Maurice Godin

[Veterans Review And Appeal Board Act, May 8th, 1995]

moved:

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-67, in Clause 4, be amended by replacing lines 9 to 15, on page 2, with the following:

"4. There is hereby established an independent board, to be known as the Veterans Review and Appeal Board, consisting of a) not more than twenty-nine permanent members to be appointed by the Governor in Council after consultation with the government of each province and such committee of the House of Commons established or designated by that House to consider matters respecting veterans affairs; and b ) such number of temporary members as are appointed in accordance with section 6.''

Motion No. 4

That Bill C-67, in Clause 6, be amended by adding after line 25, on page 2, the following:

"(1.1) No appointment may be made under subsection (1) unless there has first been consultation in respect of that appointment with the government of each province and such committee of the House of Commons established or designated by the House to consider matters respecting veterans affairs."

Motion No. 5

That Bill C-67, in Clause 8, be amended by replacing lines 3 to 5, on page 3, with the following:

"8. (1) The Governor in Council shall, after consultation with the government of each province and such committee of the House of Commons established or designated by that House to consider matters respecting veterans affairs, designate a Chairperson and a Deputy Chairperson from among the permanent members."

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-67, in Clause 8, be amended by replacing lines 19 to 22, on page 3, with the following:

"(5) If both the Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson are absent or unable to act, a member designated by the Minister shall act as Chairperson.

(6) If the office of the Chairperson and the office of the Deputy Chairperson are vacant, the Minister shall designate a member to act as Chairperson and that member shall act in that capacity until such time as the Governor in Council designates a Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson under subsection (7).

(7) Where the office of the Chairperson and the office of the Deputy Chairperson are vacant, the Governor in Council shall, as soon as possible after the vacancies and after consultation with the government of each province and such committee of the House of Commons established or designated by that House to consider matters respecting veterans affairs, designate a Chairperson and a Deputy Chairperson from among the permanent members."

[Veterans Review And Appeal Board Act, May 8th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, consideration of Bill C-67, an Act to establish the Veterans Review and Appeal Board, to amend the Pension Act, to make consequential amendments to other Acts and to repeal the Veterans Appeal Board Act, is now at report stage before the House.

As you know, this bill seeks to restructure the process for the allocation of disability pensions to veterans. The bill also repeals the Canadian Pension Commission and transfers the responsibility of all initial decisions to the Minister of Veterans Affairs. It also establishes a board to review decisions and to hear appeals. Finally, the Bureau of Pensions Advocates, which was formerly an independent body, will now be integrated into the Department of Veterans Affairs. The bureau will deal with applications made to the new board.

This bill proposes many changes. The evaluation process regarding veterans' pensions has been the subject of numerous debates over the years, ever since the issue of providing a pension for any type of disability suffered by a member of the armed forces in the line of duty was first considered.

Issues such as compensation, eligibility to a pension, assessment of that pension, as well as the review and appeal process and the support offered to veterans were all discussed, not to mention time frames, arrears and certain discretionary actions taken by the department.

The pension system currently in effect is the result of all these debates and of all the legislative measures which followed. For example, we can think of the Woods committee, in the sixties, which led to the 1971 reform of the Pension Act. History tells us that laws follow changes: they do not trigger them.

It is precisely because of change that we are trying to make the processing of applications more flexible. Our top priority is to speed up the process so that veterans who are getting older

collect more quickly the pension to which they are entitled. We should remove any barrier that stands in the way.

This stage begins with the examination of four amendments moved by Reform members. If I am not mistaken, those four motions in the first group deal with two main points. The first is that the Bureau of Pensions Advocates should remain independent from the department. The second one is that the services of that Bureau should be available for first time applications.

Reform amendments would keep the Bureau of Pensions Advocates under the Pension Act. They want to maintain the independence of the Bureau and full access for applicants. However, it has not been demonstrated in committee that this would bring substantial benefits. In many cases, it would be a waste of time.

With the witnesses who appeared in committee, we discussed access to and independence of the Bureau. As a matter of fact, no study made in the last few years questioned the existence of the Bureau of Pensions Advocates. Neither the assessment of pensions in 1992 nor the Marshall report tabled last Fall questioned that. The consensus was that the Bureau should remain at arm's-length with the minister.

We should not forget the main thrust of this bill, which is to speed up the processing of applications. We know full well that, even when the services of the Bureau of Pensions Advocates were used at the very beginning, only 30 per cent of the claims made to the Canadian Pension Commission were approved. When the rejected claims were sent to the next levels of decision, the approval rate jumped to 70 per cent. Only 30 per cent of the Commission's decisions were maintained, despite the legal services provided by the Bureau.

