Paul Crête

[Budget Implementation Act, 2008, April 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question. As I was saying earlier, one of the problems with this budget is the fact that, because of internal leadership problems, the official opposition cannot get with the program and take a clear stance.

However, my colleague is right, and this is not just about internal leadership. With respect to the employment insurance fund, it is clear that the $54 billion surplus was misappropriated and stolen from the workers and employers who paid the premiums. The government decided to use the surplus to cover other expenses and to pay down the deficit. These people got no return on the money they had invested.

During the battle against the deficit, other people paid taxes and benefited from tax cuts later on. For example, the Conservatives have announced significant tax cuts for big corporations. But people who had paid into the employment insurance program never got any return on their investment. Instead the government tightened the screws, cut benefit weeks and increased the number of hours needed to qualify.

The government could have done something about it in this budget, because there is going to be an agency that will be something like an independent fund—we hope. However, whatever it turns out to be, it will be short the $55 billion that was hijacked, which should be in the fund, available to be reinvested, because the existing program does not provide the benefits people need. I agree with my colleague on that point.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2008, April 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am speaking to Bill C-50. I have already spoken to the bill in general and now I am speaking to the amendment for which the debate will end this afternoon. This budget bill generally did not satisfy the Bloc Québécois or Quebeckers because it does not include any type of support for the crisis in the manufacturing and forestry sectors.

Over the past few days, we have seen that this crisis has nothing to do with the managers. In Quebec, Beauce, which is known as a region that is a major business supplier, is going through a very difficult time. Thousands of jobs have been lost, but we all know that Beauce is not to blame for this downturn. Beauce had a very strong manufacturing sector. I remember that the Standing Committee on Industry, Natural Resources, Science and Technology made 22 unanimous recommendations to the government over two years ago to help the manufacturing and forestry sectors. However, the government has decided not to carry out those recommendations.

Today, this region of Quebec, which is a jewel of Quebec entrepreneurship, is losing jobs by the thousands. Young workers and young couples whose future was secure, are seeing it all collapse. It is not just a result of nature, it is the result of significant changes in the market, including the higher dollar, for example. We could see this coming for quite some time and we would have expected the federal government to come forward with an action plan and a strategy for industry. It is not as though the government had not been informed. The Standing Committee on Industry, Natural Resources, Science and Technology made 22 unanimous recommendations, but the government only carried out one, or one and a half, of those 22 recommendations. The Standing Committee on Finance then sounded the same alarm and informed the government, which then had a motion adopted in this House on that matter. There is still no action plan in the budget. That is one of the reasons the Bloc Québécois cannot vote in favour of this budget.

At a time when the regions need additional support, the budget cuts $107 million from the budget of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec. This is terrible. After the election, the minister responsible said that there would be the equivalent of a Marshall plan, which he now refers to as the Blackburn plan. Today, as a result, thousands of jobs are disappearing across Quebec and also across Canada, because Ontario is also being affected by the manufacturing crisis. In addition to taking a laissez-faire approach and having no industrial strategy, the government is slashing the programs and funding that have been in place for several years in these regions that could have used more assistance. I believe that this is reason enough to vote against this budget.

My colleague also spoke earlier about the whole issue of the program for older worker adjustment. This is an important social measure that provides people who have worked for a company for 25, 30 or 35 years with bridging income support until they receive their pensions, if they lose their jobs at age 57, 58 or 60. It is also a measure that should be part of an industrial strategy. This is what happens in a sector like forestry. Jobs are cut, the younger workers leave and the older workers sometimes manage to keep their jobs. Eventually, though, as the crisis continues, they also lose their jobs, but they have no income to tide them over until they receive their pensions. At the same time, the younger workers have gone elsewhere and will no longer be available when the forestry industry recovers.

In my opinion, the federal government should come out of its shell. The government thinks that the market will take care of everything and that the government has no responsibility to act. In my opinion, Quebeckers and Canadians expect the government to create conditions to develop prosperity and enable everyone to create wealth and distribute it appropriately. There are dark clouds on the horizon. A major economic slowdown is on the way. This is just about the worst type of government we could have to deal with this sort of situation.

Unfortunately, this is perilously reminiscent of what happened just before the Great Depression in the late 1920s and early 1930s in the United States. The Republicans in power said the government should intervene as little as possible. Fortunately, the government changed at that time, and Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Democrats implemented good policies to stimulate the economy.

