Gérard Asselin

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services Act, October 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, very recently at a meeting of the government operations committee, a government member told the committee about an experience he just had in his riding.

He had not been warned by the minister or any official, but fortunately, since he cares about his riding, he read a public notice from the department saying that the government was looking for a place to relocate the post office in his riding. The member intervened with the department and helped save a million dollars in this transaction.

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services Act, October 4th, 1994]

The member for St. Boniface mentioned that we can always go to the library or the public information service, but it is a real maze, even for members of Parliament. My colleague, the member for Québec-Est, and I will soon subscribe.

But on the subject of openness, the member should understand that if the minister cannot promise to accept the lowest bidder who meets the conditions, it is a little less open; it becomes rather vague.

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services Act, October 4th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, yes, I went through the process with the department in question to be able to subscribe to the service which the member, Mr. Duhamel, mentioned. They told me that it would cost $500 a year to have access to that information. Also, something which the member did not say is that-

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services Act, October 4th, 1994]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me to finish my speech on Bill C-52.

As I was saying before question period, it has cost the government $5 billion to contract out in 1992-93. This money that the government of Canada spent on contracting-out could have been used to improve the services provided to the Canadian public instead of maintaining a patronage relationship with the friends of the regime.

Let me tell you that between 1984-85 and 1992-93, costs have gone up with contracting-out. Costs have increased by 56 per cent at Public Works Canada during the same nine-year period. They increased by 114.2 per cent at DND and by 207 per cent at Health and Welfare Canada. Costs also increased at Supply and Services Canada-by 247 per cent. And, to really cap it, they increased by 628 per cent at Customs and Excise.

In ten years, while under pressure by the Auditor General and the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts to do so, the federal government never managed to demonstrate that contracting-out was cost-effective. The Department of Public Works and Government Services is a major department. It handles a great deal of money. Let me give you a few examples.

Public Works and Government Services Canada is responsible for the inflow and outflow of all public funds and keeps an average daily cash balance of $2.3 million. It is also responsible for the accounting system and makes financial transactions totalling $163 million. It makes payments to the tune of $200 million annually for the Canada Pension Plan, the old age security system, taxes on goods and services, Public Service employees' pay, and so on.

It is also responsible for federal purchases. Last year, $13 billion-worth of goods and services falling into 17,000 different classes were purchased. It negotiates 175,000 contracts every year. It is the custodian of federal real property. It owns property valued at $6.5 billion. It provides office space to approximately 170,000 employees, in 4,000 different locations. It spends $2 billion a year.

How can we ensure that the government will not use contracting-out or privatization contracts to reward its friends? In other words, how can we avoid any kind of patronage in the awarding of privatization or other contracts by the federal government?

Bill C-52 should have more teeth. This is the Bloc Quebecois's proposal: We ask that a public review board be created under the bill to scrutinize contracts awarded by the Department of Public Works and Government Services and to ensure openness.

Second, we ask that a contracting-out code be clearly defined in this bill.

Third, we demand that members of Parliament of all political stripes be consulted about and kept informed of the government contract awarding process involving the ridings they represent.

Fourth and last proposal: We ask that the Department of Public Works and Government Services produce regular statements-monthly reports-to open up the federal government contracting process. The problem with this bill is that members of Parliament cannot find out which government contracts directly affect their ridings. There is no way to make federal officials accountable for contract-generated or in-house expenditures-to make them denounce any waste of public funds.

This bill should also provide for elimination of advance payments such as those we discovered recently at Communications Canada.

This bill must also protect the government because it left the door wide open to lobbyists. It does not allow a sufficient degree of openness. Not too long ago in this House, the hon. member for Richelieu moved a motion to prevent companies, stakeholders and lobbyists from contributing to the government's election fund. Unfortunately, this motion was rejected by the Liberal government and by many Reform members.

I think that lobbyists who occasionally attend $1,000-a-head dinners given by the Prime Minister have a right to expect the government to pay them back.

For all these reasons, the Bloc Quebecois proposes setting up a three-party public review board whose elected members would come from all political parties represented in and officially recognized by the House of Commons, from public administration experts and from Auditor General officials. The government should use this bill to give itself additional audit authority.

These are certainly the most important openness criteria the government should set for itself.

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services Act, October 4th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I welcome this opportunity today to speak on Bill C-52. Perhaps I may mention that during my 14 years as a municipal councillor in Baie-Comeau, I was Chairman of the Public Works Commission.

The responsibilities of a municipal councillor are similar to those of a member in this House. A councillor is expected to administer taxpayers' money, and the same applies in the federal government. Members of this House have to make sure that government revenues raised through taxes are properly administered, in the name of openness.

