Geoff Regan

[Bedford Junior High Band, May 13th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a fine group of young students who form the school band at Bedford Junior High. They have just returned from a fantastically successful trip to Orlando, Florida where they took part in the All American Music Festival.

This band was the only junior high band at the festival. It was selected the most outstanding concert band, the most outstanding jazz band and the most outstanding ensemble for the jazz band trumpet section. They were the youngest musicians at the festival.

I hope all members will join me in congratulating Mr. Gary Adams, their teacher, and all these find young musicians for their tremendous success and hard work.

[Petitions, May 9th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to present a petition on behalf of 265 Nova Scotians calling on Parliament to act immediately to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to prohibit discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.

[Employment Insurance Act, May 2nd, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak on the bill regarding employment insurance.

Over the past two years, the government has carried on extensive consultations in relation to matters of social policy, in particular the question of the unemployment insurance system which will now be called employment insurance.

It is very fitting that the new name of the system is employment insurance. We do not talk about having death insurance although we only get that insurance when we die. It seems reasonable not to call it unemployment insurance since the idea to be reinforced is that of people having employment, not unemployment. We want to assist people in achieving employment, which is what this bill is all about.

The bill is about helping people to get jobs. It is also about strengthening work incentives. I do not believe this bill is perfect which is why I am glad that the human resources development committee over the past number of weeks has had a chance to look into the bill, to hear witnesses and to discuss possible ways to change it.

Two other members and I have brought forward amendments. There are over 200 motions to amend the bill. I believe many of them will go through and will improve the bill substantially. It is important that fairness is ensured in the system through these changes.

This bill will also help workers adjust to changing economic times. One of the most important changes to the employment insurance system will be the process of counting hours of work rather than counting weeks of work. That seems to be a more reasonable and accurate way to measure work. Most people work according to the number of hours per week.

In Atlantic Canada this change will mean that the vast majority of workers, for example, those in seasonal industries who often work more than 35 hours a week-some as much as 70 hours per week-will now get full credit for the hours they work. That is a very important change that will benefit people in Atlantic Canada.

It is also important to realize that under the new bill every hour and every dollar counts toward people's benefits. That is a change from the past. Before, whether you had 16 hours a week or 80 hours a week, it meant the same thing. That is surely not an accurate way to measure work or what will be insured. The new system will improve on that substantially.

For example, consider a person in the construction industry, which is usually a seasonal industry. During the summer months, the heavy months of work, people will often work up to 70 hours a week. People in that sector will benefit from these changes. A week in which they work 70 hours will mean the equivalent of 2 weeks toward eligibility.

One of my original concerns about the bill was the way it dealt with the divisor. The divisor is the number of weeks by which people's income is divided to determine what is their income.That is then multiplied by 55 per cent to determine what their benefits are.

The problem I had with that was that under the original bill in the highest unemployment regions people were required to work three or four weeks beyond the eligibility period. Let us say it was the equivalent of 12 or 14 weeks. In the 12 week areas they would have to work the full 16 weeks, and about 17 weeks in the 14 week areas in order to get the full benefit, whereas in the areas of lowest unemployment where it would be easiest to get additional work they would have to work no further weeks of work.

It is similar to saying that in the areas where it is toughest to get additional work, that is, the areas of highest unemployment, an incentive is needed to get additional work and there is supposedly no need in the areas of highest employment where it is easier to get additional work. It would have meant hardship for the people in Atlantic Canada and in other high unemployment regions across the country. I felt it was very important that we remove that kind of hardship from the bill.

By the same token, there were various groups, even unions in some cases, who came forward to say that it was true that there were some people who, after getting their 12 weeks of eligibility, would stop working. They would arrange to get themselves laid off or whatever. I do not think it is a big number of people but they exist. We have been told by those people and others that an incentive is needed for people to work a little extra, to ask them to stretch a bit but not to ask them to go off a cliff.

I put forward the idea that instead of having the addition of four weeks in the highest unemployment areas and the addition of zero weeks in the lowest, it should be a flexible eligibility plus two weeks period for the divisor.

This is a complicated subject. Many people will find it a little complex and hard to understand. The point is that it will be fairer across the board for all Canadians. It will mean that the divisor period will follow the rate of unemployment.

