René Canuel

[Supply, February 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, when my colleague talks about the referendum question and about Mr. Parizeau, she is insulting me and she is insulting the people of Quebec. If somebody has ever been clear in his life, it is Mr. Parizeau. And I pay tribute to him.

Getting back to the 1980 question, Mr. Trudeau, then Prime Minister of Canada, had told Mr. Chrétien a week earlier “If we win the referendum, it is fine. If we loose, I will ask all the ministers from Quebec to resign”. That is what Trudeau said one week before the referendum. This means that, for him, the question was very clear.

Now they want to subdue Quebec. Once again, they want to quash us. My colleague talks about clarity; I want to ask her a question and I hope that she can answer very clearly.

Will she recognize a result of 50% plus one? Because this is how it works in a democracy. If she is not prepared to recognize 50% plus one, what would be the required percentage then?

[Petitions, February 15th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I have the honour of tabling a petition on behalf of many signatories.

The petitioners declare “In the name of freedom, in the name of democracy, in the name of the right to exist as a country, in the name of the promises never kept by the Prime Minister of Canada and in the name of the undemocratic intentions of the Prime Minister of Canada, we humbly request that Bill C-20 be withdrawn and that the Prime Minister resign”.

[Points Of Order, February 15th, 2000]

Just wait to know what it is about. They do not know what it is about and already they refuse.

It is an article published in Le Droit on December 8, 1995, which shows that the 50% plus one rule is valid everywhere in Canada, except for Quebec.

[Points Of Order, February 15th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, following the introduction by the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs of a bill denying fundamental rights of Quebecers, I ask for unanimous consent of the House to table a document.

[David Pelletier, February 11th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, on the weekend of January 30, David Pelletier, who is from the Quebec riding of Matapédia—Matane, and his partner Jamie Sale, from Alberta, won the Canadian figure skating championship for pair skating. They won with the highest marks ever in that annual event. They got five perfect marks of 6.0 and two 5.9s. This is extraordinary.

As David's father Jacques Pelletier said, “This achievement is evidence that work, patience, determination and courage allow us to meet challenges, reach beyond our limits and to accomplish goals deemed impossible by others”.

I wish the best of luck to Jamie and David in their next two competitions this season, and I congratulate them on their performance.

[Shipbuilding Act, 1999, February 9th, 2000]

Even on his holidays, he took time to visit shipyards. In the area of shipyards this is not always easy.

The purpose of the bill he introduced is to promote shipbuilding in Canada and to make Canadian shipyards more competitive. There is a lot of support for these demands. One hundred sixty thousand people have petitioned the Prime Minister of Canada. They sent postcards saying that something had to be done in this area in Canada.

In addition, the Shipbuilding Association of Canada supports the Marine Workers' Federation of Canada and the Shipyard General Workers' Federation of British Columbia.

All these people support the bill, which may help enormously. Some shipyards are nearly bankrupt, others are doing well. In my riding of Matapédia—Matane, one shipyard is doing very well—the Verreault Navigation shipyard.

I am not going to give the history of this shipyard, which is a family history. But they also need help. They are not asking for subsidies, they want the bill to be passed because it will help them enormously.

Yesterday, Ms. Verreault said the following at a press conference she gave “I do not necessarily want money. What I want is for certain standards to be eliminated and ones comparable to those in the United States to be set. That would be enough for me”.

Verreault Navigation's present project is to equip this shipyard with a second dry dock. Mrs. Verrault herself entered into alliances with the employers in order to reach a common agreement. This would result in a huge increase in employment. If there were a second dry dock, this would immediately create 119 more jobs on top of the existing 225. For a region like the Gaspé, that is really great.

We heard in the House today, and since Monday, that $1 billion had been squandered or at least not having been properly accounted for. I can say that, if we had standards, not subsidies but standards, government-backed loans as my colleague has called for, 129 jobs could be created immediately, or just about, with this $1 billion.

When we meet the minister, he tells us there is a moratorium and that it cannot be lifted. How can there be a moratorium when we are calling for job creation? Nowadays competition does not come only from Vancouver, the Maritimes or Quebec, but from all around the world.

