Bob Nault

[The Budget, February 19th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, as you know, I was in opposition between 1988 and 1993. I understand the opposition mentality. When I sat across from Brian Mulroney, who is the big brother of the Reform Party, I used to get these numbers as well.

However, it is important to get the facts on the record. The opposition party is stating that we have cut 42 per cent of the transfers to the provinces. The Ontario finance minister has selectively chosen a 1995-96 starting point, the high water mark for transfers and he is looking at only the cash. That is what the opposition is doing today. It is very misleading to the public because part of the CHST is not just the cash but the tax transfers.

This is very important. I have a list of every single province in front of me. Ontario, when the tax points and transfers are included, will end up with only $1.5 billion less which is 2.5 per cent of its total revenues.

For someone to stand up in this place and suggest otherwise is not being factual. It shows why those members are at less than10 per cent in the polls. They cannot even get their facts straight.

[The Budget, February 19th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I find it so humorous that I could almost laugh.

All of a sudden that right wing party is talking about jobs, health care and the plight of the poor. It is talking about those issues because it cannot deal with the only issue that it ran on in the last election, which was cleaning up the finances of the nation by slashing and cutting everything that was not nailed down. Now that the Liberal government has done what no government has been able to do for the last 20 years, all of a sudden that party has recognized that there is something else.

Let me deal with the issue of 42 per cent. When the finance minister for Ontario presented the Ontario budget, on page 9 he said that Ontario will experience federal cuts of some 42.4 per cent.

That is the reason I brought up these numbers and that is the spin the member opposite is putting on this debate.

[The Budget, February 19th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, our efforts in the last almost four years clearly show that by 1998 and 1999 net borrowing requirements will be zero.

That is how most countries define a balanced budget. So what we can now say is that we have the deficit under control. As well, the debt is starting to fall as a portion of GDP. In only four years we have been able to clean up the mess left behind by nine years of Tory incompetence and mismanagement.

What are the results of all this hard work by this government and quite frankly by Canadians as it relates to some of the pain that Canadians have had to go through in order to deal with the Conservatives and their rule and of course some of the people on the right wing who have suggested that they have all the answers?

We have the lowest inflation in a very long time. We have interest rates at their lowest level in almost 40 years. We have massive savings for home owners and consumers and economic growth is strong. In fact, we have led the G-7.

Of particular interest, because of course this is an election year and everybody likes to make predictions, the private sector forecasters predict we will continue to have the strongest economy in the industrialized world.

Since our election more than 715,000 new jobs have been created. As has been said in this place by the Prime Minister on a number of occasions, that is more than Italy, France, Germany, Japan and Britain all put together. That may not seem like a lot to some members but in fact based on the mess that we inherited from the right wingers in this particular scenario that I mentioned, I think it is a job well done indeed. I suspect that some forecasters like John McCallum from the Royal Bank are predicting we will even better that this year with the creation of up to 350,000 more jobs.

That is on the fiscal side. Those of us who were here under the Mulroney rule have to remember that now we have the little brother of the Conservative Party called the Reform Party whose members were so embarrassed about their leader under the Conservative Party they decided to start their own.

None of us is fooled by that. It is the same right wing Tory ideology. That is why we see the lack of interest by the voting public in supporting the Reform Party, which is no different than when it supported the Mulroney years because of the tax policies, the vision and the values it holds for Canadians and which the majority of Canadians do not support.

I want to talk a bit about those particular values. Before I do that, I want to lay a few issues on the table for the public watching today. The opposition and certain parties in the provincial jurisdictions are suggesting that we in the federal government have been able to clean up our finances by downloading to the provinces.

I want to talk a bit about Ontario because I am an MP from north western Ontario. What we are living through is almost identical to what I would envision under a Reform government if it were ever to occur in this land. We are seeing a slash and burn policy. We should look at the facts in Ontario to give us a sort of preview and a picture of the future if another right wing party like the ones in this House would form the government.

Because of Mike Harris' irresponsible tax cuts he has had to cut $1.3 billion out of hospitals, $.5 billion from roads, $400 million from post-secondary education, $2 billion from social assistance and I understand $1.3 billion from municipalities, and that is just the tip of the iceberg.

I want to give people some information this afternoon that may bring to light just why it is difficult for federal members of Parliament to accept where Mike Harris is going and that he is in fact trying to blame the federal government for the slash and burn and all the different headaches that he is causing people from northwestern Ontario and Ontario as a whole.