As the unemployment rate in an area goes down and it becomes easier to find work, people will have to work a little longer to get their full benefit. As the unemployment rate in an area goes up and it gets harder to get those extra weeks of work, they will have fewer weeks to work, maybe one or two, obviously depending on the nature of the unemployment rate, to get that full benefit.

That is an important measure. It will have a cost to it. It will mean $95 million will go back into the economy. It is a very important measure particularly in the areas of highest unemployment which would have been unduly harshly impacted on by the bill as originally written.

I am delighted the government has accepted my proposal. The minister has put forward an amendment which requires a royal recommendation since it involves the spending of funds. He has also put forward proposals by my friend from Fredericton-York-Sunbury and by one of the members from Toronto.

He put forward an amendment in one case regarding the gap or the question of weeks of zero employment. This would have been very problematic in some areas. There was another relating to exempting people in low income families from the intensity rule. That is a very important measure. The other measure will give people who are working while on UI a credit toward their next term on UI and a credit in relation to the intensity rule.

Those are very important measures which will substantially improve the bill. I do not claim that this system will be perfect. I have never seen a government system that is perfect. I once heard someone say that the thing about all human institutions is that they have human failings. We are probably never going to create a perfect institution.

The idea is to improve the situation as much as possible. Certainly, the change from a weeks based system to an hours based eligibility system will dramatically improve the employment insurance system for the majority of people who are claimants in my region. That is very important.

There was another thing that was very important to me about this bill. When I first learned about the proposals on this bill last summer, one of my biggest concerns was that there was a reduction in the amount of funding going toward this. I recognize that there was an increase in the cost of the program from $8 billion 10 years ago to $20 billion today.

My constituents have said that people should not be making high incomes year after year and also drawing as much as $10,000 in UI year after year. People are very strongly against that. I told the Minister of Human Resources Development it seemed to me that if we were going to change the system, the way to do it was to take it out of the high end, not the low end.

The result is that people in low income families will end up getting about 14 per cent more because of what has been brought forward with the family income supplement. It is a very important progressive measure in the bill. It will mean that those low income families who depend on unemployment insurance will get a boost, a little more than the regular 55 per cent that others will get.

It also means that for the vast majority in the middle the system will be maintained in a very positive way. But the fact is, for those who make $50,000 or $60,000 a year there will be a reduction because the employment insurance benefits of those people will be clawed back. The vast majority of Canadians will strongly support that change. It is one I certainly support. This is a very progressive measure.

We saw changes to the unemployment insurance system by the previous Conservative government which simply slashed and cut. It increased the number of weeks required to work and cut the amount of benefits and that was it. That was not the proper approach. The system needed vast reform which we have done. It will be a very strong and much better system.

[Canadian Human Rights Act, April 30th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I want to comment on the speech by the hon. member for Saskatoon-Humboldt who made a very good presentation.

First of all I want to bring to the attention of the House what this bill is really about. It says in the preamble that it is about Canadians having the right to be free from discrimination in employment and in the provision of goods and services. That is what this bill is about, nothing more and nothing less. This bill also says that the government recognizes and affirms the importance of the family as the foundation of Canadian society, that nothing in the act alters its fundamental role as a society.

Those are very important points to many Canadians. It is important that they be in the bill and it is good that they are there. But it seems to me it is not enough to simply not discriminate ourselves. We must oppose discrimination. We must protect against it. That is what this bill is supposed to do and will do. I ask the member for Saskatoon-Humboldt to comment.

[Canadian Human Rights Act, April 30th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comments. I have always enjoyed listening to his speeches in the House. I appreciate that he has a more enlightened view than other members of his party on a variety of issues.

I was interested to hear the speech of the hon. member for Rosedale, particularly a quotation from the learned Judge Goldstone, the leading prosecutor of the war crimes in Bosnia. He talked about Bosnia and what had happened there in terms of the terrible killings and atrocities and how that came to be possible. He said dehumanizing people loosens the moral constraints and allows people to demonize and dehumanise them and ultimately leads to genocide.

I believe that is related to this issue. What we are talking about in having a list of prohibited grounds of discrimination in the human rights act is who we can treat as less than human. History is replete with cases of society's treating certain individuals as less than human beings. The human rights act is where we say because someone fits in this particular category we cannot treat them as less than human.

