Yvan Bernier

[Division No. 298, December 3rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to join my Bloc Quebecois colleagues in telling the government why we, on this side of the House, are opposed to Bill C-43. There are four reasons for this.

I will list them, then comment on each.

First, the establishment of this revenue collection agency is, in my opinion, an abdication of political power. Second, the establishment of the agency is also an admission of powerlessness on the part of the minister. Third, I believe it is an anti-union measure. Fourth and last, but not the least, it reflects the centralizing vision of the Liberal government opposite.

Why do I call this an abdication of the political power? Because, given the wording of the bill establishing this agency, the minister will now be able to hide behind the agency and say it is the agency's staff, not the minister, that is responsible for any wrongdoing, thus leaving it up to the agency to face the music. At the political level, we will no longer be able to question the minister in the House regarding any problem. I heard the Reform Party member mention one such problem earlier. Clearly, we must protect and, more importantly, maintain the principle of accountability to parliament.

I also said the minister was powerless. I have always of him as a nice guy, because I have worked with him on other issues in the past. But, on the face of it, when I read the bill, I realized he is the only person I know who wants to fire his whole staff. He will not have anyone left, except perhaps his chauffeur. Why, then, should we keep the minister? Is the government telling us that we will no longer have a minister responsible for this issue? All this indicates that no one will be accountable in the House any longer.

I also feel this initiative is an anti-union measure. I must remind hon. members that the public servants involved in customs or tax collections account for about 20% of the entire Canadian public service, one-fifth. With one fell swoop, with passage of this bill, one-fifth of the federal public service would no longer be public servants, they would be employees of the agency instead. They would then be subject to whatever new rules the agency felt like imposing.

I have some problems with the centralizing view of the government, because the intention in establishing such an agency is “to collect taxes from all Canadians”. Provincial taxes were also mentioned. The bill even states that contracts could be signed with municipalities and other organizations. This is really wanting to grab the whole pie, slamming the door so no one else can get any.

I have trouble with all this talk of establishing agencies. The Liberals tell us it will simplify things and avoid duplication, but it seems that those two words are synonymous for them. By wishing to simplify things, they will create duplication. For example, if this agency wanted to collect all of the GST and the TVQ, these are already rolled together in Quebec, and collected by Quebec. So what, exactly, are they up to?

Every time the Liberals over there speak of harmonization, it is synonymous with interference. They end up with their hands in the pockets of individuals, provinces and municipalities. This business of the social union is proof of this, as they are saying “We might give you part of it back, provided you meet certain criteria, ours”.

I hope the other provinces and the municipalities will not blindly fall into the trap of this new agency the government is creating.

The creation of this agency will remove its employees from the application of the Public Service Staff Relations Act. In addition, the agency will be removed from the application of the Access to Information Act, the Privacy Act and the Official Languages Act.

We are told that this is certainly not the case. So if all this changes nothing, why create this agency at all? We are told “It is to modernize the Canadian public service”. “Modernize” is synonymous with “privatize” in the mouths of the Liberals. It is becoming a bit annoying.

However, the word “privatize” frightens and bothers me. I will give an example. The Canada Post Corporation used to report to the government. It was privatized. Shortly before or after we were elected, Canada Post bought another private company, Purolator. So this means possible amalgamation. The government still talks of mail or equipment delivery.

Is the government perhaps contemplating an amalgamation involving this agency? Does this mean that, following privatization, the agency would be in a position to decide what it wants and could decide to buy H & R Block, a company that helps people prepare their tax returns? Could we expect the agency responsible for collecting to also be the one preparing the returns?

I hope those on the other side of the House will be able to say this is not the case. However, in many cases, and I could point to a number of examples, some of which involve the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the government annoyingly wants to be both judge and jury. That is not a very good thing for Canadian justice.

I would also like to speak briefly to clauses 15, 22 and 25. I also have a point to make about clause 30. More specifically, clauses 15, 22 and 25 provide for its operation, with a board of 15 directors. Of course, these 15 persons will be appointed by the governor in council. The public must understand that what this really means is that they will be appointed by the government.

