Paul Crête

[Social Program Reform, October 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am not surprised that Mr. McKenna was admonished by his federal big brother. Will the Minister admit, as his colleague of Intergovernmental Affairs did, that the reform he is proposing is not a miracle cure, that it will hit seasonal workers very hard, and particularly those in forestry who cannot work twelve months a year?

[Social Program Reform, October 7th, 1994]

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

The social program reform proposes establishing two classes of unemployed workers: occasional UI claimants and frequent UI claimants, that is, 40 per cent of recipients, notably seasonal workers. We know that the Government of New Brunswick is particularly critical of the reform on this point.

Does the Minister of Human Resources Development realize that the UI reform he proposes will heavily penalize the economy of the regions, which is very dependent on seasonal activities like fishing, forestry and tourism?

[Social Security Programs, October 6th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I really appreciated the fact that, in his speech, the hon. member acknowledged that one of the goals of this social program reform is spending cuts. The hon. member said that this was not the only purpose of the reform, but one of its goals. This only goes to confirm an article published in the Toronto Star , not known for its animosity towards the Liberals. So, what they mention must be a minimum figure. Some people say that the federal government secretly plans to cut $7.5 billion in social programs in the next five years. This means that major cuts are really part of this reform.

My question concerns rather another aspect of my colleague's Speech. He said we must avoid overlapping. On page 76 of the reform proposal, we are told all in the same page about federal intervention in three different sectors: daycare, education and welfare-which are all provincial jurisdictions. How can the government reduce overlapping by increasing its interventions in provincial jurisdictions?

[Social Security Programs, October 6th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. It is important not to go overboard. Some people may abuse the system, but problems will not be solved by imposing strict measures right across the country.

Some parts of the country have particular problems. It may be the case back home too. However, the government will not solve a specific problem by implementing a national solution which penalizes a number of workers. Such cases require a more individual approach to correct the situation. In its present form, the reform is based on the premise that seasonal workers do not want permanent jobs, and that is just not true.

In my riding, many people work in the tourism, agriculture or fishing industry, including eel fishing. These people want to work. There is a continuous flow of people coming to my office because they are looking for work, but jobs must be available. A reform like this one would give interesting results only if it included a real job creation strategy. But this is not the case.

Canada is losing ground in terms of productivity, having slipped from 4th place to 14th. We are now behind several small countries such as Denmark and Sweden, which have control over their whole economic development and which are not fighting a federal structure preventing them from performing and getting interesting results. These countries have managed to find solutions while also showing compassion for those who have special needs.

The discussion paper alludes to a guaranteed minimum income, but the idea is immediately rejected on the grounds that it would be too costly to implement. The fact that our population is scattered all over the country, that Quebecers and Canadians have settled throughout the country is a plus. We must ensure that the people can live where they chose to and are given the means to develop their economy. No witch hunt or unemployed hunt will solve our problems. We should rather hunt for jobs so that each and every Canadian can find a position in which he or she can grow and contribute to Canada's wealth.

[Social Security Programs, October 6th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her question. First, she herself was a self-employed businesswoman before she was elected. When she talks about what women go through, I am sure that it is a true reflection of reality.

In this regard, as a member of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, I will make an extra effort to have that problem considered. I also call on her to ask women's groups to come and present their views to us so that we can make the government move on this.

As for seasonal jobs, I would answer her with an image and draw her attention to a particular aspect. This reform goes back to the vocabulary on welfare reform used by the defeated Liberal government in Quebec. They talked about bad welfare recipients, people who did not want to work. Now we are hearing the same thing. Seasonal workers who use unemployment insurance regularly will be penalized. After an unemployed person has made three claims in five years, he will be told: "You have a bad mark on your file. The next time you apply, you will get less." So he is made to feel a little guilty for a situation that he is not at all responsible for.

There are industries in which there will always be seasonal employment. In some regions of the country, forestry, agriculture and tourism will always be seasonal activities. There will never be year-round work available. Moreover, workers in these industries are not necessarily prepared to train for jobs which do not exist in their region.

If a person works in a restaurant for 15 or 18 weeks during the summer, you can train him to become a technician, but if there are no jobs for technicians in his region, you are wasting money. This is the conclusion reached by the OECD in a study on unemployment. In all the countries where attempts were made to increase employability without a job creation policy, these efforts were futile. The government will have some time to reconsider, and I hope it will.

[Social Security Programs, October 6th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, here it is finally, the famous social security reform we have been hearing about for such a long time. Since I am a member of the Human Resources Development Committee, I can tell you the birth was a laborious process because we started with a project for an action plan and ended up with a discussion paper and that is almost the opposite of what should normally happen.

