Paul Crête

[Privilege, March 14th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, when I was elected to the House of Commons, I never thought I would have to speak to a motion like this one. They taught me in school what sedition means and the seriousness of that word.

The Reform Party presented a motion which is unfounded and not supported by facts, but which has dangerous negative effects because it challenges the right to democratic debate.

One could say that the motion may have been presented because the Reform Party does not know Quebec well enough, because in the end it is a very bad political move for a party to attack the democratic value of decisions made in Quebec. This is certainly not the right way to obtain support in Quebec. All Quebecers know that the referendum debate, held in the fall of 1995, was democratic and quite proper. The opponents may have been serious, they may have been rough, but the debate was clear.

I believe Quebecers made a choice with full knowledge of all the different issues at stake. There were questions on the future of federal public servants. What would their future be? The yes committee answered the questions and indicated what guarantees it could give them, what their situation would be like in the future. Members of the armed forces asked similar questions. The committee for the yes answered their questions. The committee for the no answered their questions. This is no sedition material.

As a matter of fact, in Quebec, nobody was offended by this statement. It did not stir up any passionate debate. Nobody said the Canadian government was being overthrown. A clear choice was made in Quebec many years ago with the emergence of the sovereignist movement, which has been in existence for at least 25, 30 or 35 years. Democracy would prevail.

In 1980, we accepted and lived with the results. Forty per cent of the people had voted yes. Mr. Lévesque, who was the sovereignist leader, said only: "À la prochaine". We took note of the results.

We tried to make changes in the federal system. We supported the Conservative Party in Quebec and took "le beau risque" in the hope of amending the Constitution, but it did not work. Quebecers sent sovereignists to Ottawa as the official opposition, and they elected a sovereignist government in Quebec City.

Our traditions are democratic, which makes us trust the position of people, and we will continue to trust people in the future.

I have nothing against the Reformers. In a sense, we see there is a blatant lack of knowledge of Quebec in this motion. I could just tell them that this should be a lesson to them, because if they repeat this once or twice, well-We wonder what their objectives are. Do they need a bigger following? Why have they moved this motion when there is no substance to the issue itself?

What I do have a problem with, however, is this government, the Liberal Party of Canada, supporting the merits of the question, the merits of the motion before us, by proposing a purely cosmetic change, an amendment that will in no way prevent the member in question-who, as far as I am concerned, cannot be accused of sedition in any way, shape or form-from being hauled up in front of the committee. Nowhere does the Liberal Party say that it does not want the matter to be referred to committee. The only thing this amendment does is to delete the part of the motion that has no real impact.

In that sense, in light of Liberal tradition and given the fact that it has ruled the country for many years since Confederation, the Liberal Party of Canada is acting very reprehensibly in making such a decision.

It should have clearly rejected right off the bat this hare-brained, unacceptable proposal with no basis in reality. I am sure that the Liberal Party of Canada will have to pay the political price for this in the future.

There is also what I would call perhaps the subliminal or somewhat perverse impact of this proposal. We as Bloc members might think that this is a way to influence the future. They are going to give a hard time to anyone making statements, however appropriate, so that, during the next debate on the national issue, they will all be afraid to speak out for fear of being accused of fomenting sedition.

You can be sure that this will not fly in Quebec. No Bloc member will leave this House with a guilt complex or feel that he or she should not say certain things regarding Quebec's future. For 25, 30 or 35 years-5 or 10 years in the case of younger members-we have fought to make sure that we will always be free to decide our future with full knowledge of the facts. We have turned Quebec voters into intelligent voters, voters with an extensive knowledge of politics who make choices accordingly. And you can rest assured that we will continue to do so. When over 90 per cent of the population votes in a referendum, one cannot say that unacceptable threats were made.

Given what Reformers are implying, and what Liberals are supporting, could it be that, in six months, if a Bloc member says something about submarines it might viewed as a seditious statement? Will that statement be viewed as an attempt to have the army or the navy turn against Canada? This makes no sense at all. If we try to recover tax points, is that going to be interpreted as a measure to break up the country? Tax points have existed for 30 or 35 years. Mr. Duplessis got them through the democratic process.

