Philippe Paré

[International Centre For Human Rights And Democratic Development, May 16th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, Canada's image was built around its participation in numerous peace missions, its efforts to help developing countries and its commitment to the fight for human rights and democratic development.

In this regard, we must remember the important contribution of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development. At a time when several governments, including the Canadian government, have a tendency to build a wall between trade relations and human rights violations in the world, the Centre's mission is all the more vital for people who see their fundamental rights violated by their governments.

I want to salute and thank Mrs. Côté-Harper and Ed Broadbent, who will shortly leave their respective positions as chairwoman and director of the centre.

Thank you, on behalf of human solidarity.

[Civil Air Navigation Services Commercialization Act, May 15th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take my turn in speaking to Bill C-20. First of all, I would like to remind you that, in July 1994, when the former Minister of Transport, now Minister of Human Resources Development, released the policy for commercializing airports and air navigation, the Bloc Quebecois came out in favour of the principle.

At that time, however, we did not know how this new policy would take shape, and so we voiced some reservations on its application.

Today we are starting to have a somewhat clearer idea of how the government plans to put into practice the principle made known in July 1994. Why did we agree with the principle at that time? It struck us as reasonable, and more efficient, to make local administrators who are familiar with their region, its resources, its strengths and its weaknesses, responsible for the way their local airport developed.

Nevertheless, even then, we had some concerns about what would become of the regions. My colleague has just spoken of this. There are 26 major airports in Canada, and there is very little doubt in our minds that management of those major airports by the private sector is more dynamic than management by public servants in Ottawa.

However, we must also remember that there are over 500 or 600 airports in Canada. This raises the question of what fate is in store for the small local and regional airports. Things are not moving along very quickly, because, at the moment, some 20 local and regional airports have been transferred to municipalities.

My remarks apply primarily to three elements of the first block of motions. The first concerns safety. In recent years, I have been involved in the issue of safety because there is an airport in my riding, Jean Lesage international airport, and we have watched how the government-Transport Canada-has dealt with this issue over the past few years. While we supported the principle of commercialization of airports and air navigation services, it is still possible now for us to have serious reservations. Increasingly, the government's motives are becoming clear, transparent.

It is not out of generosity. It is not because the government places greater faith in local managers that it is withdrawing. No, it is doing so strictly in order to pull out and to save money. Therefore this bill must be considered in the light of this.

May I remind the House of some cases that show how relevant my comments are. A little over a year ago, almost two years ago in fact, Transport Canada decided to close a number of terminal control units at five or six airports, the last one being the one at Jean-Lesage airport.

We then waged a major fight to try to convince and show Transport Canada that there was still a ray of hope. The system that had been put in place to monitor all of Quebec did not always work properly. I remember in particular that, on April 9, 1995, a Quebec City terminal control unit that was following a plane suddenly realized that the plane had done a 180-degree turn. What was going on? Very simply, the radar allowing controllers to monitor the plane suddenly focused on a flight of Canada geese going in the opposite direction.

Every time we asked the Minister of Transport a question, he told us: "The most important thing is the safety of passengers". Allow me to question how safe they are.

We were also told, to justify closing the terminal control unit in Quebec City, that the emergency control unit at Dorval airport was fully operational, which was not true. When we went to the airport, we saw that the equipment that was supposed to be there did not exist and, what is more, that it took exactly 20 minutes to move crews to the regional control centre.

That is the first point. So, when government members come and tell us: "Our primary concern is safety", we do not believe them.

Let give you another example, still in connection with safety. In the interest of economy, always, Transport Canada discontinued the security services normally provided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at a number of Canadian airports. Again, Jean-Lesage airport was one of those affected. RCMP officers were replaced with veterans, I think. Granted, they can perform some functions, but I does not seem to me that they can do the same job as the RCMP officers.

Further evidence of the fact that the government, through Transport Canada, does not care about safety can be found in the length of aircraft allowed to land in Canadian airports. Of course, it is regulated.

The applicable regulations take into account, among other things, runway length of course, but also firefighting services available at the airport.

