Pierre Brien

[Supply, June 7th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

Only yesterday I was involved in public events. We were discussing various subjects of concern to people, who are increasingly interested in what happens internationally, whether it involves the economy, various subjects or different variables.

A number expressed the desire to see us on the international stage soon, whether it be in the Olympics or other events. It was not just the sovereignists saying so. There were federalists as well who would like to have Quebec with its own group, its own team in certain international competitions.

For example, this is already possible in the Francophonie games. But here again, we could have a debate on the selection of athletes, how it is done, whether the Canadian or the Quebec teams have precedence in the selection of the people taking part.

I would like to add one thing that I did not have time to develop in my remarks. We have extremely capable athletes. Where I come from we have Denise Julien, in badminton, who is a great athlete. At the moment, however, Canada sets its own standards for athletes going to the Olympic Games. In theory, it wants to send the people most likely to be among the best. While she is among the top 20 in the world, she may not be able to meet the standards Canada sets in order to go to the Olympic Games.

There is the whole business as well of elitism or of the visibility that the federal government is aiming for with its athletes. These are participatory sports, and our best athletes in Quebec and in Canada should be able to go. If Canada does not want to send them under its banner, it should let us send them under our own.

[Supply, June 7th, 1999]

Despite what some whiners on the other side of the House are saying, I have heard a member of the Liberal Party, whom I will quote in a few minutes, say some really bad things about the Canadian Olympic Association with respect to the Calgary clique, which had some cleaning up to do. We certainly agree with that.

I have no doubt that members of the Liberal Party must also support the principle that the government must invest more if it wants to play a greater role, and I challenge Liberal members interested in amateur sport to tell me otherwise. I am not talking about the gang that looks after professional sports, but rather those interested in amateur sport.

Some things have to be settled: the language problems in Canadian federations, location problems and strategic choices. There is a strong pull from Calgary in amateur sport. They deprived Quebec of a number of sports facilities. They even sent athletes to train there when most of them were from Quebec.

There have been a lot of dubious decisions such as these, and I am not talking about the place French occupies in events. Even in events where they are trying to make a public show French is forgotten. Imagine what is going on in the wings.

There are places in the world that are more open to Quebec's having its own delegations at certain sporting events, and I would like to see Canada being more open. Would it not be just fine to see Canada and Quebec competing in the finals of an international hockey tournament? It would be extraordinary and something else.

When these same professionals were on strike and organized hockey tournaments before the start of the season, they established regional groups very different from our Canadian political groups. There was a team from Quebec, and it was great to see the game. It was also great for once to watch our professionals not play for money, because they were on strike at that point. The competition was really interesting.

The government should, among other things, increase its financial involvement with all the federations. There are currently a number of sport federations that are not even funded. How can they be expected to develop and to help athletes? There should be a review of all of them.

The selection of those federations that are currently getting help is highly questionable. Several need support but are not getting it. The government should quickly look at this issue. This was in fact one of the subcommittee's recommendations, but the government did not follow up on it.

I congratulate the hon. member for Longueuil for raising this issue today, as the hon. member for Rimouski—Mitis did before. I hope this debate will at least have the effect of reviving the report of the Subcommittee on the Study of Sport in Canada, which had been shelved. When I say that it was shelved I am being positive. Indeed, for all I know, it may well have been thrown into the garbage. Let us hope for the best, that the government will dig it out and implement a number of recommendations included in it.

Many people are actively involved in amateur sport and are expecting positive developments and signals. At a time when professional sport is becoming less appealing to many people who enjoy watching sport, this is a good opportunity to promote amateur sport.

It is somewhat disconcerting to ordinary people to see professional sport millionaires sometimes drag their feet and not perform as well as expected.

Amateur athletes do not have that luxury. When we attend a baseball game we may see a player earning $4 million or $5 million performing poorly. An amateur athlete cannot afford not to turn in a good performance during a competition because, unless he meets the very high standards he needs to qualify, he may lose the little support he has from sponsors, as well as from the government. He cannot afford to make any mistakes if he wants to survive in his sport.

I have a much greater respect for amateur athletes than for some professional athletes. We are all proud of Gaétan Boucher, Myriam Bédard and Sylvie Fréchette. Canadians of whom we are proud include swimmers Alex Bauman and Victor Davis, who projected a positive image and did Quebec and Canada proud.

One danger is that the government will simply see this debate as an opportunity for political visibility. It would be just like the Minister of Canadian Heritage to want to tattoo a maple leaf on the best athletes' foreheads to make sure that Canada is visible at competitions.

That is not the goal. The goal is to support athletes. Instead of conducting propaganda campaigns, as she did with the flag, the minister should provide funding for the daily expenses of these people so that they have a decent income while they are training, so that their passion for what they do will not be fettered. Let us agree: what we need is not a flag campaign, not money for visibility, not money for the government, but money that will go to athletes. If we keep that as a goal we will be on the right track.

In conclusion, I would like to move an amendment to the main motion moved by the member for Longueuil. I move:

That the motion be amended by adding after the word “and” the following: “immediately”.