As regards the Canada Health Act, if Quebec makes choices that differ from the national standards that the federal government wants to impose, would that be seditious, since it would not comply with the will of Ottawa? There is no end to that. It is imperative that this motion be soundly defeated. Otherwise, parties supporting it will have contributed to a lowering of the quality of democratic debate in Canada. This is unacceptable, and it is not what Quebecers and Canadians want. The resilience of a political system depends on the quality of its democracy. When democracy is respected, the decisions and the outcome of the political process are accepted.

In the 1995 referendum, the yes side got 49.4 per cent of the vote. Had our democratic system not been very strong, there could have been a temptation, like what happened when other countries became independent, to say that the results were not credible and that all voters were not informed. It did not happen in Quebec. We all accepted the outcome, and I think Quebecers have demonstrated the quality of their democracy and their determination to have an interesting democratic life.

Speaking from my personal experience, I cannot help but notice a striking difference between this motion and the contacts I have had with Canadians.

Last year, for example, I spoke to the Rotary Club in Edmonton. We had a discussion with federalists who are Canadians with strong convictions and who believe in the future of this country. We had a very straightforward discussion on our vision and theirs. We probably even talked about the army. But none of the Canadians who were there said I was being seditious for saying that, once independent, Quebec would respect international agreements, would have a small army and ensure that people with some military expertise could continue to work in that field within the Quebec military if they wanted to do so. We never asked that the army rise up against the Canadian government. That is pure fabrication.

A word of caution is in order here. This must happen again. Basically, blowing situations like these out of all proportion amounts to manipulating information. Indeed, there is an old saying that goes something like this: people will believe that an untruth, if repeated often enough, is the truth. Parliament, and all the members of this House who are looking at this situation and have actually read the communiqué, should send a clear message.

We can speak in legal terms. Under the law, to be blamed with something, that something must have had an impact somewhere. Have you seen even one French speaking soldier from Quebec stand up and decide that he would support the Government of Quebec? I do not know why he would have done something like that, because the government accepted the outcome of the referendum. So, the motion before us is unwarranted. This is quite amazing.

In a court, as we have seen in civil court already, I do not think a judge would have found that there were grounds for prosecution. I think the House should come to the same conclusion. We are like a grand jury here. We will be accused of not doing our job properly, if we go through with this. This is why I say the Liberal amendment seems quite bland. We do need to use parliamentary expressions, but this makes for a wishy-washy position.

[Canada-Us Tax Treaty, March 14th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the secretary of state gave us that answer yesterday. What we want to know is what the Minister of Finance will propose to resolve the problem.

Will the minister-or whoever can answer-agree to take the appropriate tax measures to compensate the tens of thousands of Quebecers and Canadians, should the Americans not respond favourably to his request?

[Canada-Us Tax Treaty, March 14th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. Yesterday, the Secretary of State for International Financial Institutions acknowledged that the new Canada-US tax treaty penalized Canadians and Quebecers receiving American pensions and that the Minister of Finance would discuss the matter with his American counterpart, Mr. Rubin.

With low income pensioners having seen their pensions shrink by 25 per cent, with no possibility of recovery, what sort of proposals, exactly, will the minister make to his American counterpart?

[Supply, March 12th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened with a great deal of interest to the speech of my colleague, and I was deeply touched. I think that she got to the bottom of the problem.

The opposition motion says in part that the minister should go back to the drawing board, since this reform hits young people, women, seasonal workers and immigrants hard.

Could the hon. member elaborate a bit more on the situation women have to face when they enter the workforce for the first time or when they return to the labour market after raising their family? What is the situation going to be if this reform is carried out? Will they be able to get benefits or, like the motions says, are they going to be hit the hardest by this reform?

[Supply, March 12th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, we must be living in two totally different countries. Go walk in the streets and talk to young people who have just graduated. Today's unemployment rate among young people is the direct result of our current system. It ranges from 15, 16, 18, 20 to 25 per cent, depending on the region.

Does this proposed reform carry a message of hope to our young people? Will asking them to work 920 hours the first year in order to qualify for unemployment insurance be a message of hope for them? Do they see that as an incentive to start a family? For someone graduating with a degree in land use planning or working in wildlife conservation, for all those working in recreation and tourism, who are seasonal workers by definition, is there in this reform a message to the effect that they have a future, that we trust them and that they will go places?

