Diane Bourgeois

[Public Service Modernization Act, June 3rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, you know that there have been 498 formal complaints of harassment in the federal public service during the year 2000-01. These are the complaints that have really been filed because they are signed. Right now, some people who are being harassed do not file complaints because they are afraid.

I will give you an example. You said that $2 million have been spent to prevent harassment. The policy is not being implemented; only seven departments implement it. I could give you many examples. I even put questions here, in this House, to the Solicitor General of Canada, who is responsible for the Correctional Service of Canada. Some people have come to my office because they were found in a fetal position under their desk as a result of harassment.

Here is how the system works. The person who is being harassed tells his immediate supervisor, who has to intervene. If he does not, the complaint goes to the region. If the region does not intervene, the complaint goes a bit higher. Except that each individual decides whether there is harassment. But when one is not competent, how can one determine whether there is harassment?

My answer is somewhat brief. I would have liked to elaborate, but I will come back to it another time.

[Public Service Modernization Act, June 3rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague from Saint-Jean for this question. Indeed, the issue of psychological harassment is a new, but important concept.

I will draw an analogy, which may seem strange, but we talk about harassment in schools where it is referred to as taxing. We could perhaps talk about workplace harassment, which can take the form of repeated actions or simply something which has been going on for a very long time and which undermines people's health and psychological well-being and causes them to become ill. This is very costly to society.

Moreover, my colleague from Saint-Jean is right. The Government of Quebec is the third in the world to have passed, in December, legislation to address workplace harassment. We can be proud that Quebec passed such legislation.

It is visionary legislation that was not embraced by all employers at first. After six months to put it in place and work the bugs out, now employers are saying, “How right it was to pass this legislation”, because an employer is responsible for the physical and psychological well-being of an employee in the workplace.

Hon. members know that, under the Criminal Code, employees can take their employer to court if, indeed, the employer did not react quickly enough on a harassment issue.

That having been said, there are two countries in the world which have legislation against harassment. France was the first to introduce such legislation, five or six years ago. Timid steps were taken and, in France, they are now changing this legislation somewhat to give it more teeth. Belgium was the second country to introduce legislation, but then again, this legislation being patterned on the French legislation, it is timid.

We hope that a bill can soon be passed in this House to make Canada the first country in the world to have legislation which takes into account whistleblowers, protects them and really addresses the issue so that employees do not experience harassment.

At present, in Canada, there is a policy. But as I demonstrated earlier, it is either not enforced, poorly or sporadically enforced, or enforced any old way. I find that appalling. While employees are being harassed, their employers, the managers, are doing nothing about it. They are not being mean; they just do not know how to recognize harassment. People are starting to talk about it.

I think that, eventually, as an employer, the public service will have to pay attention to the physical environment to ensure that the working climate is healthy and that assistance can be provided to employees.

[Public Service Modernization Act, June 3rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, this is truly an extraordinary opportunity for me to express my view this morning on Bill C-25. It is a bill that interests me tremendously, especially because its purpose is to change the culture in the public service.

Treasury Board wants to use this bill to deal with the constant reduction of the work force in the public service and the growing competition from the private sector.

With this bill, the government believes it could overcome problems relating to representation, the aging staff and professional skills.

Finally, the purpose of this bill is to improve the public's perception of the public service. There seems to be little interest in having a career in the public service because of its bad reputation. This results in poor recruitment. The goal of this bill is to change the approach with regard to the public's view of the public service.

It is also a substantial bill. We would have preferred to debate it in parts since it deals with human beings, the men and women in this work force that we are to manage, or the government is to manage.

It includes amendments, among other things, to the Financial Administration Act. This bill will also improve accountability through the tabling of reports. The President of the Treasury Board is required to prepare reports on the administration of the legislation in terms of human resources management, a report on the obligations that stem from the Employment Equity Act, and a report on the Treasury Board's powers under the Public Service Employment Act.

I felt the need to list these points simply to establish the purpose of this bill. We are disappointed because we know these objectives will not be met. This legislation is meant to make working in the public service an attractive prospect. Again, we doubt very much that these objectives will be met.

