Monique Guay

[The Environment, June 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, how can the minister reconcile her answer with the contents of a letter by Tony Barney, chief of operations at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, who maintains that no Environment Canada official appeared before the panel he chaired, and that no letter was received from this department?

[The Environment, June 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of the Environment.

On June 9, the minister said, and I quote: "We have taken the position at the EPA hearings currently going on in Washington that we would rather see to the disposal of our PCBs ourselves".

Will the minister admit today that the Canadian government never participated in EPA hearings, contrary to what she claimed in this House?

[Criminal Code, June 15th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, when I hear Reform members call the bill frivolous and say we are giving people with a different sexual orientation unnecessary powers when there is already flexibility, I say yes, judges have some flexibility, but they are under no obligation to consider the sexual orientation, race or gender of the victim. This flexibility applies to all human beings. There is no obligation.

In Quebec, we have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms and we have been using it for 17 years. We never had a problem. People never said we were giving more power to some people on the basis of their sexual orientation, race or gender. On the contrary. I believe this is a very democratic exercise.

Reform members today are trying to appear holier than thou. Today they are calling for the death sentence, and maybe tomorrow they will call for corporal punishment for children to make them more obedient. I think this bill is nothing out of the ordinary. It is a good bill. I think it should be supported, and we will do that. In Quebec, we have operated this way for a long time.

I would ask Reform members to stop playing holier than thou in this House. I would ask them to be logical and look at the bill as it is, and especially to read it, because they did not read it. I have a feeling they do not understand it very well. Maybe we should translate it for them. I would also ask them to try to understand and further the cause of democracy.

[Unemployment Insurance Reform, June 13th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, in his UI reform proposal tabled last week, the Minister of Human Resources Development strikes a direct blow at young people entering the job market by now requiring first time claimants to have worked a minimum of six months before they become eligible for any government assistance.

This reform proposal is ridiculous, considering the appalling situation young people in Quebec and Canada, a generation with 16.5 per cent unemployment, are being plunged into.

Thousands of young people are being penalized, even those who are qualified. In Canada, 30 per cent of poor families included at least one graduate, a proportion that has doubled in the past ten years.

To continue to add to the burden of a generation that has already undergone great hardship is just plain cruel. The minister must withdraw his proposal and stop attacking the young.

[Environment, June 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, every year more than 228,000 tons of pollutants of all sorts are dumped into Canada's waters, atmosphere, soil and sub-soil. The cause of all this alarming dumping is simple: it is negligence, whether on the part of careless individuals, unscrupulous manufacturers or governments unable to halt the flow.

I am pleased to rise and speak about the new toxic substance management policy the Minister of the Environment is proposing, which, I hope, will prove to be a practical response to the problems of prolonged toxic dumping that may lead to bioaccumulation. As I have not read the documents tabled today, I am not in a position to express an opinion on the value of the policy. I will therefore simply make four general comments expressing the concerns and worries I have about the minister's speech.

First, I would like to point out that I find it rather surprising the minister is tabling her new policy even before the standing committee of this House has issued its report, due in a few days, on the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. The minister would definitely have benefited from the committee's work, which took a year's time and which enabled many witnesses to express their concerns and suggest solutions with regard to the problem of managing toxic substances.

Second, the minister alluded earlier to the principle of reverse onus. According to her, manufacturers will now have to prove that their products are safe and may be properly managed. This principle, which the Bloc supports without hesitation, arises from another, very simple one: caution. The idea of caution is relatively new in environmental matters; up to now, it has not been a particular concern for governments, including this one. I offer as evidence the minister's unspeakable attitude in the matter of the barge, the Irving Whale , which may well spill its contents of 3,100 tonnes of oil. The minister's decision was clearly motivated by a desire to limit operating costs, as her officials have said publicly, which flies in the face of the most elementary caution.

I hope the minister, whose rhetoric is full of fine principles, will have the courage and the influence in Cabinet to apply them uniformly and not only when it suits her.

My third comment has to do with the way the minister intends to deal with the provinces in the future. Even though she admits that her new policy only applies to the federal areas of jurisdiction, she states, and I quote: "It is the federal government's intention to use the policy that we are announcing today in order to pursue a national strategy for managing toxic substances".