At the outset, the social security reform was to be a job creation tool. There is no job creation proposal in the program tabled. It was to be a source of pride, an incentive for Quebecers to stay in Canada, but I think it will be more of an incentive to the contrary.

In fact, the reform project we have here does nothing but manage the inefficiencies of the existing system. It contains nothing that would lead to true job creation. To find some good points, we can say that there is an excellent illustration here of what is going wrong. We are told, for instance, that in 1968 the unemployment rate was at 5 per cent in Canada. In 1982, it was at 9.3 per cent. That was from the beginning of the Trudeau years to the period just before the arrival of Mr. Mulroney in office. In 1993, it was at 10.2 per cent. What kind of system has produced that? In what kind of country are we living to get results such as this?

In a graph that we find here, we are also told that there are 20 per cent more jobs for university graduates than a few years ago. For people with post-secondary diplomas, there are 6 per cent more jobs and for people without these diplomas, 20 per cent less jobs. If we would follow the normal logic of this, we would say that we will have to find ways to get jobs for those people without post-secondary diplomas.

But on the contrary, the government is going on a witch hunt, only it is the unemployed who are the prey. It has decided that there would possibly be two categories of unemployed now: the unemployed who are using unemployment insurance occasionally, by accident, and the others, the bad people, those who are using it three, four, five times in five years, in fact, the seasonal workers. Lester B. Pearson must be spinning in his grave when he sees what the Liberals have done, because this reform is simply a continuation of what the Conservatives would have done last year.

Yesterday, the previous minister responsible, Mr. Valcourt, was laughing his head off on television because he, at least, had said during the election campaign that he would do that, so he was defeated because people did not want that. Liberals won because they were saying that they would create jobs, but they are going back to the Conservative program. The message for Canadians will be that Liberals or Conservatives, it comes to the same thing and that next time, they will be out too. But that will be the task of the Canadians, because we will surely have chosen to get out of this boat which is sinking.

What I would like to say is that when people who are working in peat bogs in Saint-Ludger-de-Rivière-du-Loup or Rivière-Ouelle, when people who are working in the forests will see this, they will not feel disillusion, but anger and discontent. They will only feel like coming to tell us, and I hope they do so before the committee, that this is crazy. Whoever wrote this has not been outside of Ottawa for a long time.

As for the minister who approves this kind of paper, he probably has a department where so much is going on that it is easy for people to slip things past him from time to time. In any case, what we see on the Table has no connection with the economic situation in my part of Quebec or the Maritimes or regions that survive on seasonal employment, and the paper contains nothing that meets the needs of people in our part of the country.

How did we get into this situation? First of all, we have to say that Canada is a regular dinosaur. Its reaction time is slower than anything I have ever seen.

Last year in October 1993, we had a promise that reforms would be introduced as soon as possible. Now, we have a working paper. First it was proposals for reform, then a plan of action and now we have a working paper. I suppose the next version will be a draft prepared by the successor of the present minister.

Finally, the process broke down for the same reasons it will break down again. There was a refusal to confront structural problems. When we look at Canada, I think we have to be perfectly honest and say: The real problem is not that the federal government did not have the right ideas at the right time. The problem is that the whole architecture of the system has to be changed. If I were a federalist, I would say we have to decentralize to adapt solutions to local needs. I know it is practically impossible to change the system, so for us the answer would be to create another country next door with a more decent approach to the needs of its people.

The other point I wanted to raise was how we got into this situation. The answer is that we keep perpetuating major sources of duplication. In Quebec, we created the Société québécoise du développement de la main-d'oeuvre, an agency that was ready to take on the entire responsibility for manpower training. Today, however, this agency, which was ready and willing to go ahead, is just marking time because no agreement has been reached by the federal and provincial governments. Annually, $250 million is being wasted in the case of Quebec alone, because the federal government has refused to decentralize responsibility for manpower training.

Far too much time and energy is spent on consultation at the local level, because people who live in the regions have to get organized any way, whether we are talking about the people at the SQDM or Employment and Immigration. They will do what they can because they know the people in the community and they are able to work with them. However, the time spent on consultation is time they would otherwise have been able to invest in developing employment in their community. There is a lesson here, but there is nothing in the reform paper that addresses these issues.

The federal government therefore insists on playing a role in professional skills training. We have known for years that the federal government's involvement was pure duplication. For years we have had a consensus in Quebec. Employers, unions, political parties, everybody is on the same wavelength. You do not see such agreement very often, and we should capitalize on it. Even the federal government should have understood that. Yet, for whatever reason, we always avoid coming up with the real solution. The reason might be that the vision is too bureaucratic. It has been too long since a minister was really in control.

