Monique Guay

[Supply, April 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I will answer briefly because I know I have little time left and I want my colleagues to have the opportunity to speak.

When in an industry the continued production of some goods is unsure, that certainly causes an uncontrollable situation and the industry is danger. Some stability has to be maintained.

As I said, government officials must sit at the table and get involved in the issue. They must go to Detroit to meet with GM. They will have our support and full cooperation.

[Supply, April 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the auto industry is concentrated in Ontario, not in Quebec. That is quite clear.

The federal government should sit down with the industry and discuss mid-term and long-term solutions. It is not for me to make a decision. There will be discussions and negotiations.

But what we really need are solutions that will keep this industry going over the mid-term and the long-term, and not short-term solutions from year to year. This is not the kind of industry you can deal with on a short-term basis. We should keep developing it. The industry is heavily concentrated in Ontario, but its development in other regions should go on. We have the opportunity to do it in Quebec. We should keep this industry going, and the federal government should do its share.

[Supply, April 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, this is 2002. With all due respect, nobody has ever refused to sell a car to a separatist. Business is business.

The aluminum company Alcan stayed in Quebec, and it has really prospered. Bombardier is in Quebec. This has nothing to do with separation. It is a question of economics and the government refuses to admit it. It is hiding behind the aspirations of Quebec to nationhood. It has nothing to do with it.

It is a business decision, an economic decision. We want to keep Quebec's auto industry. It is now the federal government's turn to help us keep this industry.

The Quebec government has done its share. The federal government should now give us a hand. It is helping Ontario and should help us too.

[Supply, April 25th, 2002]

moved:

That this House condemn the government for its inability to defend the workers at the General Motors plant in Boisbriand and thus allowing the vehicle assembly sector of the Quebec auto industry to disappear.

Mr. Speaker, I want to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the member for Verchères—Les-Patriotes.

The issue of the General Motors plant in Boisbriand is a priority. It is as labour critic that I will address the House today. We have known for a long time that there is a problem at the plant. Now the company is threatening to shut it down by September 2002. The reason we decided to raise this issue on an opposition day is to prompt the government to take action on this immediately, before the Quebec auto industry disappears completely. I do not mean to be alarmist, but the industry has been present in Quebec for 37 years. This particular plant is the largest in the province.

Since I have only ten minutes, my colleagues will take over when I am done. However, I will try to give a brief overview of the situation. I hope that, today, we will have a chance to shed some light on this issue and to try our best to find solutions so that the GM plant does not shut down in September 2002.

I must state at the outset that the Bloc Quebecois unreservedly supports the FTQ and its affiliated union, the Canadian Auto Workers or CAW, in their fight to save the Boisbriand plant. If the Boisbriand assembly plant disappears, 1,400 direct jobs will disappear along with it. As well, there are another 9,000 or so indirect jobs with subcontractors, particularly the GM suppliers in the Beauce, the Outaouais, the Eastern Townships and southwestern Montreal, all at risk of closure as well.

The Boisbriand plant manufactured 74,967 vehicles in 2000, which is 7.75% of the total Canadian production. It has even been cited as a model plant for all other GM plants worldwide.

In 1987, Quebec and Ottawa made a $220 million loan to GM, with a 30 year term, that is until 2017. The preferential rate of interest at the time was 9.5%. The long term financing of this loan coasts GM a good $20 million annually in interest charges to Quebec and Ottawa. The costs are shared fifty-fifty. Quebecers have paid for this loan to GM through their various taxes, and will continue to do so.

The main condition attached to the loan at the time was that the company maintain a minimal level of activity at Boisbriand, which it obviously has not. Moreover, GM is not required to pay back any of the capital before the due date of 2017. Canada—which means almost exclusively Ontario—has always been among the major beneficiaries of investments in the auto industry, but not a single dollar in investments has been announced for Quebec in the first six months of 2001. During the previous two quarters, Ontario had ranked second in investments behind the United States. Various investments of several hundred million dollars each had been announced, particularly by GM in Oshawa, totalling $300 million, by Daimler Chrysler in Windsor, and by Toyota in Cambridge .

