House of Commons photoWon her last election, in 2008, with 56% of the vote.
Social Program Reform October 19th, 1994
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. In his grey paper, the minister admits for the first time that he intends to make major additional cuts in the social program reform, on top of the $7.4 billion cuts announced in last spring's budget and which have largely been approved already.
Now that the Minister of Finance has confirmed that he will cut billions more at the expense of the poor and the middle class, the question is: How many billions?
Social Program Reform October 17th, 1994
By the local CEC.
For his part, how can the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs go along with those who ended the subsidy for Carrefour-Jeunesse Emploi, when at the same time he paid $130,000 to set up an employment centre in Hull, but for immigrants this time?
Social Program Reform October 17th, 1994
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development. Although the Minister of Human Resources Development has just launched a wide-ranging consultation on the possible reform of social programs, a reform which, among other things, would emphasize community resources to help unemployed youth, he has just ended the subsidy for Carrefour-Jeunesse Emploi de l'Outaouais, which has effectively helped young unemployed people in that region for ten years.
My question is this: How can the minister reconcile his decision to end financial assistance for Carrefour-Jeunesse Emploi with his discussion paper, which intends to put more emphasis on community organizations? How can he reconcile the contradiction between deeds and words?
Social Program Reform October 6th, 1994
Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Human Resources Development. How can the Minister, in his paper, make the victims of a situation where jobs are insecure and scarce, particularly those claimants who regularly rely on UI benefits and make up 40 per cent of our unemployment insurance rolls, carry the blame for the difficult circumstances in which they find themselves? Is that the famous change they so often tell us about?
Social Program Reform October 6th, 1994
Mr. Speaker, the document Agenda: Jobs and Growth goes well beyond that since it says, and I quote: ``A social security system that is financially unsustainable is a dead end''. They are talking about financial sustainability, Mr. Speaker!
As it had already done in last February's budget, instead of addressing the causes, the government has obviously chosen to attack the unemployed by proposing measures that restrict access to unemployment insurance. Yet, in Quebec alone, the 1993 cuts to the unemployment insurance program forced 22,000 unemployed to go on welfare.
In these conditions, how can the minister claim that, by restricting access to unemployment insurance, he will give to the unemployed the hope and confidence they so badly need when he has not proposed any real job creation measures?
Social Security Programs October 6th, 1994
That is right, and I am proud of it. I was the minister responsible for the status of women. I too was able to see how rigid the Canada Assistance Plan is; we had to scrape around to find enough money to create day care centres. As you know, Mr. Speaker, daycare is for children under five and child care for children over five.
The Canada Assistance Plan paid 50 per cent of day care expenses, but not private day care expenses-we had plenty of these establishments in Quebec-or child care services provided by schools to prevent children from dropping out.
Social Security Programs October 6th, 1994
Mr. Speaker, I will watch my language.
I was saying that Canada was reprimanded for not doing enough for children and its policy is clearly to be blamed for it. It is against this very policy that Quebec ministers fought, trying to give families universal allowances in order to prevent child poverty.
Social Security Programs October 6th, 1994
Mr. Speaker, I will not do it again.
I must say that Quebec wanted for quite a while to get control of family allowances-first with René Lévesque in 1965 and then with Castonguay in 1971-because big families were creating a specific problem at the time, and also because the Quebec government was not comfortable with the federal policy. These ministers, federalists and Liberals, wanted to apply a policy aimed at preventing childhood poverty, but were not allowed to do it.
I must add something. The minister's task force was especially interested in preventing poverty among children. It found that the countries which succeeded in preventing childhood poverty were those that applied the policy favoured by René Lévesque and Castonguay, that is to give family allowances to all families instead of waiting for them to be on welfare before helping their children. It is a system which has kept children and family prisoners of poverty; we have been wanting to change it for a long time. The first thing to do to change the system would have been to get control over family allowances, which we were unable to obtain.
When it comes to rigidity and child poverty in Quebec, we can tell you all about it. You caused it with your system. Compare-
Social Security Programs October 6th, 1994
Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for allowing me to go on with my speech. I would like to add that members opposite are all from the West Island but you. We are glad to have you here.
Social Security Programs October 6th, 1994
Mr. Speaker, I hope I may name the document, a working paper that never had the privilege of being tabled not in this Parliament but in 1973, and was never to progress beyond the colour orange. In fact it was known as the orange paper. Released in 1973 and prepared at the behest of Minister Marc Lalonde, it contained some very interesting items.
Hon. members opposite may wish to read them. I do not agree with everything the paper says, but it is interesting reading. The document attempted to formulate proposals for a social security policy for Canada. In addition to employment, and the paper discusses opportunities for employment, it examined ways of providing Canadians and their families with a consistent income security system. The objective was to define a social policy for Canada.
That perspective is sadly lacking in the green, I would say frosty green, paper. It does not even exist. There is no concern for what happens to people. Their only concern is what happens to the budget, this after refusing to review the tax system and increase revenues, instead of shamelessly cutting social spending.
