Francine Lalonde

[Unemployment, September 19th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, does the Minister of Finance realize that, at this pace, it will take at least three years just to reach the pre-recession level of employment, given the increase in population? Under the circumstances, is the minister prepared to give a boost to job creation by immediately reducing UI contributions, since there is a surplus, as the official opposition has been requesting since the minister himself raised these contributions?

[Unemployment, September 19th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. According to Statistics Canada, the unemployment rate rose by 0.7 per cent in Quebec last month and now stands at 12.2 per cent. In spite of a slight economic recovery, given the increase in population, Quebec still needs 210,000 jobs to reach its pre-recession level of employment.

Could the Minister of Finance, who recently claimed to be waging a world economic war, modestly try to create jobs by taking concrete recovery measures instead of pursuing his policy of laissez-faire?

[Full Employment Act, September 19th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I would like to mention, although this will be underlined further this afternoon, that we are sitting today for the first time minus one of our colleagues.

I was very pleased to start off the session with a debate on full employment. However, the debate taking place in the context of this particular bill, my pleasure turned to displeasure, to bitter disappointment as regards the nature of the provisions put forward by the New Democratic Party.

A full employment policy, as anyone who has looked into the subject would know and as far as I am concerned, includes basically two main components: so-called macroeconomic policies concerning employment and policies at the regional and local level which, because of the ownership of the local and regional players, allow maximum job-creation benefits to be derived from national policy, whatever the nation, at the regional level as well as from a more local and regional policy.

I would like to mention in passing, as time is short-but I hope we can come back to it later on-that Diane Bellemare and Lise Poulin-Simon, two university professors have looked into these matters extensively since the 80s in Quebec. They have worked so hard in fact that they influenced not only the central labour bodies, which they criticized in a way, but also management, which was also criticized, and governments to such a

point that in Quebec, we now have some essential tools such as the following.

I will not address macro-economic policy, as it is Ottawa's responsibility. And in Ottawa, contrary to the government member's claims, concern for employment is not obvious to say the least. An infrastructure program was introduced. Fine, but we must also consider all that was not, and we will come back to this repeatedly over the course of the session. In spite of all the idle talk and the campaign promises, this government cannot be said to be concerned with employment.

At the other level however-and it may be fitting to mention this here-the second component I referred to earlier is basically an involvement policy. Such a policy can, especially in Quebec but in other provinces also, as we will see, be developed at the local or provincial level.

Let me read you two sentences. On what basis do Mrs. Bellemare and Poulin contend that micro-economic employment policy should come under provincial jurisdiction? First, provincial governments are at a definite advantage for political considerations when it comes to implementing such a policy.

In fact, the constitutional division of powers-and as far as I know the Constitution has not been changed, but, of course, it is convenient to forget this-gives the provinces considerable jurisdiction with respect to work and labour relations, education and training, and development of resources. And I would point out that it is Diane Bellemare and Lise Poulin-Simon who are saying this, not the Bloc.

Secondly, there are cultural, linguistic and ideological considerations-to which, it seems to me, the sponsor of this bill could have been sensitive-which put the provincial governments in a better position than the federal government to implement a micro-economic employment policy effectively.

It seems to me that what we are seeing here is the complete failure of the federal policy to achieve what one would expect of a full employment policy, that is economic, financial and budgetary policies at the macro-economic level from the government of the country. And having failed in that, it now wants to become involved directly and with all the necessary control over what is, in this Constitution-but I will say more-the very nature of a full employment policy, something which should be left to the provinces and to the regional and local levels.

I would add that the current globalization of markets, which has not waited for the FTA or NAFTA, is forcing all countries to give the best of themselves to achieve an employment policy. In fact, it is at the level of the people, businesses, unions, groups in each of the municipalities, in collaboration with the level of government most closely concerned and with the closest access to the constitutional powers that the project and the implementation can be carried out.

That is where it becomes easier when we know that we in Canada have not even been able during all these years to agree on manpower training, which is absolutely essential, and when the NDP bill does not refer in any way to what the provinces do better. That is true in any country. Why do at the federal level what would be done better at the regional and community level? Why? Because of a lack of confidence in the ability of our communities, our regions and, in the case of the Canadian Constitution, our provinces?

There is plenty of goodwill and good intentions that I share. I, however, think that the means used are totally inadequate and cannot work in Canada under the current Constitution. But there is more than that. In Canada-and I think this will last for a long time given Canada's current geography-it is impossible for a full employment policy to be "controlled, implemented and developed from Ottawa". The federal government must have employment-conscious fiscal, budgetary and financial policies, but it must let the provinces, the regions and the municipalities do what they do better, and give them the means to do so. At the present time, the means derive from the spending powers controlled by Ottawa.

I would like us to re-examine this issue, but I am clearly very disappointed.

[Social Program Reform, June 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, after congratulating the minister for finally agreeing to meet with the provinces, I would like to ask him, in light of all the leaks that have occurred and that have been reported in the newspapers, whether or not he agrees with his Quebec counterpart that an approach involving the merger of unemployment insurance and social assistance programs would be doomed to fail since, according to Quebec's employment minister, "we are talking about two different clienteles which cannot easily be integrated".

[Social Program Reform, June 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development.

Hon. members will recall that because of the opposition expressed by several provinces, Ottawa was forced to cancel at the last minute a federal-provincial meeting on social program reform which had been scheduled for April 18 last.

The Minister of Human Resources Development is preparing to meet one-on-one this week with his provincial counterparts to outline the major components of his social program reform package before convening at their express request a federal-provincial meeting.

