Pierre De Savoye

[Income Tax Act, March 22nd, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I will be brief and to the point. First of all, I would like to congratulate the hon. member for Nepean for her marvellous initiative. This issue has been talked about for a number of years by heads of single parent families but today, finally, a motion is introduced in this House. I hope it will lead to a rapid solution to this problem.

I was already familiar with this issue, but the hon. member for Nepean brought us facts and findings which have made me even more aware of the perverse impact of the taxation of alimony payments for the custodial parent.

I believe that the materials she quoted and the facts she presented, which clearly demonstrated that indeed children in the present situation have less than they had previously, will convince our colleagues in the Reform Party to revise their position and adopt a frame of mind more in tune with the 1990s and shortly the year 2000.

I will conclude by congratulating again the hon. member for Nepean and hoping that this House will strongly endorse the motion and that the government will act upon it without delay.

[Act To Provide For The Limitation Of Interest Rates And Fees In Relation To Credit Card Accounts, March 21st, 1994]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-228, an Act to provide for the limitation of interest rates and fees in relation to credit card accounts.

Mr. Speaker, the second bill seeks to provide for the limitation of interest rates and fees in relation to credit card accounts, by means of a floating ceiling that would follow fluctuations in the bank rate.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed.)

[Interest Act, March 21st, 1994]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-227, an Act to amend the Interest Act (calculation of credit card interest).

Mr. Speaker, as you know, our contemporary society makes heavy use of credit cards and I am the first to admit that these financial instruments are very useful.

Nevertheless, I believe that consumers are poorly informed about the cost of the services provided by the issuing companies. I would even add that many consumers are charged what I would call an excessive rate of interest.

This bill proposes an amendment to the Interest Act, so that the consumer can better judge the costs of various credit cards by standardizing the calculation of interest.

I am tabling today not one but two bills concerning this matter. You no doubt have both of them before you.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed.)

[Ginn Publishing, March 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker I thank the minister for his answer. My additional question is directed to the Prime Minister.

Since the Toronto Star is quoting sources from the Prime Minister's office to the effect that the Ginn Publishing mess is the result of secret dealings of lobbyists acting on behalf of private interests, does the Prime Minister recognize the urgent need to ensure through legislative action full openness with regard to the activities of such lobbyists?

[Ginn Publishing, March 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Canadian Heritage.

In this same article on Ginn Publishing in the Toronto Star we read: ``This was a deal cooked behind the scenes by lobbyists and officials''. We are told that it was lobbyists who threw the deal together on behalf of Paramount at a meeting with government representatives.

Can the minister confirm that this infamous deal, partly written, partly verbal, which the government refuses to make public was made by a lobbyist acting on behalf of Paramount?

[The Budget, March 9th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the speech made by the hon. member from the Liberal Party. She praised the entrepreneurship of some of her constituents, and I think that, indeed, we must all pay tribute to the entrepreneurs in our respective ridings, right across the country.

The hon. member also referred to the elderly. I have a great concern about seniors, and this budget only makes it worse. I want to tell the hon. member about it, so that she can give me her own opinion.

Seniors receive a federal pension. However, those whose income is higher than $29,000 will now have to pay back a portion of that pension. As you know, quite often these people bought a property many years ago. It was a small property at the time, and it was affordable. Sometimes, the value of that property increased rather considerably over the years, and so much the better. However, property taxes represent an additional fiscal burden for these elderly people, who are now going to be deprived of part of their pension.

I think the government is looking in the wrong place to find money which it could get elsewhere, including from those businesses which benefit from a number of tax shelters, particularly abroad, which I find totally unacceptable. I would appreciate it if the hon. member could comment.

[The Budget, March 9th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am still not clear about a few things regarding this budget. As we know, the government is not always the most efficient provider when it comes to delivering certain types of services. Take veterans' homes for example. Could someone tell us how much it costs to operate these homes as opposed to having comparable services provided by hospitals in another sector? Could a comparison be made? I think that the difference in costs would be in the tens of thousands of dollars. I would welcome comments on that.

[Supply, March 8th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, that is an interesting question indeed. The bulk of my speech was not on that subject as the member will realize. I mentioned that people should start

addressing this issue at their own door steps, every day in whatever they are doing, the way they talk, the way they address women.

On the specific issue, if men would accept lower salaries by a global amount equal to the one that is needed to raise women's salaries until we reach it mid way, would the member accept that? I would.

[Supply, March 8th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to address the House today on such an important issue. It is important as this issue, the status of women, affects 50 per cent of our population.