I will discuss two points, the amendments made to the Public Service Employment Act, and the fact that it is incumbent on the government as a responsible employer to ensure a healthy work environment where its employees are treated with dignity and respect.

My attention was immediately drawn to one particular provision, that is paragraph 30(2)( b ) of the Public Service Employment Act, which reads as follows:

—the Commission is satisfied that the person to be appointed meets the essential qualifications for the work to be performed, as established by the deputy head, including official language proficiency.

The Bloc Quebecois proposed an amendment to change this paragraph by deleting the word essential. We believe that the candidate should meet all the qualifications. Limiting the requirement to essential qualifications creates ambiguity regarding the proficiency level required. In other words, essential could be construed to mean minimal proficiency, and not maximum proficiency.

We fear that the deputy head or any senior official could make patronage appointments either by setting requirements that only one person can meet or by selecting among the candidates one who meets the essential qualifications without necessarily being the best candidate.

I would like to draw attention to a program concerning employment equity in the public service. In 1998, the government set up a temporary, four-year program which ended last year: the Employment Equity Positive Measures Program. This program provided the tools to support the aggressive application of employment equity principles in the workplace, thereby enhancing the representation of the four designated groups, that is, women, aboriginals, persons with disabilities and visible minorities.

This program also provided additional resources, services and funding to help departments and agencies turn their good intentions into lasting results.

The program costs were $10 million annually, which means that over four years, they totalled $40 million. This was to help the public service modernize, among other things. Imagine. Through this program, the Public Service Commission's centre for excellence was established and supported. Also, an electronic tool was developed in connection with employment equity positive practices.

When we talk about the public service and modernization, this is a first step. The bill before us does not include any of the outcomes of the Employment Equity Positive Measures Program, which cost $40 million.

This program included four components, three of which were managed and delivered by the Public Service Commission on behalf of the Treasury Board Secretariat. One was the Employment Equity Partnership Fund, the purposes of which were first to build the capacity for employment equity, second to promote a workplace which is supportive, and third to improve representativeness of the workforce and of course to improve retraining.

How is it that, after a program that cost $40 million and delivered a series of suggestions and proposals from public servants, none of this is to be found in the bill before us?

This bill does not guarantee that all the work that has been done through the Employment Equity Positive Measures Program to improve the representativeness and the distribution of designated groups will go on, since the word essential in clause 30(2)( b ) will create confusion.

We spent $40 million to try to include people, train them, give them a position in the public service, but with the addition of this tiny word, essential, to the statement of qualifications, these people will not be able to benefit from employment equity. From now on, it will be a matter of choice, and officials will decide which qualifications are essential.

The basic requirements and the best skills will not necessarily be a factor. How sure can we be that we will protect these four designated groups under the Employment Equity Act? One has to wonder.

Before moving on to the other component, I would just like to point out to our colleague from Mississauga East, who has just spoken, that the Public Service Alliance sent us a little document on the eve of International Women's Day: an advertisement from the Monday, February 17 issue of Hill Times . It contains a demonstration to the effect that not everything to do with employment equity is necessarily respected—at any rate, not the wishes of Treasury Board as far as employment equity is concerned.

They told us that their union represents approximately 1,600 workers at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, the majority of whom are women. In that department, they calculated the numbers of women and men, and realized that at the ministerial level there were five men and one woman, in addition to one secretary. There were three parliamentary secretaries, two men and one woman. In the minister's office there were four men and no women. As for assistant deputy ministers, there were six men and two women. This is all very revealing. In Bill C-25, the Public Service Modernization Act, perhaps the four designated groups ought to have been taken into account.

Now, I have a question, which I might have liked to ask the minister. When she drafted this bill, did she take into consideration the gender analysis. According to Status of Women Canada, this year $11 million were made available to the departments to do a gender analysis, in order to know how to draft legislation to reflect what is due to men and to women.

I wonder: with $40 million here and $11 million there, it seems there is money available. Yet there is no money to invest in our work force. Our colleague from Mississauga East has just said that public servants should be considered part of the solution. Indeed, they must be considered people, human beings entitled to a healthy environment.

I will continue with the second part of my speech, which deals with harassment. The Bloc Quebecois is very concerned about the concept of harassment that may exist in the workplace; indeed, psychological harassment should have been included in the provisions relating to this phenomenon.