For example, there have been times in the past when people who were black or of other races were treated as less than human. Society said it was all right to do that. Even the courts said it was all right to do that. We are saying to the courts, by saying we cannot discriminate on the ground of race, that is not right any more, we cannot do that.

There was a time when Jews were treated as less than human. People of other religions were treated as less than human. We are saying that is not permissible.

There were times when children were treated as less than children. Society said it was all right. The courts said it was all right. However, the Canadian Human Rights Act states we cannot discriminate on the basis of age, ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex and so on, because these are people who have at times in the past been treated as less than human.

It used to be that children who were born out of wedlock were the outcasts of society and were treated as less than human. However, they cannot be treated that way today because the question of family status is listed here.

If there are any outcasts in this day and age, gays and lesbians are treated by much of society as the outcasts of this time.

When I think of Christian principles and the life of Christ, who showed more concern for outcasts than he did? From my point at least, my Christian values require me to support this bill. It is not okay to treat these people because of their sexual orientation as less than human.

[Mr. Bob Chambers, March 29th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a great Nova Scotian. Wednesday night in Halifax Bob Chambers died at the age of 91. He was a very well known cartoonist for the Halifax Herald from the mid-1930s until 1976.

He was born in Wolfville, Nova Scotia and studied art in New York City. He could have stayed there and earned a very good living, but like many maritimers he wanted to go home and went back to Nova Scotia.

The Bob Chambers cartoon was for many years the first thing people looked for in the newspaper each day. His cartoons were often full of pointed and funny political humour but they were never harsh, strident or cruel. In fact his victims were often the first

to ask for the originals. They now hang all over the maritimes and even in offices in Ottawa.

Bob Chambers was known as a compassionate man with a wonderful sense of humour. Nova Scotia will miss him.

[French Language, March 19th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, in the next few days, thousands of stakeholders, thinkers, scientists, and researchers from across the world will be making comments and recommendations on the health of la francophonie internationally.

The French language is one of the most beautiful there is. It is all nuances, subtleties and finesse. It is one of the preferred vehicles for those who have chosen to express themselves through various art forms.

On this Semaine internationale de la Francophonie, let us say again how proud we are to live in a country where French is one of the official languages.

[The Budget, March 18th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I found the member's comments very interesting and noted them. I have been talking with people in my riding of Halifax East since the budget was presented and the comments I have been hearing about it have been very positive.

People seem to be very pleased about many aspects of the budget including the measures which deal with child poverty, in particular the working income supplements increase over the next three years from $500 to $1,000 a year. It will help low income working families take care of their children. It is a very important measure.

I found it interesting that members suggest we need to run a surplus. I understand the idea; it would be nice if we could run surpluses overnight and cut the deficit to zero and beyond right away. However that does not take into account the economic reality of our country or the impact that would have on individual people across the country.

To say we will do that without, as the Reform Party promised, bringing forth its own version of what it will do and how it will achieve those goals seems irresponsible.

Why is it that the Reform Party did not, as promised, bring forward its own proposed budget this year before the budget was brought down to say what it would do? What would that party cut? It is saying that it would cut far more than the government has cut so far, that far more would be required to be cut from the federal budget to reach a surplus.

What fees would the Reform party increase? What programs would it cut far more than has been cut already? Would it cut health care? Would it increase the cuts in transfers to the provinces? What

other areas would it cut? It is not telling us about those things which are so important to know and I look forward to hearing.

[Fisheries, March 5th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to see that progress is being made with regard to the concerns of fishermen in the Scotia Fundy region. I want to thank the minister for moving to end the impasse.

Could the hon. minister update the House on the progress being made at the meetings which began yesterday in Nova Scotia between fishermen and DFO officials.

[Speech From The Throne, February 29th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the honourable member for Lachine-Lac-Saint-Louis.

Our government has a reason to be proud of its record over the past 28 months. During that time we have focused on the government's jobs and growth agenda and there are now half a million more new jobs in the country. Canada has the highest growth rate in the G-7. Those are very important accomplishments and they are something to be proud of.

