Jean-Marc Jacob

[National Defence, March 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, we heard this morning, in relation to the inquiry into the murder of a young Somali and the actions of certain Canadian peacekeepers in Somalia, that the military police is considering charging several other members of the Second Commando of the Airborne Regiment in Petawawa.

My question is for the Minister of National Defence. Can the minister confirm that the military police is indeed about to lay charges against several other members, including senior officers?

[Presence Of Canadian Troops In Former Yugoslavia, March 10th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, last January 25, the Official Opposition actively participated in the debate held in this House on the future of peacekeeping operations and of Canada's commitment in Bosnia.

The Bloc Quebecois was totally sincere in deciding to reverse its position on this thorny and pressing issue. For a while, public opinion was shaken by the apparent futility of our efforts, the danger to which our soldiers were exposed, the costs of the operation, and the complexity of the political and military situation in Bosnia. However, the encouraging results achieved in recent days in Bosnia are restoring Quebecers' and Canadians' confidence in our commitment in that country.

In the opinion of the Bloc Quebecois, Canadian missions and CIDA are great sources of pride in Quebec and in Canada. Both have helped to establish Canada's credibility in the world.

It would have been easy to give up, to pick up all our equipment and leave, but it is not how Canada earned a solid reputation as a peacekeeping nation ready to make the extra effort to preserve it, as the Leader of the Opposition said earlier.

The truth is that the Prime Minister was at least careless when he mentioned, on leaving Brussels at the beginning of January, the possibility of a unilateral withdrawal of Canadian troops from the peacekeeping mission in Bosnia. Today, the government is at last reassuring its allies, with whom it must act in concert. It could not break the solidarity pact that Canada was courageous enough to draft with its NATO partners.

The government then decided, after alarming all its partners involved in the United Nations Protection Force in the former Yugoslavia, to extend the presence of Canadian troops, whose mandate was set to end on March 31, for another six months.

However, Canada refuses to respond favourably to the urgent appeal made by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who is asking for more peacekeepers in Bosnia. Since strengthening the peace process requires a larger number of peacekeeping contingents, the Bloc Quebecois asked the government on many occasions to reconsider its decision not to send more Canadian troops to Bosnia.

Incidentally, on this issue, today's newspapers widely report the opinion of Canadian General Lewis McKenzie, who commanded UN forces in the Sarajevo area at the beginning of the war.

In his opinion, if the UN does not succeed in convincing member states to provide extra troops within a month, the opportunity for peace will be lost.

The government must reverse its decision and respond favourably to the urgent appeal it received, so that peace achievements to this day can be built on and moved in the direction of total peace.

Finally, I would like to point out once again the courage and dignity with which our soldiers carry out their difficult task overseas. They deserve our admiration and full support. We also think of their loved ones who are also going through a very difficult time.

[Borrowing Authority Act, 1994-95, March 7th, 1994]

I have the figures. You can ask questions when I finish my speech.

At the Saint-Jean military college, anglophone students are in immersion for five years. Francophones have a chance to practice their English on a regular basis and, unlike the anglophones, are motivated to learn English because later they will have to work in other anglophone provinces or on peacekeeping missions within the international community, where English predominates.

The Saint-Jean military college is the only college that produces francophone and anglophone officers who are truly bilingual and who understand the linguistic and cultural duality which has been on the Prime Minister's lips since the beginning of the 35th Parliament.

This government has just made a decision which, according to all concerned, has no sound economic basis, because an institution of higher learning, a university that must embody the four pillars of officer-training, which are military instruction, university training, second-language training and physical education, should not have to meet narrow financial criteria.

The Minister of National Defence has stated that I had encouraged him to make cuts in military spending, but definitely not in Quebec. The minister said I was applying a double standard. But I want to remind him that, in terms of the money spent on infrastructures, Quebec, with only 13 per cent of those expenditures, was not getting its fair share, whether from a per capita or a budget point of view. In the document entitled Budget Impact , the minister himself clearly illustrates what I said in my previous presentation in this House.

Indeed, the minister tells us that in 1993, Quebec only received $302 per capita, while the Canadian average is $398. For a population of 6.7 million people, this translates into an annual loss of about $600 million, and this for more than 20 years now. This money not invested in Quebec represents more than $10 billion, a sum which surely would have helped create permanent jobs.

