Paul Crête

[Job Creation, November 7th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, after two years in office, the Liberal government, for all intents and purposes, still has not done anything about unemployment. A series of nice documents on employment and growth were released, but Canadians are still waiting for the concrete actions and results expected from a government.

Unable to make the necessary budget decisions, the Liberal government's only job creation initiative was to force the unemployed to join the welfare rolls, thus triggering an increase in provincial deficits.

We all know the consequences of that lack of vision. Hardly any new jobs were created in the past year, and economic growth has suddenly come to a halt this year, with no reaction from the Bank of Canada and the Minister of Finance.

This government must fulfil the promises it made to Canadians two years ago. Its laissez faire attitude can definitely not be considered an effective job creation policy.

[Department Of Health Act, November 7th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, at a time when we are considering the act to establish the Department of Health, the first question we could ask is: Why have a federal Department of Health? British North America Act says in section 92.7 and section 16 that health and social services are a provincial jurisdiction. So why did the federal government get involved in the health care sector?

To refresh our memory, I may recall that during the Second World War, the federal government obtained the right to collect income tax on a temporary basis, as they said at the time, to pay the country's war debts. However, by the end of the war, since people were now used to it and considering spending powers under the Canadian constitution, the federal government felt it would be useful to to continue to be involved in this area.

This led to the creation of several white elephants, to take action in areas for which the federal government had no responsibility. Today, the Department of Health is an interesting case in point. Quebecers and Canadians should know that for 1996-97, the annual cost of the federal Department of Health will be more than one billion dollars, which includes $347 million in salaries for staff and $703 million for goods and services, this in addition to administering $7.4 billion in transfer payments to the provinces.

We can see the insidious effect of what happened at the end of the Second World War, when the federal government, having obtained the right to collect taxes, returned this money to the provinces in the form of transfer payments. On the other hand, if every province had kept the right to look after health care, it would have been able to raise taxes so that citizens would know exactly what amount is spent on the health care sector and whether it is well spent. Unfortunately, that is not the model we developed in Canada. Today, we have a rather extraordinary situation where the federal government, while reducing its contribution to health care from year to year, nevertheless maintains national standards and

thus puts the provinces, with their responsibility for the day to day administration of health care, in an impossible situation.

The federal government says emphatically: no extra billing, but at the same time it denies the provinces the funding they need, and there is no reduction in the tax points the federal government collects.

The provincial governments are unanimously opposed to this state of affairs and are trying to do something about it. The federal government wants to create a Department of Health that would be a continuation of previous departments, but at the same time the government assumes the right to intervene in a number of sectors, and that is why we think this does not augur well for the future of Canada. In the months and years to come, important budgetary decisions will have to be made.

I repeat that if we have two bureaucracies looking after health care in Canada-and in fact there are not two, there are more, as many as ten or eleven, because each province can have its own department of health-there will be unnecessary spending, unavoidably. When they say: "The government has no more money, where could it cut spending, how will we determine our social options for the future?", the first place to look is where we have duplication.

Are there not areas in this sector that should not be the responsibility of the federal government? Should the federal government not withdraw and give the provinces the right to take care of a sector that is theirs under the constitution?

I would like to give a few examples of this encroachment. For instance, for the strategy for the integration of persons with disabilities, funding will be $46 million over five years, $46 million to be spent on the integration of persons with disabilities. If we consider the situation in Quebec, the province already has its Office des personnes handicapées which does the job, and here we see two governments involved in the same sector. Of course the whole $46 million will not be wasted. There is money that goes directly to people, to the client. But say this amount includes $5 million for administration costs. If only one intervener was involved, we could save that much and relieve some of the pressure on the federal budget, while services could be maintained quite adequately.

Another sector is family violence. A program was set up that would cost $136 million over four years. Again, this is a valid activity and government action is desirable, but the fact that two governments are involved undermines the effectiveness of these programs.

