Paul Crête

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her question. I would point out that the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology adopted a unanimous report on the manufacturing sector about a year and a half ago. My colleague from Windsor and I were members of the committee at the time.

During our tour, it was in Windsor, Ontario, that the most terrifying fact came to light: what was happening in Windsor was a sign of things to come over the next year and a half to two years for the rest of Quebec and Ontario. We have not yet overcome this crisis; we are still in the thick of it. This situation is a difficult one, and even the Conservative members of the committee at the time agreed, because the report was unanimous.

Afterward, the Standing Committee on Finance supported the fiscal measures in the report, and that created expectations among workers. My colleague is right. Jobs are one thing, but we need to understand what this situation means for workers: jobs lost, families falling apart, and lack of respect for older workers who have spent years of their lives supporting their families and their communities. Now, these workers are being treated like broken parts. That kind of attitude is totally unacceptable. We were hoping the government would take that message to heart and adjust its attitude accordingly.

That is why the Bloc Québécois is not afraid of voting against this bill and against the budget. The measures they are proposing are not satisfactory and will hinder the development of our communities and the well-being of the workers and families in those communities.

We had the means to do more, to do better—we still do. That is the message we want to send to the government by voting against this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am well aware that the economy is doing well out west. I would have wanted the government, though, to create conditions that would help our manufacturers develop products that enable them to win a lot more contracts in western Canada.

All that the government has decided so far is to give major tax breaks to companies that are making a lot of profit, while the people struggling to develop products in our small and medium-sized companies do not have refundable tax credits. The Conservatives will not go there.

The government could also have done more in western Canada by adopting a sustainable development policy. Surely they got the message from the American government. The oil companies are going to have to adapt now because of the American energy act. Oil from the tar sands no longer meets the American standards. The companies did not make adjustments for environmental reasons, but maybe the government will do so for economic reasons.

The approach taken, not just by the Conservatives but by the Liberals too, is ultimately unsustainable. We are on the verge of an international environmental catastrophe. If we fail to take significant action and implement Kyoto plus, our children and people who are now 10, 15 or 20 years old will suffer a catastrophe. Even the oil companies realize this. They are investing in other sectors now, such as renewable energies, and doing it as much as possible.

No one in Canada believes more in free trade than Quebeckers. Without them, there never would have been a free trade agreement with the Americans. The Quebec sovereignists, including Jacques Parizeau, wanted free trade, as did Mr. Bourassa who was the federalist premier at the time. We all wanted free trade. We are ready to compete with the world. We have no problem with that. However, governments have to make appropriate choices.

The day after the federal budget was tabled, the Quebec finance minister said it was bad for Quebec. That was not a separatist speaking but a Liberal minister of the Quebec government. She said it did not do enough for the manufacturing and forestry sectors.

What was most insulting was when they wanted to create a billion-dollar trust fund to diversify the regional economy and the Prime Minister made it dependent on the passage of the budget. The House forced him to back down. That is why we keep fighting in the hope that the Conservative government will open its eyes some day, shake off its ideological blinkers, and take a pragmatic path that will really help create prosperity.

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

Mr. Speaker, today we are debating Bill C-50, the budget implementation act. Naturally, the Bloc Québécois will vote against this bill because it voted against the budget. Since then, the government has given us no reason to believe that it is even aware of the significant economic downturn or that it should be using the tools that would enable our economy to cope with these new realities.

Last fall, the Bloc Québécois held consultations throughout Quebec. A number of important facts emerged, and at the time, we told the Conservative government that it should change its stance on economic intervention. The Conservative government makes its decisions based on the premise that the market will sort everything out and decide how things should work. If plants close and economic disaster hits communities, the communities and the companies will just have to cope and regroup. According to that philosophy, we, the state, do not have a role to play.

This approach was inherited from the American right, which has been trying to impose its point of view for the past 25, 30 or 40 years. The American right has been pretty successful in the United States, and is trying to achieve success in Canada through a minority government, but Quebeckers and Canadians will not fall for it. Right now, if there is one thing they do not want, it is a majority Conservative government, because we have seen just what it can do as a minority government. Imagine what it might do if it had a majority. That much is clear.