At the same time, we still have problems. We still have unemployment. People in my riding come to me looking for ideas. They ask me where they can find jobs. They still need jobs. We are lucky in the Halifax area that we have a relatively low unemployment rate compared to the rest of Atlantic Canada, but we still have our problems and so does the rest of the country.

We have more work to do as a government, but we must focus. We cannot do everything. That is the idea here of the throne speech. The idea of the throne speech is to set out the priorities and the focus of the government.

The government has set out three main priorities in the throne speech. The first is to maintain its efforts on jobs and growth and even to strengthen those efforts.

The second is to pursue security for Canadians in a number of areas.

A very important third is to modernize our federation to ensure the unity of our country.

Let me talk first about the issue of jobs and growth. It is very important that the government continue to pursue deficit reduction. It has met its deficit targets and is going to continue to meet them. It is very important that it do so. It is important to support a healthy economic climate. The government has to meet those targets but it can also do more.

For example, there is the problem of sales taxes across the country: the GST and provincial sales taxes. In the province of Nova Scotia there is a tax on a tax and we are paying very high levels of tax. A lot of people in my area have complained about the way it works. They are constantly hit with that tax which they see all the time, especially when the goods have one price on the shelf and then they are hit with another price. It is difficult to accept.

The government is now saying, let us harmonize these taxes. Let us work together with the provinces and have one system of sales tax. Then there would be one form for people in small business to report on and a simpler system for Canadians. It is very important to support a healthy economic climate for Canada and also create jobs and growth.

However, growth alone is not enough. There has been growth over the past two years, the highest rate in the G-7 as I mentioned. However it is not creating enough new jobs. That is the concern of my constituents.

The Prime Minister is right to challenge the private sector. It is time to challenge them to do more to create new jobs. What are the big companies and the big banks doing for Canada? They receive tremendous profits from Canada, in some cases bigger profits than ever before. What are they giving back? Big layoffs. Large numbers of people are being cut from these companies.

I heard yesterday on television that the big banks are having a study done to determine whether they have a moral obligation to not lay off people, but to employ them. It is remarkable that someone should have a study done in order to decide whether they have a moral obligation.

I could pick almost anyone in my riding to do the study and answer the question and it would probably be a lot cheaper than they are going to pay for this fancy study about their moral obligation to give people jobs when they are making such incredible profits. Or can they continue to make these huge profits and continue to cut jobs at a tremendous rate?

The answer should be obvious to the big banks and corporations. I hope they will join what the Prime Minister proposed as a Team Canada partnership to create jobs, especially for young Canadians. Young Canadians are our greatest resource and are so important to our future. At the present time the rate of unemployment among young Canadians is 16 per cent. That is an atrocious rate. The government has a responsibility to deal with that. However, we must also challenge the private sector which has the main job of creating jobs for people, especially our young people.

Yes, the private sector must be challenged but the government also has a role here. It is good that the government is going to double the number of summer jobs for students this year. That is very important because students and their families in my area and across the country are concerned about their futures, the cost of education and other problems they are facing. They need help from the government and I am glad to hear it is coming.

Another area that the government is focusing on is trade. Trade has been the single most important factor in creating jobs and growth over the last two years. It is interesting to note that 20 per cent of the jobs in my riding of Halifax West depend on trade. It is not surprising considering the fact that Halifax is a port city. There is also manufacturing in Halifax that must be sold around the world. Trade is very important to us and that is why it important to continue the Team Canada trade missions the Prime Minister has attended around the world. Those missions have brought $20 billion in new deals over the past 14 months. That is not singing in the dark. Those are important numbers. They are important because they mean jobs for Canadians, including those jobs in my riding.

A moment ago I mentioned the port of Halifax. The port of Halifax is a key national entry point for trade. It has grown tremendously in the past few years. It has great potential for the future but it has to compete with American ports. Those are its main competitors especially for container traffic.

I have a great concern about the issue of marine service fees. I have expressed my concerns very strongly to the new Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, his department and the commissioner of the coast guard about the need to ensure that whatever fee structure for marine services is brought in, it must be fair and must allow eastern Atlantic ports such as the port of Halifax to compete with its main competitors in the U.S. That is very important for the economic future in our region. It is very important for trade for this country too.