This closure represents a major loss for the region and confirms the resounding failure of federal policy. No attempt whatsoever was even made to influence the location of Canada's auto industry. While Quebec and the city of Boisbriand were frantically making representations to GM headquarters to save their plant, the federal government settled for doing the bare minimum.

The Bloc Quebecois will see to it that Ottawa answers for its lack of leadership and concern for the situation of the Boisbriand workers.

Far from representing what is called the economy of the past, today's auto industry is the envy of countries from all around the world. It is one of the greatest users of computer technology and robotics; it uses the most advanced system technologies and material sciences and employs highly qualified workers and also engineers. We have been fighting for a long time to save the GM plant, and unions have done an absolutely extraordinary work to this end.

I myself took part in a demonstration by GM employees, with several of my colleagues representing the region, including the hon. members for Terrebonne—Blainville and Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, who are concerned with this problem.

Let us not forget that these employees work in high technology. They make good salaries. So, not only 1,400 direct jobs, but also almost 10,000 indirect jobs will be totally lost. This makes no sense whatsoever. The whole Quebec auto industry is declining. For years, investments have been made in Ontario. Millions and millions of dollars have been spent on new plants in Ontario, and Quebec has always been left out.

Now that we are in dire straits, Canada is not supporting us. We need its help; we need our money, which we are sending it anyway. It should give it back to where it is necessary. We do not want to go through a second Mirabel in the region.

Mirabel has really hurt. Who salvaged it? It is the Quebec government, by making it a duty free zone. We are slowly salvaging the white elephant that Mirabel was to the federal government. It is the Liberals who messed up. Today, Mirabel is regaining momentum, through hard work, because the Quebec government decided to take steps to save the region.

The Quebec government has done its share. It has invested in the upgrading of the plant. It has always been present, but now the ball is in the federal government's court.

The justice minister was in Detroit. He met with the GM management. He did nothing to obtain some developments on the issue. He simply said “I do not know what program could work in this instance”. That is not what we need to hear. We need to hear that there will be some positive, real and immediate action taken because September 2002 is only a few months away. Once the plant is closed, reopening it will be impossible and nothing will convince me of the contrary.

GM even threatened to dismantle the plant. This makes no sense whatsoever. We pay, we give money to the government to build a plant and the owners will now dismantle the building and move it elsewhere. This is rubbish. We cannot allow such a thing.

We must send people to Detroit. The federal government must wake up, send ministers and lobbyists to Detroit and see to it that they negotiate some arrangement with GM in order to save the plant so it can stay in Quebec. It is just unthinkable that there would no longer be an auto industry in Quebec. Once again, the federal government will show how utterly useless it is. This is unacceptable.

I raise the issue of Mirabel again because it is an issue that has been very important. Air Transat, which flew out of Mirabel, is now moving to Dorval. Once again, we are dealing with a hot potato. Why? Because the federal government has not kept its promises.

This issue needs to be raised, discussed in the House, we need to talk about it and the government needs to take real action on the matter. And it must not try to pull the wool over our eyes. The government has the money. There is a surplus. We have a surplus of billions of dollars. We are able to invest, to come to an agreement with GM to keep the plant open. The Boisbriand plant will close, period. It is one of the five most productive plants in the world.

When it was time to get this plant in order, when it came time for employees to improve production, they did it. The employees set to work. They held up their end of the bargain. Management was satisfied with the results. Now, they are going to say, “No way, it has got to go”. We know how this industry operates. It lobbies, and it lobbies hard.

I do not have much time to go into all of the repercussions of this on employees. However, it is not hard to imagine the impact this is having on the workers. When, over a period of five years, employees are told that they will lose their jobs the following year, it puts constant pressure on them, and they do not need to deal with that.