The analogy I used earlier with respect to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance is apt. The Conservative government is behaving just like the captain of the Titanic. Worse yet, the Minister of Finance wants to go sailing in waters where he was not elected. Let me go back to the Titanic analogy. The Titanic was supposed to be an extraordinary ship, just like Canada's economy. It was supposed to be able to sail through any storm. Unfortunately, its builders were a bit too arrogant, a bit too proud, and we know what happens to people like that.

I am afraid that if the Government of Canada does not make some adjustments, Canada will suffer the same fate as the Titanic. This morning, the U.S. federal reserve confirmed that the United States is in a recession. The International Monetary Fund has forecast growth of approximately 0.5% in the United States over the next three years. This is very bad news for the Canadian economy and especially for the economies of Quebec and Ontario. When the Americans have less purchasing power, as they do currently, consumer spending goes down. Companies in my riding are having difficulty selling their products in the United States, and this is true throughout Quebec and across Canada.

The Conservative government has taken the stand that it cannot intervene. That is the rule of market forces, which is a little like the divine rule. But we know that there have been other serious economic crises in the past. We know—and people are starting to say—that during the great depression in the 1930s, when the Republicans in the U.S. were saying that the government should not intervene, it took the Democrats under Mr. Roosevelt to do something and make a difference.

What we are saying is that when the economy slows down, the government must invest to boost the economy. The Conservative government does not want to take that route. It is stubbornly insisting on keeping its rose-coloured glasses on, even though since last fall, and even since last year, there have been very clear signs—such as the increase in the value of the dollar and the bank paper crisis in the United States and its impact on consumers—that the government needs to be much more aggressive.

Here is the worst example of the Conservatives' inaction: they used the $10 billion surplus as of March 31 to pay down the debt, even though Canada has the best debt to GDP ratio. Canada is already in good shape on this front. The government did not use this money to help the manufacturing, forestry and tourism industries acquire the tools they need to offer competitive products.

I am not talking about subsidies. Businesspeople in my riding are in serious trouble, but they are not asking for subsidies. Workers are not asking for subsidies for the companies where they work. They are asking the government to put in place a fiscal framework so that these companies can be productive and competitive.

For example, let us talk about the money from the latest cut to the GST. Instead of lowering the tax, the government could have kept that margin to award refundable tax credits to businesses that are not generating much profit, as is unfortunately the case for businesses in the manufacturing and forestry industries in various regions throughout Quebec. The same thing is going on in Ontario and the rest of Canada.

The government should have implemented a suitable support and assistance program for businesses. It should have reinvested in the Technology Partnerships Canada program, which made it possible to develop new products with the help of new technologies. This is the type of attitude the government needed to move forward. But we have not seen it in the budget or in this bill. The government still seems to be headed in the same direction.

The government thinks it is improving the overall economy by systematically cutting taxes for large corporations, which means that oil companies pay lower taxes. But now there is a domino effect: the bank credit crisis has spilled over into the consumer sector, and the last sector affected will be natural resources.

The parts of Canada that think they are immune to this slowdown are mistaken, because American consumption will decrease in all sectors, and there will be consequences. This is not a preordained situation where we cannot do anything. The government can get involved, but it is not. That is why we would have expected the government to take constructive measures and implement an action plan for our communities, for our citizens and for the workers in our regions.

But the opposite is happening. For example, in terms of regional development, this bill would decrease the budget of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec—talk about unbelievable—by $107 million for the current fiscal year, a year when we will more likely need even more money to help businesses.

The minister now feels obliged to justify his actions. He says the government no longer really has the means to fund businesses that were receiving financial support to back the overall economy of a region and that their funding should be withdrawn in order to be able to allocate enough assistance to businesses. What we needed, however, was both. We have the means to help businesses and to develop new products. Any business that has the tools to do research and development will use that to create new products, thereby becoming more competitive and selling products elsewhere. It is not about accepting subsidies to offset lost productivity. It is about ensuring the competitiveness of those businesses.

Furthermore, we would have expected this government to eagerly seize such an opportunity for sustainable development. In the current economic climate, the most important tool would be to make the most of the opportunities provided by the creation of new products for sustainable development.

Consider the carbon exchange, for example. In my riding, a company had developed a product and was waiting for the carbon exchange to be implemented, since revenues from the sale of credits on the carbon exchange would have been assured its profitability. However, because of the government's delay and its decision to not establish absolute targets, the carbon exchange is not yet up and running and this is delaying the development of these products, which would be beneficial not only for the environment, but also for economic development, new product development and, therefore, sustainable development.

