André Caron

[Budget Implementation Act, 1994, April 15th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I feel it is my duty to speak on Bill C-17, particularly the part concerning unemployment insurance. A duty because I am the member for Jonquière and-according to the weekend papers-the Chicoutimi-Jonquière region has again the unemployment record for Canada, 14.7 per cent. This is an official figure. You know as well as I do that many people are discouraged and no longer looking for work. These people do not show up in the statistics, but they nevertheless live in our communities.

In my area, 25 per cent of the population might be on welfare or unemployment insurance. Last week, I received a paper from a professor at the Université du Québéc which said that, in my area, the rate might be close to 50 per cent if everyone who wants to work is counted. This is enormous. That is why I feel it is my duty to speak out.

The bill reduces unemployment insurance payments, raises the minimum entry requirements and reduces the number of weeks during which unemployment insurance can be paid.

I read the bill carefully and the only rationale for the government to introduce such a bill is to save money. I agree that government spending should be rationalized, and during the election campaign our party was calling for deeper cuts than the ones proposed.

But why single out the unemployed? There seems to be a philosophy in that bill which says: "That is it, the government is no longer going to support you, you are going to be thrown out in the street, and then you will have to manage on your own". What we are doing is applying to the unemployed the law of the market, which is the law of the jungle. Everyone must manage on his or her own with less and less help from the community or the country.

I find this attitude scary. We are telling the unemployed: "You are probably out of work because you want it that way, you do not really want to work". We are calling into question the honesty of our fellow citizens who, we claim, like to do nothing and get paid for it. You know this is not true.

If we send people into the street to find jobs, there must be jobs to find. Where are they? The government has just launched an infrastructure program that is supposed to create 45,000 jobs in Canada. The program has just started and there is nothing concrete yet. Statistics show that many people would like to work, but are unemployed. Where are the jobs? We are often told that there are tens of thousands of unfilled positions because there is no one qualified to take them. Where are these positions?

I am a guidance counsellor by training. Before I had the honour of representing the riding of Jonquière in this House, I worked in a vocational training centre and was, among other things, in charge of admissions. Whenever I met people who wanted to be retrained and better prepared for the workplace, some would ask: "Which field has jobs available now?" These people had read in the newspapers and heard politicians say that there might be tens of thousands of jobs available. Where are these jobs advertised? In the newspapers or in the offers of employment? We do not see very many there, nor on the bulletin boards of UI offices. In my riding, there are people skilled in leading sectors because they received training in new technologies at the Université du Québec in Chicoutimi. At the CEGEP in Jonquière, at the vocational centre where I worked, people are

told to develop skills because there will be jobs available, but these jobs simply do not exist.

Madam Speaker, if we reduce benefits and force the unemployed to go back to work, there should at least be jobs available, which is not the case. This is not the time for the Government of Canada to go after the unemployed. What is needed are well thought out policies to stimulate employment. And, in particular, we should take advantage of the current unemployment situation to retrain those who are in need of training.

I mentioned earlier that I worked in a vocational training centre. I used to receive a lot of calls from unemployed people, since massive layoffs took place in my region, including at Alcan, Abitibi-Price, Cascades, as well as in some stores and other businesses. People are not stupid; they realized that they might not get their former job back, so they wanted to develop new skills and be retrained. This is why they would get in touch with the centre where I worked.

I would meet with them to assess their retraining opportunities. But when it came to the crucial issue, that is, "how will I survive while I am retraining and while I am in school?", I would tell them: "Right now, you get your unemployment insurance benefits, but if you come to my training centre to take courses during the day, or even at night, and you join some groups that are already there to be trained, well, you will have to give up your benefits." People were saying: "That does not make any sense, I have to support myself and my family." So, they would postpone their training plans.

But this is absolutely criminal! It is criminal that, in vocational training centres like the one in Jonquière, there are spaces available in disciplines which are part of the new technologies, such as electro-mechanics, digital controls and refrigeration. In my training centre alone, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been invested in equipment and instruments. Often, these are not being used. And in the streets, in stores, there are thousands of people who want to be trained, but who are wandering around, trying to occupy their time.

I think it would have been important in the present situation to have a concerted and effective vocational training policy which would make room for people and allow them to be supported by the community during their training. After that, they could go on the labour market and become an asset for society. But this is not what has been done.

What did we do during that time in terms of training? We argued. I have witnessed that in my own training centre.

Often, we waited for information from the federal government to see if unemployed workers wanted to apply for various training programs. At a certain point, the federal government would inform us that, for the time being, it did not have the funds and that personnel might be available in three or four months. Yet, workers cry out for training while various levels of government cannot agree on a clear policy.

Members of the Bloc Quebecois have denounced the present overlapping in occupational training. The federal government makes decisions, the provinces make decisions, the Department of Education decides to structure its programs the way it wants and, at the end of the day, we have a situation where people who want to be trained have no training while places remain empty in our training centres.