I will remind the minister that, whether she likes it or not, the environment is a shared area of jurisdiction, in which provinces have a determinant role to play. They should and must not be treated as second class actors in the federal plans. Before talking about national standards, the minister should give tangible evidence of the efficiency of her policy. Obviously, an aggressive approach by the federal government will only lead to counterproductive confrontations.

Finally, I notice that the minister is once again boasting that she wants to make Canada a world leader in environmental matters. The Bloc Quebecois and myself have every right to question such a statement and fear that it is just so much hot air. Indeed, the last time the minister said that she wanted to make of Canada a world leader, she was presenting her plan to reduce greenhouse gases which, as we know, was far from revolutionary.

This very morning, The Ottawa Citizen reported that the Sierra Club gave the Prime Minister an admonition to give marching orders to his Cabinet on the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.

I humbly remind the minister that Quebecers and Canadians are not necessarily demanding to become world leaders; all they want are realistic environment policies yielding real and tangible results.

In conclusion, I can understand the minister's desire to improve the management of toxic substances in Canada. In fact, the World Wide Fund for Nature reports that the port of Hamilton is one the most polluted areas in the Great Lakes. The sewage treatment plants located there are not equipped to properly process the waste from surrounding industries and generate close to 40 per cent of the PCB burden and 10 per cent of the zinc burden in the port. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, decades of pollution in Hamilton have completely ruined what used to be first class spawning grounds for many fish species.

I hope that the policy proposed by the Minister of the Environment will enable us to find efficient remedies to solve an environmental dilemma we can no longer ignore.

[Irving Whale, June 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, we are not asking the minister to let this matter drag on for years. What we are asking her is to raise the Irving Whale as safely as possible, even if it is more costly.

A spokesperson from her office indicated that two businesses had submitted bids to refloat the Irving Whale . Since her department has known about the bids since May 11, can the minister tell us the prices quoted in these bids and release immediately all bidding documents?

[Irving Whale, June 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of the Environment.

On Tuesday, an Environment Canada spokesperson suggested that the Irving Whale would only be raised high enough to slide a submersible underneath. Yet, the solution outlined in the government's call for tenders is to lift the barge more than 70 metres with steel cables before using a submersible.

How can the minister let a spokesperson from her office give the press information that is contrary to that contained in the initial bidding documents?

[The Environment, May 31st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, after investing hundreds of millions of tax dollars in the construction of Ontario Hydro's nuclear power plants, how can the Minister of the Environment now guarantee that she will not ask Canadians across the country to absorb the costs of an operation which is Ontario Hydro's sole responsibility, while the federal government never invested Canadian taxpayers' money in Hydro-Quebec?

[The Environment, May 31st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of the Environment.

According to the auditor general, in the next 30 years, it will cost $9 billion to safely dispose of the mountains of high-level radioactive waste mainly caused by electric power companies such as Ontario Hydro.

The federal government has already subsidized the development of these companies to the tune of $370 million, without devising safe ways and sites to dispose of such waste.

How can the Minister of the Environment justify that Canadian taxpayers are currently subsidizing Ontario Hydro to get rid of its nuclear waste, which accounts for close to 90 per cent of all such waste in Canada?

[New Arena In Winnipeg, May 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, in the wonderful world of politics, it is not unusual to see signs of government posturing after it makes dubious decisions or budgetary choices that are in the very least debateable.

Yesterday, in a very clumsy attempt to deflect criticism, the Prime Minister's behaviour was a prime example of this when he tried to justify the federal grant for the construction of a new arena in Winnipeg under the pretext that it was needed for the 1999 Pan American Games.

I would like to mention a few facts which should debunk this myth. First, Winnipeg's designation as host of the games was not contingent on it building a new arena. Second, the list of competitive sports featured in 1999 will only be issued in September 1995, and hockey is never featured at summer games. Last, an arena with a capacity of 22,000 is not needed for volleyball competitions: a capacity of 17,000, such as in the current arena, suffices. So how can the government continue to maintain that this grant is not an attempt to save the Jets?

People are not stupid. Confronted with these irrefutable facts, the Prime Minister should have-