One could say that the government has neglected its responsibility to create prosperity, as though creating prosperity were the responsibility of the private sector alone. Its method for distributing prosperity is even borrowed from that of the private sector. Indeed, they are trying their best to avoid distributing wealth. Thus, the government is still following the American right-wing model. A perfect example of this is the creation of an employment insurance board.

The Bloc Québécois and I, as the human resources critic, have been waging a battle over this issue for several years. I have seen the contribution made by seasonal workers go towards deficit reduction without them ever obtaining a return on their investment.

This year, the Conservatives decided to follow through on the idea of establishing an independent employment insurance board and that is a good thing. However, it is unacceptable that, having paid $54 billion towards the deficit, the workers and employers will not get any return on their investment.

The screws have been tightened. Workers need more hours of employment to qualify for employment insurance and, in the end, they receive fewer weeks of benefits. This system was place for 10 years. Once the government's economic and financial situation stabilized, all the efforts made were forgotten. It was as though it had never existed.

However, major corporations have had their taxes cut. That is also the case for the middle class, but it is fair that there should be a return on investment on that side.

What is unfair is that those who pay into the employment insurance program and need this program do not have access to it. In our regions, not all workers have employment year round; some are seasonal workers.

Over the years, a special system has been set up for seasonal workers through pilot projects, but without amending the legislation. There has been some improvement. We would have liked the government to show some common sense and give this new independent fund a portion of the surplus it used to finance the deficit reduction and current government operations. However, that is not the case.

With regard to the manufacturing and forestry sectors, the message was sent to the House this week. A motion by a Bloc member, the whip, in fact, was adopted by this House. According to this motion, the government should have a forestry strategy. It does not have one and the consequences have been devastating.

In my riding, there are some companies that are very solid financially and very solid insofar as the quality of their forestry management is concerned. Nowadays, though, the heads of these companies are coming to see us and saying that they have reached the end of their rope and will have to shut down for three months. In one of the companies, an approach has been developed for which employees should be congratulated: wages are tied to the price of wood. This helps save jobs. Employees have been paid less for a while, but they hope to weather the crisis in fairly good shape.

These employees and employers would have liked to see a program to help older workers. When someone has put everything he has into finding a job or loses his job in a sawmill at 56 years of age, he cannot become a computer technician overnight, even though he has been one of the best at grading lumber for 30 years.

We try to find him another job, but it is not easy. From the standpoint of employers, hiring an older worker means that their health benefit and occupational safety costs might increase. In their eyes, an older worker is riskier and they are reluctant to hire him. So when the older worker’s employment insurance runs out, he is left with nothing. He worked full time for a company for 25 or 30 years and never drew employment insurance, but once his 45 weeks are up, the next stop is social assistance.

This is a social measure but it could also be seen as an economic plan in connection with a very necessary industrial strategy. It is always good to have a program that gives people some income support until they qualify for their old age pensions. At the same time, this plan would make it possible to keep younger workers in the forestry sector. Forestry will not be in decline for the rest of time. There will be an economic recovery and an upswing in construction. We are going to need workers, but the youngest will have been lost because they are most affected by layoffs. They will find work elsewhere, and when the recovery comes, they will no longer be available.

We would have expected the government to drop the kind of approach it took in the budget and adjust instead to what people were telling it. It is the first time in my 15 years as a member that I have seen such a thing. During the week following the tabling of the budget, the Standing Committee on Finance agreed, with the support of some Conservative members, to reconsider the entire section on manufacturing and forestry. It adopted a motion telling the Minister of Finance to get back to work because the government had not done enough for this sector. But the government is still refusing to bend.

The Minister of Finance is hiding behind general tax reductions for the people who make lots of money; but he has used just one part of the strategy that is available to him. It is as though he had a pair of crutches and only used one. He had the means to implement a much broader initiative. It is good to reduce taxes by a few points, but we must also have targeted approaches to support research and development, to provide assistance through tax credits that lead to the development of new products, and to provide help to older workers. There is none of that in this budget and there is nothing in the program now before us. It is no longer a matter of productivity, but a matter of fairness.