When we asked for cuts in the defence budget, we were convinced that this kind government, which wants to keep the bad Bloc Quebecois members from destroying the great country that Canada is, would show us that Quebec had suffered such a prejudice because of this imbalance in the defence budget, and

that this injustice would be corrected by not eliminating what little our province had got in the first place.

Again, when confronted with figures quoted by the hon. member for Saint-Jean, the Minister of National Defence said that indeed Quebec's percentage of the defence budget was smaller. The minister also said that he appreciated the hon. member's arguments to the effect that Quebec is at a disadvantage, but added that it was because of its geographical location in Canada. How can the minister and his government confirm that Quebec is at a disadvantage and ask us to put up with yet more cuts, when we have already suffered a prejudice for more than 20 years? If our location put us at a disadvantage during the Second World War, how can it once again put us at a disadvantage today?

Moreover, it is misleading to say that 22 per cent of military spending is now made in Quebec. Again, the Minister of National Defence pointed out that after the budget under study the percentage of military expenditures in Quebec has in fact increased, because of major cuts in the rest of the country. That share, which was 19 per cent yesterday, is now 22 per cent, this in spite of the closing of the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean and the downsizing of the military base.

Indeed, how can the minister say that when the figure of 22 per cent is only an estimate for 1997? To imply that this is the estimate for the present is to stretch things quite a bit. The same goes for the statements made concerning the Royal Military College in Kingston, and that concerns me.

I also want to say something about the comments made by the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence who said that if the government had listened to the Bloc Quebecois and cut 25 per cent of the defence budget, it would have been necessary to make even greater cuts in Quebec. In fact, if the government had made such a cut without affecting Quebec it would only have brought the expenditures made in our province in line with the per capita average spending for the rest of Canada. It would also have provided an argument for the few federalists still waiting for a justification of the Canadian federalism.

Not only was the Liberal government quite prepared to make cuts in Quebec, but it also showed its arrogance and its unfairness by closing the military college which is the least costly to run. It decided to close the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean in spite of the departmental report which I quoted earlier and which recommends that all three military colleges remain open and that operations be streamlined.

In my opinion, the recommendation made by the departmental committee is certainly a good one, considering that the closure of Royal Roads and the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean will only translate into savings of $34 million. By comparison, the hon. member for Waterloo, who is one of the minister's colleagues, mentioned that if we put restrictions to the relocation of military personnel moving from one base to another, which cost $118 million last year, we would easily save $35 million.

I am not done but unfortunately my time is up.

[Borrowing Authority Act, 1994-95, March 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it is not easy to pick up where one left off, but I will try.

I said earlier that I would concentrate on the impact on defence spending. In this connection, for the benefit of the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands who said that Kingston is a bilingual city, I have here an article dated March 3, which says that the military base's French school is not allowed to post its name in French on the outside of the school. I think that is rather revealing. "We wanted to emphasize the French character of the only place in Kingston where our children can speak French. In town, everything is in English". It is easy to say Kingston is completely bilingual, but this is not borne out by the facts.

My next point is that when the Department of National Defence and the Department of Finance made cuts in the defence budget, there were plenty of things we did not bother to mention and accepted without a murmur, because in Quebec we have always been somewhat deprived in this respect. In fact, the Minister of National Defence admitted that Quebec was at a disadvantage as far as defence spending was concerned.

I remember what was said in this House by the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence, when the former painted an idealistic picture of Canadian bilingualism and the latter, the Minister of National Defence, was upset that Bloc members refused to believe in the bilingual character of Kingston. How could we when we consider that at the time, Prime Minister Trudeau ordered the Royal Military College in Kingston to become a bilingual institution? And what is the situation now, 20 years later?

Kingston graduates are "officially" bilingual. In fact, francophones who attend the institution are perfectly bilingual. Anglophones have a very limited knowledge of French, so limited that they do not feel comfortable speaking French and lose that limited knowledge as soon as they graduate. This is from a report by the departmental committee on Canadian military colleges released in May 1993. These statements were not drafted by Bloc members, sovereigntists or separatists. This was in a report on military colleges by the Department of National Defence.

