René Laurin

[Federal Public Service, March 13th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the President of Treasury Board has just announced that the overall budget envelope for senior public sector executives will be raised by 7.96%, thus acknowledging the importance of quality executives to the Public Service of Canada.

Since the government's offer to Revenue Canada auditors is no more than 1.75% a year over two years, are we to understand that the government does not perceive the shortage of auditors to be a problem?

[Supply, March 12th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I would like to make a couple of comments in response to the remarks by the last two speakers from the Liberal Party. One of them spoke of sharing powers, and the other had essentially the same opinions, but expressed them differently.

I would like to know how a power can be shared effectively. Powers and jurisdictions can be shared. If there are 10 jurisdictions, one level of government can look after five of them and another level can look after the other five. You could call that sharing jurisdictions.

However, what this government is trying to do is to share a single jurisdiction. It is as if two cooks were preparing the same soup. One of the cooks adds salt and the other adds a little more to the soup to ensure a salty taste, and get the credit for it. The result is a very salty and unpleasant soup. That is the problem with jurisdictions.

We tell the federal government that we have no objections to its keeping some jurisdictions, like national defence, for itself. But education is ours. We know this field best. Get out of it. The federal government insists on having its own cook add salt to the soup. If need be, it will remove some of the ingredients Quebec uses and use some of its own instead.

That is why we were after the truth. I asked the question of a Liberal member after the budget. I told her that the millennium fund did not suit Quebeckers and the students in Quebec, because we already had our own system. Her response was that it was fine, there would be an extra scholarship for her.

What is important, as far as the Liberals are concerned, as I could see from the remarks of the Liberal member, is the failure to see whether the need was consistent for all students. That was not the case. What counted was to ensure all students would enjoy the same measure so that the federal government would be visible. It is more important to meet the individual needs of each of the provinces than to use the same remedy for all students to ensure the federal government gets the credit for adding the last of the spices to the soup I used as an example.

I would therefore ask the member who spoke just before me to explain this sharing of jurisdictions, as he sees it. Does he share the opinion of the federal member who told me she would have an extra scholarship? Is that really the focus of this government?

[Supply, March 12th, 1998]

So, this must be true.

[Supply, March 12th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I do not know if I will be able to bring my colleague opposite to understand why in Quebec we demand a different solution to a problem which is different. When the federal government is offering millennium scholarships across Canada it is showing us it knows nothing about the needs of the provinces.

It is as if the federal government had decided to make access to school easier by providing bus transportation for every child in Canada, including those living in the North Pole. It might have been a better idea to provide snowmobiles to students in the North Pole so that they could go to school. It might have been a better idea to provide bicycles for those living downtown and school buses for those living in the suburbs a bit further from the school.

But the federal government, which claims to be quite familiar with the needs of each of the provinces, says: “This year, we will give snowmobiles to everyone so that children can have access to schools, even in summer. There will be no school buses. The federal government is generous, it realized there is a problem with access to the schools and it is offering snowmobiles, whether you like it or not”.

What we criticize the federal government for is not that it makes money available for education. We criticize it for wanting to do so by meddling in areas it knows nothing about. If it wants to help Quebec students have better access to education, it should give that money to Quebec, which is more familiar with its own needs and knows how best to ensure that more students have access to education.

Perhaps the member does not know that there are hundreds of thousands of children who go to school in the morning without a piece of toast or a single glass of milk in their stomach. Perhaps the member does not know that, in Quebec, the suicide rate among high school students is one of the highest. Will millennium scholarships reduce the suicide rate in our secondary schools? Will it increase the number of teachers, who, in some regions, must teach three different classes at the primary level? Will it provide more psychologists and guidance counsellors at the secondary level to help students who are desperate, who cannot find their way or who need assistance and supervision?

Through its transfer cuts, the federal government has taken away from us the means to pay for these student services. We cannot provide them now, because it has taken away the money that it used to give in transfer payments. It has taken it away in the areas where we needed it and it now wants to give it back in areas where the need is less urgent. This is what we are trying to tell the federal government when we say: “Do not intrude in provincial jurisdictions. Give us the money that comes from the same taxpayers and we will take care of these needs, because we know them better than you do”. This is all we want.

[Supply, March 12th, 1998]

You have no business there.

[The Budget, March 10th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member opposite demonstrated the federal government's inability to understand the problems confronting the provinces when he spoke of partnership. But what kind of partnership is there in the millennium scholarship fund? The federal government plans to consult the provinces after the millennium foundation has been established. In a partnership, people sit down with their partners and discuss the best ways of dealing with problems.

He mentioned as another example the fact that zero deficit has already been achieved in some provinces; therefore, the measures put forward by the federal government will help all the provinces. This is not exactly the case in Quebec and Ontario. These are the only two provinces that do not have a balanced budget as of yet. Their circumstances being different, it is normal that their priorities and the solutions contemplated are different.

Perhaps students in Quebec will not say no to millennium scholarships. But when the hon. member describes the suicide rate in Quebec as one of the highest, does he think that the introduction of these scholarships will result in fewer students dropping out and fewer suicides in Quebec? Whether or not there are millennium scholarships has nothing to do with the dropout rate. We already have a loans and grants program in Quebec.

The cause lies elsewhere. That is why Quebec asked the federal government for compensation to help it address problems identified in education, problems like children who have nothing to eat before leaving for school in the morning or children without appropriate supervision who are suicidal or those who need psychological treatment that cannot be subsidized because of the cuts in transfer payments. That is what partnership is about, when one understands what it means.

[The Budget, March 10th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I would like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the hon. member for Trois-Rivières.

The message I would like to share with the citizens of Canada and those of Quebec in particular is that the budget tabled by the Minister of Finance has left a bitter taste in our mouths as it is very generous with other people's money. For years now, the federal government has been saving money on the backs of the provinces, the disadvantaged and the workers.