In Quebec and in Canada, for about 15 years, the guaranteed income supplement has been paid to a few of the older people who were entitled to receive it. A person had to apply in order to receive it. There was no automatic enrolment, and each year it was necessary to apply again. This scandal came to light about seven or eight years ago. At the time, a Bloc member, Marcel Gagnon, worked very hard to find those people, to enable them to apply for the guaranteed income supplement. We found thousands of them. We also recognized that there was a terrible unfairness in the law.

Let us look at the example of a 78-year-old woman whose husband has died. Her children review her financial situation with her. They suddenly realize that she has not been receiving the guaranteed income supplement. They submit an application and learn that she can only claim up to 11 months in arrears. Even though this woman was entitled to receive it from the age of 65, she cannot claim any more than 11 months.

Compare that with the behaviour of the government when someone owes income tax. In that case, it can go back as far as it wants. It can claim as many years as it wants. However, the older person cannot claim more than 11 months in arrears. No member in this House can contradict that. Older people have been entitled to amounts going back two, three, five or seven years, and the government had the means of paying such claims with no difficulty. In any case, about 95% of that money is quickly returned to the economy. People do not get rich on old age security or the guaranteed income supplement. They only provide a minimum to make ends meet every month.

I am particularly sensitive to this because in my region, in eastern Quebec, 52% of seniors living in the regional county municipality with the highest income are receiving the guaranteed income supplement. That means that for every two seniors you meet, at least one of them is receiving the supplement. In the poorest regional county municipality, we are talking about 79%, three people out of four, and in many of the villages the rate is 100%, four people out of four. For a long time, our seniors worked for employers that did not provide pension plans. Today, in a society that calls itself one of the richest in the world, we are unable to provide these people with a minimum income that would let them live out their days with dignity.

This is blatantly unfair. When we measure the effectiveness of a society like ours, we have to take these things into account. Creating wealth is all very well, but we have to see how we are creating it and how we are distributing it. These two main points are how a government can be measured when it comes to finances.

In the present situation, our government is withdrawing from the entire field of economic development, and saying that the private sector should look after that; it will not create the conditions that must be present in order to continue developing products; it will eliminate programs like Technology Partnerships Canada because there may have been a few excesses when it came to a few companies, minimal as that was; the regions are now going to have to fend for themselves. And for next year, it will be eliminating $107 million in investments in Quebec. This is the kind of thing the Conservatives are doing when it comes to creating wealth in Canada; they have decided they are not responsible for it anymore.

And then, when it comes to distributing the wealth, they always give as little as possible, and they do not recognize the contribution that people make to our society.

There is one thing in the budget that I consider to be terrible. That is the provision for a senior to be able to receive $3,500 in non-taxable income. Do you know what that means? It means we are encouraging people who are 68 or 70 or 72 years old to go knock on the door at Dunkin' Donuts or Wal-Mart or some other employer, to earn a few pennies. Do you not think that our seniors deserve a better fate than that, and that in our society we might have the resources to provide them with what they deserve?

It has been calculated that we would need to add about $100 a month to the guaranteed income supplement to give people an income that comes up to the minimum threshold for them to be able to get along, to meet their basic needs. They could have addressed part of that out of last year’s budget surplus, and included it in the budget for this year. It could have been done. They did not do it.

So we can see that there are many reasons to vote against this budget and the budget implementation bill. The Conservative budget is fundamentally at odds with the needs expressed by Quebeckers during prebudget consultations. We submitted these needs to the minister, and we are waiting for his cooperation.

If there had not been problems with the official opposition, we would be in an election now and the Conservative government would be severely judged for the choices it has made. I hope that the result could be more in line with what citizens want, especially those in Quebec. This government gives the impression that it is open to the province; but in practice, when it comes time to take concrete action, it pulls back and does nothing. We saw it again yesterday with the Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec.

I hope that the government is taking note of this message, because if there is no change within a few months in terms of economic policy, the public will pass an even more severe judgment about the fiscal issue.

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

Mr. Speaker, while listening attentively to my colleague's presentation, I got the impression that I was listening to the captain of the Titanic mere hours before the boat hit the iceberg. He says that all is well. The budget has been presented as if there are clear skies ahead.

However, this morning, the American Federal Reserve confirmed the current recession in the United States. As well, the International Monetary Fund announced growth of 0.5% over the next three years in the United States. Given that we know how much the entire Canadian economy depends on the American market, since we export many products to the United States, it is rather surprising that the federal government is not acting.

