Jean Landry

[Department Of Agriculture Act, October 19th, 1994]

Only 10 per cent. I want equity. Once my colleague opposite gives us equal treatment, we will talk.

[Department Of Agriculture Act, October 19th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, in Quebec 24 per cent of the population works in the agricultural industry, but only 10 per cent of the agriculture budget goes to Quebec.

[Department Of Agriculture Act, October 19th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it is a real pleasure to respond to my colleague opposite. There is one thing that I would like to tell him about. Let us look, if you will, at maple syrup, where we have an over-production. Look at what is going on. I will go further than that by telling exactly to the government what happened in Quebec and the rest of Canada. Let us talk about potatoes. In New Brunswick, farmers produce potatoes; they are also produced in Quebec, and the federal government was subsidizing the New Brunswick potato growers so that they could go on the Quebec market.

Quebecers never got 5 cents to leave their area and go on the market, within their own province. So, I justify myself today; that is exactly what the federal government did, or give me some evidence to the contrary. The evidence that I have is that it has never been fair. I could also talk about many other issues.

[Department Of Agriculture Act, October 19th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my speech will deal with Bill C-49, an Act to amend the Department of Agriculture Act.

The Department of Agriculture being renamed the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food is something that we can understand. It goes without saying that the economic future of the agricultural sector depends not only on government assistance but also on the development of processing, marketing and distribution. I have questions on the last point, distribution, and on overlap. Agri-food processors often talk about the difficulties they encounter in distributing their products.

How can we develop the agri-food sector successfully without tackling the deficiencies of the distribution sector?

Let us take the example of fine cheeses, which are difficult to distribute. This small market could be profitable but transportation and market placement costs are exorbitant. Intercompany consultation could be a solution. The current distribution monopoly hurts processors. We could look at the example of the Quebec consultation forum on exportation, where businesses worked together to transport food products to new markets. The government has a responsibility to provide more information on these markets. There is room for improvement on its part in this area.

Such co-operation must be encouraged among wholesalers, who have a hard time competing with their American counterparts enjoying special access through U.S. subsidiaries established in some Canadian markets. These subsidiaries already have their own suppliers of cheaper U.S. products. That is why it is important for our wholesalers to work together to fight these American companies with a significant advantage.

Producers do not enjoy a power relationship with the distribution sector so they must co-operate on transportation to become more competitive. Joint price setting by producers, processors and, of course, the government must not be done at the expense of producers.

With respect to overlap, we see, once again, that the government did not take it into account in drafting a bill. The minister of agriculture did not say clearly that his bill would save Quebecers from paying twice for the same services. This happens all too often, unfortunately.

As I already pointed out in a previous debate on agriculture in this House, industry and government in Quebec have worked together for a very long time to implement market-winning strategies. Meanwhile, the federal government sets up programs that conflict or overlap with provincial programs, thus wasting public funds.

This also increases the debt, which surely displeases the Minister of Finance. When the government imposes its policies, does it realize that these do not always, and I would even say not often, fit in with the priorities and development approaches of those who work in the sector concerned?

Let me remind you of some of the objectives which came out of the summit conference on rural Quebec in 1991: respect and promotion of regional and local values; co-operation among regional and local partners; diversification of the regional economic base; protection and regeneration of resources; a top-down shift of political power. From this conference arose the co-operative councils, which have proven their effectiveness. The federal government does not take these objectives into account at all in developing its programs.

The government should stop trying to direct farming, but should consider farmers as business people when it supports regional entrepreneurship. It must distinguish agricultural development policies from regional development policies and encourage farmers themselves to realize the importance of environmental issues as a way to promote agriculture. Those are provisions we could have found in this bill.

It is all very well to agree with the spirit of this bill, but nothing prevents us from seeing that there is still a big potential for overlap. Some activities that overlap? Here are some: The Canadian and Quebec governments both support farmers. They both promote the development of markets, research initiatives, as well as inspections of agricultural products.

The fact that the Department of Agriculture will become the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food confirms the greater responsibility of that department. It will no longer simply help producers, because the future of the agricultural sector is dependent on the processing, marketing and distribution of products. The minister made it clear in this House last month. Needless to say that the new department will have to help our producers become more competitive and self-sufficient in relation to foreign producers, and will also have to ensure the future of our agricultural sector.

The bill provides that the minister will assume his responsibility in the field of research, which is essential. Indeed, with the opening of world markets, the department should play an active role in that regard.

I will conclude by asking the minister to look at the issue of overlapping as well as the distribution problems experienced by processors, which I referred to earlier. Then, the new name of his department could be a meaningful change.