With regard to this type of harassment in the public service, the latest numbers tell us that more than 21% of Canadian public servants are affected by harassment. Formal written complaints have been made. How many people in the federal public service do not dare to say a word because they are confronted with this famous oath of allegiance, the oath of confidentiality on what is happening within departments? This is a two edged sword. This famous oath of allegiance says that nothing that happens in the workplace must get beyond the workplace. A a result, people keep their mouths shut, say noything and go on being harassed.

I will get back later to the definition of psychological harassment. This type of harassment must be known and acknowledged by public service managers. The Bloc Quebecois had proposed amendments that would have made the implementation of the policy mandatory for each of the departments.

So I will give you a short definition of psychological harassment. It may happen through words, actions and behaviours that tend to put employees down, to belittle them by treating them as subordinates, to prevent them from getting ahead.

This form of violence shows up as workplace harassment, the abuse of power and the abuse of authority.

A little study was done. There is, of course a policy to deal with psychological harassment on the job, or harassment in the workplace. This policy originates with Treasury Board; it was introduced in 1994 and modernized in 2001. We might expect that, if there is a policy issued by the Treasury Board Secretariat, it would be applied everywhere, in all departments. Unfortunately, it was found that of 83 departments, only 7 truly applied the Treasury Board policy. The 76 others have their own policies, and it is not clear to what extent they apply any policy.

Each of these departments has different methods. Sometimes, the policy is applied or action is taken when there is a formal complaint; in other departments, when there are oral complaints, they are dealt with. But that is the extent of it.

I would simply like to remind the House that in terms of harassment, if the process does not work at the departmental level, the person being harassed cannot charge the harasser. Those who are harassed become isolated, fall silent, fall ill, and that costs Treasury Board money.

Many of these policies are incomplete. They do not specify the timeframe within which managers must resolve a case of harassment. Several cases were brought to our attention and, in each instance, managers did not act diligently. Quite often, managers are unaware of this policy.

Also, many harassment complaints have yet to be resolved. Some fall under directive 255, from 1994, and others come under the new policy that came into force on June 1, 2001. If these complaints remain unresolved, it is because many managers and public servants have little or no interest in respecting other people or their rights.

Some 40% of departments adopted in full the policy as of June 2001. When I say 40% adopted it, they did so in writing, but only seven departments apply it. This is significant. It means that there are public servants—over 30%, according to our figures—who are being harassed and do not report it. It could be vertical harassment, meaning by their bosses, or it could be horizontal, meaning by co-workers. Unfortunately, the new bill makes no mention of this.

In closing, I want to say that it is surprising that Bill C-25, which seeks among other things a change in culture and the improvement of labour-management relations, does not ensure a more effective application of the policy on the prevention and resolution of harassment in the workplace.

If the minister truly wants to change the culture of the public service, if she wants to make it an attractive place to work, she must ensure, among other things, the continuity of the employment equity positive measures program, which cost $40 million. She should ensure, as a responsible employer, that all employees have access to a workplace that is not only free of harassment, but that recognizes the existence of harassment and that implements measures and ethical practices to protect workers, like any other responsible employer.

[Public Service Modernization Act, June 2nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief. My hon. colleague has just presented a long argument in favour of hiring according to competency. He seems to suggest that this new legislation could lead to the use of discriminatory hiring practices.

I would like to hear from him on hiring and employment equity as far as women, the disabled, aboriginals and visible minorities are concerned. I would like him to say a few words on that.

[Public Service Modernization Act, June 2nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to address a comment to my hon. colleague from the Liberal Party.

At present, public servants do have to pledge allegiance to Canada. The fact that this is an oath of confidentiality causes a lot of problems, in particular as far as denouncing wrongdoing and harassment are concerned.

I do not know if the member is aware of that, but in every case of harassment being investigated internally by Treasury Board, people hesitate to speak out because of the fear to lose their job.

I wonder if the member opposite knows that and if he has a substitute to this famous oath.

[Fédération des femmes du Québec, June 2nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate Michèle Asselin for being elected president of the Fédération des femmes du Québec yesterday.

