Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise in the House today to speak about Bill C-82, an act to amend the Royal Canadian Mint Act.
Allow me to begin my speech with a digression. I am making my comments in the House of Commons today as the Bloc Quebecois' deputy critic for Government Services and Public Works; the Bloc Quebecois' main critic for this department is the hon. member for Québec-Est, Jean-Paul Marchand.
As deputy critic and member for Charlevoix, it is my pleasure to take the floor regarding this bill. I may be present in the House today, but my thoughts are elsewhere. In my riding, workers are threatened by the closure of employment centres in La Malbaie, Forestville and Baie-Comeau. I am also thinking of all of the problems associated with unemployment in my riding, which affect all workers, unemployed persons and welfare recipients in the RCM of Charlevoix East and West.
The parliamentary secretary may feel that this has no bearing on the bill. If he lets me continue, he will realize that what the people of Charlevoix want is to work in order to have money in their pockets, whether it be in the form of a bill or a coin. This is a superficial issue and, in my opinion, discussing whether the denomination is made of paper or another material is a waste of time: the people of Charlevoix are concerned with working and earning money.
I would also like to remind the parliamentary secretary of what he mentioned earlier to the Reform member regarding the red book, and I would ask him to reread the three little words which got the government elected: "jobs, jobs, jobs". Closing employment centres, declaring the employees of manpower centres surplus and determining unemployment zones will not stimulate local economies.
If this legislation is passed, the two dollar bill will be replaced by a two dollar coin at the beginning of 1996. All two dollar bills will be returned to the Bank of Canada for disposal. The federal government can only introduce this new two dollar coin if it obtains Parliament's approval, since the proportion of nickel, bronze and aluminum in this new coin is not specified in Part II of the schedule to the Royal Canadian Mint Act.
If Part II of the schedule to the Royal Canadian Mint Act already specified the coin's composition, the government would not be required to obtain Parliament's approval prior to minting it.
The government's main argument in an effort to get the House to adopt the bill is that the introduction of a $2 coin will generate savings of approximately $250 million over 20 years. They do say every little bit counts, but, taken over 20 years, this amount is almost negligible compared with the amount of the deficit.
In its information paper, the Royal Canadian Mint states that the introduction of a $2 coin, which, in passing, will be larger and heavier than the $1 coin, serves the needs of business. They should have said, "some businesses", because not all business people look kindly on this bill. The proof lies in the fact that the federal government had to conduct two surveys of businesses and consumers, since the results of the first survey were not in favour of introducing the $2 coin.
The surveys were done by the Environics firm. It surveyed 1,020 people in Sherbrooke, Toronto and Calgary-far too few in my estimation. The first survey revealed strong opposition of 46 per cent and weak support of 50 per cent. In the second survey, they let it be known that the federal government would save $250 million over 20 years. The government's project then received the approval of 80 per cent of respondents.
Clearly the Royal Canadian Mint wanted immediate public support for the introduction of a $2 coin. Further on in the report, we note that some survey respondents felt that any saving made by introducing a $2 coin would be offset by the start up costs of producing the new coin and that jobs would be lost in the pulp and paper industry as a result.
The government report also indicates, and I quote: "The introduction of the $1 coin was accompanied by increased use of the $2 bill, indicating that the public might resist the introduction of a $2 coin".
Given that the trial coin chosen for the new $2 coin is heavier and larger than the loonie, I am sure the public will not support the introduction of such a coin.
Here is a surprising point about the survey questions. At no point did the Environics survey include a question about completely eliminating the $2 denomination. It is a bit odd, is it not? Instead of introducing a $2 coin, the federal government should simply eliminate the bill and the $2 denomination and encourage people to use the loonie more.
Many countries, such as the United States and Great Britain, have never had a $2 denomination or have simply done away with it. So, we can certainly do without it.
This is how the federal government could make real savings. There would be no new coin to strike nor new bills to print for the Royal Canadian Mint. There would be no expense for retailers. And, finally, better use would be made of the $1 coins. The Canadian Bankers' Association speaking on behalf of the financial institutions, has reached the same conclusion. What is more, many retailers' and consumers' associations have no official position on Bill C-82, quite simply because they do not know the government is preparing to introduce a $2 coin. They have heard nothing about it and are surprised to discover that the bill has gone so far.
Once again, the government seems to be trying to pull the wool over our eyes, if I may say so. If it had really wanted to take the pulse of the nation, it would have launched an information campaign on the possibility of legislating the replacement of the $2 bill by a $2 coin. The response to such proposed legislation would certainly have been negative. People are still having a hard time accepting the loonie, and eight years later, the government wants to burden their pockets with yet another coin.
Contrary to what the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services would have had us believe, last week, the $1 coin is not as popular as the government would like it to be. The proof is that more than 50 million $1 coins lay dormant in the vaults of Canadian banks. According to its own management, the Royal Canadian Mint must manufacture 1.25 times more $1 coins than it did $1 bills, because people empty their pockets, stockpile the coins at home, and then deposit them inn their bank or credit union account. It is estimated that there are around $10 million worth of $1 coins in Canadians' piggy banks. This is really incredible. Subsequently, financial institutions must store these coins in their vaults. I have trouble imagining the amount of space necessary to store all these coins and the personnel required to handle this job.
Moreover, I would like to point out to my colleagues that financial institutions do not earn interest on the coins they have in their vaults, which translates into lost revenues for them, and that they cannot return them to the Bank of Canada. It does not take back uncirculated coins, and banks and credit unions will have to manage their own stock of coins.
Although the government is anticipating savings of $250 million over 20 years, one should not forget that there are costs associated with the introduction of this new coin. We only have to think of all the cash registers, the vending machines, the parking meters, and the laundromat machines, and other automated dispensers of all kinds which will have to be modified in order to accept this new coin.
The government estimates that it will cost $25 million to modify vending machines. Owners, for their part, will have had to modify their machines twice in less than 10 years since, as you may recall, the federal government introduced the $1 coin-also known as the loonie-eight years ago. And if that was not enough, the government now wants to alter the composition of the penny, the nickel, the dime, the quarter and the fifty cent coin to make them lighter. This will entail the additional cost of altering vending machines so that they can take all Canadian coins whatever their composition. In addition, the alloy used for the penny would be of much lower quality than the current version. This will result in premature rusting of the coin.
Who will pay for all these changes? You and I, Mr. Speaker, along with all Quebecers and Canadians. The items now available for $1.75 or $1.90 from vending machines will cost $2 tomorrow, as happened after the $1 coin was introduced, when the cost of items formerly priced at 80 or 90 cents quickly rose to $1. This point was also raised by the people polled by Environics. As usual, the government passes the cost of the changes on to retailers, who can only pass it on to their customers.
In conclusion, I suggest that the federal government should launch a publicity campaign aimed at finding out the opinion of the Canadian people on this issue. However, the government must play fair and promote all possible alternatives, that is, to issue a new $2 coin, keep the $2 bill or simply eliminate the $2 denomination.
I am sure that, in the end, the people would choose to abolish the $2 denomination in order to achieve greater savings in the short, medium and long term. Finally, with the developments in debit card technology, people will see a gradual reduction in the number of bills and coins in circulation, as they are being replaced with electronic money.
