Marcel Massé

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, November 15th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition is right to say it is time for a truce, for common sense and compromise. Well, we already have a compromise. We reached a compromise with the Government of Quebec. We have an agreement that provides for some military presence on the campus of Saint-Jean and for the continuation of the Collège de Saint-Jean.

Here is the agreement. It was signed by Daniel Johnson, the Premier of Quebec at the time. We have an agreement, and I suggest the opposition let us implement that agreement.

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, November 15th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, according to the plans that have already been made to accommodate 300 additional students in Kingston, we can use the barracks at CFB Kingston that are now vacant, so that the cost is minimal, and three years from now, we will be back to 900 students.

Consequently, in the circumstances it makes sense to concentrate students in Kingston. Since the army has been downsized, we no longer need three colleges, and we should now use all the resources available at the college in Kingston, which is the only one we need.

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, November 15th, 1994]

Second, we now have an agreement with the Government of Quebec to keep the Collège de Saint-Jean open as a civilian institution. That is the agreement we have now and the agreement we want to implement.

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, November 15th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, there are two things we should remember. First, keeping the Collège de Saint-Jean open unnecessarily will cost taxpayers $23 million annually. This means that three years will cost taxpayers nearly $70 million.

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, November 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada estimates that it will save about $23 million a year-and not $8 million-by closing the military college in Saint-Jean and that transferring the Saint-Jean students represents only a fraction of the money we will save in the long run.

There is no doubt that, as far as the Canadian Forces and Canadian military training are concerned, concentrating our military training in Kingston is a better solution. We also offered Quebec $25 million over five years so that the college in Saint-Jean could remain open. That is the acceptable solution, one that will allow the college in Saint-Jean to remain open, and that we want the Quebec government to honour because it signed an agreement to that effect.

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, November 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the future of the college in Saint-Jean has been studied for months, at least since last year's budget. The former government of Quebec and the federal government arrived at a solution that would allow the college in Saint-Jean to remain open with a military presence. That is the agreement that we came to and that we want to maintain.

It is no longer possible to use the college in Saint-Jean for military training, simply because there are not enough military students in Canada. The college in Kingston will provide a bilingual education to all military students in Canada. We only need one college and the officers to be trained in Kingston will undoubtedly receive an education as good as that previously provided at the college in Saint-Jean.

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, November 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the college in Saint-Jean has had a great and illustrious career. Even though more than 75 per cent of French speaking officers in the armed forces were trained outside Saint-Jean,

there is no doubt that the college in Saint-Jean played an extremely useful role in training French speaking officers.

But it so happens that the size of the armed forces is being reduced considerably. We only need to educate about 200 cadets a year and we will educate them and give them just as good an education as they would get in Saint-Jean in the military college in Kingston, where Canadian forces personnel will be brought together to be educated.

We no longer need three colleges; we need only one and that is just what we will do in Kingston.

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, November 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, what the Leader of the Opposition is insinuating is entirely incorrect. Under the agreement signed on July 19, there would still be 100 officer cadets in Saint-Jean, as well as a language course. Yes, military training has been concentrated in Kingston because as the army downsizes, we no longer need three military colleges; one is enough.

The reason the Quebec government wants to keep military courses in Saint-Jean, as Louise Beaudoin indicated, is that it wants to prepare to have its own army for when Quebec is independent.

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, November 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, to answer the Leader of the Opposition in the same

terms, how can he have the nerve to ask us who is closing the college, when we have had an agreement since mid-July ensuring the survival of the college in Saint-Jean, but which the Government of Quebec does not want to implement? The Government of Quebec refuses to implement an agreement signed by the former government and it is the Government of Quebec which must bear the blame for closing it if it is closed.

[Government Spending, November 3rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, on June 25, 1993, the previous government implemented changes that abolished the Federal-Provincial Relations Office.

When the new government came back, it obviously concluded that, considering the profile of the opposition, in particular, this was a problem that should be given all necessary attention, and that is what we did.

Of the $5.9 million in the Supplementary Estimates, several hundred thousand dollars will be used to reduce overlap, which is exactly what the Government of Quebec and the opposition are asking us to do. This will cover the cost of rebuilding a group of officers to take care of federal-provincial relations and of eliminating overlap and duplication.