Monique Guay

[The Environment, May 17th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, if the minister is looking for sites, we can show her the ones we found last week.

How does the minister expect us to believe her promises when her colleague from Public Works has said not only has no contract been negotiated with Bovar Inc, the company which will be disposing of the PCBs, but also that it is still much too early to forecast the related costs or the timing of the disposal of the federal government's PCBs?

[The Environment, May 17th, 1995]

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

Last week, the auditor general reported that the Department of the Environment has not established a program for the disposal the federal government's PCBs, nor has it estimated the total cost of such an operation. The auditor general also confirmed that no funds have been earmarked to cover the cost.

Since the Minister of the Environment has committed herself to disposing of the federal government's PCBs before 1996, will she tell us what the total cost of this operation, which supposedly is already in progress, will be, and where the departments should cut in order to find the necessary funds to meet her objectives?

[Low Level Flights, May 8th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I think that the minister did not follow this matter very closely. In fact, many representations were made by aboriginal people complaining about the effect of low level flights on the environment and their quality of life.

Does the Minister of the Environment undertake to include in future agreements with Canada's allies a clause providing for the cancellation of contracts as soon as the environment and the local populations start feeling the negative impact of these flights?

[Low Level Flights, May 8th, 1995]

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

Last Monday, the Minister of National Defence announced that the government had approved the Canadian Forces plan to almost triple the number of low level flights over Labrador and northern Quebec.

Yet, the environmental assessment panel reviewing the issue had recognized the obvious need for monitoring studies and other efforts to identify any negative effect to the extent possible.

Will the Minister of the Environment admit that the decision made by her colleague, the Minister of National Defence, is environmentally risky and flies in the face of prevention and sustainable development?

[Low Level Flights, May 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence announced yesterday that he fully endorsed the report of the panel reviewing the issue of low level flights in Labrador and Quebec. Interestingly enough, the Minister of the Environment, to whom the report was also directed, did not speak up. Her silence can only mean that her colleague's decision defies even the most elementary rule of prudence, which says that the impact of such a drastic increase in the

number of flights should be assessed before a decision is made, not after, as the defence minister is suggesting.

The Minister of the Environment, who boasts about making Canada a world leader in environmental matters, will have to bear the political burden of this decision, which is contrary to the principles of sustainable development, caution and prevention she talks about day in and day out.

[The Environment, April 26th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, when it first came out, the federal Green Plan was an unprecedented environmental initiative. After gradually cutting off funding, the Minister of the Environment recently confirmed that the Green Plan was dead.

Its replacement with a series of scattered and inconsistent guidelines shows that the Liberal government is giving up on the issue because it seems unable to set global objectives and propose a concerted approach.

Creating the position of environment commissioner, whose mandate and powers are very restricted, can never replace a concrete, global policy.

The minister is not fooling anyone by claiming that Canada is a world leader in environmental matters. She does not impress us either by proposing a so-called policy that does not even compensate for a dismal record.

The minister should consider the environment as an economic investment rather than something that can be managed haphazardly.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, April 3rd, 1995]

Madam Speaker, the great national party and defender of the most vulnerable, the party that used to lean more towards the NDP than towards the Reform Party, the party that was so full of the words pride and dignity is no more. It has caved in to repeated attacks from the wealthy and the financial community who just happen to be friends of the party.

Yesterday's Liberal Party has turned into a kind of progressive conservative reform party. That is what we can call that party now, whose members sit across the way. With this latest budget, the members opposite, these progressive conservative reform members, have abandoned their basic principles. The vulnerable, the sick, people in substandard housing, the unemployed and the elderly, all these people who need the government's special attention, have been abandoned in the name of deficit reduction.

The message from the government benches sounds hollow. It is also less than forthright, because it would have the public believe that all these vulnerable people and our social programs are to blame for the fact that the federal government is bankrupt. This is a misrepresentation of the facts, and it is unacceptable. By sending this kind of message, members opposite, which I can no longer call Liberals or "Rouges", are questioning the very role of government.

Is this role not supposed to be to help the weakest in our society, to ensure that everyone has a decent standard of living, that our collective wealth is distributed equitably and that those who have a measure of wealth should participate in this collective effort? Is this not the government's mandate?

