Gérard Asselin

[Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, October 28th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the hon. member for Saint-Jean, is giving an excellent speech before the House, a speech that required a great deal of research, because the member is concerned about aboriginal communities. He is giving an excellent speech in the House, having spent much time and effort, and I find it unfortunate that there are only two Liberal members, and even only one Liberal member out of the 155 in the House. I ask therefore for a quorum count.

[Canada-Yukon Oil And Gas Accord Implementation Act, October 28th, 1997]

Are you still in your DC-3?

[Éboulements Tragedy, October 20th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, October 13, all of Quebec was shaken by the terrible accident in the riding of Charlevoix, more specifically in the small municipality of Éboulements, in which a bus plunged into a ravine.

In my own name and on behalf of the entire population of Charlevoix, I would like to extend sincere condolences to the families of all the victims devastated by this tragedy, and to all the inhabitants of Saint-Bernard, who have been sorely tested these last few days.

As well, we wish the five survivors the strength and courage to overcome this ordeal and to make a speedy recovery.

I would also like to pay tribute to the first aid workers and to all those who helped rescue victims, and to the solidarity of the people of Charlevoix and of the town of Saint-Bernard.

It is a shame that it took an event such as this to focus our attention on the changes needed to this section of highway in order to prevent a recurrence of such an accident.

[Speech From The Throne, September 29th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member will agree with me that the throne speech is an empty shell, that it contains nothing to reassure Quebecers, that it has brought little hope to our young people and no hope to our seniors. Seniors tell us “The more things change, the more they stay the same”.

I would like to ask the hon. member whether, when he came to Montreal during the 1995 referendum campaign, it was really in order to save Canada, or was it because of the attraction of a reduced $95 flight from Vancouver to Montreal?

[Speech From The Throne, September 29th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to congratulate the new member from the Reform Party on his maiden speech in this House.

I understand where the hon. member is coming from. He is a member of a federalist party, the Reform Party, and the Calgary meeting took place in his province. Fine, but the history of Quebec's plans for sovereignty goes back much further.

First, as we mentioned, the proposed Constitution was never signed by any Quebec government, whether federalist or sovereignist.

Robert Bourassa, a Liberal, was not a sovereignist but a federalist, yet he never agreed to sign the Constitution. Claude Ryan never agreed to sign it either. More recently, a former Liberal provincial minister, Claude Ryan, recognized Quebec's special rights.

I represent a riding that once had a former Prime Minister as a member of Parliament. I am referring to Brian Mulroney, who was the member for Charlevoix and Prime Minister of Canada. He too made an attempt with the Meech Lake accord, the Charlottetown accord and other formulas. In the referendum on the Charlottetown accord, English Canada voted no because they felt it gave too much to Quebec, while Quebec voted no because we felt it was not enough.

I believe, as the hon. member will find out, that therein lies the constitutional problem and that, no matter what you offer, it will be too little, too late. Quebec sends $28 billion to Ottawa and is not getting its money's worth in return. Quebec wants to manage its own services, eliminate overlap and duplication, take control of its destiny and become a country by the year 2000.

[Speech From The Throne, September 29th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, if I may, I will start with a reply to each of the hon. members who have shared their time.

The first speaker referred to the deficit left behind by the Conservatives, which the government succeeded in cutting by $42 billion. I would remind the hon. member that the Conservative reign was preceded by 21 years of Mr. Trudeau in this House, which makes the Liberal government primarily responsible for the debt.

The government is right to be concerned about the deficit. The Bloc Quebecois will do everything in its power to help the government reduce its deficit. As we have been saying since our arrival in this House in 1993, we do not want to reduce the government's deficit by cutting assistance to the least well-off and hardest-hit members of our society, including the unemployed. It is, of course, easy to reduce the deficit by $42 billion when the government does so, as I have said, by cutting benefits to the most disadvantaged and to the unemployed, and by such actions as helping itself to $5 billion from the employment insurance fund.

The present government is increasingly concerned with other people's business, and less and less with its own. And how did it manage to reduce the deficit by $42 billion? By pulling out of regional economic development, as I will explain. We know that the present government has pulled out of wharf operations. The federal government has pulled out of the wharves belonging to Transport Canada, Harbours and Ports Canada, Fisheries and Oceans, and Parks Canada. Why? To privatize its infrastructures and transfer them to provincial or regional authorities so as to avoid running a deficit.

