Michel Guimond

[Supply, May 1st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise the House that, on this important opposition day, the members of the Bloc Quebecois will be splitting their time.

[Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, April 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the members of the Bloc Quebecois will vote against these three motions.

[Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, April 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the members of the Bloc Quebecois will vote against this motion.

[Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, April 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the members of the Bloc Quebecois will vote in favour of these three motions.

[Volunteers, April 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, each year in Quebec, the last week of April is dedicated to volunteerism.

Can we even imagine our society without the considerable contribution made by the women and men who give generously of their time to accompany patients, to support those who are distressed and lonely, and to encourage and help organize community life in our neighbourhoods?

To all of these people who have understood so well that to give is also to receive, we say thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Volunteers are the real ambassadors of a better world. They are the true ambassadors of the united world that we all want to build.

Since all practical achievements begin with a dream, let us start dreaming that these fraternal gestures will spread and grow, and put a human face on our view of the world.

We applaud the hundreds of thousands of small gestures which, abundantly and freely given, put a smile of hope on the lips and in the hearts of those people who so need it.

Dear volunteers, on behalf of those you help: thank you.

[Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, April 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise tonight for this emergency debate on a very important subject, the SARS epidemic, an issue that transcends partisan politics.

I think that the most important thing we need to keep in mind when it comes to this tragedy is that people have been affected. Some are sick and others, unfortunately, have died. Families have also been affected by these deaths. I am fortunate in that my parents are still living. I have never lost a close relative, but we know that under the current circumstances, it must be terribly difficult to lose a loved one to this epidemic, to this invisible enemy that is SARS.

I would like to remind the House that the SARS epidemic continues to be a very serious situation that deserves a great deal of attention. And while prudence is called for, we must not give in to panic, but instead concentrate on appropriate measures to safeguard public health.

This tragedy, which has already claimed a number of victims around the world, must be brought under control as soon as possible in order to minimize its spread. The Toronto area has unfortunately been hit hard by this epidemic. The Bloc Quebecois sympathizes with those who have been affected, directly or indirectly, by the situation. We in the Bloc Quebecois are convinced that it is vital to take all necessary measures, and the government can count on our full cooperation to that end.

Right now it is 9:13 p.m. in Ottawa, and while preparing my speech, I watched the 9 o'clock news. The first item on the news was a squabble: the Minister of Canadian Heritage—and Liberal leadership candidate—said plump and plain that the Minister of Health had completely absented herself from the debate and that she was totally incompetent in dealing with the situation.

I do not mean to say that the Minister of Canadian Heritage is wrong in describing the Minister of Health in this way. The issue is not whether she is right or wrong. However, in the grips of this epidemic, we would expect that our government would act responsibly, rather than dissolve into petty political bickering.

I said that I am not playing politics. But I believe that the government side would be well advised to reassure everybody. People are quite worried.

Next week, as you know--if you do not, I am telling you now, Mr. Speaker--I will be hosting seven or eight groups from my riding in Quebec. Unlike yours, my riding is not located in Cornwall, at a one hour and fifteen or thirty minutes' drive from Ottawa. For one of the groups coming to pay me a visit it will take five to five and a half hours by bus. I host groups like that seven or eight times a year; half are senior citizens groups and the other half are student groups, from primary school or high school. All this to say how tense the situation is because fear is a difficult thing to control.

One of the groups from my riding, l'Âge d'or de Montmorency, in Beauport, was supposed to come and see me in Ottawa next week, on the 5 and 6 of May I believe. On Friday I got a call from the organizer saying that these elderly people were afraid to go to Ottawa; they feared that the epidemic had spread to Ottawa.

I am not saying this to blame those who are afraid but to illustrate a situation. When psychosis takes hold of people, fear becomes hard to control, especially when dealing with older people, 75, 77 and 79 years of age, who are a bit afraid, who are a bit more concerned about their health; it is difficult to control.

Instead of barnyard squabbles and street fights between the Canadian heritage minister and the health minister, we expect some leadership from this government. Showing leadership is doing a lot more than announcing that the next cabinet meeting will take place in Toronto tomorrow. It is a lot more than announcing that the wife of the Prime Minister will go shopping on Thursday in various department stores in Toronto. A government that shows leadership would do a lot more than that.

The money that the federal government is about to spend to encourage tourists to come to Toronto—about $10 million, according to what we heard—would be much better invested in Ontario—the situation being more critical in that province with 21 or 22 deaths so far, if I am not mistaken—to hire new hospital workers to replace those already exhausted by the work overload and the stress, and also to compensate people who must be quarantined so as to encourage self-identification. In my opinion, this would be money much better spent by this government.

