Lucien Bouchard

[Publishing Industry, March 9th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the highest legal authorities in Canada are the courts, mainly the Supreme Court, yet this government did not dare bring the case to court.

How can the minister attach so much importance to a promise which was carefully excluded from the written agreements, particularly in light of the fact that the government of the time had publicly committed itself never to sell this company to anything other than Canadian publishing interests?

[Publishing Industry, March 9th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Canadian Heritage.

The sale of Ginn Publishing to Paramount Communications of New York is causing much concern in Canada's publishing world and cultural industry. We are about to see yet another instrument for the expression of cultural identity taken over by foreign interests. In addition, the whole operation has a clandestine air to it. It appears to have been conducted in secret on the strength of a verbal agreement of unknown origin.

Will the minister reveal the identity of the person responsible for this sell out of our interests to a foreign publisher?

[Status Of Women, March 8th, 1994]

It is the Minister of Transport.

[International Women's Day, March 8th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, today I would like to join my colleagues in stressing the invaluable role women play in society and in our private lives. Far from being a day to give men a clear conscience, March 8 must go beyond symbols and remind us of how much remains to be done for the women's cause.

It is fitting to stress achievements, but it is even more important to renew our commitment to bring about this long-awaited sex equality. Democracy, justice and humanism require the implementation of economic and social conditions which will enable women to reach their full potential and reconcile their many roles.

This new awareness is even more important for us, MPs and party leaders, in a House where only 18 per cent of seats are held by women. Let us recognize in that figure a deficiency of our democratic system and a serious political failure that must be addressed urgently.

[Unemployment, March 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Prime Minister whether he realizes that by zeroing in on unemployment insurance, he is putting the burden of the deficit on the shoulders of the provinces, which in the coming year are already faced with spending an additional $1 billion on welfare, which works out to $280 million in Quebec alone.

[Unemployment, March 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the minister has a selective approach to recent political history. I saw in this House, and I shared, the fervour, intensity and indignation with which he attacked Bill C-113, which took 5 per cent of their unemployment insurance benefits away from the unemployed. We all condemned this legislation and we voted against it. Today, I see the same minister working as part of a cabinet that has launched a wholesale attack against the unemployed.

I want to ask the Prime Minister or his deputy whether the government will admit that without genuine measures to boost employment, the government's decision to reduce the benefits of nearly 85 per cent of the unemployed will have the effect of putting several thousand of these people on welfare?

[Unemployment, March 7th, 1994]

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

In their analysis of the impact of this government's first budget, three economists at the Université du Québec à Montréal stated that the government was asking the unemployed, and I quote: "to make an entirely disproportionate contribution by obliging them to shoulder 60 per cent of the cutbacks announced in the budget". In fact, the benefit rate and benefit period of more than eight unemployed workers has been reduced, which illustrates the extent of this unprecedented attack by the government on the unemployed.

Could the Prime Minister explain why the government, instead of cutting operating expenditures and getting rid of widespread overlap in its administration, has deliberately decided to come down hard on the unemployed?

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, February 24th, 1994]

The small region of Lac-Saint-Jean, is that it?

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, February 24th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, we all noted with interest that the Prime Minister admitted that until 1952, it was a problem. Indeed, the problem was that the French fact was not recognized and was snubbed by the Canadian armed forces and that Kingston was a prime example of such rejection.

Can the Prime Minister confirm that closing the college in Saint-Jean is the result of last-minute pressure from the Liberal caucus to help the closure of military bases go down better in the rest of Canada?

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, February 24th, 1994]

I have trouble understanding how one can say such things when the Canadian armed forces already spend only 13 per cent of their capital budget in Quebec.

But, Mr. Speaker, if you allow me, I would remind the Prime Minister that the college in Saint-Jean was founded to end the scandal of an army that resisted the French fact and that the college in Kingston was indeed one of the bastions of that hostile attitude.

I want to ask the Prime Minister if he does not admit that his government's decision is taking us back 40 years and wiping out a symbol of success for the French fact in Canada.