France Bonsant

[International Women's Day, March 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the United Nations declared March 8 International Women's Day in 1977. It is the perfect opportunity to evaluate our progress in promoting gender equality.

Canada had the opportunity to evaluate its record last week at the Beijing + 10 conference on women's issues. The conference served to remind everyone of the importance of demonstrating the implementation of commitments and action plans to achieve gender equality.

This conference was also an opportunity to identify future challenges with regard to the status of women: employment equity, improving the economic condition of women and the lives of aboriginal women. I hope that Canada's representatives at the Beijing + 10 conference took good notes and that the lives of women will improve even more in years to come.

[Petitions, February 25th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to table this petition calling upon the Prime Minister not to commit to the missile defence shield.

[Employment Insurance, February 23rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, Statistics Canada recently told us that the number of jobs in the Eastern Townships decreased during 2004. This drop is, in large part, due to the difficulties experienced in the manufacturing sector.

Manufacturing jobs are being lost in all regions of Quebec, and the current government's inaction is largely to blame. The closure of mills in Huntingdon is a sad example of this.

If the government does not want to support these jobs, I hope it will at least have the decency to help these workers, once their jobs are gone. The government must improve access to employment insurance. I am asking all my colleagues in the House to support the bills introduced by the Bloc Québécois to improve employment insurance.

I call on the Prime Minister to change his approach in today's budget and finally do something nice for the unemployed by creating an independent employment insurance fund and by paying back the money it raided from the EI fund.

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police, February 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, we learned recently that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has conducted operations against satellite television signal piracy in Montreal and Drummondville.

And so we are still wondering why nine RCMP detachments in Quebec have been closed, including one in my riding and a number near the border, and why the RCMP is bothering with satellite television signals rather than illicit comings and goings at the border.

I do agree that the theft of signals is an offence that deprives the economy—and the companies, particularly—of millions of dollars each year. Nevertheless, our borders have not had any police surveillance since the RCMP withdrew, and that means reduced security for the local population.

As part of its mandate, the RCMP must enforce the law, prevent crime and maintain order and security. The last point is the one I wonder about. The RCMP appears to prefer protecting the incomes of businesses rather than ensuring the safety of Quebeckers.

[Université de Sherbrooke, February 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, 2004 marked the 50th anniversary of the Université de Sherbrooke. The closing event in its year of celebration was a video presentation on the role of women at this institution.

The 30-minute video was prepared by the affirmative action program in order to leave for posterity a valuable account of the significant contribution made by women to this institution.

In the video, 20 women describe the role they and other women have played in the development of the Université de Sherbrooke. In the past 50 years, these women have served as professors, directors, deans, union presidents, counsellors and assistants of numerous kinds.

The Université de Sherbrooke and the entire Eastern Townships owe these women a debt of gratitude for making this a top-ranking institution and an economic driver for the region.

[Employment Insurance Act, February 8th, 2005]

That is better than nothing, Mr. Speaker.

Bill C-280 introduced by my colleague, the hon. member for Manicouagan, is designed to put an end to government interference in the use of a fund that belongs to the unemployed. This bill establishes, on the one hand, an independent commission responsible for setting the EI premium rate annually and, on the other hand, an independent EI fund, that is separate from government funds, to be used exclusively for the stated purposes of the EI program.

During the 2004 election campaign, the FTQ, CSN and CSQ central labour bodies got together to form the Sans-chemise coalition. They displayed instructive signs in the vicinity of Liberal panels to show how outraged they were by the misappropriation of EI funds. The coalition took objection to the fund's loss of independence, with more than $46 billion having been misappropriated.

Extending the insult beyond the party, the MP for Outremont's campaign team acted in a way that was contrary to the freedom of expression and to Canadian election law by removing the signs of the Sans-chemise.

As the signs of the Sans-chemise said, “The Unemployed have been Robbed”. By setting the premium rate too high, the Liberals have accumulated huge profits at the expense of the unemployed. Indeed, $46 billion has been used for purposes other than those originally intended. This bill will ensure that the EI fund is finally a fund separate from public accounts, to be managed in the interest of the recipients of the EI program, by them and for them.