They have another excuse for introducing reforms. Or, should I say, conducting consultations on reforms, because they are not in such a hurry, they have legislated cuts and, of course, there will be more. In any case, they said the cuts would be announced in the Finance minister's budget. So we are going to have consultations without knowing the extent of these cuts. In other words, Canadians know we are going to have consultations, but on what? The government says it will be about change, and Quebecers are starting to realize what has to be changed.
The other excuse is the lack of flexibility. That is a good one! I know the situation in Quebec, where I worked for awhile. In Quebec, people who have been involved in the fight against poverty and unemployment know how difficult it is because of a lack of flexibility in federal programs and the Canada Assistance Plan.
Allow me to give an extremely significant example: during its first term, the Parti Quebecois decided to help low-income families and individuals stay in the workplace and avoid yielding to the very comprehensible temptation, considering their income, to rely on social assistance. Therefore, the Parti Quebecois decided to raise their income by giving them a supplement
according to their individual and family needs among other things. That program was called SUPRET at the time.
When they came to office the Liberals modified that program because of practical difficulties that had nothing to do with its content. That program later became the APPORT.
What is most inadmissible is that the program did not qualify for a 50 per cent reimbursement under the Canada Assistance Plan because the beneficiaries did not, of course, pass the revenue test since they earned more than the authorized minimum.
That situation went on for years while the province of Quebec-at that time it was still called the province though it is less and less called that way now-tried, to fight against poverty within the system. But we would always come up against the rigidity of the system. Yes, the CAP supported 50 per cent of the costs, but only if the government encouraged these people to stay on social assistance. This is one example of the system's rigidity, but there are many others.
So when we are told that the situation is urgent and that we need a reform because of the rigidity of the system, I fully agree and we should proceed immediately. Except that the government does not have to make a consultation that will last two years before addressing the problems for which he is responsible.
Other reasons have been given, but since time does not stand still, I will leave it up to my colleagues to speak to improvements in education. This is clearly within the jurisdiction of Quebec, or within provincial jurisdiction, in the case of other provinces.
I will conclude by speaking about childhood poverty but first I would like to come back to the proposed options.
In order to convince Canadians that they should accept the cuts it preferred, the government explains that from now on there should be two categories of UI beneficiaries. Obviously the goal is to save money. There would be two categories: the occasional unemployed and those who are frequently unemployed.
The goal is to reduce costs while providing some assistance. We will listen to the consultation but I can tell you that my mind is made up about the system proposed. I believe it will be unacceptable for the following reason: people who hold a job for a long time in a company and lose it when the company closes its doors or because of a recession like the last one in 1981-82, are precisely those who join the ranks of the unemployed. In many cases the unemployed in 1981-82 have been unable to find another job. Since then, many of them have had only odd jobs and the others are on social assistance. Those of 1989-90 who had been spared by the first recession have now joined their ranks.
These people had not turned to unemployment insurance in the past but they are now trapped in the unemployment-odd jobs-social assistance cycle. Why? Because the major problem, the main problem is employment. I will conclude by talking about employment. In order to help those people-because they need help, and the Liberal document of Mr. Lalonde came to the same conclusion in 1973-what must we do? We must provide good career counselling services for all people who turn to unemployment insurance.
Do you know something, Mr. Speaker, I was completely astonished because in his document the minister said: Yes, we should have good counselling services. Is that not infuriating? He is the minister in charge! What is stopping him, administratively speaking, from taking the necessary steps and creating a good counselling service? There is no need for a two-year consultation process or for an act of Parliament to create good counselling services. The idea was already in the air in 1973. Anyone moderately intelligent knows that when someone is down on his luck, you give him a few months to get back on his feet but first of all, you must help him. What is waiting for him or her? Retraining or job creation support or, rather do we think that the market is sufficient? Beyond that what is there?
There is nothing else, those are the hard facts of life. So how come they suddenly realize that their unemployment period should be used for retraining? We have been saying the same thing for decades. All of a sudden, in a document of some urgency, which says softly that this is urgent, we are rediscovering the need for retraining, yet Quebec has been asking for years to be given full control over job training.
I am running out of time. I have only two minutes left, so I will say: we will come back to that. The proposed reform is not a reform, and neither will it end childhood poverty. Quebec has been through a totally unacceptable situation. In 1965, René Lévesque, then minister of Family and Social Welfare, said during a federal-provincial conference that Quebec wanted to take charge of family allowances in order to use them in a poverty prevention policy.
"The Quebec government is setting up a new social security policy which will involve not only a reorganization of the programs it presently manages, but also the inclusion of reappropriated federal programs which will achieve their full effectiveness only once they are integrated and, if necessary, reviewed in order to be fully coordinated and tailored to the needs of the people they are intended for. Such an integration is necessary because of the obvious necessity to view social measures as an integral part of our general policy on social and economic development".
So spoke René Lévesque, a federalist, in 1965. He argued that the programs would be fully effective only when integrated. Quebec had a plan to integrate all the elements. With this program, this proposed reform, the central government is proposing a Canada where Ottawa pulls all the strings.
It might be the future of Canada, although we are going to fight to keep the present Constitution which recognizes that provinces have jurisdiction over everything, except unemployment insurance. In Quebec, the project requires the approval of the people who want control over their future.