Quebeckers already know Michèle Asselin through her long-standing involvement as the coordinator of Regroupment des centres de femmes du Québec. A team player, Michèle Asselin is taking over from Viviane Barbot, whom we would like to commend and thank for the countless hours she contributed as president.

The federation works for equality, fairness, dignity and social justice for women in all areas. It promotes and defends the interests and rights of women through its efforts in advocating for women, promoting cooperation among stakeholders and lobbying. The federation takes part in the public debate in Quebec on a regular basis to share its position with governments and the public, and to defend against threats to social progress that has been made.

My colleagues from the Bloc Quebecois join with me in paying tribute to the new president and assure her of our full support.

[Semaine québécoise des familles, May 15th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, today is the International Day of Families, but also the Semaine québécoise des familles. This year's theme is “Métro, boulot, famille, dodo!”. This theme encourages reflection on how to reconcile family life and work.

Over the last few years, Quebec has adopted unprecedented measures to help Quebec families. There are the $5 per day day care facilities, the family allowance, a beneficial tax policy, not to mention the parental leave program, at the heart of Quebec's policy on families.

The federal government, which should applaud this initiative, is hindering its full implementation and continues to say no to the broad Quebec consensus by refusing to transfer the necessary funds to Quebec so that it can create its own parental leave program, as authorized under the federal Employment Insurance Act.

The family is the cornerstone of our value system, and that is why the Bloc Quebecois salutes all Quebec families, the cradle par excellence for human development.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, May 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, this is the second time you give me the opportunity to speak to the budget. You will remember that the first time I spoke, I kept to my own subject area, the budget provisions pertaining to better living conditions for women. At that time, I had said that this federal budget did not meet the needs or ease the concerns of women, and that, contrary to what the minister claimed, it did not recognize the fundamental link between social policy and economic policy.

For that first speech, I had to make a choice because I thought, probably in a naive way, that this budget would be reworked and amended until it really did meet people's needs. However, we must now admit that there are 19 amendments standing on the Order Paper and that the issue is still not settled.

Several of those amendments affect me and my constituents, particularly the school boards. For example, the Mille-Îles school board is now doing all it can in order to have a certain right recognized. I will come back to that later on. Besides that, the microbreweries also have to struggle very hard to keep afloat. There are many other amendments, and they relate to the whole budget.

I have to say that this budget is disappointing, I will, however, try to express some of the ideas brought forward by my colleagues from all parties. The budget really illustrates the size of the fiscal imbalance. If we had to remember one thing about the 2003 budget, it would be the fact that the federal government has a lot of money but that it iss not giving much to the provinces, while we all know that most of the needs are in the provinces.

The money is often dedicated to the wrong priorities. The money in the surplus is being spent in a number of areas of jurisdiction belonging to Quebec and the provinces. We all know that the federal government does not hesitate to create new agencies duplicating what is being done in the provinces. Education, health and childhood are good examples of that.

I am coming back to the forgotten ones. There are of course the women and the elderly, but there are also the self-employed workers, the unemployed and all those workers paying employment insurance premiums. It is well known that the people of Quebec and in the regions are seriously affected by the difficulty in getting access to EI benefits

Since most part-time workers are women and these other people, that their status is often uncertain, that they are often self-employed and that these jobs do not allow them to accumulate the 600 hours of work required to be eligible for maternity benefits, parental benefits or sickness benefits, women, amongst others, often have to rely on social assistance to meet their needs.

Relaxing the eligibility criteria of the employment insurance program would have demonstrated that the government recognizes the fundamental link between social and economic policies. Besides, women have asked their MPs, their representatives, that the EI fund surpluses be used to increase benefits, to extend the benefit period, to make the system more accessible and to improve maternity and parental leave. Unfortunately, there are no such measures in the budget. None of those changes have been made.

I could also talk about the ceiling on RRSP contributions. The government announced an increase on the limit for RRSPs, and even at the current $13,500, it is not something women can take advantage of. So, this change was discussed but not accepted.