Increasingly, politicians are losing their credibility, and they are finding it harder to field questions from their constituents about contracting out, privatization, transparency and a host of similar questions.

In my speech I intend to discuss Bill C-52, but mainly as it concerns contracting out, privatization and how the government should take advantage of this opportunity. Bill C-52 is an Act to establish the Department of Public Works and Government Services, which will also include communications and translation.

In fact, this legislation goes back to the 1870s, and it does not give the government or the minister any additional powers. However, we in the Bloc Quebecois would have expected this bill to give the minister additional monitoring and administrative powers, and that the Liberal government, as it promised in the red book, should at least have tried to provide some transparency in this bill by legislating structured parameters for administration and control, thus enabling it to make future decisions based on the principle of openness and a clear knowledge of the facts.

As the old saying goes, if you want something done, you are better off doing it yourself. I wish the government would tell us how much it saves by contracting out, and by privatizing federal services. If the past is any indication, I think there is some cause for concern about the future, when we consider the disgusting case of Pearson Airport, the only profitable federal airport in Canada.

Of course, the federal government wants to get rid of some of its facilities that no longer make a profit, mainly in Quebec. However, if the federal government cannot turn a profit with them, it is doubtful whether municipalities, regional municipalities or regional economic partners would be more successful.

There are plenty of federal facilities in my riding. We have airports in Baie-Comeau, Forestville and Charlevoix. There are about 20 federal wharfs in my riding. Some wharfs are still operational, but many have been declared redundant by Fisheries and Oceans, Transport Canada and Public Works.

I am also concerned about contracting out, and by the Department of Transport's plans for privatizing railway and marine transportation, as well as airport facilities. In my riding, there is a company called Sopor, that carries goods for Reynolds and Quno to the South Shore. Sopor plays an important role in the region's economic development and is particularly useful as a carrier, shipping Reynolds aluminum products and Quno newsprint throughout the world.

Also, in the transportation industry, contracting out or privatization means we are not in a position to develop the railway line between Quebec and Pointe-au-Pic, because the line will be transferred very shortly to the private sector. It is taking forever to settle this matter. Furthermore, we are still waiting for the tourist train from the central station in Quebec City to the Casino in Charlevoix to come through.

Contracting out should mean better quality and better services at a better price. I am not saying I am against contracting out, but what I want from the government, the department and the committee is some proof that contracting out or privatization is cost-effective for the government.

As you know, the government is obliged to call public tenders for all contracts exceeding $25,000. In the case of contracts between $2,500 and $25,000, the department can award contracts, even by invitation. Of course, within the departments there is some flexibility for contracts up to $2,500.

In this House, the Bloc Quebecois has been blasted regularly by various ministers, who have claimed that it often criticizes but never proposes solutions. I can tell you that, in the context of Bill C-52, the Bloc does offer very substantial alternatives, so that greater control can be exercised and the government can demonstrate more transparency.

To ignore the solutions put forward by the Bloc Quebecois is to prevent reductions in program expenditures and the deficit as well as prevent finding ways of providing services to the Canadian public in an cost-effective and efficient fashion.

At a recent meeting of the government operations committee, I asked the minister responsible: "Do you undertake, before this committee, to identify clearly the needs for a department, develop solid specifications and estimates, launch a fair public tendering process, call for public tenders and have a bidders report produced, evaluate tenders openly, receive a recommendation through the deputy minister and, following this process, accept the lowest bid that complies with the specifications established by the department?" And the answer I got was "no".

How can a department or a minister claim to be transparent while refusing to accept the lowest bid, that meets all requirements? The minister is setting himself up to be criticized, sometime down the road, for favouring a friend of the government or a person who attended at some point in time a dinner at $1,000 a setting.

The issue of transparency was raised in the government's red book and during the election campaign. Transparency must be more than just part of a campaign platform. It must last throughout the government's mandate. Every department is very interested in good management. Our job, as politicians, as members of this House, is to demonstrate our willingness to earn as much credibility as possible from our constituents in each of our ridings.

Does the current contracting-out policy save us money? If so, how much do we save and how are these savings achieved? What are the major pros and cons of contracting out? Some drawbacks, such as poor quality, have been revealed. Increasingly, there are concerns about the protection of the confidentiality of certain documents.

Other questions come to mind. What constitutes acceptable justification for contracting out? How many civil servants have

been put on a shelf? Will their numbers keep growing? In short, many questions remain unanswered.