Hence my question for my colleague about the budget for the year that finished on March 31. How could they have decided to put $10 billion towards the debt and not in any way have offered tools that could help our businesses become more competitive in the manufacturing and forestry industries? They could have announced refundable tax credits or funding to make our products more attractive to Americans. Now, by lowering the GST, they have only encouraged people to purchase more Chinese products.

I may be playing it up somewhat, but I would like to know if my colleague feels a little like the captain of the Titanic. Will he be changing course?

[April 2nd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it is too bad that these arguments are all falling flat. Things are not working. The government's current policies have resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs in the manufacturing sector in Quebec and Ontario. Over the past few years, the most stable companies have held up, but now they too are disappearing.

In Beauce, Maax will be closing its doors despite the fact that the people of Beauce are known to be first-rate entrepreneurs with good business acumen. They are being forced to close their doors because of a serious problem: low sales in the United States. The way to deal with this problem is to invest in research and development with companies that are not necessarily making a profit.

These companies do not need broad-based tax cuts like the ones that will benefit the oil companies and big businesses. They need tax credits. When will the government understand that and take action? Right now, thousands of people, especially older workers, are suffering because the government is failing to act.

[April 2nd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, on February 4, I stood in this House and asked the Minister of Finance about the need for an emergency plan to help the manufacturing and forestry industries. I reminded him about the proposals we had made on November 28 for a comprehensive plan to help our industry, our economy and our workers face the economic slowdown that was already being felt in the United States, and that we were already feeling in Quebec and Ontario in the manufacturing and forestry industries.

Since then, things have unfortunately gotten worse. A few minutes ago, Mr. Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the American Federal Reserve, the equivalent of the Bank of Canada, said that the United States is in a recession. As well, today the International Monetary Fund announced its forecast of 0.5% growth between now and 2010 in the United States. Given that we know that the American market represents 85% of Quebec's exports, it is obvious that domestic consumption, the power of domestic purchasing within Quebec and in Canada, will be insufficient in surmounting this crisis, unless the government goes ahead with an action plan.

Again this week, this House passed a motion that included a complete action plan proposed by the Bloc Québécois. That sent a message to the government. At the same time, on March 31, $10 billion in surplus went to pay down the debt. The Bloc wanted to see $3 billion go to the debt, while using $7 billion in a trust in order to diversify our regional economies and address the crisis. Moving forward with an action plan to support the economy was a recommendation made by the International Monetary Fund.

The Conservatives' laissez-faire ideology and their belief that the market will take care of the matter do nothing to meet the needs of our economy at this time. I said so earlier this afternoon during the debate on the NDP non-confidence motion, which the Bloc supported because we believe that this government should be defeated based on its economic approach and lack of economic policy. The government's ideological approach is inconsistent with our current reality. It is the same approach taken by the Republicans in the United States on the verge of the great depression in the 1930s. Today, we are being told that the credit crisis facing U.S. banks is at least as bad as the crisis of the 1930s.

When will the Conservative government go ahead and come up with an action plan funded out of its extensive financial resources? We know that the federal government takes in far more money than it needs to fund its regular activities. The provinces lack money. The federal government must have a strategy for the forestry and manufacturing sectors and must not be afraid to invest.

The minister said that this is not the time to overspend. We are not asking him to overspend; we are asking him to spend enough to help the economy. When the government reduces the GST, it may be helping the Chinese economy more than our own. It should have put in place a fiscal framework to help our manufacturing companies get ahead.

Will the government decide to do something and take real action that reflects today's reality and not the economic growth we were experiencing three years ago?

[Business of Supply, April 2nd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am speaking today on the NDP motion. I think the Bloc Québécois will be in favour of the motion because, in general, it condemns the economic policy of the federal government. The policy is not sufficiently tailored or relevant to the current economic framework, to our economic reality.

The motion states:

That, in the opinion of the House, the Conservative government's massive corporate tax cuts are destroying any balance between taxes for large profitable corporations and ordinary Canadians; they are stripping the fiscal capacity of the federal government; they are disproportionately benefiting the financial, oil and gas sectors, while leaving others behind, including manufacturing and forestry;—

Basically the Conservative government has chosen to take a completely and purely ideological approach by saying that it was uniformly cutting corporate taxes in order to stimulate the economy. But we see that many businesses, particularly in the manufacturing and forestry sectors, are not currently making any profit. They will not derive any benefit from the return on investment associated with this policy of general tax cuts. At the same time, the Conservative government has deprived itself of a source of revenue available to boost the economy. Instead it has chosen to put $10 billion of this year's surplus towards the debt.