It is high time that cabinet shape up and say that it is really in charge. Maybe it could start by travelling throughout Canada to find out what people need and then translate that into orders to their deputies. Then they could tell them: "From now on, that is what you are going to do", instead of "Give me the report so that I can know what to answer during Question Period."

There is another reason why this reform is not satisfactory, and I will show it with an example. There really is a double standard in the government. Let us compare family trusts and the reform of social programs and unemployment insurance. For months, we have been trying to get information on family trusts, to find out how much money is involved. We are not even saying that family trusts are unacceptable, because we do not know. The government refuses to produce any information on the matter. We are unable to find out how much money is invested in those trusts and the government is not helping.

Conversely, for unemployment insurance, we get all possible information on the number of unemployed, on the percentage of those who have used UI three, four or five times during the last five years.

The government can keep close track of people who have a much smaller income. With the new reform, an individual who applies for UI benefits will be required to disclose the financial situation of his or her spouse to see if that person really needs UI.

We are faced with a situation in which people who make $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 or $50,000 a year will have to meet requirements that do not exist when it comes to family trusts worth tens of millions of dollars. According to a survey, the average family trust has assets amounting to $10 million. Would it not be possible to spend as much time going after family trusts as we are trying to fix unemployment insurance?

The government is turning unemployment insurance into a fiscal management tool when historically it has been a way to redistribute wealth and to allow people in different regions of the country to make a decent living. On the other hand, it permits family trusts to put billions of dollars in tax havens for 80 years.

Before, we had a 21-year rule, but in 1992, it was decided to add 60 years to it. Eighty years without paying any tax. Even if, in the end, you still have to pay that gives you a lot more time to plan your taxes than when every two weeks you have to fill out a card to see whether or not you have worked during these past two weeks. This is some kind of a double standard, and I believe that the government is largely to be blamed for it.

That brings me to a matter which, in my mind, is of the utmost importance in all that. I mean the independence issue. In Quebec, we are often asked what will happen if Quebec separates. This proposed reform of our social programs brings me to ask myself a much more pertinent question: what will happen if Canada keeps on going in this same direction?

What we are offered for the next few years is cuts in the unemployment insurance program, a witch hunt against unemployed workers, and a two-tier system. Some system! The government will keep track of each claimant with a smart card. The rate of benefit will depend on how often he will have applied. Employers' premiums will be calculated according to the unemployment rate in their industry or the rate of cyclical unemployment they generate.

Personally I am not interested in the kind of country this will produce. It will not eliminate waste. We will still have a very costly bureaucracy. Therefore, I believe that it is important for Quebecers, Canadians also, but mostly Quebecers, to look at this project in the context of their future.

Of course, if Quebec becomes a sovereign country, we will not find ourselves in paradise overnight. We will have to manage things, to decide how to allocate funds, but we will at least be in a system where we can control all the data and decide that the system-whether someone is unemployed and on welfare or a real unemployed worker who receives UI benefits-should be changed and managed from a single data base by a government with all the tools needed to deal with the problem.

At the present time, the UI part of the system is handled by the federal government while Quebec is responsible for part of welfare. The federal proposal even encourages the provinces to opt out of welfare by giving them "candy" so that they feel compelled to join the federal program. It is very clear, I think, that this is not the way of the future.

Only yesterday, three provinces with more than 60 per cent of Canada's population immediately said no to the proposed reform. I think that their position is justified in the light of their responsibility and desire to do the right thing in the future.

I think it is important for Quebecers to say that they do not want that kind of Canada and to realize the painful situation they are in because of the national debt, a large part of which is due to the country's structure and confirmed by the proposed social reform program.

I think that people want a different country that can and wants to be on the move. Canada seems stuck in a vision and a structure preventing us from evolving and getting anywhere.

As I said earlier, I feel like we are finally witnessing the end of the Canada that was put in place, amazingly enough, by the Liberal Party itself. Let us look back at the Pearson years, even at the first years of the Trudeau government when there was a desire to be fair to the people. The reform discussion paper that was tabled this week marks the first-class burial of this desire to redress the balance in the Canadian economy.

This proposed reform also includes significant setbacks, notably for women. The right to collect benefits will now be linked to spousal income, which takes us back a few years. We are going back to a situation where, for 20, 25 or 30 years, women fought to gain independence and pull the rug from under them in what I referred to earlier as unemployment management. Instead of developing a plan that would promote, through a constructive policy, job creation, all that is achieved through this reform is unemployment management.

To conclude, I will tell the minister this, as the opportunity arises for opinions to be voiced throughout Canada, although the government seems to have already made up its mind: I encourage individuals who are part of groups representing those members of our society who need assistance as well as employers and anyone who wants this country to function properly to come and tell this government what is not working in here.