Payments to Ontario's government will drop from $10.3 billion in 1993-94 to $9.1 billion in 1998-99, a decline of $1.2 billion or 11.4 per cent. This represents at most 2.5 per cent of Ontario's revenues. We cannot, after the list I have just read, suggest that this cut made to transfer payments to the Ontario government and the Ontario people is the reason why Mike Harris and his Tories are cutting all the services in Ontario.

Let me give the real reason why. It relates to the opposition, especially the right wing opposition parties, both the Tories' and Reforms' interest in across the board personal income tax cut. In Ontario this particular government has suggested that it would cut 30 per cent out of our personal income tax. That works out to $4.9 billion per year by 1999. That is the reason we are closing hospitals, why we are reducing payments to school boards and why we are increasing the size of our classrooms and why we have to reduce transfer payments to the municipalities.

Anyone who has spent any time looking at what is going on in Ontario would know that it is not the transfer payments from the federal government to the provincial government, but it is the silliness of having a tax cut across the board when there is still a major deficit to deal with and in fact you cannot afford to do without those revenues. For the life of me I cannot understand why this blind right wing ideology is even being considered by Canadians and Ontarians when in fact those of us in this place know that we cannot do without that revenue until we balance our books.

I am proud to be a Liberal for a number of reasons. Even though we have had to make some tough decisions on the deficit we continue to maintain our values of looking after our social programs, putting them on a good footing. The agreement that we signed with the provincial governments on CPP is a perfect example of that. Putting money toward health care, putting money toward youth, putting money toward innovation and technology, that is what Liberalism is all about. That is why this government is popular in the polls. It is not because some of the members opposite say that we have played some number game.

People are more intelligent than that. They know we have made tough decisions but we have been fair and equitable. That is the reason why when we go to the people with this particular budget and our record they will agree with us that we have gone a long way down the road to improving our chances in the next millennium.

[The Budget, February 19th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to enter the budget debate.

First, I would like to congratulate the Minister of Finance on a job well done. I would like to say to my constituents, welcome to the greatest nation on earth. It is easy for me to say that, simply because we have fulfilled the commitments we made in 1993. At that time we campaigned on restoring fiscal sanity and created a climate of opportunity. When I talk to people across the nation, to consumers, to people in the construction industry, to homeowners, to people who are buying their first car or their first home, they tell me that we have done just that.

We have to continue through a number of other budgets to reduce the deficit to a point where, at least in the next millennium, we will not have to continue to deal with deficits even when there is a downturn in our economy. That is what the finance minister means when he talks about our values. Because of our values we have made tough decisions.

I was here a number of years ago when the Tory government was in power, when the finances of the nation and the government were in rough shape-

[Kenworth Corporation, December 13th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the TJF in the province of Quebec is now in full force. If the member is asking if we are willing to look at a proposal to help a particular industry or to create long term jobs I suggest that he make the proposal to human resources development and we will be more than willing to look at it.

[Employment Insurance, December 13th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I can understand that the member is having difficulty understanding the finances of the Department of Human Resources Development. It is for one reason. She is looking at the old programs that the province of Quebec used to have.

We have made significant changes in programs. Those significant changes, for example the EI legislation, have moved a lot of money over to active measures. An additional $800 million is going into active measures in the next number of years. That necessitates program shifting from one area to the other.

We have also committed $300 million for TJF. The member knows that those particular dollars have been reallocated from other funds. If she is having trouble dealing with the numbers, she

can arrange to meet with us and we will give her the numbers. The programs are different now. She is still looking at the old numbers from the old programs which have changed.

[Employment Insurance, December 13th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am always interested in questions put by the hon. member. The question she asks is at this point somewhat hypothetical. The question she asks is what will be the active measures for the province of Quebec.

She knows and the House knows that we are negotiating with the province of Quebec at this moment with respect to part II of the EI legislation. Under part II of the EI legislation we will be negotiating with the province of Quebec on active measures. When that negotiation has been completed we will be able to tell her what the amount of dollars will be that will go to the province. Until that negotiation is complete I do not think she or I or anyone else knows because we are still in the negotiation process.

[Canadian Census, November 26th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, indeed helping young Canadians make the transition into the workforce has been a priority of this government.

This is an obvious statement in that the 1996 budget reallocated some $315 million of budget savings to help create employment opportunities for young Canadians over the next three years. This included, contrary to what the member just said, a doubling to $120 million of the 1996-97 contribution to student summer placement initiatives which enabled the creation of more than 60,000 summer employment placements this past summer.