And this is happening at a time when the very well run companies in the forestry industry are in serious difficulty because of the crisis in that sector. In my riding for example, Maibec, a very solid company, is in trouble, as is Bois Daaquam, where workers are having to reach a compromise with the employer to peg their wages to the price of wood. Companies and workers are making real efforts, but the Conservative government is not showing the same flexibility. It is sad.

As early as last fall, when it released its economic statement, the government should have proposed not only widespread tax cuts, but also an action plan to help the forestry and manufacturing industries and give them the tools to compete and create competitive products.

The Conservatives take a “survival of the fittest” approach: let the strongest survive and if the others disappear, too bad. The government is acting as though it were a company, but it is not. To run the country, the government has to consider the labour situation, the effects on workers, the impact of the economy on the entire population. The Conservative government has abdicated that responsibility.

In that sense, the NDP motion is completely justified. In my opinion, this House should have lost confidence in this Conservative government. We said this when the budget was brought down. If the official opposition had stood firm, if the Liberals had seen things through to their logical conclusion, we would be in an election campaign today and we could pass judgment on the actions of this government, which decided to give priority to big, profitable companies, to multinational corporations, instead of helping the companies in the forestry and manufacturing industries that are in trouble.

The Conservative government has also decided not to help workers aged 55, 56 or 58, with 25 or 30 years' experience. The Conservative approach is to let them find another job. Then, if they cannot find a job, they can apply for social assistance, because, in any event, it is their fault if they no longer have a job.

This practice, this philosophy imported directly from the American right, is unacceptable. It is not in line with the values of Quebeckers and Canadians. It is the government's responsibility to help build prosperity. Prosperity does not happen by itself. It is not created just by market forces, but by the choices the government makes. And the government has abdicated its responsibility to help to create prosperity.

The motion says that quite clearly. We would have perhaps taken a slightly different position than that of the NDP about whether or not tax cuts were necessary for all businesses, but certainly not about the current percentage, or about the non-existent assistance for businesses that are not generating profits. This is unacceptable.

Since last fall, the Bloc Québécois has been making constructive proposals. This week, the House passed a Bloc motion calling for an action plan in the forestry industry. The House approved the motion tabled by the member for Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, which contained seven measures to help the forestry industry.

Thus, the House sent a message to the government, telling it that such measures were needed. But the government is still not moving.

The purpose of the NDP motion today is simply to ensure that the public will be able to evaluate the situation. We have a minority government. We would have expected the Conservatives to listen in order to find methods that correspond to what most Quebeckers and Canadians want. But they continue to take an approach that pushes us straight into the wall.

The United States is in a recession, and Quebec and Canada are experiencing a major economic slowdown that will, unfortunately, get worse over the next few months. Since 85% of our exports go to the United States, we should consider that if there is a reduction in American buying power, we will be the first victims. The Conservatives' approach, to continue to cut spending, is the same one taken by the Republicans in 1928-29, just before the great depression. And if there had not been changes, if Roosevelt had not become president and implemented the New Deal, the depression never would have ended.

A government has to be pragmatic and implement measures that are in line with the new economic reality. The current economic reality is not the same as it was two or three years ago. It has changed a lot and is still changing. The government did not adapt to this new reality in its economic statement last fall and even less so in this year's budget.

The Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology proposed an action plan a year and a half ago with 22 recommendations that were unanimously adopted by all the political parties. The government has adopted just one half-measure out of all those recommendations.

We have pressed on. The Standing Committee on Finance has adopted a motion whereby the fiscal measures adopted by the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology would be implemented by the government, but the government once again is remaining silent. The federal government has shirked its responsibility.

We know that the hon. members in this House are in regular contact with the people in their ridings. We also know that ideology has had greater power than the wishes of the people. I challenge the Conservative members from Quebec to tell us that people would prefer to see $10 billion go toward the debt rather than investing some of that money to help the economy.

I challenge the Conservative members to deny, when it comes to the older workers issue, that Quebec and Canada want to adopt a measure of compassion to provide these people—who have worked for 20, 25 or 30 years—with an income to see them through to their pensions.