Who will the government appoint? Its friends of course, defeated candidates. These jobs are for a term of five years, and renewable to boot. This will make for a comfortable retirement to look forward to for some members opposite. The former solicitor general may want to look into this. We shall see; the future will tell.

Under clause 30.(1), the agency has decisional authority over its organization and general administrative policy. Basically, it will have control over all matters relating to organization, real property and personnel management, including the determination of the terms and conditions of employment. What does this mean?

In the context of privatization, budget restraint and streamlining, should the employees who are declared surplus and probably have to take the jobs they are offered in the new agency already expect a salary cut?

This is not clear. The Liberals across the way never tell us about the nasty tricks they are about to pull. We have to be able to read between the lines.

I am afraid that they might not only cut the salaries of those working for this agency but at the same time increase the salaries of those running it. Will future directors or vice-presidents of this agency want their salaries to match those of their counterparts in a major bank, because they handle roughly the same amount of business? Is salary inflation to be expected? I am afraid so.

To conclude, I have noticed some consistency in the way the people opposite approach privatization. They started by privatizing postal services; this was done a long time ago. But under this government, railways, ports and airports have been privatized. Now they are talking about establishing a tax collection agency.

My message to the rest of Canada is this: Is Canada being put up for sale piece by piece? All the symbols on which this country was built—ports, airports, railways, and now tax collection—are being privatized and sold off one by one. This is the conclusion I leave my friends from the rest of Canada to ponder.

[Marine Conservation Areas Act, November 26th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

I know the member for Gander—Grand Falls, and because I know him, I would like to give him the opportunity to come back to the issue, which is marine protected areas.

He is talking to us about migrating species—

[Marine Conservation Areas Act, November 26th, 1998]

Oh good, it will be coming back.

Someone has to put a stop to this farce. This will never bring peace.

Members should try to imagine, just for one moment, that the Minister of Canadian Heritage, tomorrow morning, goes to Shelburne, in Nova Scotia, or to Cap-aux-Meules on the Magdalen Islands and says “We will probably establish a conservation area in this region”. I truly hope that everyone on the islands is asleep on that day, otherwise I could not guarantee the minister's personal safety. After the whole industry has collapsed, it is unacceptable for the government to tell people that it intends to protect fish and that they have no say on the issue. This is utter nonsense.

[Marine Conservation Areas Act, November 26th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I generally say that I am pleased to speak on a bill, but today I must say the emotion I am experiencing in taking part in this debate is anger. I hope that the hon. members across the way will open their ears.

The hon. member who has just spoken claims we enjoy land squabbles, any old squabble. He was unable to prove legally that what the hon. member for Rimouski—Mitis says is untrue.

I will give him two more good reasons for understanding common sense. I will try to avoid references to the provincial election, since I know that gives members opposite hives. The hon. member will, however, have a clear understanding, from the reasons I am going to give him, of why Quebeckers are going to choose a Parti Quebecois government.

The first reason, and this is indecent, is that they come here boasting of wanting to establish marine conservation areas via Heritage Canada. We have been living through a fisheries crisis, one that is still going on. Do members think the Liberal Party of Canada could be re-elected if it were to traipse around Newfoundland or Nova Scotia telling people “Well, gentlemen, we are going to protect your marine areas”. But who is taking care of the fishers who have lost their livelihood? Who is taking care of the plant workers who have lost everything? Who?

It is an absolute shame. If I were a Liberal, I would be ashamed to show my face again in the maritimes on the weekends. I would be concerned for my safety. I can understand wanting to protect everything from the marine floor up. But in between there are no fishers, no plant workers. All this to protect one species or take tourists on a boat ride. This is all very well, but what tourists will see on their arrival on the coast will be hungry people with nothing to eat, people who will have lost the dignity work brings. This is unconscionable. What members opposite are saying is downright asinine.

Second, when the government comes up with something intelligent I try to co-operate. We did it in the past. One of the most recent legislation we passed regarding fisheries and oceans was the Canada Oceans Act. One of the main thrusts of the bill was to put an end to the confusion in the management of fisheries; the fisheries minister was ordered to assume the lead role in managing all ecosystems. This bill, which has been enacted, ordered the ministers to talk to each other. However Fisheries and Oceans was still to be the lead department for everything concerning our waters.