I was pleased to see that the government plans to focus also on rural areas because rural areas have special challenges. I come from an urban-rural riding. I have a mix of mostly suburban but also quite a large rural area.

In those areas some of the things that are important, as they are across Atlantic Canada, are things like access to capital, human resources development, infrastructure and access to the information highway. These are all things the government is going to pursue over the next year. Those rural areas need a special focus and we are going to give that focus.

The throne speech also talked about security for Canadians. That is very important in many ways. The throne speech is really about values and that is what it should be about. We should be talking about the shared values of Canadians because those shared values are what make us Canadian. Values such as freedom, peace, tolerance, sharing and generosity are what set us apart from other countries and peoples in the world,

Those are values that are very strongly shared across this country by all Canadians no matter what background, no matter what province, no matter what language. Those values make us Canadians.

The throne speech set out those values and why they are important to us. Economic growth is important to pursue, but it is not enough by itself. It is not an end in itself as the Prime Minister has said.

The government must pursue it for jobs and wealth creation for our country. At the same time the government must create opportunity. That is very important. We have been trying to do that over the past years and we must focus on that more. We must ensure that all Canadians can benefit when there is growth in our country, not just the big companies, big banks, for example. All Canadians have to take part.

An important part of the distribution of the success of our country is that a secure social safety net is maintained. It is very important to Canadians. It is a very important value.

Canadians are worried, in my riding and I am sure in other ridings, about the future of medicare. The government is committed to maintaining the five principles of the Canada Health Act. That is a very important commitment, and one that I endorse heartily.

I was very pleased to hear that the government will put a floor under the cash component of the Canada health and social transfer. That is an important guarantee of continuing federal cash transfers to the provinces which, especially in Atlantic Canada, is very important. It is important for a strong nation. It is important for strong national standards. It is important for our future and for our values as Canadians.

I have had many calls on the issue of pensions over the past while. With all the talk in the media about the future of the Canada pension system, the OAS and the GIS, Canadians are worried about this. While I am glad the Prime Minister has reaffirmed his commitment that we must protect current seniors and the pensions they receive, at the same time the system has to be examined to find ways to make the pension system sustainable for the long run for younger Canadians. For instance, when those our age retire the system should be there for us and others across this country.

One of the things I was delighted to hear in the speech from the throne is the traditional Liberal and Canadian value of equality of opportunity. This value is very dear to the hearts of Canadians. It is a basic Canadian value.

Equality of opportunity begins with children. The government has said it will make children a priority. That is no empty statement. It is a very important commitment that members in this party have been working on for a long time. We have worked hard to see that the government does more on the issue of child poverty.

I am delighted to hear the government say that it wants to move in that direction and I am looking forward to hearing more about that.

The government says that it will improve the child support system to help single parents and low income working families, the working poor who have always been a big concern of mine especially when I was involved with food banks in the Halifax area. We found people coming to us who had jobs but who were working on minimum wage, for example, and could not put enough money together to feed their families for the whole month. They had to end up going through the degradation of standing in line at food banks. It is an awful thing to have to do.

Food banks are certainly not the answer for our country. I am glad that the government is going to focus on this issue. I look forward to seeing measures in the budget in relation to poor children and young working families.

Equal opportunity is also important for small communities and rural communities. For example, it is important for the black communities. In my riding are several small black communities that just finished celebrating Black History Month, which was a great success.

It is important to recognize the black Canadians who have made an important contribution to making the road a little easier for others who followed them. Dr. Pearleen Oliver has recently written the book called The Song of the Spirit . It is a history of the Beachville United Baptist Church. In it she gives a record of people who have worked to build their community and to overcome prejudice and disadvantages in those kinds of communities. It is very important that she has recorded this kind of work and paid tribute to those people.

It is also important that we implement the new employment insurance system but that we not do it hastily. The minister has committed us to review it. This plan has to be adjusted. He has to do that to make it fairer for all workers.

We know that the system has not been fair enough in the past. It has to be made fairer for all workers across the country. At the same time we must ensure that we do not hurt unfairly those people who cannot afford it, those who need the system the very most. I am glad to see that it is in the throne speech and that we are going to see more of it. These are very important messages in the throne speech.