We are not saying that all older workers must benefit from an income security program. We believe we should help those who have done everything they can, in other words, tried to find employment, have taken training courses and have joined adjustment committees, but to no avail. They have to be given a tool to bridge the gap to their pension. It is important. It is in society's best interest on a financial and human level to allow this type of thing.

The situation facing the forestry sector will only become completely absurd later on. Younger workers are being laid off, based on seniority. Older workers are keeping their jobs while younger workers are leaving. In a few years, when the older workers have left their employment, there will be no younger workers around to revive the industry.

We should have been able to develop more flexible ways to deal with the inevitable layoffs, such as offering incentives to older workers, for instance, a supplement or possible income support until they receive their pension so they can leave the labour market, thereby allowing younger people to keep their jobs and meet labour needs later on. Yet this Conservative government did not show the necessary flexibility. That is not the Conservative way, which is too bad.

And yet this is not the first time we have talked about it or called for action. For months and months now, the Bloc Québécois and other parties of this House have been calling on the government to do something.

If the official opposition had not run into all those problems with their leadership and esprit de corps, we would currently be in an election campaign and we would know who, according to the public, are the best people to represent them at this time.

I am convinced that Quebeckers do not agree with the Conservatives' current approach to the economy. It is not at all consistent with our way of doing things or with our economic culture.

In the past, having suffered some hard blows, Quebec developed all kinds of tools to deal with such economic downturns.

They were put in place and that allowed us to evolve.

In the current pan-Canadian context, with the Conservatives' approach, we have experienced something that I have not seen for a long time: the Quebec Minister of Finance, a federalist, spoke up and said that the federal budget was unacceptable to Quebec. Imagine. The finance minister is not a member of the PQ or of a sovereigntist party. The day after the budget, the finance minister of the Liberal Party of Quebec told the federal government that, in terms of assistance to the manufacturing and forestry sectors, its budget was not satisfactory.

In Quebec, the initial reflex of citizens is to turn to the Government of Quebec. In fact, it is the only parliament that they have complete control over. They exert pressure on the government so that it will put things in place and it has an obligation to listen. The Government of Quebec took action, although it is not perfect.

Imagine the momentum if a similar effort had been made by the federal government. A decision could have been made to transfer significant amounts enabling Quebec to strengthen programs it established, for example putting in place a comprehensive program for older workers. The current program has a retraining component, which is a good thing for them. However, it does not have a training component for those workers who cannot find a new job.

The same can be said for research and development. Regional companies would have benefited had the federal government re-introduced Technology Partnerships Canada. Premier Tech in Rivière-du-Loup, for example, received significant amounts from this federal program on two occasions. We supported that program; we did not condemn it. It led to the creation of new jobs for young people. In my opinion, the economic prosperity in Rivière-du-Loup is due in part to the success of this company.

Technology partnerships Canada may have been abused in some cases. However, they threw the baby out with the bathwater when they decided not to bring the program back. That kind of program would have been very useful considering the current problems in the forestry and manufacturing sectors. Industry Canada could have maintained partnerships. Partnerships are not subsidies. The government and the company each invested money in developing new products, and if a new product worked out, parts of the royalties flowed back to the government. That worked for Premier Tech. The government should be more open to programs like that and allow for a certain number of failures before achieving success.

With respect to this recommendation, after the 2006 election, there was a transition period during which people thought the Conservatives would take a pragmatic approach to assessing programs. Unfortunately, the ideological approach prevailed, and the program was not renewed, except for the aeronautics sector. As a result, we were deprived of an important tool for development.

Today, the Bloc Québécois supports this motion of non-confidence in the government because of the Conservatives' endless parade of negative answers and their unwillingness to consider certain suggestions.

All one has to do is look at the oil and gas sectors. Take a look. Our society can afford sustainable development. We could have made major investments in renewable energy. Instead, we have to explain to people that the government is giving tax credits to companies to extract oil from the tar sands and create pollution. Moreover, they will be allowed to continue polluting until 2012, because polluters will not be forced to pay the price until then.

That approach is completely unacceptable. That is not the kind of society that Quebeckers and Canadians want. People want their government to take changing realities into account; they want their government to do everything it can to encourage sustainable development; and they want a carbon exchange.

The repercussions for the environment are enormous. For years, people thought of environmentalists as people with high standards that were nonetheless economically unfeasible. Now, we know that economy and environment can work together. Economic development can happen within a sustainable development context. To make it happen, people need the right tools.