Similarly, as part of its policy to hand over the operation of airports, the government is withdrawing from regional airport development. Charlevoix has struggled to maintain the Charlevoix airport, but the government refuses to refurbish this airport, which has been neglected for a number of years. No money has been spent on it, and today they want to transfer it to Charlevoix.

The federal government boasts of reducing the deficit by $42 billion, but it did so by cutting employment insurance, by closing regional offices and especially by cutting transfer payments to the provinces. This forces provinces like Quebec to make financial adjustments by cutting in the sectors of health, education and social assistance.

I would like to ask a question in closing. Do members agree that we can reduce the deficit without cutting aid to the most disadvantaged and that we should continue to eliminate waste? Allow me to cite only two examples, since I have only five minutes. I could list several hours worth of examples of government waste, but I will mention only two: promoting Canadian unity and promoting the Canadian flag, which has been recognized for over 100 years.

[Decontamination Of Military Sites, April 22nd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Defence.

Yesterday, the minister admitted there was a problem with the military bases along the DEW line in the Arctic. In fact, toxic substances like PCBs have contaminated the environment and have been detected in the food chain. The Inuit population is very concerned about the state of the environment in the tundra and for several years has been trying to reach an agreement with the government on a viable solution.

Considering that traces of PCBs have been found as far as 15 kilometres away from the bases and that the minister himself has admitted there is a problem, will he undertake to develop plans for decontamination that will guarantee the tundra will be restored to a state that is acceptable?

[An Act To Amend Certain Laws Relating To Financial Institutions, March 17th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The hon. member sitting next to me just made an excellent speech. He gave some advice to the government, but I notice that there are more Bloc Quebecois members than government members, or even Reform Party members, in the House of Commons. I am asking the Chair to check to see if there is a quorum.

And the count having been taken:

[Excise Tax Act, December 3rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

It is entirely dishonest on the part of the member, who knew he would be the last to speak, to invent and say just anything in this House.

[Excise Tax Act, December 3rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I will try to comment and ask a few questions, but perhaps not with the same enthusiasm as the hon. member who just spoke.

This reminds me that the same member was just as eager when the Conservatives adopted the GST here in the House of Commons, but he was eager to vote against the GST. He devoted the same energy to preparing the Liberal government's red book which was supposed to abolish the GST.

The hon. member accuses the Bloc Quebecois of being less than honest. On the contrary, we only want to ask the Liberal Party to abide by its promises, to be transparent about what was said in the red book. You know as well as I do that the Liberals did a lot of wailing and hand wringing here in this House. They voted against the GST, which was proposed by the Conservatives and passed by the House under the Conservative government.

Those same Liberals formed a committee, the finance committee, on which I sat for one year. The finance committee is chaired by a Liberal member, the hon. member for Willowdale. For a number of months, I would say for almost a year, the Liberal government led Canadian citizens from Quebec to Vancouver to believe that there was a possibility the government would abolish the GST.

Of course the government wanted to abolish the GST to bring back the old tax, the hidden tax on goods and services. Today's notion of putting a tax on drugs, health care, food and books-the Minister of Finance will legislate a tax on books-did not come from the Reform Party. It came directly from the Liberal Party.

I sat on the finance committee for one year, and the chairman asked witnesses whether they would accept a tax that was hidden in the price of a product. It is a vicious circle. It is not very honest to give witnesses the impression it would cost less. The aim was to

hide the tax in the price of food, medicine and books for educational purposes.

Naturally, the idea does not originate with the Reform Party or the Bloc Quebecois. I have to say before this House that the idea comes from the Liberal Party. Of course, in view of its unpopularity, the Liberal Party backed off. The proof that the Liberal Party failed to meet its obligations, that it was not transparent in what it said in the red book is that the Deputy Prime Minister was forced to resign, because she had made a commitment to abolish the GST within the first year of her mandate. She then spent government money getting re-elected.

Today, the member's knickers are in a twist and he wants us to believe that the Liberal Party is the great defender of the GST, when it never had the option of withdrawing.