Say that in this case 10 per cent goes to administration costs, we could save $13 million. In the end, the same taxpayer pays the taxes. Whether he is paying municipally, provincially or federally, he always pays his taxes. So it is not surprising that those advocating decentralization so areas of jurisdiction may be recognized are critical of this sort of legislation by which the central government wants to impose its decisions on the provinces in areas where it has no responsibility, in areas where the provinces have constitutional responsibility.

Let us continue down the list of programs duplicating the action of the provincial governments. The new horizons program for seniors is another example of duplicate administration and duplicate bureaucracy. Members should see the forms the senior citizens clubs have to fill in to obtain these receipts. Often the administration costs for these programs equal what is paid out to senior citizens' clubs. This sort of thing is unacceptable, and people are rebelling. They want elected officials to clarify the situations.

Other examples include the seniors secretariat, the fight against smoking, the anti drug campaign, the national AIDS strategy, the children's bureau and, the best example of all, the national health forum.

Imagine. The federal government gave a team of experts a mandate to look at health management in Canada assessing the relevance of maintaining existing programs and of making change, but without the provinces taking part in the forum on health. This, for me, is the height of federal interventionism. From within an area of federal jurisdiction, a decision is made to interfere in an area of provincial jurisdiction, the provinces do not participate in the forum on health and no one has the patience or wants to do the negotiating necessary to have them there.

This means that, in the end, when the Prime Minister receives the report from the committee responsible for the forum on health, as its chair, he will be also be handed a total rejection by all the provinces of the report's conclusions.

We cannot ask people we have not included in the process to accept the conclusions reached. First of all, a determination should have been made of who ought to take part in the forum-was participation by the federal government really appropriate. Then, steps should have been taken to ensure that the provinces had a strong and appropriate voice that would have allowed them to address actual situations, because all the institutional networks are provincial.

These include hospitals, community health centres, shelters. Practical decisions are needed: reforms in individual provinces, the need to strike a balance between active treatment beds and extended care beds. At the moment, the provincial governments are bearing all the weight of the difficult decisions in this area, while the federal government, washing its hands of it, is reducing the funds it gives to this sector annually.

I will conclude on this point. When, in upcoming months it is looking for a place to save some money, one of the first could be the federal government bureaucracy enshrined in the Department of Health. How much can it save of the $347 million used to pay the salaries of officials working in the same area of activity as the provinces?

[``On To Ottawa'' Trek, November 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address the motion tabled by the hon. member for Regina-Qu'Appelle, regarding the "On to Ottawa" trek which started in Vancouver and ended in Regina, on July 1, 1935.

I think it is important to tell our viewers how this episode came about, and to see if there are lessons to be drawn from it. It must be remembered that 1935 was one of the worst years of the Great Depression, which was probably the worst economic disaster of our century.

It must also be remembered that this disaster occurred at a time when governments were saying: "The less we get involved, the better it is. The less we try to control, the more we will promote wealth and its distribution". Reality, however, turned out to be quite different. There was an enormous lack of confidence in the economy. Unemployment suddenly soared to astronomical levels, which had nothing to do with reality, but which meant that people could not get enough income to ensure their survival.

We must not forget that, in those days, there were no social programs such as welfare and unemployment insurance. The safety net was not yet in place; consequently, those who lost their jobs had nothing to fall back on except begging.

Faced with this situation, the government of the day decided to set up work camps. Unfortunately, conditions in these camps were absolutely appalling, and this eventually led to the strike.

There is a lesson to be drawn from certain important aspects of this strike. We are about to launch a reform of the old age pension and unemployment insurance programs, and crucial decisions will also be made regarding things such as social assistance funding. It is easy, when you overlook certain factors, to make quick assumptions on the actual impact of such measures.

Finally, measures were established to ensure a distribution of wealth, a distribution of income and an opportunity to balance consumption. When essentially everything is in the hands of the rich, what remains, once the rich have taken what they require to satisfy their basic needs, becomes luxury. This situation moves the economy a lot less than if everybody had enough to live on and to feed their families.

This sort of strike, which was stopped by violence, happened because the government of the day lacked sufficient means to distribute wealth.