The Canadian government has a duty to provide assistance to shipyards, and I cannot therefore see how one could not support this bill. It was introduced by my colleague from Lévis, and I will be going over certain provisions in a moment. It contains three major demands, and I will tell you more about them if time permits, but the House is already aware of this bill. These are our demands, and it is very important that the bill be passed as quickly as possible.

Mrs. Verreault is an extraordinary woman. My colleague came with me to meet her. We toured her shipyard with her, and it is quite impressive. We often think that something like that can only be found in large cities but, for once, it is in the Gaspé Peninsula. Mrs. Verreault wants to create jobs. She is not asking for money; she would just like to be granted loans like everybody else. I cannot see how such a request could be denied.

The problem is when people dig their heels in. The government implements a policy from coast to coast, but when a request is made that is a little bit too unusual, albeit very legitimate, they say “No. There is a moratorium. Everyone must comply”. I cannot help but think that, if we were a sovereign state, we would not have to beg, and the problem would be solved in no time. This is just one more reason. Even in the Gaspé Peninsula, people want to achieve sovereignty because the government bureaucracy is such that jobs are being lost, with the result that families are getting poorer and young people are leaving.

Moving to one of the demands contained in the bill, I will read our request concerning a loan guarantee program. a ) through the establishment of a program whereby a maximum of 87.5% of the money borrowed by a company from financial institutions to purchase a commercial ship that will be built in a shipyard located in Canada

(i) is guaranteed by the federal government in the event of default in the repayment of the loan,

(ii) bears a rate of interest comparable to that available for loans from financial institutions to large and financially strong corporations, and

(iii) is repayable on terms comparable to those usually granted by financial institutions to large and financially strong corporations for the repayment of their loans;

This is what we are asking the government for. Mere peanuts. It is only peanuts compared to the $1 billion boondoggle. I hope that, this time, the government will understand something must be done.

Going back to our shipyard in Les Méchins, I invite anyone who has never been to Les Méchins to come and visit this beautiful shipyard. This small village is an economic hub; a lot of development is taking place in surrounding areas. When people are working, they can help other people, and it snowballs.

I am asking for the co-operation of the House as a whole to pass this bill so that it can be implemented as soon as possible. Otherwise, this would be all the more reason to go the sovereignty way, as far as I am concerned.

[Shipbuilding Act, 1999, February 9th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to congratulate my colleague, the member for Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, who has done an extraordinary job for two years on this matter.

[Supply, February 8th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know where to start. I hesitate because the language I would like to use might be unparliamentary, and I cannot use all the words that come to mind. I hope the members opposite will understand that many of the words I would like to utter will remain unsaid out of respect for the Chair, who would judge these words to be unparliamentary.

I will use a very simple language. A billion is a long string of zeros with a one in front of them. It is a thousand million dollars that were squandered, handed out to friends and supporters, particularly those who contribute to the liberal election fund.

We know that there are 1.5 million children living in poverty in this country. If we took $1 billion and divided it by 1.5 million, every child in Canada could have received $6,666 in support. But that was not done.

Instead, next year, it will be reported that once again the number of children living in poverty, and parents living in poverty of course, has grown. I know that, in my riding of Matapédia—Matane, where unemployment is very high, from time to time someone makes a mistake and claims one week too many in benefits and there are penalties for doing so. They come and get them and they are almost prepared to send them to jail.

About the $1 billion that disappeared and went into the pockets of some rich people, I ask my colleague, whom I listened to intently, how he would qualify this scandal.

[Point Of Order, February 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I have here an article that was published a long time ago by canon Groulx, which could greatly enlighten this House and which our colleagues opposite should read. I would ask for the unanimous consent to table this article.

[Points Of Order, December 14th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, at the request of people from my riding, I wish to educate the House and provide it with supplementary information. Here is what my constituents have asked me to table this morning. It is an extract from the referendum act of the state of Wisconsin, in the United States of America.

I ask for unanimous consent and hope that I will get it.