Today, I am calling for a serious debate on this issue. The government needs to roll up its sleeves and act, to do what it has to do, live up to its responsibilities and ensure that the GM plant in Boisbriand stays open.

[Shorter Work Week, April 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I will read the motion again. It reads:

That, in the opinion of this House, the federal government should take all public policy and legislative steps necessary to encourage the adoption of a shorter work week and reduced work time in the public sector, federally regulated industries, and the private sector as a whole.

First, I would like to say that this is a very good initiative by my colleague from Winnipeg North Centre and that we support this motion. It is unfortunate that it is not votable. This would have been nice, but maybe some other time. In any case, we are given the opportunity to debate it, and I think that this debate is needed in the House.

That being said, if I understand my colleague's motion correctly, there is no number of hours, so it is negotiable and up for discussion. I think that the purpose of this motion is to allow for a discussion on reducing the hours of work.

Today in most households, both parents work; when one works 10 hours and the other works 12, if there are no regulations, it makes family life difficult, children are always in daycare, and the quality of family life is virtually non-existent. Latch-key kids come home from school to do their homework without help from the family. This creates problems and difficult situations. Divorce and family problems ensue.

Obviously, if we can improve the quality of life by reducing the number of hours worked, we can find solutions, maybe not to all of these problems, but to the vast majority of them.

Here in the House, initiatives such as this one always come from this side. It is as though we are the only ones who want to innovate in the Canadian parliament, and I will explain why.

Members know that I am committed to a number of issues, including modernizing certain situations. I am referring specifically to the withdrawal of pregnant or nursing women from a hazardous workplace, an issue that I have worked on for ten years now. This problem was solved a long time ago in Quebec, where pregnant and nursing women have a special program allowing them to withdraw from work. However, here in Ottawa, women are still not able to benefit from preventive withdrawal. This is completely unacceptable.

It has been exactly ten years since we raised this problem in the House. The leader of my party put forward a motion. I suggested major changes to part II of the Canada Labour Code, section 132, to this end. Here in the House, I introduced a private member's bill, which obviously was not approved by the government. The entire issue is a hot one.

There is parental leave. In Quebec, we are currently fighting for fair parental leave. The federal government is still blocking our way. Again recently, the Quebec minister opened the door to the federal government and said “Listen, we are willing to sit down and find a solution. We are willing to sit down with you. Do something. A solution must be found”. All to no avail.

As for pay equity, a tiny bit of progress has been made but, once again, the problem has not been resolved. Men and women, everyone should receive the same pay for work of equal value. We need only look at the current situation at Radio-Canada. Female journalists are not being paid the same as their male colleagues. It is unacceptable that this is still going on in 2002. These are very important issues.

As for employment equity, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour, who is here in the House, can speak to this. We have been hearing from witnesses in committee for two months. Much still remains to be done. The law is not being properly applied and it has been around since 1986, in other words, for more than 15 years. There are problems of application. The government has not even managed to get around to all the industries affected by the Employment Equity Act to check whether they are doing their job, whether they are applying the legislation as they should. After 15 years, the government has not even finished taking a look at all departments to ensure that those who should practise what they preach are applying the legislation as they should.

Many people filed complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Commission to say that the government was not doing its job. A complaint was filed about Radio-Canada not doing its job with respect to employment equity. When one is a crown corporation, one must practise what one preaches.

I trust that there will be very close follow-up. The law must be changed in this connection. A report is to be tabled within two or three weeks and I trust that it will at least address all the concerns of the visible minorities, the disabled, women and aboriginal people who are not well served by this law. This situation must therefore be improved.

Then there are the House of Commons staff, who are not protected. This makes no sense whatsoever. These people must be able to benefit from the same working conditions as the public servants working within departments. This is a huge flaw that must remedied and the solution is really a very simple one. If there is a true desire to get it done, it can be done in a very short time.

Then there is the anti-scab legislation, another very important bill. It has been discussed again and again.

There are the orphan clauses, which keep a young worker starting out in a company from benefiting from the same opportunities as a worker with more seniority. Being a newcomer, he or she cannot have the same opportunities for advancement as existing staff.