In order to avoid the excesses of the past and to permit redistribution of wealth, we must absolutely avoid behaviour such as that of the Government of Ontario, which drew up a list to show people they could live and feed themselves on $90 a month, forgetting milk for cereal and really crazy things. This sort of thing could lead to behaviour similar to this strike. We forget about respect for basic human dignity.

The other point we should remember is that mandatory work in unacceptable conditions is one thing that should be rejected as an option, because this too represents a failure to respect people's dignity. It leads to behaviour, which may not be justifiable, but which can be understood on closer examination.

There is also another component, which got less attention this afternoon, and that is police intervention. There have been a number of police interventions in Canada's history which have been more or less justifiable in the past. In this case, we are talking about an intervention that affected workers in western Canada in 1935.

In Quebec, there was another one that affected us in a very particular way. It happened during the October crisis in 1970, where a lack of control over police action resulted in unacceptable behaviour and unwarranted arrests, as was described earlier in connection with events in Regina. The same thing happened in Montreal and Quebec City during the October crisis in 1970.

As a state, as a country claiming to be one of the most democratic in the world, with highly interesting democratic practices we can boast of to others, we still have a number of lessons to learn from these examples, which must drive us to ensure that our police forces have very clear mandates and proper training to deal with the situations that arise. They must obtain mandates from a judge in special situations, so that such excesses never occur.

I think we can say, with hindsight, that these young men-for it was mainly young men in these work camps-represented in some way the future of Canada at the time the strike took place. The way that they were crushed is something that must never happen again.

One of the participants in the march, Joe McEwen, summed up the situation in a way by stating in the conclusion to his description of what happened "We were the salt of the earth". Young people, aged 20, aged 30, wanting to work, wanting acceptable conditions, not finding them, and taking steps to let the government know how dissatisfied they were. Their expression of the need for change fell on totally deaf ears which led to aggressiveness and unacceptable behaviour, probably on both sides, but this must serve as a lesson to us today to make sure that we are not demolishing everything that has been built and to avoid such situations.

If the next unemployment insurance reform requires, as we fear it will, 26 weeks of work rather than 20 weeks in the first year of eligibility for unemployment insurance, we will see an increase and a perpetuation of the current statistics which show more and more people on welfare because they are not eligible for unemployment insurance. This type of reform leads directly to violent behaviour, because when people cannot feed their families and provide them with the basic necessities it is somewhat normal for them to seek some way out, to show their dissatisfaction, sometimes in an aggressive manner.

The other reform from which similar lessons must be learned is the reform of old age pensions. Over the past 15 to 20 years, we in Canada have developed a program which has enabled our seniors to enjoy greater security than before, at least from the economic point of view. In the upcoming reform, we must make sure that this economic security is not threatened, so our seniors may continue to have a decent income, one that enables them to meet their basic needs and to make a proper contribution to society.

Often when these things are being discussed, there is talk of fearmongering and a desire to frighten people. I think we have to learn from the past and see that history often repeats itself. We must always be sure that rights are protected, and this is the main lesson I have learned from the motion, which asks the federal government to make an official and unequivocal apology for the reprehensible acts committed by the government of the day.

The main lesson I can draw today, in 1995, is that we must ensure that the government opposite, as Parliament, does not repeat the same mistakes and that it provides a system of social programs that meets the needs of the 21st century. Globalization of trade does not mean standardization of social programs and this seems to me to be the challenge of the 21st century for Quebec and for Canada.

[Social Program Reform, October 31st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, last year, the changes made by the government raised from 777,000 to 800,000 the number of welfare recipients in Quebec, so you can understand why we are concerned.

Does the minister recognize that his reform will make it much harder for women to return to the labour force after a long absence, as they will no longer be able to rely on UI for support between often precarious jobs?

[Social Program Reform, October 31st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development. Through his UI reform bill leaked by the CSN last week, the minister, far from helping young people, is set to increase very substantially the requirements that first time applicants must meet in order to qualify for the support that the UI program should provide. The minister refused to confirm anything before the referendum.