I mentioned school boards earlier. In clause 64, the members of the Bloc Quebecois would like any reference to retroactivity removed. In his budget, the Minister of Finance announced his intention to amend retroactively those provisions of the Excise Tax Act dealing with school bus transportation. Through this retroactive measure, the minister will be able to set a new contribution for school boards, in spite of all the decisions handed down by the courts after December 21, 2001.

The purpose of this measure is clearly to strike down decisions in favour of the school boards with regard to a refund of the GST paid on school bus transportation. This retroactive measure is a very serious affront to the rule of law and the authority of a final judgment, which is probably unprecedented in the Canadian parliamentary system.

Let me remind hon. members that, in October 2001, 29 school boards in Quebec won their case before the Federal Court of Canada, which recognized school bus transportation as a commercial activity entitling them to a full refund of the GST. The Commission scolaire des Milles-Îles was one of these school boards. Under the court decision, Ottawa was to refund the overpayment on the GST, which amounts to approximately $8 million.

After many developments of a technical nature, last January, the matter ended up before the Tax Court of Canada, where the federal government did accept, in a settlement, to comply with the trial judgment, provided that the school boards withdrew their appeals to the Federal Court of Appeal. The federal government agreed to apply the judgment to Ontario school boards, whose case was pending. So, there was a setllement.

The budget brought down a few weeks later completely reversed this commitment by the federal government.

This is why the Commission scolaire des Milles-Îles and the other school boards are asking that the rights they had before December 21, 2001, which they protected by filing their claims with the Tax Court of Canada before that date and for which they received a successful final decision before the February 2003 budget, be restored and respected.

There are other elements that I want to talk about. They are the measures that were announced to respond to provincial health needs, and they are inadequate. When we debated the motion this morning to recriminalize abortion or to ask the Standing Committee on Health to study the issue of abortion once again, the women who sit in the House tried to drive the point home to our colleagues who introduced the motion that, if there were more funds for health care and if there were more funds to help mothers, children and families, we might not have had to discuss this motion on abortion.

I think that this budget is also disappointing with regard to housing. It was not taken into consideration in the 19 recommendations. Nor were the six weeks of compassionate leave. What are we going to do with these six weeks of employment insurance when a person has terminal cancer? We must provide more, sometimes three or six months, or even a year.

I will conclude by saying that this budget is disappointing. We did not win. We are not being heard at the Standing Committee on Finance. This is why the Bloc Quebecois will vote against this bill.

[Health, May 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, today we are debating a motion by an hon. member of the Canadian Alliance who declared in a press release on March 31 that his motion will be the first pro-life vote in Parliament in 12 years.

To my knowledge, this is the third time the hon. member for Yorkton—Melville has brought forward a motion to recriminalize abortion. In February 2001, I was the only feminist female member present in this House and if it had not been for the presence of the Bloc Quebecois, which opposed the motion, the hon. members would probably have had to take action. Later, last year, the same hon. member brought forward another motion and again, thanks to the Bloc Quebecois, the motion died on the Order Paper.

Today, I am pleased to see that once more, answering the call of the Bloc Quebecois, a number of my female colleagues from all parties are here, and I thank them for their support. My hon. colleagues are present in order to show the Alliance member that we have had enough of his stubborn insistence on bringing forward pro-life motions.

If the motion were passed by this House, it would compel the Standing Committee on Health to fully examine whether or not abortions are medically necessary services in accordance with the Canada Health Act and, as the hon. member says “everyone needs to know the health risks for the mother”.

In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the abortion law, arguing that it was unconstitutional because it contravened the charter of rights and freedoms. The abortion law, according to the charter, is contrary to the right to life, liberty and security of the person. The Supreme Court said in its judgment:

Forcing a woman, by threat of criminal sanction, to carry a foetus to term unless she meets certain criteria unrelated to her own priorities and aspirations, is a profound interference with a woman's body and thus an infringement of security of the person.

Since then, women in Canada have had the right to choose abortion as a means of ending an unwanted pregnancy. Thus, to revive the debate on this topic is to call into question the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, and I strongly doubt that the members of the Standing Committee on Health are prepared to debate this decision.

The Canada Health Act, which sets out the general principles and conditions the provinces must respect in order to receive funding for health care services, stipulates that the provinces and Quebec must pay for all hospital and medical services that are medically necessary. However, the act does not define “medically necessary”, nor does it establish how that is to be done.