In the last few weeks, I had the opportunity to address this House many times on various issues I was not very familiar with, on which I had to do extensive research in order to talk about them in an appropriate fashion. Today, I am dealing with a subject I have been familiar with since I was born because, just

like the other gentlemen in this House, I live with the other 50 per cent of society, the fair sex.

I have known various eras. I experienced Quebec's dark ages before 1960, when we had an extremely limited vision of the role of women in society. I went through the period from 1960 to 1970, when these values were first challenged, of course by women but also by men.

In the seventies, I had the pleasure and the privilege of teaching with colleagues from both sexes. That gave me the opportunity, and it was indeed an opportunity, to be put in my place on several occasions and to eventually learn that our society is equally made up, from an intellectual, moral and physical point of view, of men and women.

At this point, I would like to share some of my experiences, as well the conclusions I have drawn from them. In the next few minutes, I will address male Canadians and Quebecers, but female Canadians and Quebecers are certainly welcome to listen.

I believe that the real challenge lies not so much in major pieces of legislation or great principles but, rather, in every day life. The real challenge has to do with our individual behaviour every minute and every hour of the day. It is somewhat like the environment, in the sense that you have to start respecting it at home. The same is true in the case of women: it is in our daily activities that we must begin to respect them as he should.

How many times have I seen people, including myself, use the masculine form to refer to doctors, lawyers or musicians. How many times have I heard teachers, including myself, use the masculine form to discuss a whole range of issues. Thank goodness, I was lucky enough to have female colleagues to bring me back to that marvellous reality that the world is indeed made up of both the masculine and the feminine genders.

I learned, and it was not easy, to use both the masculine and the feminine, and to say in French "il" and "elle", "celui" and "celle", and in English "he" and "she", and "his" or "hers". But that did not come naturally. I had to work at it. One must especially be careful not to fall in a trap and decide that, in order to make a text simpler, only the masculine form will be used, being understood that it also includes the feminine gender.

This is real streamlining since it is tantamount to eliminating 50 per cent of the population. I am sorry, but it is a rather poor argument.

I am relating my personal experience. I have made it my duty, when I write, to go the long way and say in French, "le musicien et la musicienne", and not "le musicien-ne". It is quite long to write "le musicien et la musicienne". It requires a greater effort, but I think it shows a greater respect of our reality. After all, if we do not start at that level, where will we start?

If collective agreements had been written using both the masculine and the feminine genders, we would not have to now talk about pay equity and equal pay: it would be implicit. But it is not, and this brings me to the issue of labour market experience.

Men, in groups or individually, commonly use stereotypes to put down what a member of the opposite sex is saying, to lend weight to the so-called male stand. It is not easy, Madam Speaker, to refrain from doing this. Why not? Because that is the way we were brought up. Because the way we, modern men, have been raised reflects values that I was about to describe as from another century but, goodness me, it was only a few decades ago that we started off down the road of change in terms of respect for women. We were raised in a way which was appropriate for our fathers and ancestors, but is now inappropriate. So, we have to change our ways. We must do so, if we are to achieve our goal, that is to say equity with regard to persons of the female gender.

I would like to point something out to this House, and the public watching us at home, especially mayors and municipal aldermen and women, may understand what this is about. We are presently receiving applications under section 25 and DEP, asking for certain types of jobs to be subsidized. Interestingly, when you go over some of these applications, you realize that there is gender-based inequity in wages.

One of the actions I intend to suggest to my employment center is to start refusing applications that do not reflect wage equality or returning them, asking that appropriate changes be made. I think that it is through everyday actions like this-and I will close on this-that little by little, in time, we will fill the gender gap.

[Borrowing Authority Act, 1994-95, March 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member's speech with attention and interest. At the beginning of his speech, he made the following statement:

"The government has been putting its money where its mouth is". With all due respect the government does not have any money. It is in the red. It has only debt.

Am I to understand that the government has been putting the people's money in its mouth? That is a great concern to me.

Furthermore I listened carefully to the hon. member when he said that Mr. Bourbeau gave us a passing grade. I was a teacher and a passing grade is nothing they should be proud of. They should be doing a lot better. That was what I expected from the Liberal government.

For years, I have heard budget forecasts claiming that the deficit would be reduced year by year. I remember a Conservative government about ten years ago saying similar things to what we have been hearing for several days. I remember a Conservative government then telling us year after year that the deficit would be reduced within five years. We will be able to judge a year from now if this budget was on target. In a year, we will know if the deficit was indeed kept below $40 billion. I am far from convinced by the rhetoric of our colleagues opposite that we will get there, that they will succeed.

In conclusion, they talked about job creation. The real test will be how many new jobs will be created in a year. I am concerned and I remain concerned and I am waiting to hear what the hon. member has to say.