Now that the referendum is over, will the minister admit that his bill will increase from 20 to 26 weeks the minimum number of weeks of work required to qualify for benefits and exclude thousands of young people from unemployment insurance, and that the minister's new program will be one more obstacle to their access to the labour force?

[Customs Act, October 31st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I find very telling the fact that the first bill to be considered following yesterday's referendum in Quebec would deal with free trade.

I think that, in a way, this confirms the opinion held by the vast majority of Quebecers, who believed that a partnership with the rest of Canada would have been possible. We received some confirmation this morning that the federal government wishes to improve Canada's economic relations with the U.S. through a bill which basically makes trade between these countries easier. This is very telling indeed, in my opinion.

Quebecers were the first to agree with and to support free trade between Canada and the United States and Mexico. I would just add this must go on, and efforts must be made to ensure that markets are available regardless of which political entities maintain them.

This is true particularly for small business, which accounts for 80 per cent of all job creation taking place in Quebec andwhich has taken on the challenge of dealing with the U.S. and Mexico.

However, free trade must definitely be seen as more than merely an economic issue. The challenge for all Quebecers and Canadians is not to trash the social programs that may have been put in place in Canada. It seems to me that this is a major consideration.

We will not win this free trade battle with the U.S. and Mexico by trying to make anything and everything match the American standard. I think that this will be particularly true in what lies ahead in terms of social program reform, including unemployment insurance and old age pensions. The government of Canada will come up with options which it will hopefully table soon and which will enable us to determine whether it has given in to the American competition and agreed to play their game or else decided to play the free trade game while preserving the values unique to our society.

Accelerated harmonization will only result in making people increasingly dependent on the economy, and increasingly the poor will be going after a limited number of available jobs and, while their employability will increase, their incomes, wages, gains may not follow. In examining a free trade bill, therefore, it is important to look at the other side as well, that is to say the larger system within which free trade will take place.

So, yes to free trade, because we want trade conditions to be eased. We even made a proposal in that sense in the referendum, but it was not accepted by a majority of Quebecers. I think that Quebecers should be congratulated for respecting the democratic choice made. Results such as those of yesterday are not necessarily easy for anyone to take, considering that, for each group of 100 Quebecers, a single person made the difference.

This is true regardless of who that person is. I am not trying to make individual distinctions, but the fact is-and you people know what it is in terms of winning an election-that, for each group of 100 persons, a single Quebecer made the scale tip in favour of one side instead of the other. And you know what it is to win elections. Given that result, people deserve a great deal of respect for accepting, as they did in Quebec, such a close decision. This is not to say that we are giving up on our ideals. Certainly not.

I want to point out another aspect of the bill which, I feel, is important for both Quebec and Canada, namely the need to ensure that the protection granted to the cultural industry will not be jeopardized by a bill such as this one, which concerns goods, including a number of concrete physical products. But there is the whole cultural sector, where we will have to maintain such protection. Indeed, the debate that just took place in Quebec made Canada realize how fragile its position was in relation to its U.S. neighbour. We have to take a close look at some of this.

In fact, Americans should perhaps go back to their history books. It seems as though they decided, in recent days, that no change was better than good change. Sometimes, such things lead to short term victories. However, from a medium term perspective, these issues must be looked at more closely, since Canada, as a member of NAFTA, will, in the future, be confronted with such situations, particularly when countries with economies comparable to that of Chile, likely the next nation to join NAFTA, will become partners under that agreement. We will have to show the same respect towards these countries, whether they are big or small, and treat them for what they are.

When the free trade agreement was signed, we were told that it would take a few years before we started to notice a real difference. It is important to understand that this bill allows for an increase in the value of goods travellers can bring back, to bring these values in line with those set by our main trading partners.

With this bill, therefore, there will be concrete action to increase exchanges, to facilitate exchanges. It must be looked at from that point of view, and it will be seen that there may be some advantages to Quebec consumers, Canadian consumers and American consumers once these regulations are in place. At the same time, we must ensure that our economy and our industrial structure are capable of following suit.