As for the refund, does the member realize that only young people earning less than $2,000 a year will receive a refund? Two thousand dollars, that means 10 weeks at $200 a week. Therefore, most of those who work during the summer will not receive a refund because they will have earned more than $2,000 during the year. They will contribute to a plan but will never receive any benefits in return.

I agree with the member on one point, when he says that one solution is the reduction of the deficit. It is true, it is very true, provided we cut where we should really cut. If we say we reduce the deficit by having a surplus of $5 billion in the unemployment insurance fund, we end up with the opposite of what we wanted.

In conclusion, I ask why does the government not set a goal for the reduction of unemployment as it did for the deficit? Why did it not say: "We are going to try to be, in two years time, at 6 per cent, or 8 per cent or 4 per cent, depending on what we consider to be full employment; this will be our primary objective as a government, and we will make sure that unemployment is decreased to that level". Then, the employment insurance system would have deserved its name. Given this, would the hon. member have arguments that could convince me to change my point of view, to see the situation differently, when the message which seems to be given to our young people is: "If you get good training, you will

have a good chance to find a job but, unfortunately, if you cannot enter the system correctly you will be condemned to rely, year after year, on social assistance?"

[Supply, March 12th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague made me think of something when he asked where the minister's position comes from. It is often said that the opposition criticizes for the sake of criticizing.

When we look at the positions taken by some people, for example by the municipal council of Pohénégamook, a small town located in my riding, which says that it is fiercely opposed to this reform because it does not respect regional economies which are based on seasonal activities and because the 910 hour minimum requirement to be eligible for benefits is unrealistic, these judgments come from people with a lot of common sense.

Several elements of this reform will result in a drastic reduction in regional economic activity. That is why such a solidarity has developed. Opposition to this reform does not come only from UI beneficiaries, but also from regional boards of trade, community groups and business people.

Once the government cuts the money available in a particular region, this will result in significant job losses because when people have less money to buy cars or to pay the rent, when they have to move away, this has an impact on the economy of a region. If we want Canada and Quebec to be a fully developed country, these kinds of reforms have to be put aside because they are not in line with the vision we must have of what the development of a country like Quebec or Canada should be.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

[Supply, March 12th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to participate in the debate today because, it is worth repeating, the opposition motion asks that this House require the Minister of Human Resources Development to withdraw Bill C-12, an Act respecting employment insurance in Canada, from the Order Paper immediately and go back to the drawing board, since this reform hits young people, women, seasonal workers and immigrants hard.

What is the first question we can ask ourselves? Why is the opposition asking the government to withdraw the bill as a whole?

Could we not be satisfied with some cosmetic changes? The first reason is that there is an error in the title of the act. They speak about employment insurance, although nowhere in the program is there an active employment policy which would guarantee to people who are losing their job that they will be able to find another one. The objective of this program is absolutely not to guarantee a job to people. It is to define the rules under which they will be entitled to unemployment insurance benefits.

So, right at that moment, the government made the choice of saying: "We will use a popular term that responds to the concerns of the people, to the fact that they want jobs, but basically, the contents of the bill will not reflect the reality." Right there I think the bill is unacceptable.

Another reason why it seems important to us that the minister withdraws his bill is that it was said everywhere that people who were complaining about the bill were professional agitators, people who were doing that professionally. I can tell you that the people that I met in public meetings in Trois-Rivières, Saint-Pascal, Rivière-du-Loup, Pohénégamook, almost 1,000 people who came throughout the day during the protest, were not professional agitators.

They are people who were asking questions because, for the last 5, 10 or 20 years, they have been working in a region with a seasonal industry where they must sacrifice their lives to manage to get by. In Trois-Pistoles, it was not the president of a national labour body who was asking questions. It was young people who asked me: "How is the 900- hour thing going to work? Does it mean that, in order to qualify for UI, someone who lives in Trois-Pistoles and has managed to work 300 or 400 hours in his region in the summer will have to move to Montreal to work the rest and chase hours of work everywhere, so that he will no longer want to live in his home town?"