It seems to us that contracting out is expensive. More and more contracts are let, while no one has been laid off in the Public Service. Job safety in the Public Service, the case of this Communications Canada Group that used up funds left over at the end of the year so that its budget would no be cut the following year, the privatization of Pearson International Airport, these are cases that should convince the government to support the amendment put forward by the Bloc Quebecois and to vote against the bill, if that amendment were not adopted.

In the National Capital Region, 79 per cent of federal government services are provided by temporary personnel. It is reported that, in the NCR alone, $64.4 million were devoted to temporary assistance in 1993, while thousands of full-time employees were declared surplus. This is a ridiculous approach as well as an exercise in squandering public funds.

In 1992-93, a full-time government secretary made $24,000 plus benefits, while a temporary personnel agency charges the government $36,000 per year or $20 an hour for secretarial services.

I wish to give a few examples of what the federal government used to pay versus today's contracting-out costs.

A government mechanic made $16 an hour, while the agency charges the government $26 an hour. A plumber working in maintenance for the federal government earned $18 an hour, while an agency charges $26 an hour. A carpenter working in maintenance for the federal government made $17 an hour, while an agency charges $25 an hour for the same services.

It is not true that contracting out saves on space and equipment. In the national capital, hundreds of contractors work in federal government offices and use the equipment and facilities paid for by Canadian and Quebec taxpayers.

It is time to stop this waste. In 1991, contracting out in the public service cost $5 billion. Between 1984 and 1985 and from 1992 to 1993, these costs rose by 7.5 per cent on average compared with 5.3 per cent for other government operating expenditures.

According to a recent report, contracting-out costs amounting to $2.9 billion in 1984-85 rose to $5 billion in 1992-93, about twice as much. I will resume my speech after Question Period.

[Supply, September 29th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. When the hon. member for Bonaventure-Îles-de-la-Madeleine referred to this side of the House when speaking about the government, I noticed that only a few members were interested. I call for a quorum count.

[Infrastructure Program, September 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, when the Minister of Finance refers to a misunderstanding, of course he is referring to his letter. How can the minister explain that he signed a letter that by his own admission is completely incorrect and should not have been written? Are we to understand that the cat is finally out of the bag and that Quebec has no real control since the projects selected must be approved by Ottawa?

[Infrastructure Program, September 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, just before the Quebec election, the Minister of Finance, who is responsible for the infrastructure program in Quebec, wrote to the Minister of Municipal Affairs to complain that several projects under that program had been announced by the Government of Quebec without federal authorization, in the middle of an election campaign.

Can the Minister of Finance promise to make public the list of projects announced by the Government of Quebec which he considers to be incompatible with the infrastructure program?

[Petitions, June 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure of tabling, a petition regarding the 1990 closure of CBC's television stations in Sept-Îles, Matane and Rimouski.

According to these petitioners, this decision has had disastrous effects on the people both in terms of the economy and in terms of the right to information. It has resulted in many jobs being lost, has not produced the expected benefits as far as restoring the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's financial health is concerned, and all the while the people of Eastern Quebec have been deprived of a communication tool essential to the effective development of the community.

The petitioners ask that CBC stations in Eastern Quebec be reopened immediately.

[Excise Act, Customs Act, Tobacco Sales To Young Persons Act, June 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise today to speak on Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Excise Act, the Customs Act and the Tobacco Sales to Young Persons Act.

I congratulate the government on finally living up to its responsibilities and bringing in amendments so that the Act can be applied more effectively. Unfortunately, it seems that the government has decided to tackle the serious problems caused by cigarette smuggling on the backs of the manufacturers and retailers.

Instead of applying the Act to the letter and having goods seized and offenders arrested, on Indian reserves among other places, the government has opted for dissuasion and retaliation against honest citizens. The Prime Minister himself has admitted that he had difficulty getting the Act applied.

Under the weight of public pressure, the Minister of Health, the Hon. Diane Marleau, the same one who gave her word that taxes on tobacco products would not be lowered, had no choice but to give in. You have to admit it is sad to see that the current government seems to prefer protecting criminals who break the law to concerning itself with the health of Quebeckers and Canadians.

Despite that, there are some good provisions in Bill C-11, although some others ought to be amended. I am going to use the few minutes at my disposal to discuss these provisions with my fellow members here in the House. The bill contains the following amendment to section 7.1(1) of the Tobacco Sales to Young Persons Act: "No person shall sell or offer for sale cigarettes unless they are sold or offered for sale in packages containing at least 20 cigarettes per package".

It should be noted that packs of less than 20 cigarettes are primarily bought and consumed by young people. You might be inclined to think that the purchase of cigarettes by young people would now drop significantly, except that the government has just lowered the tax on cigarettes, which could have the opposite effect to the government's stated goal, thus making it easier for young people to get access to tobacco products.