Given the number of firefighters on duty at the airport in Quebec City, the number of fire trucks available and the type of trucks used, it was clear that Transport Canada was not abiding by its own regulations. What did the government and Transport Canada do? They took one more truck away and reduced the number of firefighters, departing even further from their own regulations.

This government has decided to decentralize to the regions only to save some money. We have seen what it has done with Canadian National Railways. You might say I am getting sidetracked, but I am not. I am still discussing the same theme. The government is withdrawing from this area, not out of generosity towards the provinces, but to avoid fulfilling its financial obligations. Transport Canada neglected the Quebec City bridge for 15 years. And no sooner was CN privatized last year, what did the federal government do? It started saying: "Yes, the Quebec City bridge is in bad shape, but like Pontius Pilate, we are washing our hands of the whole thing. CN is now a private corporation. Consequently, we have nothing to do with the maintenance of the bridge". Yet, it is because of CN's negligence, and Transport Canada's negligence, that the bridge is in its current state of disrepair.

The issue of navigational aids in the St. Lawrence River, which we raised on numerous occasions in recent weeks, is another example of government withdrawal. The reason is always the same: to save money. Safety is hardly a consideration. Without first conducting a real economic impact study, Canada was divided in three zones and the government is telling users of the St. Lawrence Seaway, to the Great Lakes, that they will now have to pay for services provided to them. The decision was made without even

bothering to see if it will impact on the volume of traffic and if it will result in ships using American ports instead.

ADM is another example of the government's quickness to say it is no longer its responsibility, when it withdraws from an area. ADM was established and we agree with the underlying principle. Now there is a problem, and the government, instead of requiring a public examination of the effects of transferring flights from Mirabel to Dorval, said, instead: "No, no, this is no longer our concern. We are no longer involved and have passed the responsibility for the Montreal airports on to a private firm".

I would also like to talk a bit in this context about Nav Canada's representativeness. Colleagues have already spoken on this. Nav Canada's board of directors does not represent the Canadian reality. Only the Transportation Association of Canada has been authorized to appoint representatives to the board. And where do these representatives come from? Two are from British Columbia and two are from the Ottawa region. This composition of the board they claim represents Canada. There is no one from Quebec.

Two groups in particular have been very involved in navigation in Quebec over the past 20 or 30 years: the Association québécoise des transporteurs aériens and the Association des gens de l'air. They had a special place in air transportation and were dismissed with a wave of the hand, simply because, as they were told: "You do not represent a national association. You are regional". So there is no one from Quebec.

When the criticism is made to the Minister of Transport that there is no one from Quebec, his response is very smooth.

He says: "Well, we appointed someone from Quebec to represent you: Michel Vennat, the president of the Council for Canadian Unity". He is representing the interests of Quebec aviation with Nav Canada. What does Mr. Vennat know about air transportation? Probably nothing. I am not criticizing him. I am criticizing the government for appointing him.

It refuses to appoint people from the industry and appoints a political person, someone who plays a very dubious role in constitutional discussions, to the board of Nav Canada to represent Quebec's interests.

We should be having serious doubts about this bill. Agreeing with the principle is one thing, but accepting the bill as written is another.

In another vein, I would like to return to the matter of French. I do not consider the guarantees at all satisfactory. The minister says: "We will ensure that the Official Languages Act applies", but while Transport Canada was managing air control, it took no steps to ensure that the Official Languages Act was being complied with. Why should we trust a private company to do so? I will come back to this a little later.

[Petitions, May 15th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the people of Quebec are extremely upset with the inaction and negligence of the Canadian government in the Tran Trieu Quan case.

The five thousand individuals who signed this petition are outraged by the imprisonment of this Canadian citizen in Vietnam

and they are asking the House of Commons to take responsibility for Mr. Quan's safety and to apply pressure on the government to release him.

