Jean Chrétien

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, March 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, as we said, only 16 per cent of French-speaking officers in the Canadian Forces graduated from the college in Saint-Jean. They are giving the impression that officers who attended Laval University, the University of Sherbrooke, the University of Montreal, the University of Quebec in Chicoutimi or the University of Quebec in Trois-Rivières instead of the college in Saint-Jean are not as good because they did not go to a military college.

With our smaller armed forces, the military college is no longer necessary. The Leader of the Opposition told us we should cut defence spending by 25 per cent. If we had followed his advice in Quebec, we would have closed not only the military college in Saint-Jean but also the military base in Bagotville and probably other bases in Quebec. But we found the Opposition Leader's proposals unacceptable under the current circumstances. We must maintain a certain level of employment and a higher level of military forces than he recommended.

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, March 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, if that were the case, no military base should ever be closed. Sure, it creates problems. But to hear the Leader of the Opposition say that we should not try to maintain a certain level of employment at the military college with the provincial government's co-operation, when he went over there to take part in a demonstration with people who, only 22 years ago, were opposed to a Quebec university awarding a diploma to Saint-Jean graduates because it was a federal presence of the Canadian armed forces in Quebec, and to see that Quebec nationalists and the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society would do such an about-face, that is too much for me!

[Collège Militaire Royal De Saint-Jean, March 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have discussed this matter with the Premier of Quebec who told me that he could make use of the facilities at Saint-Jean. The federal government no longer needs them because the strength of our military work force is being reduced to 65,000. One can easily understand why the United States, with two million soldiers, has three military colleges. However, with a military work force of 65,000, Canada does not need three military colleges.

However, if these facilities can be of some use to the provincial government or to other agencies, we will be happy to make some arrangements with them because this would save some jobs in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. We are proposing a reasonable solution to a specific problem. The government had no choice but to close some of Canada's military colleges because it had to reduce defence spending. Had we listened to the Leader of the Opposition, not only would we have closed Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean, but we would also have shut down CFB Bagotville located in his region.

[Publishing Industry, March 15th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the situation is as described by the Secretary of State for International Financial Institutions. There was an agreement with the previous Conservative government, and it is our tradition and obligation as a government to respect agreements of this nature signed by our predecessors. At this time, there is nothing we can do.

If a similar document was submitted to us today, without the obligations we inherited from the other government, we might make a different decision. However, this is a private contract and because the previous government changed its mind, the American company took advantage of the situation, as provided by the contract, and as the government, we had to respect our obligations.

[English]

[Interest Rates, March 15th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I can tell the hon. member that the Minister of Finance has presented a budget which was well received by the Canadian people and by the financial community. There are always variations in interest rates and neither the Prime Minister nor the Minister of Finance are in the habit of commenting on the financial market fluctuations.

[Small Business, March 15th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I do not understand why the member is taking that line. We have not announced anything like that. We are discussing better ways to help small and medium size businesses in Canada.

The president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said it was a good budget and that he liked our approach. Therefore, you should listen to what John Bulloch had to say about the budget.

[Small Business, March 15th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member would look at the budget papers he would see that we have taken a lot of initiatives to help small and medium sized businesses. We talked not only about the reduction of unemployment insurance premiums, but about helping them to get more credit from the banks, to get credit for innovations to help them in exports, and they all welcomed that.

I say to everybody that the government is here to help, not to hurt. That is exactly what this government is trying to do with small and medium sized business at this time.

[Job Creation, March 15th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, we did it when we reduced the level of contribution for unemployment benefits. We have cut $300 million in this program which will permit small and medium sized businesses to create jobs. At the same time we said that we have to invest money in research and development. Just yesterday one of his colleagues was asking for even more money to be invested in that field.

Our approach is that we want jobs created by the private sector. In fact, there is no plan for increasing the public sector. Building roads and bridges is not wasting money. It is important and is adding to the productivity of the nation. Any nation that

has a very good infrastructure can compete better than other nations that have to move around in a horse and buggy.

[Job Creation, March 15th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, we have cut expenditures and we are spending money on job creation with the municipalities and the provincial governments. It is a program that was approved by all first ministers and all mayors, including the mayor of Calgary. I have said that many, many times.

We have a very dimensional approach to this problem. It is the same situation as yesterday when two of his colleagues stood up to ask us to spend more money. Every time the leader of that party stands up, he tells us not to spend money. When will he put order in his little house and we can run our big house?

[Job Creation, March 15th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I say to the leader of the Reform Party that our program on job creation was tabled in the House of Commons a few weeks ago in the budget. He has only to read the budget and he will know the position of this government.