This independent employment insurance fund is designed to be used exclusively for EI purposes, with the rates being adjusted to avoid running huge deficits or surpluses, as is happening right now. In other words, the money raised for employment insurance could not be used to finance health, heritage, defence and other non-EI related programs.

Many witnesses appeared before the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills Development, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, including Mrs. Sheila Fraser. The Auditor General of Canada stated that “the government did not respect the spirit of the Employment Insurance Act” in using the money in the EI fund for something outside the program.

The workers and union representatives who appeared before the committee are in favour of Bill C-280. They all want to see an independent EI fund. These witnesses say that the surplus belongs to the people who paid into the fund.

Indeed, the witnesses who appeared before the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills Development, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities are unanimous. There was also unanimity among committee members from all four parties. All these favourable responses to the idea of setting up an independent EI fund must translate into unequivocal support for this bill presented by the Bloc Québécois.

If we all agree, in committee at least, on the creation of an independent fund, we must also make changes to the employment insurance commission and to the way in which premium levels are set. This bill includes these vital elements of a sound EI plan.

The bill put forward by my colleague from Manicouagan seeks to establish a neutral and impartial Employment Insurance Commission. This bill proposes the establishment of a tripartite commission composed of 17 members where employers and employees would formed the majority. These are the people who benefit from the EI Fund and who pay into that fund, and it makes sense that they would have a majority as far as the management of the program goes. Moreover, having groups of employers and employees represented on the Commission would make it more independent from the government.

By proposing the creation of such a commission, the Bloc Québécois is responding to the request of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills Development, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

We still have to deal with the setting of the premium rates. The EI account is not supposed to make astronomical profits, nor is it supposed to make deficits. It should maintain a certain balance and keep a reserve in case of an economic crisis.

Currently the premium rate is too high and the surpluses are not properly redistributed. To thank the unemployed for their $46 billion contribution, last fall the government announced it was lowering premiums by 3 cents per $100 of insurable income. This was a purely arbitrary decision. This government is laughing in the unemployed workers' face.

To prevent the government from arbitrarily setting the premium rate according to which way the wind blows and what its electoral promises hold, Bill C-280 proposes that the premium rate be set by the Employment Insurance Commission.

The commission would determine a rate that would ensure a fair premium during a three-year business cycle. In this annual report, the commission would explain its decision and analysis, a decision that would ensure that there is enough revenue to pay the expenses authorized on the employment insurance account.

I remind you that, between 1972 and 1996, it is the commission, not the government, that was setting the premium rate. During these years, the employment insurance account was viable and was doing well, without merrily taking advantage of workers and the unemployed. The calculation formula of the basic premium rate was very simple. It was the average basic cost of the benefits, minus the amount required to reduce or eliminate the deficit or the surplus in the employment insurance account.

With this formula, it was impossible to have a cumulative balance such as the one that we now have. In any case, since 1990, the employment insurance system is self-supporting, because the federal treasury stopped contributing to it, but is merrily dipping into it.

Consequently, I suggest to all my colleagues who take the interests of their constituents to heart and who want a fair balance in the employment insurance system to vote for the creation of an independent employment insurance fund, for the creation of the employment insurance commission and for Bill C-280.

[Supply, February 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. Indeed, I visited the Cookshire Tex company, before it closed; it was a textile company. The equipment was in excellent condition and very clean. Most workers in the textile industry are men, because it is hard work that requires physical strength. However, some women are able to do it.

As for clothing, it is made by women who are mostly immigrants and who do not speak French or English. For them, it is easier to come to live here and to work in factories. These women who come to this country are so used to work that they are not a drag on the public purse. They are still penalized. They have barriers. They are getting older. The POWA, which the Bloc Québécois wants to be re-introduced, should be used to teach these women another language, such as the official languages of Canada and Quebec, French and English, and to give them training, because the majority of these women are illiterate.

In doing so, we would really help these women to get out of the poverty trap.