We are moving this amendment because we want action now, not commitments in principle saying that the government will study 50 or so proposals at some distant date. We want action now and that is why we are adding the word immediately to the main motion.

[Supply, June 7th, 1999]

—promising. It will never be what it once was. With the Americanization of professional sport, several of our professional sport clubs are being threatened, and it will be very hard to save some of them.

The positive effect of this is that our sports reports, of which there are many—one need only read a morning paper to be convinced of that—may give more attention to amateur sport in future.

As for sports broadcasts, some radio stations have five hours of phone-ins every day. Perhaps they would give more time to covering amateur sports. This would focus more attention on the unprecedented success stories.

I recently attended a boxing match. What goes on there can very easily happen in amateur sport. It is a very good illustration of how things are. A fighter's career can be over in a matter of seconds. An athlete may have spent his whole youth training, but a few moments of vulnerability can stop him from attaining his desired goal.

That said, there are other values to sport: team work, aiming for success, pushing one's limits, which can impact on our daily lives. Athletes devote a great deal of effort and energy to their passion, and the values stay with them for their entire lives, as they do with those of us who participated in various sports when we were young.

Do we give them enough support? I think not. A goodly number of our athletes lack financial support. Of course the best of them, that tiny minority of athletes who manage to win medals in amateur sport, or an international or Olympic medal, manage to gain sponsorship from a company like McDonald's. Yet few have sufficient sponsor support to be able to increase training time and perform at the level they would like.

The government also has a great deal of trouble monitoring Canadian amateur sport associations because its financial contribution is insufficient. The more room left for other financial partners—and partnerships are not a bad thing—the more the government plays a minor role and the less it can impose its views on choices and strategy decisions.

[Supply, June 7th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take part in today's debate on amateur sport, in the wake of the report tabled by the Sub-Committee on the Study of Sport in Canada on the needs of amateur athletes.

I want to point out that sport is an integral part of our culture, both in Canada and in Quebec. Everyone has, at one time or another, taken up one or several sports, or closely followed family members or friends who were actively involved in sports. Every community has an arena, a gymnasium and other sport facilities.

In fact, economic spinoffs from sports are obvious in every community. Most municipalities have facilities that were built by people and that provided permanent work for others.

The problem right now is that a great deal of attention and energy are focused on what must be done to help professional sport. The Sub-Committee on the Study of Sport in Canada is no stranger to the problem. Even though most of the subcommittee's recommendations concern amateur sport, what got people's attention was the future of professional sport and some government members were quick to take a stand in that regard. Yet the future of professional sport is not so—

[National Defence, June 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is odd that the government signed an agreement a few days earlier that said just the opposite.

How does the minister explain that his government has decided to cave in to the U.S. government and that, to please the Americans, it has first of all repudiated its signature on that document and, second, that it has pushed the limits of arrogance by going so far as to expropriate British Columbia's own land from it? Who is the minister defending: the provinces or the U.S. government?

[National Defence, June 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Quebecois has obtained a copy of the agreement signed by negotiators for the federal government and for British Columbia with respect to the use of the base at Nanoose Bay by the U.S. government. This agreement reflected British Columbia's concerns.

My question is for the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. How is it that this agreement, signed by his government, was tossed out by cabinet under pressure from the Americans?

[Asbestos, June 1st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, Quebec is the second largest producer of asbestos in the world. Can the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, who has given much though to federations around the world, tell us why the fact that Quebec is accompanying the federal government to defend asbestos before the World Trade Organization constitutes a threat to Canada's unity?

[Asbestos, June 1st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, as the self-styled backroom boy of the federation, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs claims to be the one who brings Quebec's concerns to the attention of his cabinet colleagues.

Can the minister tell us what sort of advice he has given the Minister for International Trade that he is refusing to allow Quebec to be present to defend asbestos before the World Trade Organization?

[Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, May 31st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-32 at report stage.

Given the number of amendments, one might well wonder why, in the face of so much criticism, the government is bent on getting the bill through before the House rises for the summer, something which is scheduled for mid-June.

There is something improvized about all this, despite the drawn-out process, because the federal government has long wanted to extend its jurisdiction over the environment.

On the face of it, no one will contest the fact that we must take an interest in matters affecting the environment. Climatic conditions that are changing quickly and the number of devastating events related to different environmental conditions raise questions about the causes of these phenomena and particularly about what we must do to make up for all the damage we have caused in recent years.

I am well placed to speak about this. In my riding, in Rouyn-Noranda, we have made a signal change, and a good thing, because living conditions were deteriorating very rapidly until one day people decided to fight to improve their environmental quality of life.

At the time, many stakeholders said that Noranda would shut down but, today, on the contrary, it is alive and very well, and the quality of life in Rouyn-Noranda has changed dramatically in 10 or 15 years.

We can therefore meet this environmental challenge if we roll up our sleeves. Our businesses are also capable of adapting and developing environmental technology before others do.

In areas where some employers now have a tendency to take undue advantage of easy operating conditions, with very low environmental standards, people will also, sooner or later, take matters in their hands and demand better living conditions. Obviously, there will be upward pressure on environmental standards.

