man I have known and who did much harm to the promotion and the safeguard of French in Canada is his former Prime Minister, Mr. Trudeau.