We would have expected a similar attitude on the part of the government, but that is not what we are seeing. A program to help older workers would not have cost billions of dollars. Implementing such a program would have cost less than $100 million and would have allowed hundreds and thousands of people who worked their entire lives, who supported their families, to have a sufficient, minimal income to get by until they receive their pension.

Unfortunately, as soon as I was first elected in my current riding in 2004, I saw firsthand the consequences of a major closure, when the Whirlpool plant in Montmagny closed. We are still feeling the consequences today. This does not mean that it is not a dynamic, productive region or that it is not creating any jobs. What it means, however, is that when 500 workers are laid off, 150 or 200 of whom are older workers, a large number of them will definitely not be able to find other employment, for various reasons, no matter how hard they try. This government should have done something for those people, although we are seeing no such efforts on the government's part.

For Quebec, this budget contains a very clear, distinct and unacceptable provocation: the desire, the obstinate insistence and the obsession of the current Minister of Financeto put in place a single securities commission in Canada. It seems that he is reliving his past as the Ontario Minister of Finance or perhaps he is aspiring to become the Premier of Ontario. We have demonstrated that Quebec has an efficient securities commission that has worked well and offered useful services. The Conservative minister's obsession is unacceptable.

This budget does not have what Quebec wants, what Quebeckers told us they wanted in our pre-budget consultations. Beyond the words, beyond the fact that the government adopted a motion on the Quebec nation, now that the time has come to provide some substance and to indicate what that means for Quebeckers, the Conservative government has given us nothing. There is nothing in this federal budget to that effect.

We would have liked to get some answers to these concerns from the federal government. For example, there is not the level of investment in the cultural sector that our society deserves. Yet this is a nation's form of expression. The Quebec nation needs federal support to continue to make itself known throughout North America, and to obtain and expand on the success it has achieved. We need tangible measures to develop this nation. They are not found in this budget.

There is also a cultural difference, at least between the Conservatives and Quebec, when it comes to the distribution of wealth. In the past, Quebec has implemented programs such as the parental leave program and the child care program. Because of the values Quebec society deems important, these programs were implemented and money was set aside to do so. The Conservatives, however, do not take the same approach. One of the areas most affected is social housing. But they could have killed two birds with one stone. Money invested in social housing creates a need for construction, which in turn creates jobs. At the same time, it would help people get out of poverty. Often, when people are experiencing problems with poverty, it is because they are forced to spend 50%, 60% or even 70% of their income on housing. They are not left with enough money for other things.

So we can see—and I will end on this note—that there are some people who are particularly outraged at the action of the Conservatives, in particular about the budget. These people are women. Quebec women and Canadian women were stripped of an important tool to win legal cases. The Conservatives have chosen an approach more appropriate to a private company than to a government.

For all these reasons, I think that this budget is bad for Quebec and bad for Canada. We want the Conservative government to heed at least some of these messages. We shall see. Now, the Conservatives are taking advantage of the fact that the Liberals have problems within their party, but in practice, this is a bad budget. It is a bad situation, and it does not at all correspond to what Quebeckers and Canadians were expecting from a minority government. The government seems to be acting as if it were a majority government. It is making choices that would not have been made by Quebec.

[Manufacturing Sector, April 9th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, day after day, the Minister of Finance can see the results of his failure to act. Manufacturing jobs are disappearing by the thousands in all regions of Quebec. In a display of acute inefficiency, the minister has set up a $1 billion trust and is spending $20,176 per job lost in Alberta and only $2,276 per job lost in Quebec even though Alberta has lost just 2% of jobs to Quebec's 34% over the past three years.

When will the minister put an end to this unfairness by investing money where jobs have actually been lost?

[Business of Supply, April 8th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I will soon have been in this House for 15 years and, in my opinion, one of the issues that has been the most poorly handled by successive governments is that of Afghanistan.

Let us recall the debates in this House when the current Minister of National Revenue, who was then the Conservative Party defence critic, asked about 15 questions about the relevance of the mission, the objectives to be met and the consideration of an exit strategy. Yet, when the Conservative Party formed the government, this debate disappeared. They held a vote—a very rushed event—on extending the mission, which we initially opposed. It was agreed to respect Canada's commitment abroad.

Obviously we cannot rewrite history, but can my colleague tell me if this was not the right attitude to have from the beginning, before we first embarked on the war in Afghanistan and this international mission? The committee that will be put in place will perhaps be able to adopt this attitude after the fact, unfortunately. Taking a closer look at the outset would have been better.