These are all bills that have often come up in the form of private members' motions or bills. Each time we in the House have had the opportunity to move the government ahead, to advance the situation of the population of Canada and of Quebec, it has not happened because the government is not able to get its act together.

The laws I have referred to, and the motion my colleague has just introduced, are not million dollar affairs. It is just a matter of changing attitudes. We are not asking this to be done in a day, but attitudes have to be changed.

There must be work done in the labour sector. I do not come from a union background in the least. I am a business woman from the private sector, but I agree with having policies that will allow women and men to have more normal family lives.

Today, people need to work almost twice as much to get what they had ten years ago. We need to be able to strike a balance, and we have yet to manage that.

So I agree with the fact that we need to have policies and work with the unions, because they are there, they exist, they protect rights and they must continue to exist in the future. We must work with employers, because we want businesses to be profitable and that is possible; we are capable of sitting down to negotiate and discuss. And finally, we must work with our governments, who have a whole lot of work cut out for them, which they are not getting to right now.

We need to raise everyone's awareness. It is possible to respect jurisdiction, because earlier my colleague spoke of jurisdiction. We can easily apply this motion to businesses under federal jurisdiction, as is done when a law is applied in Quebec for provincial jurisdictions. There is nothing preventing this.

There needs to be a major debate in the House on all of the legislation regarding the protection of employees and employment insurance. When it comes to EI, the doors must be opened, we need to discuss withdrawal from a hazardous workplace and parental leave. We need to talk about real measures. Finally, we need to stop accumulating $30 billion surpluses on the backs of the unemployed and invest this money to improve the quality of life for all employees in Canada.

[National Volunteer Week, April 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, April 21 through April 27 is National Volunteer Week.

Every day, hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world give generously of their time to improve the well-being of their fellow citizens. We thank them.

Volunteerism is each and every one of those little gestures which illuminates not just the life of the person who receives it, but also the person who makes it.

Volunteerism too is the unseen work done by many people, the bulk of them women, who have not hesitated to become involved in their communities.

Let us hope that some day there will be open recognition of their indispensable contribution to the economic and social development of the communities in which we live.

Bravo, all you men and women of Quebec, and the world over, who contribute to lending a more human face to our society. Bravo, and thank you, for the joie de vivre you contribute to us all.

Let us all find time to give a few hours as volunteers and to contribute to the expansion of the volunteer sector.

[Société Radio-Canada, April 18th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, in a brief presented this morning to the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development, the CBC communications union states that the Raddio-Canada has violated the Employment Equity Act by not declaring all its temporary workers. The effect of this is to skew the reality on equity within the corporation.

Since the Minister of Labour was informed of this situation by the union in mid-March, could she inform us of the measures she has taken to call Radio-Canada management back to order?

[Enabling Resource Centre, April 16th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Public Service Commission of Canada, with the blessings of the President of the Treasury Board, has not only turned its back on the crying needs of the disabled, by closing their Enabling Resource Centre, but worse still, has axed the treasury board's entire Employment Equity Positive Measures Program.

Will the President of the Treasury Board be wise enough to admit she was wrong to terminate this program, which has proven its merits ever since 1983, and does she intend to comply with the recommendation by the Human RIghts Commission that its funding be extended?

[Employment insurance, April 12th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, while the surplus in the EI fund has reached an unprecedented high, the government of Quebec has had to take the federal government to court to recover employment insurance premiums in order to implement its parental leave program.

Nevertheless, Minister Goupil says he is still prepared to reach an out of court settlement, thus extending his hand to Ottawa.

Is the minister finally going to take the hand that is being extended and resume negotiations, thus enabling Quebecers to benefit from a true parental leave program?

[Softwood Lumber, April 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about an urgent issue.

Could the government act quickly and effectively to support the workers who are the victims of the lumber dispute by increasing the level of benefits and by extending the period during which a laid off worker can collect benefits?