The carbon exchange is a remarkable tool, because it relies on market rules. It is the same as a stock exchange, with shares and exchanges. It creates a market and a competitive spirit. It spurs the desire to do something concrete, in my riding for example, to introduce environmentally friendly products.

Representatives from a business came to see me in the spring of 2006 to ask if the carbon exchange was going to be implemented, because they had a project. The carbon exchange would have allowed them to develop such a project and its profitability would have been justified by the carbon exchange return. It was not implemented, however, and their project did not proceed. This is true in a number of sectors. Many businesses in North America would have carried out projects and would have created long term jobs.

In a sustainable development context, we are lagging behind Europe, which has taken the lead in this area and is making progress much faster than we are. There is even now an American law that states that petroleum products produced from oil sands will no longer be accepted in the United States in a few years' time. It is in the American Energy Act. They have already realized that this aspect must be taken into account in order to find a solution to ensure that petroleum products produced from oil sands are produced in a way that is acceptable. We did not take any such action.

The Conservative government is no longer a new government. It is a government with two and a half years of experience. It has had the chance to adjust to the proposals that have been made. Some have been made by the Bloc, and there could have been some from the Liberals, the NDP or the Conservatives. Unanimous proposals have been made by various parliamentarians and have been ignored by the Conservatives. We get the impression that the Conservative government put on rose coloured glasses last year and thinks it will get through the economic downturn without having to do what it takes to help the economy. No one in North America believes that any more.

President Bush, whom we cannot accuse of being left leaning, has taken measures to help his economy. Across Quebec and Canada we have the necessary tools to work together to create and share prosperity. The Conservative government has not done what it takes. If there had been an election, this would have been plain once again. Often the only tool citizens have left to express themselves is democracy.

There is one thing I absolutely do not understand and that is how elected members of this House can say that other members of this House are useless. That shows disrespect for democracy. When a Conservative member tells a Bloc member that he is useless, he is telling all the voters of that riding that the member is useless.

Look at Quebec as a whole, at its economy. We have received the majority of the vote in the past five elections. Take a look at the ridings represented by Bloc members. As far as the Rivière-du-Loup riding is concerned, I am not embarrassed to compare it at any time with any other riding in Quebec. It is a riding that has been represented by a Bloc member for 15 years and by an opposition member in Quebec City. There is full employment in the Rivière-du-Loup area.

The government has to stop blackmailing with power and start taking action. If the federal government continues doing nothing, then we simply must vote in favour of a non-confidence motion. It is all the Conservatives deserve.

[Finance, April 2nd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, Quebec harmonized taxes in 1992-94, and did not receive a cent from the federal government to do so. Quebec estimates that it would have been entitled to $2 billion if Ottawa had made a similar offer for harmonization.

Will Quebec finally receive this $2 billion in compensation?

[Finance, April 2nd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the budget tabled by the Minister of Finance on February 26 opened the door to compensation for tax harmonization in Ontario. It states, “The Government is willing to work with the five provinces that still have [retail sales taxes] to help facilitate the transition to provincial value-added taxes harmonized with the GST.”

Is the Minister of Finance preparing to help Ontario, as he has already helped the Maritimes?

[Business of Supply, March 31st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his comments on the motion that was introduced on November 12 by the member for Trois-Rivières. She is well aware of the problems in her own riding, in mine and in many others. Her motion made the House of Commons aware of the need for this debate.

Last fall, we were preparing for the budget that would follow. We expected all the parties in this House to urge the government to take this sort of action. Certainly, the Liberals' wishy-washy position, which is enabling this government to continue to survive, is not in the general interest of Quebeckers and Canadians. This issue remains on the table, and choices will have to be made. In the long term, it is dangerous not only for the economy of Quebec and Ontario, but even for the economy of the west.

We saw this recently, when the Americans passed an energy law that will make the production of oil from oil sands unacceptable in the United States, because of the inaction of the Conservative government, which did not make sure these oil sands could be managed and used under acceptable environmental conditions. This is one more thing that was not considered.

We need to go back to having confidence in people, say that we are capable of putting in place a sustainable development policy, go ahead with ways of promoting new products that meet environmental standards, have a carbon exchange, believe in the abilities of our people and our businesses and, most importantly, change the attitude of this government or, if it does not want to change its attitude, change the government.