But what is even more surprising is that Mr. Chartier, the chairman of the Canadian Pension Commission, was unable to answer our questions about the 30 per cent success rate of his organization compared to the 70 per cent success rate of the Board, which overrode 70 per cent of the first decisions made by his Commission. Mr. Chartier stated that he could not explain this difference and that he never thought about examining the issue. He told us he was very concerned about hanging on to work through careful scheduling of the files review.

I must say that what I found the most convincing during the chairman's testimony was his nonchalance in terms of the delays our veterans must face. We just have to support the department's bill even though an arbitrary decision can be made at the first level. The proposed merger is not such a bad idea after all.

The bill provides for the pensions advocates to deal with all the claims made to the new board which will be responsible for the reviews and the appeals. Hence, the free legal aid service will be maintained where needed. We hope that an increasing number of claims will be approved at the first level. This is the main object of this bill, to open up the pension allocation system and to make it a lot more flexible.

We think that a forms clerk or expert would be much more useful to help a claimant to complete the forms and make their way through the system. The goal here is to speed up the process while providing assistance at the review and appeal level to those who need legal advice or help in their approach. This is why we will oppose the amendments put forward by the Reform Party.

We will reject the Reform's motions to "judicialize" even more the process at the first decision level. We must trust the proposed change given the performance of the Canadian Pension Commission so far.

[Policy On Bilingualism, May 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, because of a difference in the French and English versions of the federal income tax return, French-speaking Canadian taxpayers living temporarily outside Canada will pay more income tax than their English-speaking counterparts.

Line 419 of the French version refers to a 4.56 per cent surtax, while the surtax in the English version is only 3 per cent.

The Commissioner of Official Languages, Victor Goldbloom, was totally justified in saying in his 1994 report that the bilingualism policy was still poorly implemented more than a quarter century after its adoption.

How can the government justify such a lack of rigour where the equitable treatment of francophones in Canada is concerned?

[Holocaust Memorial Day, April 27th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, the official opposition joins the government in giving its unanimous support to the motion tabled by the Secretary of State for Veterans. Fifty years have passed since the end of World War II, a war the likes of which this small planet had never seen before. We had to recognize that neither modern institutions nor the new technologies had helped us achieve peace on this earth.

Toward the end of that great war, the whole world was horrified to discover the existence of concentration camps, an inhumane, cruel and barbaric practice. No words exist to describe this atrocity and express our revulsion towards such a monstrous scheme. There is no excuse whatsoever for concentration camps.

Millions of men, women and children perished under the yoke of tyranny. They could only hope that other countries would rise up and fight in the name of liberty and justice. That is the effort

in which Canada took part. We and our descendants will never forget the valour and courage of those soldiers. It is our duty to ensure that these defenders of freedom will always be present in our collective memory.

The collapse of the Third Reich revealed to the world the largest extermination effort in history. Millions died in the concentration camps set up by the Nazis in occupied Europe, in their electrified barbed wire enclosures, blockhouses, underground factories, experimental rooms, gas chambers and herding areas. Thousands of convoys led victims on the road to hell.

This planned destruction effort was carried out relentlessly until just before surrender. Those convoys let to the internment and slaughter of innocents. Arrival in camp often meant death pure and simple or an even worse fate: forced labour contributing to death. It was a tragedy to witness the torture and slow agony of one's neighbour or be subjected to the same treatment. Malnutrition and illness led to a point of no return, to an exit from life. It is our duty to take a moment to imagine what concentration camps were like, to better understand how crucial it is that we remain steadfast in our firm commitment never to tolerate crimes against humanity.

Fifty years ago today, trucks of the International Red Cross drove into certain concentration camps, marking the end of this hell on earth. Torturers fled. Today, 50 years later, it is our duty to look at this tragedy as if it had happened just yesterday to our relatives, children and parents, so that we never fall victim of such madness. However-sadly for humanity-genocides and organized exterminations continue. Last year, more than one million Rwandans perished in a carefully planned genocide and, to this day, those responsible for this crime go unpunished.

More recently, the slaughter of thousands of Hutu refugees by the Rwandan Army at the Kibeho camp amounted to carnage. The international community witnessed acts of unspeakable cruelty in Bosnia, where ethnic cleansing was systematically carried out. Such events make us wonder whether humanity has learned anything from the lesson we were taught by history.