In addition through our Canada employment centres for students, some 664,000 students have benefited from a variety of other employment measures since 1994. Youth Service Canada has already given some 5,200 young Canadians the opportunity to learn work related skills and life skills while engaging in community service activities across the country. Youth Internship Canada will provide over 35,000 youth with the opportunities to gain employability skills and work experience that will help them get and keep a job. In total more than 430,000 young Canadians will benefit from this government's youth programs this year alone.

As the hon. member is aware, the Government of Canada appointed a ministerial task force on youth to obtain input from Canadians on how to help young people make a successful transition into the labour market. Furthermore this government has also made public its intention to introduce a program to help students better manage their Canada student loan debts.

This is what we have started to do for young Canadians. We will continue to examine ways of supporting youth so that they can succeed in the future.

[Constitution Act, 1867, November 19th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to my colleague's question in the short time that I have.

The new EI bill is intended to help people get back to work. There is no doubt that we have moved from a passive system to a very active system. The employment benefits are there to assist participants in obtaining employment and to help them continue with their skills development if necessary.

If we look at the employment insurance bill, under part II there are a number of new tools for people who are looking for work. These tools, when agreements are signed with the provinces in the next year, will be the cornerstone of that very active participation of governments in helping people get back to work.

As well, we are now going to a new system on January 1, 1997 which intends to put all part timers into the system. Some 500,000 people will have access to employment insurance for the first time.

As well, we put in place as the member mentioned a system of family supplements. This recognizes that there are many people at the low end of the income scale who need protection and through no fault of their own at times find it very difficult to find work. We want to protect, to better target and to assist families with children who have incomes of no more than $25,921. We also put the family supplements in place and linked them to the child tax benefit. This is a top up of regular benefit rates to not more than $413 per week.

At the same time the maximum benefit rate in 1997 for those on the family supplement will be 65 per cent of annual insurable earnings, while the recipient who falls under the normal category will collect 55 per cent of their annual insurable earnings. Eventually over the next four years, once the whole program is in place, an individual who is collecting family supplements will be able to get a maximum benefit rate of 80 per cent of their annual insurable earnings.

There is a great potential through the new EI system to help those who are at the low end of the scale. It is important as well to emphasize that this is a bill which recognizes seasonal employees. Because of the fact that we have gone from a weeks based system to an hours based system, quite frankly that particular system will help-

[Canada Labour Code, November 19th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to speak in support of this bill. I begin by reinforcing what my colleagues have said about the fair and balanced nature of this legislation.

I come to this discussion with a unionist background, someone who has sat at the other side of the table. It is very important when we are having this kind of discussion to keep in mind that in fairness and in order to make a system work, there not only must be a perception of fairness and balance but there must be fairness and balance in essence.

As some in this House have already mentioned, the alternative is to be draconian, to not allow people the ability to pull their services and on the employer side to lock employees out. If we want to go to that extreme then it is not necessary to find a fine balance and to maintain the fairness which the Canada Labour Code has had for a number of years.

Before I get too far into my presentation I will suggest that what we see here today is a consensus that was arrived at between employers and employee groups across the nation. As the minister has already said, it may not be some grand scheme to totally reform the Canada Labour Code, but there are a number of steps and changes to improve the code, which is what this is all about.

This is good for Canadians and Canadian business. I will look at some of the ways the government's amendments will help the employers of Canada. From my perspective it would be very easy to spend my short time talking about the importance to labour but I will talk about the importance of these amendments for employers. If I can feel comfortable, I imagine a number of members would also feel comfortable. Before I do that, I would like to say a few words about the consultation process.

This consultation process is one that a lot of members in this House, whether they are new or have been here for a number of terms, are always arguing; the Government of Canada or the provincial jurisdictions do not do enough.

One of the things that is unique in the labour field is that very little takes place without extensive consultation. The consultation process was actually initiated some two years ago when the government was made aware of the need for momentous changes

and the fact that it wanted to, because of the way the work force was evolving, make changes to the Canada Labour Code.

I am sure those in this House will not argue that there has not been consultation. The Sims task force was going across the country. The task force went to Halifax, Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Edmonton, Montreal and Winnipeg to meet with Canadians and to listen to their views. The task force also held academic round tables at the universities of Laval, Toronto and Calgary. Of course it met with numerous interested parties in informal meetings and received a great number of written submissions.