I do not understand how the Liberal Party, the current government, can contradict itself by allowing the heritage minister to create more marine conservation areas. I remind the House of the existence of three different names. With have the Department of Canadian Heritage's marine conservation areas; the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' marine protected areas, and Environment Canada's protected offshore areas. All of them talk about conservation.

You will easily understand why fishers and plant workers are so desperate since every single time the government attempts to protect or manage something, the results are disastrous. A case in point is the collapse of the groundfish fisheries.

I urge the government. If it is really serious about preserving marine resources, the heritage minister should keep her hands off it.

DFO's biologists failed in their attempt to protect our cod. Imagine what the heritage minister's bureaucrats will do. I am scared.

I would be ashamed if I were in the Liberals' shoes this morning. What will the Liberals from the maritimes do? I have a lot of respect for my colleagues who are not afraid to speak in the House, but I have not seen one member from the maritimes rise to defend this bill. I am telling them they should get out through the back door. It is ridiculous. There is no excuse.

What will they do when they go back home? Christmas is fast approaching. There are just two weeks left before we adjourn. Those people will go back home and say “Well, gentlemen, we protected your ecosystem and, thanks to us, everything will be fine”. But what will they answer when someone stops them on the street and says “Could I have a Christmas present like everybody else? Will I have something to eat this Christmas”? It is a shame.

There were 40,000 people who benefited from TAGS. The government abandoned 20,000 of them, and it gave a cash payment to the other 20,000 and told them to go home and shut up.

With this bill, the Liberals are saying that they want to protect marine resources, but nobody is protecting these workers, nobody is protecting our fishers. It is really a shame.

I would like to say some words in English because I have some friends in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. I would like to address some comments to those people.

I would like to be sure that fishermen will call their members in their areas today and the next day to be sure that those members remember that nobody protects fishermen and plant workers now. They have to make those calls. It is incredible. We cannot let the minister do this in the fisheries areas.

Things never change. This is an unprecedented attack against provincial areas of jurisdiction. Despite what the parliamentary secretary may say, there is a conflict. When we want to solve problems, we need dialogue.

I liked what my colleague, the hon. member from Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île-d'Orléans, said earlier, namely that you have to be two to tango and that he had the feeling that he was dancing alone. I have the feeling that the heritage minister wants to tango, but she is stepping on our toes. This is much worse than someone who does not want to dance with a partner. She might do better sitting this one out.

What should the government have done? We saw the squabbling that went on last summer. If the minister really wanted to protect the resource, why did she not insist in cabinet that the government, through the fisheries minister, decide once and for all how the resource will be shared among the provinces? Because there were squabbles all summer long.

I remind the House that Canada is part of an international management system called NAFO. Under that system, once scientific data are received, since the method for calculating total allowable catches is already known, every country transmits its biological data and, in the end, quotas are established, because they are pre-established as a percentage, taking into account the history of each member country and proximity to the resource.

Such discussions would get things going between Canadians and Quebeckers and we would stop squabbling. Instead of doing that, the government introduces a bill that will turn everything upside down. No one here in this House is defending workers at this time, and this is unacceptable. I may have an opportunity to repeat again, because I do not recall what stage the bill is at right now.

[Canada Small Business Financing Act, November 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague has spoken very passionately.

I will try to quickly summarize what the hon. member has said. In my view, the measures set out in this reform of the Small Business Loans Act, contrary to what it says in the preamble, do not increase the availability of financing. They only straighten out some administrative rules.

To ensure that businesses understood the good news, I think it would have been better to tell them about the way macroeconomic impact could be measured.

I hope there is enough time left for my hon. colleague to expand somewhat on this.

[Canada Small Business Financing Act, November 24th, 1998]

It is true, it takes a long time. I would like to give the member for Trois-Rivières the opportunity to speak more on the notion of working capital in the management of our small businesses.

I have in the past headed a business assistance centre in the Gaspé. I have also worked in business. Insufficient working capital was primarily what prevented businesses from expanding so they could carry out their contracts. It is also one of the causes of bankruptcies, as I have been seen, because people used their working capital to acquire equipment like a new truck or a lift truck to speed up the handling of their merchandise.