There is one aspect which the representative of the government has not addressed, but which I would like to present. This type of

bill will impact upon the regions of Quebec and of Canada, because a change in customs operations can impact upon the number of customs offices there will be in a region, for instance, and on how businesses will be serviced.

I refer in this connection to clause 12 of the new bill, which states:

Goods, other than goods of a prescribed class, that have not been removed from a customs office, sufferance warehouse or duty free shop within such period of time as may be prescribed may be deposited by an officer in a place of safe-keeping designated by the Minister for that purpose.

That may seem gobbledygook to some, but basically the question that must be asked about this clause is the following: in regions where customs offices are closed, will that mean businesses are farther from their markets and therefore less able to service them?

We must ensure that proper choices will be made. There have been some indications that have not been very reassuring. For example, the government has announced the closure of five customs offices in eastern Quebec. There will, in fact, be none further east than Quebec City. The offices that used to be located in Rivière-du-Loup and Rimouski, the customs officers right out to the Gaspe, all those will be done away with. Can these changes be made without negative impact, ensuring that acts such as this one will facilitate trade?

These are matters that must be looked into. Care must be taken to ensure that the thing is done correctly. This is not really a change in legislation but rather a change in administrative application, and the government must ensure that its decisions do not penalize the regions.

I have already stated, and return to the point here, that it is highly significant in my opinion that the intent of this bill is to concretize aspects of the partnership between Canada and the U.S. Throughout the entire referendum campaign we were told many times that the same thing is not possible between Quebec and Canada. It is very surprising, but at the same time very instructive, to come upon it again this morning, and this allows those who have taken part in the debate to see where the reality of that debate lay.

How can we arrange things in this area to avoid the bureaucratic complications experienced in a number of other sectors? Bill C-102 contains many technical elements, such as clause 5, according to which the operator of a sufferance warehouse or duty-free shop:

-shall keep in Canada such records-and shall, where an officer so requests, make them available to the officer.

In other words, customs brokers, the people who work in this sector, have a list of items-a, b, c, d, e, f, and up to i-which they are supposed to keep, so that in future they can produce them for the federal administration. From this side, it looks much like an approach that was often used in the seventies, which I think is not necessarily a good idea for the future, because when I talk to owners of small and medium size businesses today and ask them

what the government, any government, could do to improve the situation, I get two answers.

The first one may seem rather surprising but is understandable. They suggest reducing subsidies but doing it across the board. The second one is about bureaucracy.

I am referring to the administrative paper burden for small and medium size businesses, which means they often have to spend as much time on paperwork as much larger companies in order to meet government regulations. In this bill we will have to ensure that what customs is asked to do-maintain certain records-can be done efficiently without getting into the same problems we had with the GST, for instance.

Finally, Bill C-102 implements the effects of the free trade agreement. Generally speaking, we applaud the fact that these regulations will be put in place, since they will provide for a better trade relationship between the signatories to the free trade agreement, which is what everyone wants.

Quebecers were among the instigators of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, and they certainly hope this will continue. At the same time, we should remember that countries do not necessarily need very big borders to engage in mutually beneficial trade. In the nineteenth century, wars were fought to expand a country's territory and thus its domestic markets. As we approach the end of the twentieth century, we realize this can be done quite differently by simply letting everyone engage in trade, thus shifting the scene from the battlefield to the economy, where people who can produce goods and have a stable society are able to survive and contribute to economic development. That is where we are today. And we hope this trend will continue, but always with due respect for the society we represent.

One sector that is more or less affected by this bill and that I would like to bring to your attention is the dairy industry. Farmers in Quebec and five other provinces in Canada signed an agreement in the summer of 1995 which covers milk supply management throughout their territory. This agreement is valid at least until 1999, when it will be reassessed. It could last much longer. The producers reached this agreement in an effort to face the approaching challenge as the GATT agreements reduce tariffs in milk sales, which are of concern to them. We have set them a big challenge. Fortunately, however, they have already faced major challenges.