[Supply, February 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. It is not easy.

I think that the solution would come from an agreement within the FTAA or from a hypothetical comprehensive free trade agreement at the WTO, which would make it possible to bypass regional agreements by making them obsolete. That being said, textile mills that would no longer have to move to the United States would probably choose to move to poorer countries, and we would not be better off.

I believe that we need to protect Canadian textiles the same way the Americans do. Yes, a little protectionism would be in order. We should also ensure that developing countries have the same ISO 9000 standards, that is no child labour and no slave labour. We would probably be more competitive compared to these countries.

[Supply, February 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to share my time with my colleague from Laurentides—Labelle.

I must confess that it is with a certain sadness that I begin my speech on the textile industry in Quebec and Canada. For a very long time, textiles and apparel were by far the largest manufacturing sector in Quebec. Insofar as employment is concerned, these sectors fostered and gave structure to an industrial base throughout the regions as well as in the big cities. Thousands of textile mills were built in all our regions, and the jobs numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

This heritage industrial empire is now collapsing through the good care of the Liberal government, which has known for at least 10 years that the import quotas would decline and in fact disappear completely by January 2005. For a good 15 or 20 years now, we have been sounding the alarm, and the labour unions, and especially women—and for that matter the employers too—have been denouncing the Canadian government's inaction in the face of this great “unwinding”.

During the session last fall, I witnessed dozens of interventions by colleagues pleading with the government to do something to protect our industry. On many occasions, they suggested ways of slowing the decline and stopping the spiralling loss of jobs. There are still about 15,000 to 20,000 jobs in this sector in Quebec, and it is worth fighting relentlessly to protect those that remain.

How did textiles and apparel become so important to Quebec? There was the proximity of the American market, of course, but in the final analysis, looking back, historical and political factors were much more influential.

We need to go back to the economic development model that was adopted at the time of Canada's founding. It was decided from the outset that Upper Canada would have the heavy industries, the more technological ones, while Lower Canada would have the light industries, which required a less skilled work force and had less growth potential, for example hosiery, apparel and shoes. As we can see, even Upper Canada did what it could to make us a distinct society.

I would like to draw your attention to the effects of the choices that were imposed. You know as well as I that the jobs in textile and apparel plants are often held by female personnel. We consider this an aggravating factor, because it is easy to imagine the impact on the social fabric of a city or region of several hundred women being laid off—women who very often had been working in the same plant for 25 or 30 years. Consequently, at 50, 55 or even 60 years of age, they have no other training. Tragic situations are created, and many of these women are condemned to lives of poverty and misery. It is easy to see that dropping support for the textile industry penalizes women above all.

In addition, textile mills are often the main if not the only companies of any size in many communities in the eastern townships, Beauce and Montérégie. They have often been there for 50, 75 or even 100 years, and every time, their closing has a considerable impact on the entire local economy.

When I walk around my riding of Compton—Stanstead, I see industrial cadavers on all sides. My district has 44 municipalities, and very few of them have not had to mourn the closure of textile plant closings in recent years or are not worried about seeing the last vestiges of their industrial heritage disappear in the next few years.

Over the last few months, I have had an opportunity to go with a former foreman and visit some of these plants that are now closed. They are amazingly big, and in the cold darkness, you see millions and millions of dollars worth of equipment standing rigid in death like ghosts that want to tell us about a bygone era.

In an expressionless voice, the foreman told us that the three machines in front of us had been sold to India and would be loaded on the boat the next week, while the rest would be sold for scrap. When everything has been taken out, maybe you can bring in some loads of muck soil and grow mushrooms, which like dark, cold, dead places. If you come out our way any time soon, Mr. Speaker, I would like to give you this experience. I invite you to come to Sherbrooke, Coaticook, Cookshire, Weedon or Ascot; there is no shortage of places.

It was a good ten years ago that we signed agreements at the World Trade Organization in which this government announced to the whole world that Canada would abolish all forms of tariff barriers and quotas on foreign products and its market would be turned over to them lock, stock and barrel.