We must ensure that this kind of massacres among inhabitants of this planet stop. We must remain hopeful that, one day, we will all live in peace, free from these inhuman acts. To commemorate the liberation of Nazi concentration camps is, of course, to pay our respects to the victims, but also pay tribute to all the men and women of this country who made that liberation possible, our veterans, who deserve more than our admiration. We owe them support, particularly when they paid with their health. I hope that this government will take this opportunity to ponder over the way veterans are treated. We cannot renege on our promise to them.

Nor can we afford to relax our vigilance, lest atrocities like those committed in Nazi concentration camps be committed again. Such is the implacable lesson taught by history, a lesson that we must in turn teach our children, so that we never forget. The Bloc Quebecois, for its part, undertakes to do all it can to ensure that this knowledge remains in our collective memory. Together, let us keep this hope alive.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, April 26th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, the Bloc Quebecois decided to fight Bill C-76 tooth and nail. Basic reasons motivate us to keep this promise, for example, fairness. All too often, the budget hits the middle class and the needy instead of addressing inequities within the tax system.

The government has refused to review the tax system, despite the Bloc Quebecois' repeated requests over the past year and a half. In addition, the current budget cuts do not target unnecessary or extravagant spending, such as the purchase of furniture for the fisheries minister's office. No, they hit the neediest.

Another example is the army. The Bloc Quebecois recommended cutting the Minister of National Defence's budget, but only targeted unnecessary spending or spending in non-essential areas. For example, Operation William Tell, $7 million; the lavish fishing trips to the tune of $1.2 million; the number of generals, their assistants and retinues of support staff; mansions for high-ranking officers; the Reserves, which cost us some $532 million but have no specific mission, according to several generals.

Instead, with Bill C-76, the government hits the neediest, widows, orphans, and veterans, whose average age is 73 years.

Bill C-76 hits three acts which are administered by Veterans Affairs. The seven clauses of the bill which affect these three acts all cut benefits and allowances.

Clause 42 will have the effect of gradually phasing out education assistance benefits for the children of deceased veterans. In fact, clause 42 amends the Children of Deceased Veterans Education Assistance Act. This amendment initiates the gradual phasing out of a veterans benefit that provides the children of deceased veterans with the assistance they need to continue their education. With a few exceptions, the 85 students now receiving these benefits are the children of deceased military personnel who participated in Canadian peacekeeping missions. Students who were receiving the benefit on the day the budget was tabled will continue to receive it under this legislation but the department will not accept new applications.

Clauses 68 to 72, inclusive, amend the War Veterans Allowance Act by terminating the payment of allowances to allied veterans of resistance groups. As of September 1, 1995 or within two months after Bill C-76 receives royal assent, whichever comes later. The same provision will also initiate the gradual phasing out of allowances payable to allied veterans in uniform who immigrated to Canada at the end of their service and resided in Canada for at least 10 years before applying for veterans allowance.

Bill C-76 will terminate payment of allowances to about 3,000 veterans. Payments will also be terminated in the case of 1,000 veterans of resistance groups whose old age security and Canada Pension Plan benefits raise their incomes just above the threshold below which they would be entitled to certain health care benefits. The provinces will inherit this new set of clients, two thirds of whom are Quebecers.

Clause 73 (a) would terminate compensation for loss of income in the case of veterans who are required to appear before a review board.

Clause 73 (b) would also do away with compensation for income loss and includes other restrictions on travel and living expenses occasioned by a medical examination required by the minister. We oppose this loss of benefits for veterans. Society's disadvantaged-seniors, widows and children-are being attacked.

Let us look at a specific example: a woman in Montreal, a widow, who has just received a notice in the mail. The director general of veterans' benefits at Veterans Affairs Canada, Doris Boulet, is advising her that she will lose all the assistance she has been receiving for a number of years. Under the provisions proposed in Bill C-76, this woman will lose on a number of counts. First, she will lose her allowance. Second, she will no longer enjoy the related benefits she received from Veterans Affairs Canada, including her Blue Cross identity card. Third, she will no longer have access to veterans' independence programs, nor, fourth, to Veterans Affairs Canada contributions to long term health care. In short, she is being abandoned.

The letter tells her to act quickly to find other sources of financial and health care assistance. It reminds her of existing programs: federal government programs, such as old age security and the guaranteed income supplement, and provincial government programs, such as social assistance and health care plans. She is advised that these are her options to help her replace the financial assistance and the other benefits she will no longer enjoy following adoption of Bill C-76.

In fact, the need of that woman is recognized, but she is simply referred to other federal and provincial public services. This is a good example of duplication. That woman is told that she can get help from both the federal and provincial levels. Yet, as I recall, veterans affairs come under federal jurisdiction.