This brings me to what it costs young people to smoke. Although some young people have a bit of work, often at the minimum wage, they are not rich, and so it is to be hoped that they will decide to stop smoking and invest their money in something more constructive. This may be a hollow hope, since it was estimated in 1989 that 90 per cent of young Canadians aged 12 to 19 years of age smoked every day. The total volume of purchases by this segment of the population represents$436 million.

You will agree that this is a huge amount of money:$436 million gone up in smoke-if you will allow me a small pun-especially when 40 per cent of young Quebecers were living below the poverty line in 1990. My figures are a few years old, but the situation has hardly changed.

Equally appalling is the fact that adolescents are starting to smoke younger and younger, a situation that alarms me very much indeed. I know what I am talking about, because one of my own children is 12 years old now, and I am sure that I am not the only member of this House to be confronted with this harsh reality. You can try your best to persuade them not to smoke, but at that age young people often succumb to peer pressure. Moreover, it is often before the age of 17 that dependence on cigarettes develops, and the older you get, the harder it is to break the habit.

According to Health and Welfare Canada, 38,000 people die each year of illnesses directly or indirectly related to tobacco use. And what about the years of diminished productivity caused by inability to work thanks to tobacco-related illness? The amounts that have to be paid out by the government-and that means by you and me, through our taxes-for leave and health care are enormous.

Another aspect of the bill that perplexes me is the control of the age restrictions on people who want to buy tobacco products. It is commendable to make access to tobacco products more difficult for the young. One of the provisions in the bill prohibits vendors from selling tobacco products to anyone under the age of 18, on pain of fines or imprisonment. The problem I see with this clause is that of controls and application.

The government says controls will be tighter, since some300 Health Canada inspectors will be responsible for ensuring that the legislation is applied to the letter. If these amendments are applied in the same way as those governing the sale of alcohol to minors, we are entitled to wonder about their relevance. We all know how easy it is for young people to obtain alcohol from unscrupulous vendors. You have only to visit any corner store in Quebec to realize that.

To follow up on what I have just said I would now like to speak about the fines that vendors would have to pay for selling tobacco products to minors, and manufactures for packaging cigarettes less than 20 to a pack.

The amendment that the bill proposes to section 7.2(1) of the Act would make anyone convicted of selling cigarettes to a minor liable, on summary conviction, to a fine of not more than $2,000 or a prison term of not more than six months.

You will agree with me that $2,000 is not a lot of money. In my opinion, the fine should be a little stiffer, to give the bill more teeth. On the other hand, the fines by the cigarette manufacturers will probably have a strong deterrent effect since they range from $100,000 to $500,000 and from six months to two years in prison.

In my opinion, education about the dangers and the cost of smoking, among both young and old people, is still one of the most effective ways of eliminating the problem of tobacco use in Canada-on condition, though, that the messages conveyed are relevant. Unfortunately, the government's publicity campaigns put forward in recent years by Health Canada are far from having had the desired effect. In the opinion of young people themselves, those campaigns did not get their attention. Instead of telling them that it is stupid to smoke or that their friends will drop them if they keep on smoking, we should show young people what really happens when people smoke.

In closing, I shall address the point of view of the tobacco product manufacturers and retailers concerning Bill C-11, an act to amend the Excise Act, the Customs Act and the Tobacco Sales to Young Persons Act.

The cigarette manufacturers have agreed to stop manufacturing packs containing fewer than 20 cigarettes, and the retailers have agreed to stop selling them. However, the time allowed by the government to sell off that stock is too short, in the opinion of the manufacturers, distributors and retailers. Stopping the production of packs containing fewer than 20 cigarettes will entail considerable costs.

Nor is taking packs containing fewer than 20 cigarettes off the market right away justified: these products are not faulty and have no manufacturing defects.

Another point that should be noted is that whether the distributors and retailers have packs containing fewer than 20 cigarettes in stock depends, essentially, on their sales in the past, when these packs were legal. A retailer who had ordered a large quantity of packs containing fewer than 20 cigarettes but had not sold many of them would need more time to sell off that stock.

Nor should we forget that the cigarette companies will have to remove all machines that distribute only packs containing fewer than 20 cigarettes, a move that also entails costs.

For all the reasons I have just mentioned, we in the Bloc Quebecois ask the government to extend the deadline for manufacturers, distributors and retailers so that they may sell off their stock while suffering as few losses as possible.

In conclusion, I express the wish that the amendments to Bill C-11, An Act to amend the Excise Act, the Customs Act and the Tobacco Sales to Young Persons Act, will be strictly enforced and will help eliminate smoking, particularly among young people.