People were working to improve their business, but they were forced to use working capital to make this sort of purchase.

We could expand SBLs to include working capital. In certain cases, instead of financing a business based on 85% of its assets bought as collateral, the government could finance them at the rate of 100%. The lender could give the borrower the following advice: “You are buying a lift truck because you want to increase sales and improve your bottom line. However, for this asset you are buying for, let us say, $100,000, should you not be borrowing $125,000, because you will have to wait a little longer for your accounts payable, because you will have more of them?”

This is an idea I put to you and I ask my colleague to expand on it a bit or to bring me back down to earth if I am dreaming.

[Canada Small Business Financing Act, November 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I made a few notes during the speech by my colleague from Trois-Rivières. His time in industry served him well. There is, however, one point I would like to return to. It is a principle of politics that, if we keep hammering at it, we might make the members opposite understand.

[Canada Customs And Revenue Agency Act, October 21st, 1998]

Quite right, but I notice that the hairline of the gentleman who made the remark starts a little further back than mine.

I was trying to draw a comparison between Peppergate and the creation of a super agency; in the opinion of the Bloc Quebecois, the agency will break the direct link between what the public is entitled to know and Parliament's oversight of government. This link will be broken.

How will the public be able to control this new super agency? I want to get the attention of the public and of the government so that a second monster is not created and we are not pepper-sprayed again.

If the agency's purpose is truly to generate savings, to avoid duplication, there is no need to create a monster agency with 15 mega-commissioners at the helm. It is a simple matter of getting 10 premiers around a table and making a proposal. Quebec will be able to administer its share of federal taxes within its jurisdiction.

[Canada Customs And Revenue Agency Act, October 21st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, excuse my outburst, but when one is trying to get the government's attention, one has to spice it up a little.

[Canada Customs And Revenue Agency Act, October 21st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, we must excuse the members who may have been a little bit too loud during the good speech made by my colleague from Quebec. Maybe it was because they found that speech most inspiring. We know how it is to work in this House. Sometimes members do get carried away.

I would like to add my voice to that of my colleague from Quebec who concluded her speech by reminding everyone that, since it came to this House, the Bloc Quebecois has worked to help Canada move forward. It has worked to send the message that duplication must be avoided.

My colleague from Quebec mentioned that we worked hard in the area of manpower training. We were the first provincial government—I say we because I come from Quebec and I have a lot of sympathy and affection for the Quebec government, the Parti Quebecois government. It was a sovereignist government in Quebec that succeeded in concluding a historic agreement with the federal government to harmonize the collection of the GST, the infamous tax that forced the former deputy prime minister to seek re-election.

I say all that because the new Liberal leader in Quebec, Mr. Jean Charest, is claiming that Quebec would be better protected and would be able to reach all kinds of agreements if he were at the helm. There are still three areas where it is the Bloc Quebecois in Ottawa that helped things move forward, which allowed for a certain degree of harmonization.

Let us come back to the bill before us, Bill C-43, which creates a super agency that will allow Revenue Canada and customs services, whose staff represents about 20% of the entire Canadian public service, not to be governed by the rules of the public service.

When I reread the bill, when I try to understand what it is all about, I see that this is one of its only functions, one of the only things that this agency will achieve, besides being able to create cozy, well paid jobs, to which the minister will be able to appoint friends of the government, of the members opposite.

It is interesting that each time the government tries to hide or to avoid answering questions from the public, it creates a commission, a super agency. This happens frequently right now.

When it does not want to answer questions from people who want to express themselves publicly—which is the right to free speech—I am talking about the infamous “peppergate”, what happens? It refers the issue to a commission. Yes, we are told the commission has been in existence for a long time, at least 10 years. However, it forgets to give some tools to people who must use this commission to get information. It forgets to give them some tools, for example, lawyers who also are well paid to defend them.

I say well paid. I will not argue about the definition of well paid or about who should be and who should not. I am in favour of people being paid for the fair value of their work. The government should at least give these students the means to defend themselves against the big machine.

A small group of students were sprayed with pepper, while the minister is trying to estaablish—