So far, the western world has not necessarily shown the Afghans that our way of doing things is worth adopting for the future of development in this country. We have put too much emphasis on the military aspect instead of the two other aspects: diplomacy and development.

Is there not still a major change that must take place, given that Canada's mission should, in my opinion, end in February 2009?

In light of the decision made in this House, what actions should be taken to fix our mistaken intervention?

To start with, should we not respond to the questions asked earlier by the Conservative defence critic? Now that they are in power, they have not responded in any way that will allow us to get back on the right track.

[Quebec Community Credit Network, April 7th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the Réseau québécois du crédit communautaire is a network of 24 organizations from across Quebec. A good number of its clients are women and people under the age of 35. More than 50% of the clients of the organizations in this network have no jobs and even no income.

Community credit is an innovative way to meet the needs of the unemployed, of people receiving social assistance, and of low-income workers who want to take their place in society. Community credit does not simply fill the gap left by financial institutions. It is primarily a development resource that enables marginalized people to access funding for individual and group business projects, or for self-employment.

The Bloc Québécois would like to acknowledge community credit, which is part of solidarity financing in Quebec and is an indispensable complement to traditional types of financing.

[Income Tax Act, April 7th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak today about this bill that would increase the impact of an existing Government of Quebec measure giving recent graduates a tax credit when they move to a remote region, to a region that truly needs this type of additional resource.

I would like to congratulate the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord for his initiative on this. It truly reflects who he is—a regional member who works for the people in his region, people he hopes will be able to keep their region alive. This is the exact opposite of another member and minister from this same region who said that if someone is looking for work and cannot find it in his area, he need only go to Alberta.

Luckily, this bill offers a different version, a version that is more in line with what Quebec wants. It is not a measure invented by the Bloc; it has already been used in Quebec for a number of years and has produced good results.

In the region I represent, the Lower St. Lawrence, this is one of the measures, although not the only one, that have started to reverse the trend of a constantly dwindling population. The population decline that had been seen for several years has been reversed. For the past year, we have begun to feel the effects and have even seen an increase in the population, particularly with the influx of young people. Thanks to such a measure, young people are settling in the region, often with their spouses, and some are even deciding to raise a family. Thus, we are reversing the trend of devitalization and moving instead towards a revitalization of the regions. In that regard, the initiative put forward by the hon. member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord should be commended.

I find it absurd that the Conservatives are opposing this bill so unconditionally, although that is pretty much their style. I would like to thank the NDP for their support this morning. As for my Liberal colleague's speech, I am rather surprised, but somewhat encouraged. In fact, it would seem that members from the regions have managed to convince the entire party to change its position, even though the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance told us there were some problems in the legislation and some issues to resolve.

As I recall, these amendments could have been proposed at the Standing Committee on Finance and the text could have been corrected in order to improve it. That was not done, and in fact, someone decided to gut the bill. Perhaps this parliamentary procedure is not very clear for our viewers at home, but in committee we can decide to gut a bill without killing it by voting against all the clauses of the bill. That is what the Conservatives did, with the support of the Liberals. We will now have to see what this means when it comes time to vote.

This measure allows us to send a message to young people who often leave their region to study when there are no universities or colleges in their area that offer the programs they want to take. The same is true for occupational training. This bill sends them the message that if they return to their region, they will be eligible for an income tax credit. This message has produced positive results in Quebec and we would like to see it continue.

This measure would give people an opportunity to choose a society, to choose where they want to live, instead of letting the market regulate everything and decide where they will go. We must not say that if jobs move because of the energy industry in western Canada, then people simply have to move out there. This is not the reality in Quebec. We are the only francophone nation in North America, and we need to ensure our survival and continuity. Simply relying on the rules of the economic market is not a solution for us.

This is why we have made proposals like the one in this bill. After the debate that started today, we will have to vote to decide whether we will restore the bill to its original form. That would be the best thing that could happen, since this is a good bill.

Since the majority of members in committee voted to gut the bill, I would hope that we can study it and see if it is possible to make some amendments.

We are told, for example, that the list of regions is based on a 1982 statute. But this act says that regions are defined by and after consultation with the provinces. So if such a bill were passed, each province would simply have to update its list of regions, and the tax credit would be more advantageous. This can be done without having to make amendments.

However, it may be useful to amend some other parts.