Again, we must applaud, in a non-partisan way, the initiative taken by the government in changing the employment insurance regulations. The Bloc Quebecois believes that it will encourage people to remain quarantined without being penalized financially. The question that people who think that they may have contracted the disease may ask themselves is “Without any income, can I afford to stay home and take the antibiotics that the doctor prescribed?” Or they may say “If I feel well enough to work, I will go, even though I risk exposing my co-workers and others around me to the disease”. We applaud this initiative by the government with regard to employment insurance.

I remind the House that, on April 4, the federal government abolished the two week waiting period for those who might be suffering from this disease. We are glad that the government has agreed, in this instance, to amend the employment insurance legislation. But we would also like to remind the government that it could take similar measures in other areas where workers are not quarantined, but are affected by decisions made abroad.

Let us take Quebec's lumber workers for instance. Over 7,000 workers have been affected by the softwood lumber crisis generated by the U.S. The same thing goes for the cod fishery. The House will be holding another emergency debate tomorrow to discuss the crisis in the cod industry, which might bring the government to consider new improvements to the employment insurance legislation.

So, on the one hand, the measures that were taken were fine, but on the other hand the government should try to be a bit more sensitive to the needs of other sectors where workers are hurting.

However, if we need to suggest some kind of enhancement to help the government consider this issue, we in the Bloc Quebecois would like the self-employed to be covered by the current employment insurance scheme.

It is sad to see the government spend money on ad campaigns but do nothing for the self-employed who are as much at risk as any other worker. I hope nobody believes that union members in a company or in a hospital are less likely to suffer from SARS than the self-employed. Anyone can catch this disease, whatever their employment status. I think we all agree on that.

The government should look for a way to provide coverage for the self-employed and for some income support measures for these workers who often rely on short-term jobs. We realize that self-employment is not always the ideal situation.

In closing, I would like to say that we hope the federal government's recent actions will help stop the spread of the disease. We need to point out, however, that the federal government's efforts are uneven. Considering the number of cases and of fatalities in Canada, this is cause for concern. We even wonder whether the measures taken to detect the disease were effective at the start of the outbreak.

Unfortunately, I am running out of time. We could also talk about airport surveillance. Unlike the contagious diseases that were around in the 1700s or 1800s, with the means of communication and of travel that were available at that time, now we are in the era of the jet plane and distance no longer matters.

To take the example of someone who is infected and has visited a market and then takes a plane. It appears that the thing started somewhere in China in some kind of bazaar or public market with infected poultry or snakes. The disease was then transmitted to humans. It would take just one person, someone from Toronto or Vancouver who had travelled to Hong Kong for a nephew or niece's wedding, to get on a plane, and the virus would be here in eight, ten or twelve hours.

This is how diseases are spread now, unlike the Spanish or yellow fever of the 1800s. The spread of disease was far less an issue in the days of horse-drawn carts, the Pony Express and so on.

Once again—and I am sure that you are delighted, Mr. Speaker, although you need to remain neutral, and do not have to agree or disagree with me—I have tried to rise above partisan politics. When we make speeches that are not too partisan, I hope that the government members can take their earplugs out, and hear our constructive comments.

[Petitions, April 10th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition signed by nearly 2,400 people from the riding of Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île-d'Orléans and the greater Quebec City area.

These petitioners are all pacifists and are all opposed to the war now being waged in Iraq by the American-British coalition. They think that a war in Iraq would have destructive effects, endanger the lives of thousands of Iraqi civilians, and have disastrous effects on the entire Middle East. They ask us to oppose any direct or indirect participation by Canada in a war in Iraq.

[Sex Offender Information Registration Act, April 8th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the members of the Bloc Quebecois support this motion.

[Canadian Shipowners Association, April 7th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw attention today to the centenary of the Canadian Shipowners Association, which has been involved in promotion of the marine shipping industry since April 7, 1903.

It began life as the Dominion Marine Association, and has contributed to the development, expansion and maintenance of a shipping fleet in Quebec and in Canada.

It is faced with many challenges, among them the condition of marine infrastructure, increased international trade, heightened security, and the constantly increasing use of the cost recovery approach by the Canadian Coast Guard.

The association can count on the Bloc Quebecois' support in developing a strong marine industry, given the dependence of several regions of Quebec on this mode of transportation.

My colleagues and I speak for all the people of Quebec in congratulating the Canadian Shipowners Association and its employees on its 100 years of operation.

[Committees of the House, April 3rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, did you ask if we agreed that this report be tabled?