[Petitions, May 9th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the people of Quebec are appalled by the Canadian government's inaction in the Tran Trieu Quan case. These 5,000 petitioners are outraged by the incarceration of this-

[Employment Insurance Act, May 2nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to rise today, not to say that this is a good bill but to give some support mainly to the three Bloc members. I am talking about the hon. members for Mercier, Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup and Lévis, who, for almost two years now, have been fighting long and hard on behalf not only of their constituents but also of all the people of Quebec and an important part of the people of Canada, for those who will fall victim to this unemployment insurance reform.

This is totally absurd. We are faced with a government that is not living up to its promises, as we have seen many times this week. Liberals had promised to scrap the GST, but they did not deliver. The Minister of Justice and the Prime Minister promised to vote as a party on the issue of sexual orientation as a prohibited ground of discrimination, but they did not keep their word.

On the one hand, they do not keep their promises and, on the other other, they do things they did not promise to do. Among other things, they are undertaking a reform of the unemployment insurance system even though, as mentioned by my colleague for Trois-Rivières, the Prime Minister, when in the opposition, fought against the unemployment insurance reform proposed by the Conservatives.

The Bloc Quebecois' fight goes back to the fall of 1994 when the Minister of Human Resources Development started a huge consultation process throughout the country on a reform proposal.

We could speak of reform then because we did not know yet what would come out of these consultations or what kind of a bill would finally be introduced in the House of Commons. So Canadians were consulted. Our three colleagues travelled across Canada with the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development. In the end, 80 per cent of the witnesses heard by the committee were against the reform proposal as it was then formulated. More eager to please the government than the people, the standing committee prepared a report, which, of course, was not in accordance with what the people consulted had said. That is why the Bloc Quebecois presented a dissenting report.

Since then, especially since the 1995 budget speech, we have seen a series of government measures aimed at pulling the government out of fields of activity where it had been present for many years. In many cases the Bloc Quebecois supported such measures, and I am thinking in particular of the privatization of airports and air traffic control. We agreed on the principle.

In the present case, the government is doing exactly the opposite. It has not contributed one cent to the unemployment insurance fund since 1991. So if there were one sector the government could privatize and where it could say to employers and employees: "Since you are the only contributing to it, we are asking you to manage the unemployment insurance program", it is this one.

Why is the government doing the opposite in other sectors, for example with navigation aids? The Coast Guard is trying to get users pay the bill. Why did the government not do the same with unemployment insurance? For a very simple reason, the government discovered, following the 1995 budget, in which there were important cuts to UI eligibility and benefit payment criteria, that

unemployment insurance has become an extremely productive cash cow. Therefore why privatize such a cost effective program?

It will even further reduce benefits so that claimants will receive lower payments, and make it more and more difficult to receive unemployment insurance by imposing stricter conditions. Furthermore, it will make sure that everybody pays into it, even those who do not have the slightest chance of receiving benefits one day.

Realizing this was an extremely important revenue source, the government would have us believe it is reforming the unemployment insurance program. But what is it truly doing? It is in fact draining the UI fund in order to reduce the deficit.

This bill will have extremely harmful results. Because it is afraid Canadians will discover more harmful features, the government decided to limit debate. A time limit was imposed on the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development so the government could steamroll passage of this bill.

The bill will have extremely negative consequences particularly because it is going after the people most in need, those who are most vulnerable. It is an attack against seasonal workers and part time workers, which necessarily means women because they represent a high percentage of that category. It is an attack against entrants and immigrants who have been here for a few years and who, for cultural or other reasons, obviously have more difficulty than others entering into the labour force.

The most vulnerable workers will be affected the most. They will be forced to contribute to unemployment insurance from their very first hour of work. This, in itself is not bad. We could even say it is a good measure had the government not already raised the eligibility criteria. These people are forced to contribute from their very first hour of work, but the eligibility notch is raised so high that we can be sure many contributing workers will never be eligible-some say one million of them.