Statistics show that, between 1994 and 1998, federal transfer payments to the provinces were cut by 52%. While the federal government reduced its own spending by only 12%, cuts in tax relief and transfer payments to individuals amounted to 37%. At the same time, the federal government gave itself a 51% share of any new spending to be incurred between now and the year 2000.

After impoverishing people and lessening the power of the provinces, putting them in a situation I would describe as perilous, the government then tries to pass itself off as a saviour and tells people “See, were it not for us in the federal government, you would not be getting the help you need right now”. The fact of the matter is that, were it not for the federal government, we would not be in this situation in the first place, a situation the government itself has dragged us into by spending wildly left and right in the past few years.

The federal government, which is primarily responsible for this situation, would have individual taxpayers believe it is their saviour.

In an editorial comment in Le Devoir , renowned journalist Jean-Robert Sansfaçon gives the following analysis of the situation:

In an effort to save about $6 billion a year, Ottawa presumably sent a $2.5 billion bill to the provinces. To add insult to injury, the Chrétien government cut transfer payments intended to cover part of the costs of social assistance.

On the one hand, there is the classic example of employment insurance. What has the federal government accomplished with it? It has given less money to the unemployed. In reality, there are far fewer unemployed persons eligible for employment insurance. What do people do when they are not eligible for employment insurance? They turn to welfare, which is a provincial responsibility.

Indirectly, through its employment insurance reform, the federal government has imposed an additional financial burden on the provinces, because people turn to welfare in order to survive. As we know, welfare is a provincial responsibility.

Provincial expenditures are increased because of the welfare burden, yet their transfer payment revenue from Ottawa is cut. The provincial governments therefore have more responsibilities, but lower revenues to meet them. Why is this? Because of federal government actions.

That is why it has always been said that this country had one government too many. One government—the federal—never stops trying to acquire powers, with the result that the powers of the provincial governments are increasingly becoming merely symbolic. I am certain that the underlying intent of this federalist government is to one day end up with a single government in this country, the one in Ottawa.

This is what Quebec has been opposing for years, because it knows that such a system would result in Quebeckers being assimilated. They would see their culture assimilated, their traditions assimilated; their language, their fundamental values and everything that makes Quebec different would be drowned out under a single government, which would be called the Ottawa government, the Canadian government.

This is sadistic; every time the government, from one budget to another, from one election to another, gains a year, or four or five years, this is just one more step toward subjugation of the provinces to the federal government. This is the ultimate objective of this government, one that never changes, regardless of which party is in power.

Right now, we have a Liberal government, but the situation would be exactly the same if the Conservatives or the Reformers were in office. This is because the underlying objective is not to create a true partnership with the provinces, as could have been developed and implemented since 1867, but to subject the provinces to the authority of the federal government.

Here is another example. I just referred to employment insurance and welfare, two areas of provincial jurisdiction the federal government has encroached upon. Another example is that great initiative announced in the Liberal budget, the millennium scholarship fund.

As was said, and it is worth repeating again, this is a spending initiative in an area of provincial jurisdiction.

Quebec already has a loans and grants program that is the envy of all the students and stakeholders in the other provinces, whether at the elementary, secondary, post-secondary or university level. These people are unanimous in praising Quebec's loans and grants program, which is unique in the sense that the other provinces do not offer grants.

The federal government, under the pretence of helping less fortunate students, decided to spend $2.5 billion in the country, with the obvious goal of being able to tell students “What the province cannot do for you in education, the federal government can, thus helping you continue your education”.

Why are the provinces hard pressed to resolve the educational problem? Because the federal government, since 1993, has cut billions of dollars from education and health care. It has cut money to the provinces and now wants to give back some—and I mean only some—to individuals, like students, so they will realize the situation they would be in were it not for the federal government. That is what is ironic about the situation.

Everytime the government has a chance, it deprives the provinces of real and potential revenues, which it should be giving back to them as transfer payments, and then, it uses that money for other purposes.

The millennium scholarships are simply a means for the government to raise its visibility and the number of votes for federalism. That is all. The average debt of students in Quebec is $11,000. In the other provinces it is $25,000. The problem is really different in Quebec. There a system of loans and grants already in existence. In the other provinces it is not as well developed or sometimes there is none.

Quebec is calling on the federal government to allow it to withdraw from this program and to give it financial compensation to enable it to set its own educational priorities, wherever it has identified them. It considers it is better placed to identify its own priorities.

Children arrive at school in the morning without eating or having a glass of milk. For the most part, these children live below the poverty line. I hope to have an opportunity through questions and comments to finish explaining the example I wanted to give you.

[André Nadeau, February 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, February 19 marked the end of one of the most prestigious and challenging dog sled races in the world, the Yukon Quest, in which Quebecker André Nadeau, from Sainte-Mélanie, in my riding of Joliette, competed.

This is a 1,647-kilometre race from Whitehorse, in the Yukon, to Fairbanks, in Alaska. The mushers and their dog teams must fight their way through horrifying blizzards in Arctic cold and climb over peaks up to 4,000 metres high.

André Nadeau was a first-time contender in this race. He came in second, with a time of 11 days, 15 hours and 13 minutes, roughly four hours behind the first-place winner. Thirty-eight 14-dog teams started the race. André Nadeau led the race until Mr. Lee, a veteran musher, passed him a few kilometres before the finish line.

I want to acknowledge this feat of strength and courage and extend my heartiest congratulations to André Nadeau and his helpers, Louise and Michel, and to his 14 dogs, of course.

[Supply, February 10th, 1998]

The reality is that it does not work.

[Supply, February 10th, 1998]

That is right.