This sector, which is more vulnerable than a number of others requiring appropriate measures, needs all the support it can get to face the upcoming changes. One is the partnership between Quebec and five other provinces in Canada to deal with this market and also to obtain appropriate forms of assistance from government in increasing productivity to enable producers to provide a better quality product and to make products available in market niches that do not yet perhaps exist. One example of this is biological milk production.

It is important to be able to forecast developments in industry, in agriculture and in other sectors and to see what is coming up. When we do not look to the future, we find ourselves in situations like the one in Quebec last week, when, suddenly, the federal government realized the situation in Quebec was special. After two years of saying that Quebec's situation in Canada would be resolved through good federal government, it had the lesson of its life, discovering that, in both Quebec and Canada, the problems were more than just economic. There are problems of distribution of wealth and of balance between the country's two founding peoples. The message from Quebecers was very clear: without specific change and without concrete proposals acknowledging Quebec's place in this country, in the very near future, a majority of Quebecers could well decide to change the situation.

That was an example involving the agricultural sector. One thing Parliament could do, in my opinion, through the standing committee on agriculture, for example, would be to ensure the options chosen for the coming years, and I am referring not just to the term of the present agreement, which lasts until 1999, but afterwards, are relevant to the priorities of the sector.

There is a sort of distress at the fact that there are fewer and fewer actual people farming, but their economic impact remains as strong. We must not fall into the trap of elected officials who say that, if fewer people are involved, less concern is warranted. We must instead establish the sensitivity of this sector and the type of action to be taken. This latest referendum campaign was a real revelation for me: it showed me the importance of these situations and of knowing how to plan ahead. I think we may be judged on this as well.

Bill C-102 is therefore here to be passed. The Bloc Quebecois feels it should be passed. It will support it. It also feels that bills enabling us to make progress should always be passed. We should never be afraid of change for its own sake.

When change is appropriate, we have to know how to integrate it. When it is not appropriate, we can reject it. However, when it is appropriate, we have to know how to integrate it. This is very important and, much later, this is how what we have done will be judged.

I would therefore like to say in conclusion that Quebec put its faith in free trade and will continue to do so, so that, in the end, each of the characteristics of the components of North America, and of the francophone people in particular, may be recognized,

validated and further developed, and Bill C-102 is one tool that will help in this regard.

[Underground Economy, October 5th, 1995]

Unacceptable.

[Manpower Training, October 5th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, apparently the minister would like to be Canada's minister of education. Would the minister agree he is taking the means to circumvent the provincial governments because he wants to establish a national strategy for intervening in manpower issues, which may be acceptable to other provinces but flagrantly contradicts the general consensus expressed many times on this matter in Quebec?

[Manpower Training, October 5th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Human Resources Development.

Clearly the minister is about to make the same mistake with Bill C-96 as the Minister of Industry in the case of Bill C-88 on interprovincial trade, by unilaterally assuming powers that negate the responsibilities of the provinces. I may recall that after scoffing at the objections of the official opposition, the Minister of Industry had to acknowledge his mistake and back down.

If the minister does not intend to go over the heads of the provinces, why does he use clause 6 and clause 20 of the bill to acquire the means to do so, it is there in black and white?

[Agricultural Research, October 3rd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the 1995 federal budget announced the closing of the La Pocatière agri-food research centre, the only centre specializing in research in sheep farming, with sheep production in full expansion.

Neither Quebec nor the regional community was consulted about the closure, which was hidden away in the appendixes to the budget. The comité de survie de la ferme expérimentale thought it had succeeded in extracting a moratorium, enabling it to revive agricultural research in the cradle of farming research in Quebec.

Unfortunately, despite the minister's promise, the department has begun to remove the centre's equipment, in spite of the community action. Data provided by the federal government reveal that Quebec receives less than 15 per cent of the federal department of agriculture's spending on research and development.

Does the agriculture minister believe, just like the defence minister, that he cannot afford the luxury of treating Quebec equitably? This is another good reason for Quebecers to vote yes.