Reports from the OECD and other international organizations on the unemployment situation often show that, in every country that has relied only on employability and done nothing else besides developing rules of employability, the funds required were never made available and, at the end of the day, it was a dead loss.

I suggest that the government must think things over to ensure that, if opportunities to increase employability are created, there will also be jobs available. Otherwise, this reform may produce nothing but more dissatisfaction.

To paraphrase Gilles Vigneault, let me warn the minister that by blustering like that, he is stirring up quite a storm.

[Social Security Programs, October 6th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I think it would be interesting to find some common ground with the hon. member who just spoke. Although there are a number of points on which we differ, I think she may find that we agree on the following items, for instance. If we consider what caused the present situation, I think one of the main reasons is that we have a country where the division of responsibilities is absolutely mind-boggling.

If we consider unemployment, some people are on welfare, which is a provincial responsibility, and some people who are unemployed are dealt with through an unemployment insurance system. According to the report, 45 per cent of welfare recipients are people who are unemployed but able to work. There is no proposal for a joint approach to this problem, for an integrated and logical strategy to deal with unemployment.

This may be one of the reasons why we are stuck with the present system, and I think we could agree that the answer is a very decentralized approach where the whole problem of unemployment and welfare could be dealt with at a level that is much closer to the people-at the provincial level, at the very least, because the economic situation varies widely from region to region across Canada and a pan-Canadian program does not have the flexibility to respond to these varying demands.

The second point on which we might agree is the issue of transparency. When we read in the Toronto Star that:

Top provincial officials flew into Ottawa to be briefed on the implications of Axworthy's social reform plan, but they were not given the dollar figures obtained by the Star and the document makes clear that it is deliberate.

Obviously, efforts will have to be made, at the level of the committee responsible for holding hearings across the country to listen to Quebecers and Canadians, to ensure that the people appearing before us have all the relevant information at hand because, as a member of this committee, I had no intention of being a puppet. I want the real figures to be used. On that too, I think that we can work together with the hon. member to make sure things go in the right direction.

One last point that could elicit co-operation is the different outlook. The reform proposal before us is essentially the same as the one the Conservatives would have tabled. Somewhere someone who is not an elected member is controlling the entire system. That is extremely dangerous for Canada and I do hope that the hon. member will agree with me on the various points I just raised.

[Social Security Programs, October 6th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I was surprised when the hon. member for Annapolis Valley-Hants said in his speech that the government wanted to do this out in the open, not behind closed doors. In yesterday's Toronto Star , however, we read, and I quote:

"The federal government has a secret plan to cut $7.5 billion from social programs over the next five years". Further it states: "The plan was put on paper after Prime Minister Jean Chrétien asked his cabinet colleagues to clarify just how much social reform would save federal coffers before the end of the Liberal mandate".

I was surprised this should happen behind closed doors, but I also have the impression that as far as members from the Maritimes were concerned, the doors were closed to them as well, because that is the only explanation I can find. The hon. member who represents the Maritimes comes from a region that, like Eastern Quebec, which I represent, has been hit very hard. The government is going to create two kinds of unemployed workers in these regions: people who have been on unemployment insurance at least three times during the past five years and those who are employed on a more regular basis.

This is going to be a regular witch hunt. People will be practically branded as cheaters: "Why were you unemployed so many times?" The government also says their benefits will depend on the number of times they were unemployed. This means that two people working for the same employer and doing the same kind of work and earning the same salary might not receive the same amount of benefits if they are laid off, depending on whether or not they were employed regularly. There will be utter confusion!

I suppose we can assume the only jobs this reform will create are jobs in the bureaucracy, because the federal government will do exactly what it has done in the past: increase the number of bureaucrats instead of introducing specific job creation measures that will help the regions kick start their economies. One of these measures, for instance, would be to reduce the employer's contribution to unemployment insurance premiums. Instead, we have something that will further complicate the situation.

I am very surprised to see a member from the Maritimes rise in the House and say he is prepared to put this before his constituents, instead of immediately taking a stand against this kind of proposal.

[Social Program Reform, October 6th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, even the former Liberal Premier of Quebec, Daniel Johnson, refused this unacceptable offer.

Does the Prime Minister realize that his stubbornness will cost Quebec alone more than $500 million of wasted spending in the next two years and that the unemployed will continue to be the victims of the present mess the existence of which the federal government admits in its discussion paper?

[Social Program Reform, October 6th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development. With its discussion paper, Ottawa wants to justify its intervention in workforce training, and I quote: "The role of the federal government in helping people improve their skills derives from its general responsibility to foster better national economic performance-"

Are we to understand that the federal government definitely rejects the consensus reached by all stakeholders in Quebec and refuses to transfer the responsibility for manpower force training?