In line with what my Liberal colleague was saying earlier, if I understood him correctly he said that if the tax credit were to apply over three years, he might be interested in voting in favour of the bill. The Bloc Québécois has a constructive attitude toward this and hopes that hon. members will be open to possible amendments that could respect the spirit of the legislation and help achieve results. We are not closed-minded about this and we are open to possible corrections.

In that vein, I am putting forward an amendment that I will now read. It is quite long and rather technical so I will get started.

I move, seconded by the hon. member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain:

That the motion proposing to restore clause 1 of Bill C-207 be amended by deleting all the words in paragraphs 118.71(1) and (2) and substituting the following:

118.71 (1) The definitions in this subsection apply in this section.

“base period” means the first 52 weeks of the aggregate of all periods each of which is a period during which the individual

(a) holds qualifying employment; and

(b) ordinarily performs the duties of the qualifying employment at an establishment of the individual’s employer situated in a designated region or is ordinarily attached to such an establishment.

“designated educational institution” has the meaning assigned by subsection 118.6(1).

“designated region” has the meaning assigned by section 3 of the Regional Development Incentives Act.

“qualifying employment” means an office or employment that the individual begins to hold in the 24-month period that follows the date on which the individual successfully completes the courses and, where applicable, the internships leading to the awarding of a recognized diploma, or the date on which the individual is awarded a recognized diploma that is a master’s or doctoral degree under an educational program requiring the writing of an essay, dissertation or thesis, if

(a) the individual begins to perform the duties of the office or employment after January 1, 2008;

(b) at the time that the individual takes up the office or employment, the establishment of the individual’s employer at which the individual ordinarily performs the duties of that office or employment, or to which the individual is ordinarily attached, is situated in a designated region; and

(c) the knowledge and skills obtained during the individual’s training or educational program are related to the duties performed by the individual in connection with the office or employment.

“recognized diploma” means a degree, diploma or attestation awarded by a designated educational institution.

(2) For the purpose of computing the tax payable under this Part by an individual for a taxation year, there may be deducted an amount equal to the lesser of

(a) the amount that is 40% of the aggregate of all amounts each of which is the salary or wages of the individual for the year from qualifying employment;

(b) $3,000; and

I will now finish reading the amendment:

(c) the amount by which $8,000 exceeds the aggregate of all amounts each of which is an amount that the individual deducted under this section for the purpose of computing the tax payable, or that the individual is deemed to have paid to the Receiver General under this section for a preceding taxation year.”.

I apologize for being so tedious, but I am required to read the text. I therefore move this amendment, which should support the argument presented by my Liberal colleague and allow us to get the Liberals' support.

[Fiscal Imbalance, April 3rd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I will try again.

To limit the federal spending power in Quebec's jurisdictions, the government need only table a bill which provides Quebec with the right to opt out—with no strings attached and with full financial compensation—from any new or existing federal program, whether cost-shared or not, which interferes in its areas of jurisdiction.

Does the government intend to meet Quebec's expectations and finally table a bill as promised by the Prime Minister?

[Fiscal Imbalance, April 3rd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives refuse to take action with regard to the concrete recognition of the Quebec nation. Furthermore, they are incapable of keeping their own promise with regard to the fiscal imbalance. The government has announced on several occasions that it will table a bill to limit its spending power in provincial jurisdictions. It has yet to materialize.

When does the minister intend to table his bill and thus keep the promise made by the Prime Minister to Quebec in December 2005?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2008, April 3rd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, my question will be very brief.

Why did my colleague not answer the question from the member for Trinity—Spadina? Are the Conservatives not in the process of copying the Americans, particularly the American right, by including a clause in a budget bill that significantly changes social choices?

Why did they not table a bill in this House that would truly define a different way of managing immigration, where everyone is informed and there is a full debate in this House, instead of trying to slip a change in through the back door that has nothing to do with the budget, but has to do with social choices and societal choices?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2008, April 3rd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, many colleagues will perhaps be unhappy, but these arguments from members show exactly what should be done.

I am nevertheless very disappointed. In order to get the government to take action, the official opposition would have had to follow us or show leadership on some issues and vote against the government on the budget, so that the people of Quebec and Canada can decide whether they want this type of action or another type of government action.

The message currently being sent to Canadians is that we have a government that does not do what we want, and an official opposition that puts up with it and keeps the government alive. It is clear in Quebec that this has led to policies that do not correspond to what Quebec wants. I think that the Canadian system will never let Quebec truly have enough control over its own development. Quebec will have to be sovereign in order to have the necessary opportunities to develop. As long as we are part of Canada, it is very important—