The Prime Minister said that Canada's linguistic duality was not exclusive to francophones in Quebec and included all francophones outside Quebec as well. When making these decisions, he probably overlooked the following: If bilingualism is the rule, why do the vast majority of officers from the Maritimes go to the Saint-Jean military college to become truly bilingual?

We should also remember-and I want to include the Royal Roads College in Victoria as well-that if we consolidate military training at a single college, there are many people in Western Canada who will not opt for a military career because they would have to leave the West and come to Ontario. The same applies to the Maritimes, because most officers who studied at the Saint-Jean Royal Military College were from the Maritimes and the province of Quebec.

[Bosnia, March 7th, 1994]

If I understand correctly, Mr. Speaker, they were prevented from leaving because they were being thanked.

I, along with the families of the soldiers, would like to know what approach the government is planning to take with Bosnian Serbs to ensure the departure of Canadian troops as scheduled? What does the government intend to do to ensure that the Serbs allow the withdrawal of Canadian peacekeepers?

[Bosnia, March 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

According to reports, the withdrawal of Canadian peacekeepers from Srebrenica has been held up because of the reluctance of Bosnian Serbs to let them leave. On January 13, the Minister of National Defence promised that Canadian peacekeepers would be relieved within thirty days, a deadline that has since passed. For his part, the Minister of Foreign Affairs informed us on February 16 and 21 that their replacement was imminent.

Can the minister confirm to us whether the withdrawal of Canadian peacekeepers from Srebrenica has been held up by the refusal of Bosnian Serbs to allow Dutch soldiers to relieve the Canadian contingent?

[Borrowing Authority Act, 1994-95, March 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would have preferred to make my speech uninterrupted. But if I must, because of the schedule, I will start now.

I listened to the hon. members speaking on the budget this morning, but I will address only budget cuts in defence spending, the only area where cuts were visible in this budget.

First of all, I would like to congratulate the Minister of Defence for standing bravely by the cuts made in the defence budget. He even took offence with some questions other members of the Bloc and myself have asked him. I must however point out to the hon. Minister of Defence that, unfortunately, he thinks he has the monopoly of consistency with regard to the role the Bloc Quebecois members have given themselves. He said: "I seldom get angry, but when I hear this kind of partisan remarks, I cannot help but react. When they speak like that, they-he is referring to us, the Bloc Quebecois-have only one thing in mind, and that is to destroy our country. We refuse to have anything to do with their game".

I am generally considered in my riding as a moderate, not a fanatic sovereigntist, or separatist as the Prime Minister prefers to call us, one who tries to base his analyses on facts and figures. I quoted the Minister of Defence because he has decided to get involved, in conjunction with members of the Bloc Quebecois-

I will continue later, Mr. Speaker.

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, February 23rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, there is only one French-language military college left in Canada, that is, Saint-Jean. Unfortunately, we were told yesterday that the federal government has decided to axe this true symbol for francophones. My question is for the Minister of Finance or the Minister of National Defence.

How can he reconcile this decision with the official languages policy so highly spoken of by the Prime Minister? Will he have us believe that the French heritage of the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean will not be lost if its activities are transferred to the Royal Military College in Kingston?

[Winter Olympics, February 23rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, again Quebecer Myriam Bédard gladdened our hearts today in Lillehammer, when she won a second gold medal for the biathlon, a first for an athlete from Quebec and Canada. The Bloc Quebecois hopes that this second brilliant performance by Ms. Bédard will convince everyone without exception of her tremendous talent.

However, I am appalled by those who, to quote journalist J.V. Dufresne "ooze contempt and envy where Quebec is concerned". Ms. Bédard has already shown she was able to overcome all the problems caused by Biathlon Canada. With her courage and determination, this young woman has made her dreams come true and has met the highest standards of her sport. She is a shining example for all Quebecers.

Myriam, on behalf of the people of the riding of Charlesbourg and all Quebecers, we offer you our admiration and congratulations.

[Bosnia, February 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, unless I am mistaken, the minister just said that Canada is doing more than its share regarding this mission. Consequently, if it cannot get additional troops, the UN could soon be unable to maintain the permanent ceasefire which we were all hoping for.