Here is another example. The hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot learned from Branch No. 2 of the Royal Canadian Legion that the Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue hospital is increasing the monthly rate for its rooms from $547 to $704. This increase of 28 per cent brings to 198 per cent the total increase for these veterans since 1990. Veterans are offended, hurt and humiliated by such off-hand treatment on the part of a country they paid to protect. Why penalize these veterans by offloading onto them the financial burden related to the treatment of injuries which they suffered while defending our country? There are many other places cuts could have been made.

If I had suggested that the responsibility of the Department of Veterans Affairs should be decentralized and delegated to the provinces to ensure greater efficiency, federalists would immediately have objected, on the grounds that this is an exclusive federal jurisdiction. Bill C-76 leads us to one conclusion: the federal is no longer able to meet its responsibilities. Why not decentralize by delegating to the provinces responsibilities as well as tax points?

The federal system is obsolete. We need autonomous provinces which would give to the federal government, or to another economic and political union, a mandate and a budget to manage certain joint responsibilities. In short, the Bloc is opposed to the

loss of these benefits for veterans. The poor, the elderly, widows and children are too often the ones who are targeted.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, April 3rd, 1995]

Madam Speaker, my remarks tonight follow up on my question to the Prime Minister on December 8, 1994, about the contract awarded to Saint John Shipbuilding without a call for tenders; the MIL Davie Shipyard, which had submitted a bid, was wronged in the process. Here is the question I asked:

How can the Prime Minister explain that, despite the clear directive issued by him to the president of the consortium, Mr. Ken Hall, Hibernia has refused to redress the injustice to which he has himself so strongly objected?

The Prime Minister answered:

I think the company should not have acted in this way. I have said it clearly, but since we own only 8.5 per cent of the company's shares, we cannot force it to change its decision. I still think it is a bad decision for both the Newfoundland shipyard and the Quebec shipyard.

The answer given by the Prime Minister is not complete. In my opinion, it is not true that the federal government is not in a position to force its views on the Hibernia project. It is true that the federal government owns 8.5 per cent of the shares in the Hibernia project for $340 million, but the Prime Minister forgot to tell us that the government invested $400 million more in 1992, when Gulf pulled out. The federal government also pays almost $100 million in cost overruns. It granted $1 billion in subsidies and gave $1.7 billion in loan guarantees. More over, it undertook to pay the difference in production costs between the market price and $25 a barrel.

Let them not pretend the federal government is just any other investor. It is the main investor in the project with $3 billion out of $6 billion. The Prime Minister should have taken a tougher stand and demanded that the consortium follow his directive. Hibernia is the perfect image of Canadian federalism with the lobbyists making the decisions and the Prime Minister carrying them out. As a result, we have policies which lead to waste and a debt of $500 billion, megaprojects which are ruining us and will never be profitable.

Of the five modules ordered for the amount of $100 million, two were made in Korea, two in Italy and one in Newfoundland, following construction of a shipyard 25 per cent of which was paid for out of our tax money. We were told that the study recently claimed that MIL Davie was not profitable, but who produced this study? It was Ernst & Young, which contributed $116,452 to the Conservative and Liberal Parties in the last election and received federal contracts worth $2.4 million in 1993-94. Can Quebecers trust such a partisan study? What I would like to know is if the Prime Minister will make a commitment to ask the consortium to grant the contracts for the construction of future tankers to MIL Davie as was done for Saint John Shipbuilding, that is without a call for tenders?

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, April 3rd, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I rise to participate in the debate on Bill C-76, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 1995. I had the honour to second the motion moved by my colleague, the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot, last Thursday, March 30, 1995.

The purpose of this motion is to send the finance minister back to the drawing board to redo the budget he dared table in the House, which the Bloc Quebecois is doing its utmost to denounce. I am proud to have seconded this motion because the finance minister's budget hides its true nature and claims merits it does not have.

For the 1995-96 fiscal year, the budget does not introduce any changes as far as transfers to the provinces are concerned. Everything is being postponed until next year so that Quebecers will not find out before the referendum that federalism is a failure. However, starting in 1996-97, the federal government will arrange to shift its deficit to the provinces to the tune of at least $7 billion.

This is how the government will go about it. First, it will eliminate two major programs under which funds are transferred to the provinces, namely the Canada Assistance Plan and established programs financing, replacing them with a new program called the Canada Social Transfer. This new program, the Canada Social Transfer, will have to take into account the cuts announced in the finance minister's budget. These cuts will amount to $2.5 billion in 1996-97 and $4.5 billion in 1997-98

for a total of $7 billion. The amount of these cuts are in the budget.