[Department Of Agriculture Act, October 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you as well as the hon. member. I have to say that I appreciate it when things are clear and precise, and I think that the amendment tabled by the Reform Party will help us have a better idea of what is involved and, consequently, help us review and manage more efficiently. Therefore, I think this is a very good amendment and I will support it.

[Department Of Agriculture Act, October 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I too am pleased to give my opinion on the Standing Committee on Agriculture, in view of the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Malpeque.

Just a moment ago, it was pointed out that organizations, too, prepare estimates, and that they also must give an annual accounting. I would point out that the vast machinery of government includes committees, such as the Standing Committee on Agriculture, and that it is very important that this committee submit a report to members of Parliament once a year so that farm producers can see where the money has been spent.

I am wondering if the parliamentary secretary is afraid of transparency. I say give us all the facts so that we may examine them and understand them. I agree that an annual report should be tabled here in Parliament, because this is where decisions originate, and as Members of Parliament we have the right to an annual report.

[1992 Referendum, September 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister says that he has found no indication of a commitment on the part of the previous government to pay Quebec for its expenses in the Charlottetown referendum and it is on that basis that the Prime Minister refuses to pay Quebec. However, in the case of Ginn Publishing, where there had been a verbal commitment, the Prime Minister did not hesitate one moment to honour that commitment, quite the contrary.

It is obvious that verbal commitments do not all have the same weight in Ottawa. The federal government prefers to honour a shameful, anonymous and unacceptable commitment rather than an honourable agreement between the Prime Minister and the Premier.

Quebecers are fed up with paying for such an expensive government system. They have had their fill of the federal excuses. You wanted proof, you have it. Now pay up.

[Department Of Industry Act, September 26th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to add something. The relationship between the federal and provincial governments reminds me a little of a family where, one day, the son tells his father: "Dad, I would like to start a business." So the father answers: "No, son, stay with me, am I not taking good care of you?" The father stands in the way of the son's development, prevents him from spreading his wings instead of saying, "Look, son, you are old enough to leave the nest." That is what we are asking for. We want to leave the nest so we can take control of our own destiny and continue to negotiate the same thing.

We keep on explaining that we do not want borders and barriers. What we want is good communications but we must get back what we are entitled to. For example, when we were talking about manpower training earlier, they said they wanted to save $250 million. If you want to throw away that $250 million, go ahead, but I myself would like to save it because money is important to me and I would like to re-invest it in my province, in small businesses and all that.

[Department Of Industry Act, September 26th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to answer this question because I know that, like us, our colleagues from the other party on this side are here to cut public spending and also to try and put some degree of order back in our fiscal house.

To answer my hon. colleague's question, with respect to duplication and overlapping, let me tell you that when we look at the statistics, precise figures-not my own but rather extremely precise figures provided by economists-and see a government reducing its activities and hear people say: "Look, we might as well let the federal government run it all", I for one cannot believe my ears.

When a problem arises in a community, a province or a country, I have a rule of thumb that goes like this: who is in the best position to resolve the problem? It may be the municipal, provincial or federal government. I think this is the basis for taking our problems in our own hands because we are the ones who are in the best position to assess the problem. Look, we know that savings would be achieved. We know that. It was established beyond any doubt.

These savings could be used, as I said repeatedly, to create jobs and put Canada back to work. Then we would be truly entitled to tell the people watching us and listening to us: "We have done something for the people of Canada and Quebec". And that is what I strive to do in this House to work and plead so that something is really done for all Canadians and Quebecers.

[Department Of Industry Act, September 26th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate being allowed to speak today on the government's Bill C-46. At first glance, this bill only confirms the organizational changes made by the previous government in the summer of 1993. Caution, however, teaches us to read between the lines, and it is precisely between the lines that we see the reasons for opposing this bill.

In fact, the government should have put a stop to duplication and overlap by giving Quebec exclusive control over its economic development. Instead, the government is giving the Department of Industry authority over regional development in Quebec and in Ontario, contrary to what is happening in the West and in the Maritimes.

The Federal Office of Regional Development for Quebec is a Quebec regional development agency and is not created under the specific legislation. It on took an order in council to transfer the regional development responsibilities of the Minister of Industry to the Minister of Finance. Nothing, however, guarantees that this order in council will be issued. It worries me that one day Quebec's regional development will fall into the hands of a minister from another province, as happened in 1991. Regional development could become lost in the administrative structure of the Department of Industry, and, I repeat, this worries me.

Bill C-46, Mr. Speaker, is the result of the previous government's wish to rationalize the machinery of government. In going ahead and implementing it, the Liberal government must give proof that it will effectively reduce government waste. And this will be far from conclusive, when one looks at the unnecessary and costly expenditures resulting from duplication and

overlap within the federal government and between the Canadian and Quebec governments.