I would like to say that what has not been abandoned is not just a few beaneries found here and there. Despite the closing of hundreds of plants and the loss of thousands of jobs, the annual sales of the Canadian textile and apparel sectors were still about $7 billion a year for both, or more combined than the aerospace, steel or pharmaceutical industries?

It is therefore a major event, still today, and this is why there is no way that we will give up. Someone has to defend Quebec's interests in this regard, as in many others. It is surprising to find the Bloc Québécois alone in the arena. Where are the Liberal ministers who come to Quebec to get elected, while in fact it is just Ottawa's interests that they defend in Quebec.

But we, in the Bloc, we will not quit. With some 15,000 employees, the textile sector accounts for nearly 5% of all the manufacturing jobs in Quebec. It is this industrial heritage and the tremendous expertise that goes along with it that the Liberal government of Canada is busy destroying without even blinking.

Let me include a quote at this point to show that the Bloc Québécois is not alone in feeling sad. I quote:

Governments have known for ten years that the quotas would end, that the special tariffs protecting our industry against the Asian threat or other cheap labour markets would end. So, they had ten years to promote business transformation, support the buying of new equipment, consider drafting a new agreement or, otherwise, to prepare for the retraining of workers. Instead, they let everyone to fend for themselves.

That is not all. Here is more:

Tens of mills are preparing to shut down in the short or medium term, for reasons that anyone who has some basic notions in social economy knew about. Except, it seems, the governments. Today, we have no choice but to recognize that their apathy and lack of foresight are responsible for the textile scandal. This is a scandal that is not settled and that could be around for quite some time.

This text was written by the editor of our local daily La Tribune , in December 2004.

Quebeckers know that the world is changing, that the global economy is undergoing major mutations. We accept the globalization game and we are pleased to see the emergence of those countries that are gradually moving toward the market economy. We agree to do our share so that low-wage countries can sell their products on our markets. However, adequate solutions must be found so that our mills can remain competitive and keep a major share of our markets.

There are 30,000 textile mills currently operating in China, with hundreds of others under construction, and nearly 20 million workers working there for 55¢ per hour. The hourly rate for workers in India is even lower, around 23¢ per hour. Obviously, we cannot compete with these production costs because there is too big a gap between our respective investments. This in no way means that we should give up, as the current government is doing by completely opening up our borders without restrictions.

On January 9, Henry Massé, the president of the FTQ, said he feared 30,000 to 40,000 jobs in the textile and apparel industry would be cut. Right away, he asked Ottawa to renew for another three years, as per WTO rules, certain quotas that have just been abolished but that would have set limitations on Chinese imports, long enough for us to find a long-term solution. The Americans take advantage of such clauses, as do the British and the Germans. But here, when the Liberals crash, they crash and burn.

These past few months, I have seen the member for Brome—Missisquoi go around the region saying that international treaties should be respected and that we had no choice but to completely open up our borders.

If this government had any respect for this industry and for the tens of thousands of workers who could lose their jobs in the near future, it would have the humility and the courage to do its homework again so as to better save some specific areas of this industry in order to protect our expertise and our jobs.

[Oxfam-Québec in the Eastern Townships, February 1st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, since the terrible disasters that occurred in Asia in December, we see just how much people can pull together.

So, I want to draw attention to and encourage the excellent work of Oxfam-Québec in the Eastern Townships. Thanks to the hard work of staff and volunteers, the organization has had a strong presence in the Eastern Townships since its arrival in 2001. The recent Estrie solidaire project is proof; its aim is to stop the exodus of young people from Stanstead by getting them involved in their community.

Oxfam-Estrie is providing international aid by holding hunger banquets, promoting fair trade products and has collected $70,000 for Haiti.

In order to help tsunami victims in Asia, it is holding fund-raisers. Thanks to donors, the association was able to send drinking water and food items to the stricken areas. The funds raised were used to pay the salaries of people cleaning up the debris and rebuilding infrastructure.

Congratulations to the people at Oxfam-Québec in the Eastern Townships and, above all, may their good work continue.