This is outrageous, and that is why I condemn this bill, because it sends the following message to the unemployed: You cost too much, we doubt you really want to get back into the labour market, and so we are going to shorten your benefit period, but things should turn out in the end. But they will not.

One really wonders about the logic behind this kind of budget proposal. It takes a short-term view of the problem. The government wants to save billions of dollars in unemployment insurance benefits for a couple of years, but the money will be spent on welfare benefits because-and one of my colleagues made the point this morning-there are some very scary figures, and by that I mean that we can calculate the cost of the unemployment insurance measures proposed by the government. There are new welfare recipients in Quebec and people who are not eligible for unemployment insurance benefits. This is a frightening situation, because the government is introducing measures, knowing there will be a significant negative impact, and meanwhile, it does not hold out any hope for the unemployed.

Last Wednesday, I attended a seminar organized by people who are concerned about regional development. At this seminar, a number of young people had this to say: We want jobs, and we want real jobs. We do not want another Katimavik program. We do not want be kept busy painting fences in the parks during the summer. We want to get into the labour market. We want to be part of the social, political and economic life of our country.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak in this debate, and of course I will vote against Bill C-17, because I think it is absolutely unfair to the unemployed.

[Native Communities, March 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I think that the government should be especially diligent seeing that the Indian Act presently in effect was sponsored by the current Prime Minister back in the early 1970s.

Does the government not realize that it can give a real positive indication of its willingness to improve the status of native people by ensuring, as promised, the prompt return to the mainland of the Innu community in Davis Inlet?

[Native Communities, March 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister.

In his annual report tabled yesterday, the Canadian Human Rights Commissioner sternly denounced the treatment inflicted upon native communities in Canada.

While taking a stand in favour of self-government, he warned the government that this was not a miracle cure and urged it to put an end to the segregation and paternalism fostered by the Indian Act.

What strategy, including concrete actions, does the government intend to put in place to implement the Human Rights Commissioner's recommendations and bring an end to the economic dependency created by the Indian Act, which is at the origin of the severe social problems gripping several native communities in Canada today?

[Aluminum Industry, March 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, as the member of Parliament for Jonquière, I wish to inform this House that a committee of aluminum workers laid off by Alcan was set up, with a membership of 500. This committee has contacted the Prime Minister to let him know how disappointed it was because the federal government seems to pay little attention to those affected by unemployment in the aluminum industry.

These unemployed workers are asking for investments from Alcan in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region in return for the privilege of using the hydro-electric power of our rivers. They also ask for job creation to be promoted by limiting overtime.

These workers denounce Canada's financial support for the construction and modernization of aluminum plants in South Africa and Russia while Canadian aluminum workers are being laid off. The committee therefore asks the government to develop consistent economic and employment policies.

[Aluminium Industry, March 11th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, this probably means that the minister did not really study the impact of last week's agreement on our aluminum industry.

Since he has also allocated several million dollars for the construction of a huge aluminum smelter in South Africa, could the minister acknowledge that the recent action of his government will jeopardize the jobs of thousands of Quebec aluminum workers, when these new and improved Russian aluminum plants are in operation?

[Aluminium Industry, March 11th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, Canada and four other aluminum producing countries have committed themselves, last week, to helping Russian aluminum plants to modernize, in exchange for a reduction in Russian aluminum production. Canada, for one, will help in the privatizing, modernizing and industrial development of Russian aluminum plants.

Did the Minister for International Trade analyse the medium-term impact of the modernization of Russian aluminum plants on our own aluminum industry? If so, could he table the results of those analyses?

[City Of Jonquière, February 22nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw attention to the publication of a guidebook called Jonquière, mémoires et lieux that illustrates and interprets the architectural heritage of the city of Jonquière, in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region. This book shows the evolution of the city since it was founded in 1847.

The authors, Luc Noppen and Lucie Morrisset of Laval University, mention the uniqueness of Arvida, home of Alcan and now part of the city of Jonquière. Arvida, which was built between 1926 and 1928, is distinguished by its innovative town planning and its original architecture.

On the eve of their city's 150th anniversary, the people of Jonquière worked in close collaboration to produce this book, which commemorates architectural treasures often overlooked and sometimes forgotten.

[Supply, February 10th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I will provide two examples of issues which this committee could examine and which are not currently being looked at. There is the matter of overlapping, for instance. As someone involved in the movement for Quebec's sovereignty for more than 20 years, I have seen every day examples of overlapping of federal and provincial services. I have yet to see a comprehensive study, whether by the public accounts committee or another committee of the federal government, on this issue. I have never seen any such study.

There is also another type of issue which this special committee could look at. As you know, Quebec and Ontario have their own police force, while the other provinces rely on the RCMP. To what extent do Ontario and Quebec taxpayers subsidize the police force elsewhere in the country? We would like an answer to that question and to the fact that some expenditures paid by certain segments of the population do not directly benefit them.