Since the study by Germain Julien and Marcel Proulx, who made public the overlapping of federal programs with certain provincial programs, just from the point of view of co-ordination, civil servants must meet close to 1,000 times a year to see if they are not offering the same services, to harmonize program objectives and to ensure that they are not incompatible.

The Bélanger-Campeau Commission was clear on this point. If Quebec took charge of existing federal programs and provided the same services, we would save $233 millions in transportation and communication expenditures, $250 million in labour expenditures and $289 million in expenses associated with the collection of duties and taxes.

How efficient are measures implemented by two levels of government? More often than not, they cancel each other out because of competition and even conflict arising between the federal and provincial government. Program co-ordination is made difficult since neither government is prepared to make serious concessions on objectives or priorities. Even the famous infrastructure program had some hiccups. Did the former Minister of Municipal Affairs in Quebec not receive a letter of reprimand from the minister responsible for the program?

Just to know what services and financial assistance programs are available and to comply with laws and regulations, our constituents are forced to make multiple inquiries to keep abreast of programs and services. This is quite a burden, even more so when the programs and services are overlapping. Businesses have to assign employees to gathering this information and eventually taxpayers and consumers are affected.

In addition, there are people who do not use certain services because they do not know about them and program duplication does nothing to help. In fact, it even complicates the matter further. The people have little control over the way they are governed because of the confusion caused by overlapping. Such fragmentation of action makes it impossible for any one level of government to influence the course of things and, to make things even worse, they pass the puck to each other.

The provinces do have the right to opt out of federal programs. They do get financial compensation, but only for joint programs, which account for only five per cent of all overlapping. For these reasons, I seriously question the capacity of the Department of Industry to prevent such squandering. The bill before us provides rather for the status quo with regards to the mandate of the amalgamated departments. Is this another instance of semblance of change? Divisions are indeed changing names, but are we merging and blending the players? Nothing in this bill points that way. Nevertheless, the people gave a mandate to reduce waste in the federal government.

The Liberal government talks about "one-stop shopping" as a way to rationalize its internal operations. We all agree that this is a step in the right direction. But be careful: a mere merger that increases the size of an organization also reduces its productivity and efficiency. As a result, the bureaucracy is even more cumbersome. The Liberals have not yet shown that savings will be made with this "single window" concept.

The one in Montreal for business people saves the government no money. Customer service is improved, but what about the promised streamlining? We are entitled to demand that the Liberal government carry out all the restructuring of the federal machinery presented in this House in various bills that were intended to save money. The Bloc Quebecois demands it on behalf of all Canadians and Quebecers.

This bill also confirms existing overlap in regional development. Why let the Department of Industry meddle in our territory? For years Quebec has demanded control in this area. We have a very particular view of our requirements in this field. The decentralization of funding and authority begun by the new government in Quebec is the response which the regions were waiting for to take charge of their own communities.

The federal government would be well advised to do away with its centralizing attitude and instead implement this democratic vision of regional development. To say that regional development is neglected in Quebec is stating the obvious. Let me just mention the much publicised federal-provincial agreements on regional development in 1987 and 1988. I will admit that these agreements work very well in the western provinces and in the Maritimes. Indeed, since these agreements were signed, $1.2 billion was spent in Atlantic Canada, $630 million in the western provinces, and $165 million in Quebec.

Our regions suffer from the multiple interventions in regional development and from a lack of consistency of government policies. Let me give you an example. Would you believe that the government subsidizes an industry through the Federal Office of Regional Development, the only Canadian industry in its sector, while also allowing one of its departments to buy equipment from a competing American company? Yet this is what is happening to an industry in my riding.

This is unacceptable. If you believe in a product and subsidize the related research and development efforts, should you not also promote its marketing? Not so with this government, it seems. That situation should be corrected as soon as possible.

In its report, the interdepartmental work group on regional development set up by the Quebec government in 1991 looked at the issue of multiple interventions in regional development and concluded that: "In the present context, we can see the following negative results linked to the interventions of the two levels of government: confusion in terms of the regional sense of belonging, since the federal regions do not correspond to the administrative regions in Quebec; duplication of structures, regional consulting organizations and economic development agencies, as well as setting up of management committees and programs to reconcile various types of interventions; duplication of activities which results in high operation costs, given the actual budgets invested in regional development; too many government stakeholders, a situation which frequently results in confusion at the regional level".