By its action, the government wants somewhat to ensure that the market will empty the regions. People are aware of that. It is not a sociologist or someone with a very theoretical approach who came to talk to us about that. It is people who feel it in their daily lives; they want to stay in their own environments and they find this unacceptable.

The people in Saint-Pascal mostly talked to me about benefit calculation, which is arousing a great deal of anger. People must understand what this means. In the future, someone filing UI claims year after year will need 420 hours of work to qualify for benefits. He may have worked 42 hours a week for 10 weeks for a total of 420 hours. However, starting in January 1997, benefits will be calculated by dividing the total not by 10, the actual number of weeks of work, but by 16.

You can imagine what that does to benefits. This cut is totally unacceptable. For example, a salary of $400 a week divided by 16 weeks will result in an average benefit of $250. And, after a few years, the benefits of seasonal workers will be slashed by 50 per cent. This means that some people will go from a $400 weekly salary to a UI benefit of $125 a week. I do not know if you can imagine the consequences. This is less than welfare.

The proposed reform would systematically impoverish people. These people are wondering: "If they are doing this and if we are really in a difficult financial situation, we might be willing to do our share. But are others doing their share?" Yet, they hear about the tremendous increase in the banks' after-tax profits. They also hear that the UI fund is probably not in such bad shape, since it runs an annual surplus of $5 billion, which now comes from the pockets of employers and employees.

As for the surplus at the end of the year, insurance plan managers normally look at annual costs and see if rebates could be given to policy holders. They look for ways to humanize the system. In the case of a dental plan, for example, managers see if additional services can be provided. Not so in this case. Instead of looking at the UI system to find ways of helping people in difficult situations, the government has decided to use the surplus as evidence that it has succeeded in reducing the deficit.

It is in fact a hidden tax, and this is the negative side of this reform. The members across the way often claim that people want a reform.

When asked in a survey if they are for employment insurance reform, people are likely to say yes. But ask them, for instance, what they think about the current situation, and they will tell you that, right across eastern Quebec and the Maritimes, everyone agrees that, if the government keeps it up, it will have hell to pay.

This should have happened only after the next elections, and everyone will have been penalized by then, but now there is a chance that the government might withdraw the bill. Luckily, we have a new minister. He could take the time, as suggested in our motion, to go back to the drawing board and see if it would not be possible to go about it differently, so that the public can see that a real effort is being made to create jobs.

To ask regions that depend on seasonal industries to tighten their belts, so to speak, with measures such as these, while at the same time not providing any government support to help these regions diversify their economies is to penalize the workers, who are the producers in these regions and whose products often benefit larger centres, among others. This is therefore an unacceptable reform, and it appears essential to us that it be amended.

The reform, as it stands, is also disrespectful. In Pohenegamook, what was on the minds of the people there, was the fate of forestry workers. They asked me: "What is going to happen to us? We are jobbers, contract workers. Our job is to cut trees in a certain area. Also, the number of weeks is calculated differently." In the context of this reform, no one has been able so far to respond to these people. No one has been able to tell them what their coverage will be starting next summer. This is unacceptable to me.

I think that the government make a major mistake when, last December, it decided to skip the second reading debate through some procedural device. The bill was then referred to committee, at which stage we will hear the testimony of experts and look at what amendments could be made, but the merits of the issue were never debated. This is why the official opposition must spend the whole day on this issue today, because there has been no debate in the House, and we could not deliver the message we have received since December, when the terms were made public, indicating that Canadians were terribly disappointed with the reform being proposed to them.

The hon. members from the Maritimes are certainly asking the same questions as we are. Let us hope that they will carry enough weight in the government to have it drastically change its reform. More than two or three minor changes are needed here. Canadians

want the reform to be replaced with an approach which is really focused on productivity, on the realization that, even in times of economic growth like today, even when government members are right in saying that 100 000 jobs have been created in Canada, the fact is that these jobs still exclude many people, either because they are young and just entering the labour market or because they are 45 or 50 years old and losing their jobs due to the implementation of new technologies.