Essentially, what we want is not a technical or technocratic committee but, rather, a political committee which, on behalf of the public, would examine government spending and say to a minister that his department spent so many dollars on such and such a program, then ask him to justify that spending. And if the spending is justified we, politicians, will tell the public that it was indeed justified. However, if managers cannot justify some expenditures, we will say, on behalf of the public that this

spending is unjustified and ask that appropriate action be taken so that it is not incurred again by the federal government.

[Supply, February 10th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the motion put forward by the Official Opposition calls for the creation of a special parliamentary committee with a mandate to examine public expenditures by the federal government. These are the expenditures related to the various programs implemented by departments and Crown corporations with billions of taxpayers' dollars.

It is the responsibility of Parliament to determine whether taxpayers' money is being spent wisely. During the last election campaign, the Bloc Quebecois argued that a review of public spending was urgently needed. The idea of a special parliamentary committee responsible for this task was extremely well received in my constituency. People want to know. They see around them examples of misspent public funds. They read in the newspapers horror stories on public spending.

Like other Canadians and Quebecers, the people in my constituency are aware that the government does not have much leeway in financial matters and they know that we must contemplate drastic cuts in spending.

While taxpayers want the federal government to cut spending, they are opposed to hasty, systematic, arbitrary cuts that may have disastrous consequences, especially for the poorest in our society.

Parliament, being responsible for the public purse, must screen public expenditures. Some are essential, others necessary, many undoubtedly useful, but some are unnecessary in today's context and must be eliminated.

The proposed committee could be responsible for this analysis of expenditures and report to Parliament, who would then be able to set objectives to reduce spending and justify these objectives to the people affected by the cuts.

This is an emergency measure because the situation requires it. The present procedures and control methods have been shown to be ineffective. Those who claim that this duplicates the Public Accounts Committee are mistaken. The mandate of the proposed committee is broader and, given the situation, it is almost a public salvation committee which could force managers to open their books and even go so far as to suggest a restructuring of public spending in Canada.

The mandate of the committee which we propose would be to review all spending related to government programs. The Auditor General's latest report gives us many examples of programs that could be examined.

As an illustration, see what the auditor concluded after examining the Canadian aboriginal economic development strategy program, for which the government has spent not less than $900 million since 1989. I am interested in this program because I am a member of the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

This program was run by three departments: Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Employment and Immigration, and Industry, Science and Technology. The overall purpose of the program was to reduce economic disparities between native people and other Canadians and Quebecers, a laudable goal which no one can criticize. The aim was to help native communities become economically self-sufficient. If you know the social and economic situation of native people, you will agree that it is urgent. We must act so that there are no more Davis Inlets in Canada.

Was this highly laudable goal reached? No one can say, according to the Auditor General. The three departments could not show that the funding methods used and the amounts allocated were appropriate. The departments concerned could not prove that they met the goals of the strategy.

In short, after spending $900 million, Parliament does not know if the employment rate and income have increased among native people, if a reasonable number of new businesses were started, if the native people are less dependent on welfare. Nor does Parliament know if native communities are better able to

manage their affairs. In other words, we spent $900 million and we have to say, "Let us hope that it was effective". But in practice we cannot say that it was.

Let us be clear on this. The program may have been a great success, but Parliament, Canadians and Quebecers have no idea that it was. Should we eliminate programs of this kind in the native community? We do not know; we are not in a position to make a decision. Or, on the contrary, should we increase the amounts allocated to reach the goal of economic equality among native people, Canadians and Quebecers? No one knows.

Much more important, were the native people sufficiently involved in the process? No one knows because in the days when Parliament could be satisfied just to send money to the reserves and say that we did what we had to do are long gone. The government announced that native self-government would take effect in the coming months. Thus, we must ensure that the people who will have self-government can look after themselves, by giving them training, experience and programs to help them prepare for it.

A special committee like the one we propose could help Parliament answer all the questions for which I just said we had no answer.

Parliament must be informed, it is only just. Just for the taxpayers whom we represent, and just for the program recipients whom we also represent.

The people for whom these programs were designed do not have to suffer the shame of being accused of illegally receiving the taxpayers' money. We often blame the recipient, the welfare recipient, the unemployed, the health care consumer for abusing the system.

As usual, someone is being made the scapegoat. We see the horrifying practice whereby victims even start feeling guilty. Blaming recipients for spending public funds is easy, whereas the onus is in fact on Parliament and managers to act so that the taxpayers' money is spent wisely.

Those who were in charge of ensuring that public funds were well spent in Canada did not do their job. The result of their carelessness is a catastrophic public debt and stronger biases against government program recipients, for example, health care consumers and welfare recipients and unemployed Canadians.

In closing, I would like to say that, to continue performing their duty, taxpayers must be sure that their money is well spent. They must be convinced that public funds are not being wasted, that cuts will be made where they should be. A committee such as the one proposed must be able to do the proper analysis, thereby allowing Parliament to implement the necessary budget measures, to put the public finances in order and to restore the confidence of Canadians in their representatives.

[Supply, February 10th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that the House sit until 1:05 p.m. so that hon. members can ask me questions after my speech.