May I remind hon. members that these comments were taken from the final report of the interdepartmental task force on regional development, published by the Government of Quebec in 1991. Quebecers are sick and tired of seeing their money used for the regional development of other provinces. This money should go to help small businesses and create small businesses and jobs in Quebec. Quebec does not want regional development that is based on the strictly industrial vision of the Minister of Industry in Ottawa. Quebec has had enough of the federal government's meddling and inconsistencies. Long ago, Quebec realized that only regional players understood the real needs of their environment. Enough of these projects, one-shot interventions and political decisions that siphon off funding from projects that are working perfectly well.

This bill is unlikely to end the uncertainty that is rife within the regional development agency. The Federal Office of Regional Development-Quebec may be very anxious to harmonize its activities with Quebec's, but so far, it has not been successful. According to the Minister of Finance responsible for the office, it has not yet been able to harmonize its mandate with that of the Quebec government's business development centres, which means the centres are still at the mercy of unilateral decisions by Ottawa. For instance, the federal government is planning to merge the BDCs and CFCs, which are now the responsibility of the Department of Human Resources Development, and have a single agency that would come under the Federal Office of Regional Development. Representatives of these agencies in my region talked to me about their concerns. The very future of the Federal Office of Regional Development-Quebec is in jeopardy. Despite all the promises in the red book that regional development could be a high priority, the office's budget is shrinking.

In 1993-94, the office's budget was $232 million, which is expected to drop by $70 million over the next three years. After these cuts, the budget for the Federal Office of Regional Development will be down to $162 million, compared with $200 million for the West and $214 million for the Maritimes.

The concerns of the agencies responsible for regional development are quite understandable, considering the way the Federal Office of Regional Development operates. The office has failed to harmonize its activities with the comprehensive vision of local development established by the BDCs and the CFCs.

Programs designed in Ottawa and implemented in our regions do not always respond to the real needs of the people. The money is spread around without any real input from the community. The federal government should consider the strategic planning priorities of Quebec's regional municipalities and regions, in order to maximize the impact of activities by regional agencies responsible for local development.

As long as decision-making and budgeting remain centralized in Ottawa, the regions will not be able to establish the base they need for continuing development. Geographic isolation is one thing, but it is nothing compared with the remoteness of the decision-making process.

The Bélanger-Campeau Commission realized that the future of regional development in Quebec depended on the regions controlling the levers of development. I wish the government would do something and admit it is not on the right track with regional development in Quebec. The fact is that the economic base is foundering, the social fabric is disintegrating, the rural exodus has not been stemmed and young people are still the first ones to leave.

Remote areas are crying out for help and with good reason. Federal funding to Quebec regions has increased by 50 per cent since 1983, whereas during the same period it has increased by 300 per cent in western Canada and by 250 per cent in the Maritimes.

On a per capita basis, the results are even more catastrophic. In 1987, per capita federal spending was $431 in the Maritimes, $259 in western Canada and $64 in Quebec.

How can we bring some balance back? The federal government must reduce expenditures, eliminate tax breaks for family trusts as well as waste resulting from overlapping and duplication due mainly to infringement upon provincial jurisdictions. The billions of dollars saved this way could be used to bring some fairness back into federal funding of Quebec regional development.

In the last budget speech, the federal government announced that it would not renew subsidiary agreements respecting forestry and mining. And yet it is in these two areas that subsidiary agreements have been the most beneficial for Quebec. The Eastern Quebec Development Plan, which will no longer be funded, is a case in point. Close to 6,000 woodlot owners are extremely worried. In other areas, the government is reluctant to renew its agreements. Federal subsidies to farming amount to $225 million, $25.5 million of which, only 10 per cent of the envelope, goes to Quebec. For transportation, Quebec gets only $165 million, or 13 per cent, out of a total of $1.1 billion, slim pickings indeed.

Let us settle the matter once and for all by repatriating this money-in the form of tax points-so that it can be managed by Quebec. Regional development will be a winner. This is what we are all hoping for.

All kinds of small steps can help us get out of this mess. Nowhere in the red book is it suggested that investors be allowed to pump federally guaranteed venture capital into local businesses. And yet, this is the kind of solution people are offering to help their region.

The new Quebec government has developed a real regional development policy. The Parti Quebecois wants to promote in that respect the assumption of responsibility by the stakeholders, in a context of freer trade which eliminates some trade barriers and opens the regional economy up to stiff competition.

Let me quote some of the objectives of this positive policy which could serve as a model: high level of employment, competitive export-oriented economy based on sustainable development, continuity and high added value, better quality of life in large communities, viable land use and many more.

No consensus can be achieved at the federal level regarding regional development because priorities vary from province to province and from region to region. That is why we are stressing the need to decentralize budgets and decision-making powers. The future calls for a decentralization of powers towards decision-making units, that is to say the regions, these being in a better position to assess their own situation. This bill should be rejected because it does not provide Quebec with exclusive control over regional development.