Since people's concern about this debate is increasing, the federal government, which is suddenly acting more like a business, sees in this some sort of opportunity to extend its action into people's lives, ignoring the other actors that are already there. In this case, the provinces have an important and crucial role to play in the environment, which the federal government seems to be ignoring increasingly, and very likely with the consent of many provinces.

This is not the case for all the provinces, particularly Quebec, which has greater aspirations than to remain a mere province. Several provinces are abdicating their responsibility, but this is not the case with Quebec, which aspires to much more.

In this bill, as in many other intrusions, the federal government is extending its jurisdiction little by little. It had the opportunity and has already done so many times in the Criminal Code with respect to the environment, but it wants to carry this even a little further with standards, objectives and mostly, the need to honour international agreements or international commitments made by Canada.

This illustrates a problem that was in the media in the last few months for the provinces, and particularly for Quebec. It is extremely frustrating to have someone speak and make commitments on our behalf at the international level and then ask us to fulfil them, when in many cases, Quebec and other provinces were not allowed to take part as much as they would have liked in the setting of the goals Canada has been promoting at the world level.

The provinces were unable to directly take part in the discussions or the negotiations, but in practice they are the ones that have to manage the new initiatives without having had the opportunity to set the parameters and the goals and to develop an environmental strategy.

A lot of my constituents work in the pulp and paper and the mining industries, two areas where environmental regulation is extremely important. Meeting goals is not the main problem these people have. They are faced with two kinds of problems. They often have two sets of goals to meet. It is not always easy to determine which set of regulations, the federal or the provincial, takes precedence.

On the one hand, these people have to adjust to an environmental context or to environmental standards that vary from one level of government to the other, because there is always some kind of overlap, whatever the substances involved.

On the other hand, when we tell them how they can meet those standards, it annoys them tremendously. We can tell them not to go over so many parts per million of a given chemical, but they should have sufficient latitude and flexibility to be able to adapt approaches in the most competitive way possible.

We often see now Environment Canada or other departments go in the field to tell people how to go about it, showing how one way is better that the other, and all that slows the process down a lot.

There is yet another greater danger to not taking care of the environment. There is a danger of over bureaucratizing our actions in that sector, making them slow and ineffective most of the time.

The danger is often greater because in most of the provinces, there will be two levels of bureaucracy that will try and expand their role in the environment sector. We will eventually have to face many rules, standards, and ways to meet them, a great deal of confusion and difficulty for the businesses in meeting them, and all sorts of legal challenges.

All this does not seem to bother the federal government too much. The federal government no longer cares about respecting jurisdictions. All that matters is that the commitments and goals it will make and negotiate on the international scene be met.

By the way, Canada has not taken a strong leadership on environmental issues in recent years. It has not acted as a leader in that area. Though it has taken an active part in negotiations, this government cannot be considered as having acted as a true leader in respect of environmental standards. The same holds true for human rights.

Commercial interests took precedence over numerous concerns of this government, which had taken the opposite stand when it was on this side of the House, when the Progressive Conservatives were in power. Ironically, there is a remarkable continuity on some aspects of international trade: the positions held by one party were adopted by the other as soon as it was elected.

What concerns me is the issue for which I am responsible, federal-provincial relations. We see here what we have seen on several other issues. The recent framework agreement on social union was in the same vein: provinces, in exchange for money that would allow them to administer programs—which have nothing to do with the environment in that case, but deal with health and other areas—accepted to let the federal government play a greater part as a planner for the whole of Canada.

It is also true for the environment, as we can see. Several provinces are being very discrete, they say nothing, often because their respective populations consider the federal government as the true national government and wish to see it fulfil that role. In Quebec, we have a completely different view.

For Quebecers, be they federalists or sovereignists, the most important government is the provincial one. It is the one closest to them. It is the one they monitor the most; this has its advantages and disadvantages, but it is good for democracy that people keep a close eye on their government, and the people of Quebec do exactly that.

This habit, this capacity to influence decisions are probably greater there than they are here. It is a framework that stakeholders know better. That government is much closer to the people and can better satisfy its environmental needs and expectations.

This trend will bring the federal government to play a greater role. And this is only the beginning. The federal government has one great quality, it is very patient. Whenever it invades another jurisdiction, it does so very progressively, but irreversibly. In the end, we see there is not much provincial jurisdiction left.

In the environmental area, there is a great risk of the federal government becoming the sole player because it is the one acting on the international scene; it will implement international agreements and commitments, it will define the regulations developed by cabinet. These will not necessarily be passed by the members, but rather by cabinet.

For all those reasons, we must oppose this bill, unless it is substantially amended as my colleague proposed. Otherwise, we will have to vote against this bill.

[Poverty, May 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, Quebec did not sign the social union framework agreement because it does not want the federal government interfering in our areas of jurisdiction and undercutting what we do by making direct transfers to individuals. Either the federal government will impose its new programs on Quebec or it will give Quebec the right to opt out with full compensation.

Which is it going to be?