Each province, including Quebec, decides which medical services it must provide. The question of how far the federal government could go in applying national standards without interfering in provincial and Quebec jurisdiction is far from settled.

This is why the medical and hospital services that are insured differ in each province. This is why the practice of abortion also differs in each province and in Quebec. This situation has been denounced by the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League, which noted—and this is probably the conclusion that the Standing Committee on Health would reach—that the five principles laid out in the Canada Health Act are constantly being violated by the provinces.

The principle of transferability is violated when provinces treat abortion like plastic surgery and place it on the list of services that are not included in the interprovincial reciprocal billing plan. The principle of accessibility is violated when provinces, such as Prince Edward Island refuse to provide any abortion services, forcing women to go to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to terminate their pregnancies.

Comprehensiveness as a principle is trampled when Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Manitoba refuse to pay for a medically necessary abortion performed in an independent clinic instead of in a hospital. In New Brunswick, a physician is even reported as having threatened a woman to stop caring for her and her family if she tried to get an abortion.

Also, the public administration principle is denied when, following the merger of Catholic and secular hospitals, public institutions run by Catholics do not offer women any reproductive health services, like contraception and abortion.

Finally, the universality principle becomes totally inoperative when the availability of abortion services in hospitals varies between 0% and 35% depending on the location.

Therefore, asking the Standing Committee on Health to report to Parliament on whether or not abortions are medically necessary goes against the five principles set out in the Canada Health Act and against the decision by the Supreme Court of Canada, and would put the committee in the unfortunate position of interfering in a provincial jurisdiction.

As to the second part of the motion, concerning the “health risks for women undergoing abortions compared to women carrying their babies to full term”, this is a more insidious and biased part. For many if not most women, the decision to have an abortion is a difficult one and, for all, a painful experience. A majority of the studies as well as the official records of an international symposium on the subject show that an unwanted pregnancy is a crisis most often resolved through an induced abortion.

Following an induced abortion, most women feel relieved. Only a minority are emotionally or psychologically scarred; in fact, performed in appropriate conditions, induced abortions have fewer negative emotional effects than the birth of an unwanted child. As for guilt feelings, they basically depend on social context.

It is also incorrect to claim that abortion has serious consequences for the woman's physical health. Studies on thousands of women clearly show that the rate of complication in abortions is minimal. For early abortions, the risk is below 1% and clearly lower than the risk inherent in childbirth, which is the only alternative. There is no proof that there is an increase in sterility, or higher risks in later pregnancies, or a higher risk of breast cancer among women who have had an abortion.

Neither have there been more psychological problems found in women who have had abortions. The post-abortion syndrome is an invention of the anti-abortion camp. Women who are forced to give birth against their will—and their unwanted children—suffer more often from psychological or psychosomatic problems than women who have had abortions or who have children who were wanted.

The consequence of harsh laws is that abortions are carried out by unqualified people, that women suffer complications, that they are afraid to seek treatment, and that, often, too much time elapses before they find a way to get an abortion, especially for women without financial means, and that causes other problems.

When abortions are performed illegally and not by professionals, women are risking their lives and their health. In Canada, following the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League's hospital access report for women seeking abortions, it has been noted that only 17.8% of all Canadian hospitals perform abortions. In some provinces, hospital access to abortion simply does not exist. Many hospitals also make it difficult for women to access abortion, the hospital staff is unable to provide women with proper information, and the doctors and nurses prevent women from having access to these services.

In closing, I want to say that health care reforms and budget cuts directly threaten abortion services, and this is putting women's lives at risk. Such limitations on or the refusal to provide abortion services not only signify that the legal right to abortion is losing all meaning, but women are being denied total reproductive freedom.

I would like to say, in conclusion, that women are not defined only by their ability to reproduce and their status as mothers. The right to an abortion must be seen as an important factor in the emancipation—

[Microbreweries, May 5th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, in light of what has happened with oil and gas prices and what is happening with the breweries, will the minister not agree that it is time to review the Competition Bureau's mandate, its evaluation criteria, its processes, even its composition? Perhaps it is time to make some changes.