Making part time workers, students and so on contribute will bring $900 million into the unemployment insurance fund, and what makes that measure so perverse is that it will allow the government to give that money to the richer workers. We must remember that maximum insurable earnings, which were set at $42,500, will be lowered to $39,000. That means that the government took $900 million in the pockets of the poorest workers in order to give it to the wealthiest, when it could have raised that maximum instead. It was at $42,000. Why not set it at $50,000 or $60,000? It chose not to. It preferred to take the money from the poorest workers, those most vulnerable. For that reason alone, this bill is a perverse and antisocial measure and, unfortunately, if it is passed, we will have to pay a social price for it in the years to come.

[Petitions, May 1st, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, for two years now, a resident from my riding, Tran Trieu Quan, has been held prisoner in Vietnam. People in the Quebec City region and throughout the province are upset by this situation and the 5,300 petitioners ask Parliament to ensure the safety and freedom of Tran Trieu Quan.

[Petitions, April 24th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of presenting a petition concerning the sad fate of a constituent of mine, Tran Trieu Quan, who has been imprisoned in Vietnam for over two years now.

Mr. Tran's fate generates a great deal of sympathy in the Quebec City region, and also throughout the province. The 5,200 petitioners are asking Parliament to ensure the safety and release of Mr. Tran at the earliest opportunity.

[Supply, April 23rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I, too, want to thank and commend the hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca for his speech.

Reform members have often had a narrow view of things, but not in this case. I think the hon. member who just spoke managed to open up the debate, to talk about genocide, which is at the heart of the motion before us today. He managed to extend the debate to the broad issue of human rights.

Today's debate allowed us, I think, to address issues of vital importance for the future of humankind. There are still major issues we barely spoke about. In my car this morning, I was listening to a news report that there are now one million antipersonnel mines around the world. Given how slowly they are being removed, they said it would take 1,000 years to remove them all. What is really sad is that such mines are still being laid. I can only conclude that the work will never end.

Yesterday, there was another news report on CBC about child soldiers. In Liberia, children who are only 7, 8 or 10 years old are being asked to murder people, something the military are sometimes reluctant to do for fear of the consequences. So they send children instead. My colleague from the Reform Party also talked about a reform of the Security Council. I think this may help resolve some of the problems being debated today.

I would like to end with a question. The hon. member mentioned at one point in his comments that we could use our economic levers to intervene in conflicts. Does he not agree that, by setting a foreign policy that is totally focused on trade, the Canadian government has deprived itself of some of the levers available to it in the past?

[Supply, April 23rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague opposite and I conclude in the end that he thinks that the United Nations should find a way to deal with crimes against humanity.

In my opinion, there are some inconsistencies between what we are hearing today from the government side and reality.

I will remind the House that Pierre Sané, the president of Amnesty International, was in Ottawa on April 11. He spoke on the issue of human rights and trade.

I will highlight a number of points he raised. I believe he was right when he said: "The fight to protect human rights can only be fought on a global scale otherwise it will be lost before it starts". He added: "In this era of globalization, the question is to know how to ensure that exchanges are not limited to goods, information and money, but also include values".

Could my colleague opposite explain through which magical trick his Prime Minister believes that trading with countries with no regard for human rights is going to address, just like in a crystal ball, the issue of the violation of human rights? In this regard, I will remind the House that in 1994, the Prime Minister said: "I could make resounding speeches on the issue and make headlines, but I prefer to open markets and trade; eventually, the walls will fall". My colleague from Laval East said earlier that even the Canadian Exporters' Association is considering a voluntary code with respect to trade relations with countries that do not respect human rights.

How can the government believe that the issue of human rights will be settled as if by magic?

[Supply, April 23rd, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I would like to make a brief comment and compare what the president of Amnesty International said to what the Prime Minister said. I will then ask my colleague for some comments.

During a recent visit to Ottawa, Pierre Sané, president of Amnesty International, said: "The battle for human rights has to be global, otherwise it will be lost even before it starts".

During his first trip to Asia, the Prime Minister said: "I could give a headline-making speech on that issue, but I prefer to open markets and promote trade. The walls will eventually come down".

Given what the Prime Minister said, could my colleague tell us when these walls will come down? Is it in two years or two hundred years?