The government must not only ensure that these people are still able to feed themselves, but it must also see that they are retrained, that an active employment policy is in place, and that productivity gains are being redistributed among workers, so that they can be proud to produce interesting things. So, what would a constructive employment policy include? After all, opposition members are often told: "You criticize a lot, but what would you suggest to improve the situation?"

The first thing that we should do is to remove the obligation for employees to work overtime. That should immediately become a social value. The government should say: "Our priority is to bring the unemployment rate down to 6 or 8 per cent today". We are told that the deficit should not exceed 3 per cent of the GDP. I challenge the government to set similar goals regarding employment and to act on them.

The government must realize that, in two or three years, its performance will be evaluated not only in terms of productivity, but also in terms of how it made sure that every working-age person living in Quebec and in Canada has a chance to work and to support his or her family on the territory where that person lives.

There are ways to achieve that. For example, we could make good use of the productivity gains made through the use of new computer technologies. Someone, somewhere is making additional profits. Some of these profits are made by banks.

Why are there no measures to ensure a constructive employment policy? Thus, if banks want to keep the savings they made through technological change, they would have to use it for job creation, but not necessarily in their area of activity. Why not require them to make a social contribution allowing for bank profits to be used to create jobs for people taking care of seniors at home?

The issue requires innovative solutions, but there are none in the present government proposals. The budget speech only provided for a technical committee on taxation, something that will have effects after a year or two whereas the problem is today.

I will give another example. Officials in the public and quasi-public sectors could be encouraged to facilitate work time reduction. Has there been any action in that regard as part of a full action plan or a concerted action plan by the government? We could remove the right for retired government employees to work for the government while receiving retirement benefits. There are many such situations in the public service at present. I am sure the national capital area, the Ottawa area, would benefit a lot from that.

Young people graduating from the CEGEP de l'Outaouais and young people already on the labour market could be very productive, and that would be very beneficial to society.

I want to raise another issue. It may look a little farfetched, but it is important to me. Why not start taxing robots? Why not tax what is bringing about job reduction for workers who lack specialized training? Why should we praise a business that is introducing new technologies while laying off workers without seeing to it that those people can find another occupation? Some measures should be put forward in that area, but they are nowhere to be found in the government proposals.

For the government, reform means cutting. We think the goal of reform should be to improve the lives of those who cannot find a job, and try to give them more opportunities to get back in the system and find a new job as quickly as possible, and not put them in a position where they periodically have to go back on welfare.

When a young student who has just finished school gets the message that he has to work 910 hours in the coming year, he might as well tell his employers that he will join the underground economy and that he will manage better that way. When our society sends out a message like that, you cannot claim to have done what you were elected for. Remember your slogan was "jobs, jobs, jobs".

If the Conservatives had been elected to form a new government, given the platform they ran on, they would do just like the Liberals, and we could always say that they are simply carrying out the program they were elected on, and that we have to live with that and try to manage as best we can. But we are now faced with a clear case of false representation. We have been told that the government would create jobs, but it is just riding the wave of economic growth, a growth that does not necessarily create jobs. The government will even do worse than that: with the reform fully in force, it will rake in $2 billion more, at the expense of those who fund the system.

That is quite something. Our system is funded by the employers and the employees, but they have no control over its operation. They are not the ones who decide how it should develop. Instead of having a $5 billion surplus in the unemployment insurance fund, would it not be possible to reduce that surplus to $3 billion and to inject the remaining $2 billion in the economy by lowering the contribution paid by the employees and the employers?

Since we are continually reminded that job creation is best left to the private sector, would it not have been a good way to ensure that jobs are created? Why insist on creating this situation? Well, part of the answer resides in the constitutional dossier. In the last few years, the federal government has had little money to spend on areas of provincial jurisdiction. So, with the surplus in the unemployment insurance fund, the government has found a way to continue to interfere in the area of manpower training. With the surplus it has set aside for itself, it will be able to spend and to say to the community organizations and to everyone who wants to get some training: "We have the money, so we get to set the standards. In fact, we think we should become the Canadian Department of Education."

This is basically why the government has planned a surplus in the unemployment insurance fund, but it also wanted to use the money to hide the fact that it has not reduced its expenditures in order to fight the deficit. No, instead it is maintaining its expenditures at their current level and ensuring that the top civil servants, with their vision which dates back to the seventies, can keep carrying out their activities, thanks to a hidden tax known as the unemployment insurance fund.

