Gilles Duceppe

[Child Care, November 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, they say they will be using the Quebec model. They said that about the young offenders, too, and then, in the end, they did the opposite. The Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs said there would be a specific agreement with Quebec, but that there would be some conditions. Mr. Béchard was very clear; Quebec wants nothing to do with conditions. So, although he says it is a very good start, I think it is a poor one.

Does the asymmetrical model he is proposing mean an agreement for all the provinces and no agreement for Quebec? Is that what he calls asymmetry?

[Child Care, November 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, during the election campaign, the Prime Minister promised to give Quebec its fair share of federal funding for child care, with no strings attached. Now the election is over, the ministers are having a meeting. Quebec simply wants the Prime Minister to keep his promise, but still there is no agreement. Why not? Because Ottawa wants to impose conditions on Quebec.

Because he made this promise during the recent election campaign, is the Prime Minister prepared to confirm that, in the matter of child care, Quebec will have the right to opt out with full compensation and no strings attached?

[Parental Leave, November 2nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, what the Prime Minister is saying is interesting because that is not what his Minister of Human Resources said yesterday. He said that if we reached an agreement, if Quebec went along with the federal government's arguments, then the appeal would be dropped. Yet, the scope of the matter would be no different. The Prime Minister and his minister are not saying the same thing.

Furthermore, we were told that only the figures were not ready, but the terms of the agreement were clear. Are they clear or not? Does the historic agreement in principle still stand, or has it disappeared? What has happened since June 28? Is the appeal just as broad? Is the agreement historic or is it missing a lot of figures?

[Parental Leave, November 2nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, on the eve of the election campaign, the Liberals made much of reaching an agreement in principle with Quebec on parental leave. Signing the historic agreement is merely a formality, the press release said. The appeal before the Supreme Court is simply for clarification, said the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

In this context, how does the Prime Minister explain that his Minister of Human Resources intends to appeal to the Supreme Court to try to impose a parental leave agreement on Quebec adapted to Ottawa's wishes?

[Parental Leave, November 2nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker—

[Child Care, November 1st, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, we have already seen where collaboration got us in the conference on the fiscal imbalance. I remember the matter of young offenders as well, where we were told how Quebec was handling it better than anybody else. But in the end, an approach was imposed, in order to please the rest of Canada, which Quebec wanted nothing to do with.

So here is a very clear question for the minister. In order to this happen again, is he prepared to guarantee Quebec an unconditional right to opt out with full compensation? Can he give me a concrete answer to that question?

[Child Care, November 1st, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to child care, the Minister of Social Development is saying two different things. In the francophone press, he talks of partnerships, while on CBC radio he talks of imposing Canada-wide standards on Quebec and the provinces and accountability, all of which adds fuel to the fire of the constitutional quarrel he claims to want to avoid.

Since the Quebec system is a model, we are told, can the government make a commitment to respect the Quebec child care model in its entirety, by giving Quebec the right to opt out with full compensation and no strings attached?

[Sponsorship Program, October 28th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the public has the right to know, but the Prime Minister, who claimed to want to get to the bottom of this issue, is now refusing to account for his actions in the House, even though nothing prevents him from doing so. I am simply asking him to answer the same questions that we put to him before the election.

With his attitude, is the Prime Minister not confirming that his behaviour is more a matter for the judiciary than for the parliamentary?

[Sponsorship Program, October 28th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, regarding the sponsorship scandal, the Prime Minister said, on February 10, “I had no idea what was going on here”. Yet, after being referred by the Prime Minister, Claude Boulay, a close ally during the 1990 leadership campaign, was awarded a $65,000 contract, with the money coming from the national unity fund, for a campaign to promote Canada's visibility in Quebec, during the referendum campaign.

In light of such a blatant case of patronage, can the Prime Minister rise in this House and repeat that he did not know anything?

[Taxation, October 27th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, Jean Charest and finance minister Séguin did indeed look very happy yesterday.

While the federal government is accumulating surpluses in order to invade the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces, it is refusing to put the money from those surpluses into equalization, a federal program, where it is needed.

Will the Prime Minister admit that he would be much better advised to use these surpluses to ease the fiscal imbalance faced by Quebec and the provinces, rather than in areas not in his jurisdiction?