As we have heard in earlier speeches in this House, the task force set up a labour management working group and considered the recommendations of the industrial inquiry commission. I will not go into that because suffice it to say this group did a remarkable job and did it with a lot of determination.

It does not surprise me from my past background that the labour side of the discussions with employers and employees working together has always been through labour relations, its hallmark and the reason why the legislation that is now before us has been very effective over the years and of course will be more effective once the new amendments are in place.

At the end of its consultations the group presented its report entitled "Seeking a Balance". The task force's recommendations were based on four solid principles and I think we should keep these principles in mind.

First, that the existing Canada Labour Code basically continues to serve its constituents well. This obviously means that the economy will be moving along at a good clip and having some fairness and balance in the system for both employers and employees.

Second, stability is highly desirable and pendulum like changes in the code do not serve the best interests of the concerned parties or of the general public. That is really one of the major issues that the minister and the different consultation groups focused on during these discussions. It is not acceptable either from the right or left wing's perspective in this country to think that you can make major pendulum swings in that balance I was talking about. The balance is so narrow in its parameters that if you move too far one way or the other it makes for very difficult negotiations and discussions between the two parties.

If we were to do as some members have suggested across the way and remove the right to strike and have final offer arbitration, that of course is a form of getting where you want to go but it does necessitate making those dramatic pendulum swings that I was talking about which could cause some disruption to a very successful labour relations regime that we in Canada have grown accustomed to.

Third, that consensus between the parties is the best basis for legislative change. That goes back to the official opposition's interest and making changes where there is no consensus. If you do that you could be accused in this case of trying to drive a round peg in a square hole. If it does not fit too well, so be it; we are trying as politicians should to be leaders in a field and ahead of the public and ahead of the consensus that may evolve over time.

Do not get me wrong, I think quite frankly in Quebec there are certain parts of its labour code that are effective to that province and that particular society, and that is good. However, we are not dealing here with one province. We are dealing with a total nation, a very large piece of geography, and a number of other provinces.

We cannot take one specific issue in one specific province and try, as much as we might like to, to make it fit. It just does not work that way.

It is important to know that this piece of legislation and the amendments we are proposing are a consensus between the parties which, in labour relations, is a very smart thing to do indeed.

The fourth recommendation should be enactable, long lasting and based on the concept of volunteerism. I believe all will agree that these principles are well founded. It is easy to see why the task force was able to come up with recommendations that were endorsed by both business and labour groups.

Today we are talking about the support of these groups, business and labour, as though it were quite a common thing. We all know that is not true. Everyone knows that the aims of organized labour and management, job security on one side and the most effective use of human resources on the other, are difficult to reconcile. Anyone who has been involved, like I have, across a negotiating table will know that it is sometimes a miracle to see that we can get these kinds of agreements without all the difficulty that can occur.

Without going through a number of examples of some of the groups, I would like to mention why the government has introduced certain amendments. We understand that measures which help resolve labour disputes faster and in a more positive environment are good for employers, workers and all Canadians. What these particular amendments will do is streamline some of these aspects of the legislation.

On the amendments that address the bargaining cycle and how they benefit employers, a primary objective of this group of amendments is to reduce delays in the collective bargaining process. The benefit of accomplishing this should be clear to anyone. One amendment will allow a notice to bargain to be served within four months prior to the expiry of the collective agreement. At present it is three months.

The task force thought that an earlier opening date would be established to encourage earlier attention to collective bargaining and to give the parties enough time to conclude an agreement before the expiry of the previous one.

Another amendment will provide for a single stage conciliation process. Both labour and management question the effectiveness of the current system which can involve two stages and can take a long time to resolve disputes. Single stage conciliation is one of the points upon which labour-management working groups agreed.

I hope I get a chance to speak on that particular issue at a different reading because it is important to get into how the conciliation process works and how important it is to the Canada Labour Code and labour relations in Canada.

There is the need, under this section, for a secret ballot vote before workers are allowed to strike. This vote will have to be taken no more than 60 days before the right to strike is exercised. While most unions already hold such votes, the Canada Labour Code does not require it at present. The requirement to hold a strike vote no earlier than 60 days prior to strike action will ensure that the vote is less of a bargaining tactic to pressure employers with more of an authentic expression of the employees' wishes. I can say from experience that at times that could be a bargaining tool.

Before people get too far into these amendments they should spend some time with their local labour groups and get a feel for them. They will find that there is a consensus in these amendments.