This is why the workers, the young people, the women, the seasonal workers and the immigrants have told us and keep telling us day in and day out that this reform is unacceptable and has to be withdrawn by the government. If not, we have to ensure that several major changes are put forward.

In conclusion, let me summarize their arguments. They say that the 910 hours expected from the young people and the required hours of work in the future are totally unacceptable, as is the penalty for seasonal workers. A lot of things like that are brought to our attention, but, in fact, the real problem is that this reform is based on principles which are, in themselves, unacceptable. Under these circumstances, the government now has a very courageous decision to make. It must acknowledge that this reform proposal, which was developed by top federal civil servants, is not what Quebecers and Canadians want. Today, the Official Opposition has made that message even clearer and I think the government will have to take responsibility if it does not come to the same conclusion as the opposition.

[Supply, March 12th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the speech from my colleague. She talked about the situation of women which, according to her, would be improved by the new system.

I would like the hon. member to answer the following question. For instance, in my riding, some women are finishing their degree in nursing or in recreation techniques. According to the information they received, with the unemployment insurance reform, when they enter the system they will have to work 910 hours a year, which is the equivalent of 26 35-hour weeks, while previously, with the system currently in place, they were eligible for benefits after 20 weeks at a minimum of 15 hours a week, that is to say after 300 hours.

Could the hon. member explain to me what is the advantage for women, and for men, when anyone entering the labour force goes from a system requiring 300 hours of work to be eligible for benefits to a system requiring 910 hours? If we had applied the same rules as before we would have said: "Now we require the equivalent of 20 weeks of 35 hours" and we would have talked about 700 hours. Young people looking at these figures get the feeling that they are being taken for a ride. They are required to work even longer than the 20 weeks required before. They will have to work 910 hours.

Are we not encouraging the underground economy? The young worker who has tried to work 910 hours during a given year and realizes at the end of the year that he or she cannot reach that number, especially if he or she works in an area of seasonal employment, will be simply encouraged to work underground and offer employers to work outside the rules, because the rules are neither acceptable nor viable for that person?

[Supply, March 12th, 1996]

Indeed, it will be very brief, Mr. Speaker.

How is the member for St. Boniface going to explain to a person who received $400 a week, who worked 42 hours a week for 10 weeks, that, after January 1, 1997, the amount to which he or she will be entitled will be divided by 16 weeks and that-because the work is seasonal-benefits will be cut by 50 per cent and the benefits collected will be $125 per week? What is fair about that system?

[Supply, March 12th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech made by my colleague from Fredericton-York-Sudbury, with whom I have worked on the human resources development committee.

The question that comes to my mind following his speech is how will we get out of this situation? We know and people in the Maritimes know as well that this bill contains many important elements that are unacceptable. As of today, neither the minister nor the government have given us a clue as to which amendments will be proposed.

After reading the bill, we would be tempted to say that, if we have to accept this legislation in its present form, if we have to take the whole package, we would rather have nothing at all. We would rather have no reform than have the one contained in this bill. Nobody in Canada would be against a reform that would propose an active job creation policy. Nobody is against giving people an opportunity to work more or helping the regions that have seasonal industries to diversify. Why is there not, in this reform, an active job creation policy?

Where are the economic diversification measures that would help seasonal workers instead of penalizing them, accusing them of not wanting to work or saying that it is their fault that they have that kind of job? The government could have proposed a policy that would have given the regions that have seasonal industries a period of 5, 8 or 10 years to adjust their economy. If the situation has not improved at the end of that period, then it can draw the necessary conclusions. But there has to be an adjustment period.

I want to raise another point. At the end of his speech, my colleague talked about a new program, namely the transition job fund. Let us be realistic; we had a decentralized program, the job development program, which allowed each employment centre to make its own decisions, to make adjustments based on a local approach, and now, with the new transition job fund, each project has to be approved by the minister. We have gone back to the stone age in terms of decision making. Does the member really think that this is an improvement? Does he not think that the government should withdraw this bill rather than go through with it in spite of all the criticism it draws, especially in Atlantic Canada?