By reducing transfer payments to the provinces this way, the federal government is transferring its public finance load onto the provinces while at the same time keeping the related tax points and the spending power in every area. In spite of all the good things promised in the budget, clause 48 of Bill C-76 is unmistakably clear; under this clause, Quebec will be deprived of $650 million in 1996-97.

In 1997-98, the budget for the new program, the Canada transfer program, will be divided among the provinces based on a criterion that remains to be negotiated. If the criterion ultimately chosen is the one currently in use, this would mean a $1.2 billion shortfall for Quebec in 1997-98. It could even be steeper, because no decision was made yet regarding on what basis calculations will be made.

In fact, the federal government seems to grant the requests of wealthier provinces, notably Ontario. Equalization aside, the government is seriously considering distributing all major transfers to the provinces on a per capita basis. If that were the case, Quebec alone would have to bear 41.7 per cent of the cuts in transfer payments in 1997-98 on account of its population. Therefore, Quebec would see its shortfall for 1997-98 increase from $1.2 billion to $1.9 billion.

This goes to show that this budget claims to have merits it does not have, as glaringly evidenced by the cuts to be expected next year. Another clear indication is the government's commitment to maintaining national standards. Bill C-76 maintains health national standards and provides for the introduction of new national standards for social assistance and post-secondary education.

Federal support will be withheld if the provinces do not comply with these standards. This centralizing and arrogant form of federalism has nothing to do with decentralization. These national standards will limit the provinces' autonomy in their own fields of jurisdiction, at their own expense. Again, the new standards which will be implemented coast to coast will not serve the interests of Quebec's distinct society, particularly in a sector as vital as education.

The bill provides for new national standards before negotiations have even taken place. The federal government is announcing the outcome of such negotiations before they are even underway. There is nothing in this legislation to indicate that the federal government needs a consensus among the provinces to implement new national standards. Let us not forget that the federal government has the authority to unilaterally impose such standards through legislative amendments. If the provinces reject these standards, they will lose federal support, which, ironically, is provided with the money collected from provincial taxpayers.

Therefore, the new Canada Social Transfer will impose a $7-billion cut to the provinces. In addition to that, clause 48 of Bill C-76 provides that a province must make mention of the Canada Social Transfer in all its advertising and documents related to the health services provided by that province.

Let me give you another example: As the critic for Veterans Affairs Canada, I noticed that Bill C-76 seeks to reduce benefits, allowances and compensation. Clause 42 provides for the gradual elimination of education assistance to children of deceased veterans.

Clauses 68 to 72 eliminate allowances to allied veterans in the Resistance, as well as allowances to uniformed allied veterans who immigrated to Canada. Finally, clause 73 provides that any compensation paid to a veteran attending a review committee hearing of his application for disability pension will be eliminated. These provisions amount to a loss of benefits for veterans. This is a case of penny-pinching.

In short, this budget truly reflects what federalism is all about. The federal government would like to be perceived as the almighty protector and authority. But Quebecers will not be fooled and they will not hesitate to express their dissatisfaction with this system and say that the trickery is over and that they are prepared to take control of their destiny once and for all. In the meantime, it is essential to postpone second reading of Bill C-76 for six months, to give an opportunity to the Minister of Finance to do his homework. This is the purpose of the motion which I seconded and which I still support.

[Kanesatake Reserve, April 3rd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, does the minister intend to clearly explain to the band council that it is up to Quebec to decide whether a casino will be built on Kanesatake?

[Kanesatake Reserve, April 3rd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Indian Affairs.

On Friday, the Solicitor General declared that the provinces have jurisdiction over casinos and that the Kanesatake Mohawks must obtain Quebec's authorization before building their casino. Quebec's Minister of Public Security has already stated that Quebec would refuse to approve the project for security reasons.

Will the minister indicate what kind of negotiations are going on between the federal government and the Kanesatake band council regarding the construction of a casino?

[Member For Halifax, March 30th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, during a recent debate, the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration said that the physicians who approved the use, by Silken Laumann, of a certain drug, banned by the Olympic organization, which resulted in her losing her medal, had to be Spaniards.

This comment has, rightfully, offended the Spanish speaking community of Quebec and Canada. The present dispute between Spain and Canada over turbot stocks must not be used as a pretext to insult people of Spanish descent whose contribution to the development of Quebec and Canada is very important.

The Bloc Quebecois is denouncing this unacceptable comment by the parliamentary secretary which is tarnishing the image of Quebec and Canada, countries which have always welcomed immigrants from all over the world.