Can the minister tell us if the package he will be presenting to the provinces still recommends that unemployment insurance and social assistance programs be merged with a view to establishing a guaranteed minimum income program?

[Job Development, June 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, does the minister not realize on the one hand that these groups have developed an extremely valuable expertise in employability, and in particular in the employability of young people, and on the other hand, as they say, that cuts in programs to develop job skills readiness jeopardize the very existence of essential services to those who have been hit hard, often the hardest, by the last recession?

[Job Development, June 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development.

Last Thursday, as part of a concerted effort, nearly 1,000 groups, civic and community organizations as well as national coalitions in Quebec signed a letter to the Minister of Human Resources Development urging him to: "maintain the regular component of the job development program as long as no other alternative has been put in place".

Does the minister intend to follow up this pressing demand from the signatory organizations, given the essential role these front-line organizations play in their relations with the less fortunate, and in particular people who have no jobs and no income?

[Social Program Reform, June 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, are we to understand that, through this bulldozing operation, the minister wants to impose his views on the provinces, by threatening to reduce financial contributions to provinces that refuse to link the payment of benefits to the obligation to do community work or take training courses?

[Social Program Reform, June 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development. The Ottawa Citizen , referring to off-the-record remarks by a government spokesman, disclosed parts of the social program reform being considered by the federal government, a reform that will be made public at the end of July, during the summer holidays, after Parliament has adjourned.

Can the minister confirm that his reform will require that all income security program recipients, be it welfare or unemployment insurance, will have to do community work or take training courses in order to receive their benefits? The National Anti-Poverty Organization said this will amount to a cheap labour policy, and will not form the basis of a real employment policy.

[Canada Student Financial Assistance Act, June 16th, 1994]

moved:

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-28, in Clause 14, be amended by deleting lines 27 to 41, on page 12.

Mr. Speaker, proceedings in the House do not always reflect exactly what goes on in committee. I have said that, as the Official Opposition, we have tried to do our job the best way we could, to a point where, at the committee stage, we even moved amendments with which we were not comfortable. For example, we proposed that the minister be at least required to consult the provinces before designating the appropriate authorities.

You can certainly understand that it was difficult for us to do that, but we thought that we had to move such an amendment in order to force the minister to hold consultations. Of course, our amendment was defeated.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about the clause that concerns Quebec the most. The committee sat for many hours, but that subject came up only during the last half hour. The clause that we want to delete affects the right of the provinces and territories to opt out. I have to tell everybody who is listening to us today that the right to opt out has been part of this legislation since it was first adopted in 1964, but there was no condition attached to it.

The province that chose to opt out received its share of what was spent elsewhere, depending on its population and the amount of money spent. They were saying: "There are two situations: either you take part in the national program or you opt out and, in that case, inasmuch as you have a provincial program, we will redistribute to you the equivalent of what has been distributed to other provinces".

We have to realize that in the context of the old struggles under Duplessis and later of the first arrangements under Pearson, before centralizing federalists took over the Liberal Party and formed the Liberal government, the right to opt out was not subject to any conditions. The first program, enacted in 1964, has been changed. The current act too, under which we have been operating since 1984, provides a right to opt out, this time subject to two conditions I would describe as light and formulated as objectives to be achieved.

The concern was that the provincial program should have provisions that had essentially the same effects as far as part-time students and exemptions from interest payments were concerned. Those then were provisions related to accessibility. They did not jeopardize the whole program, the whole approach of the program. There was a recognition that a province opting out from the program had its own approaches, its own objectives, its own criteria and its own administration, but on the other hand they were saying: "Make sure that part-time students enjoy the same rights and that in some cases there can be exemptions from interest payments".

But this new measure is quite another story. This bill turns the conditions into bothersome requirements affecting program administration with seemingly very little concern for objectives. Besides, it is not that we would want the program to be different, because Quebec did not wait for the central government to show the way to set up a loan and grant program.

Quebec did not wait for the central government of Canada to invest more in education, even more than the wealthiest province. I want to come back to those figures.

It is important to know that university funding has been largely provided-when I say largely, it should be pointed out that provincial efforts vary, and I shall refer to Quebec's effort-by the federal government; this is money from the provinces redistributed on the basis of demographic criteria. From 1977 to 1985-86, according to the most recent study I was able to find, which was published in 1992, that effort declined considerably.

General financing for the entire education system is not provided through student loans but through a program of transfer payments covering both health and education. The provinces have all chosen to give preference to health over education, resulting in a considerable proportionate decline in funds devoted to education. As to the provincial contribution offsetting the lower level of federal spending, Quebec has made a remarkable effort. From 1977 to 1986, Quebec invested 2.3 percent of its gross domestic product in education. This has since declined to 2.1 per cent, which means that 0.2 per cent went over to health. We do not have the time to go deeper into this.

By comparison Ontario-which is far richer than Quebec in terms of individual and overall wealth, for well-known historical reasons-invested 1.4 per cent of its GDP in 1977, and only 1.1 per cent in 1986-87. This means that Quebec, a poorer province, spent twice as much of its GDP on education. Concerning student loans, the figures submitted by the department indicate that Quebec contributed the same amount in 1992-93, even though the number of students was proportionately lower because Quebec has only 70 per cent of Ontario's population.

Under these conditions, it is a shameful, indecent and unacceptable situation when one is told in a federal bill that Quebec has to respect eight points, that it has to report-and that is why I will be sending additional documentation to the Quebec minister of education-and that most of these points relate to program administration; in particular, it indicates the direction of these reforms. This reform of student aid shows what is in store with the reform of social programs: centralization, meddling in provincial jurisdiction and a right to opt out with national standards that apply even to administration.