Unfortunately, members opposite, those former Liberals with their millionaire Minister of Finance, are stupidly caught up in a one-track economic and financial mind set, totally oblivious to social principles and human values. Pretty soon, if we replace the Minister of Finance with a calculator, no one will notice the difference. The government will add and subtract without considering the disastrous impacts of these cuts.

The Minister of Finance of this new progressive conservative reform party represents the exact opposite of Robin Hood. Instead of taking money from the rich to give to the poor, the Minister of Finance takes money from the poor to give to the rich.

Could we expect anything else from a failed Robin Hood who is himself a millionaire and who admitted that he was familiar with the whole range of tax exemptions? He even owns a fleet of ships, some of which fly flags of convenience to avoid Canadian taxes. What a wonderful example of sharing and participating in our collective responsibilities! He prefers to protect his wealthy friends at the expense of those who are less well off.

I am thinking of those notorious family trusts-billions of dollars sheltered from the tax man. In this case, the minister decided to protect his friends for another five years. I think it is shocking to protect The Cadillac crowd and cut benefits to the unemployed.

What about the government's fiscal options? For instance, the banks are taxed a modest $100 million while the Royal Bank alone, a good federalist, made more than $1.2 billion worth of profit last year. How do you justify this fiscal decision, when last year, taxes paid by seniors increased by $500 million?

What about the thousands of businesses that pay no tax, while workers just keep paying more?

The choice of the members opposite is clear in this budget. Their preference for the rich is obvious. The federal government is the protector of the well-to-do and the financial community.

In the end, it is the lower and medium income taxpayers, always the same, who are affected. The unemployed, the disadvantaged, the sick and the homeless are paying for this budget, in which the government lacks the courage to reach into the impenetrable pockets of the more well off. This budget will mean real hardship: lower UI benefits, fewer assistance programs and shrinking health insurance.

Seniors are given a break, this year. However, it is not hard to guess the intentions of the Minister of Finance.

Following the referendum, he will once again go after old age pensions and cut seniors' income, which in many instances, is the bare minimum. Our seniors are entitled to reasonable living conditions. They are also entitled to certain small pleasures.

When the minister's axe falls next year, I fear these small pleasures will disappear, and their quality of life will decline. Women will be hit even harder by the federal government's choices. The concept of family income to be included in various programs affects them directly, because they are the least well off and the most dependent on their partners. By a single stroke, program universality will end for many women, who will thus be condemned to continued economic dependence and poverty. It is a real scandal.

The fact is that the disadvantaged and the middle class are getting poorer. The other fact is that the rich are getting richer. And the government is biting into these facts with gusto-it is broadening the gap between the poor and the rich with its budget and tax choices. What shameful choices.

The budget of the millionaire of finance is just for show. A series of cuts here and there, cuts without vision. And the members opposite are all pleased and smug about this ineffective budget, designed solely to provide a short term response to financial markets. For over 17 months now, the Bloc Quebecois has been asking the government to do its work seriously. The Bloc demands that the government get to the real root of the problem: duplication and deep, structural unemployment.

The Finance millionaire ignores these two issues. But, remember the credo of the red book, the bible that was shelved immediately following the election: jobs, jobs, jobs. Where are all of the jobs so promised, which were supposed to kick-start economic recovery? Obviously, the opposite has happened. Economic recovery is creating jobs, jobs, jobs, not government action. Inaction is more like it.

Nice election promises will not fight poverty. One of the best ways of doing it is to give people the opportunity to acquire a certain wealth through employment. That is a solution seriously worth considering.

Work, employment combat poverty. Where are those major and effective job-creating measures? Nowhere to be seen. The federal government's infrastructure program distributed mere crumbs, and, now, the government is idling. The people opposite are bragging about jobs that were not created by them, but by the economic recovery which, for the most part, was powered by our neighbours to the south.

The federal government does not want to recant. The system is made that way and the faith that the people opposite have in their system is as tough as nails. The decentralization that they say they are going to implement in the budget is an empty shell, a cover for a vast offloading operation onto the provinces. In fact, it is the deficit that is being decentralized, not powers.

Still, before the budget, the carrot they dangled was the possibility of the federal government withdrawing from provincial areas of jurisdiction and transferring to the provinces the corresponding financial resources. Nothing but smoke and mirrors. The budget does the opposite: it perpetuates a domineering central government and ten subservient provinces.

Quebecers will soon make a decision on their future. I am convinced that they will reject this domineering federalism and this government which is eating away at the social fabric to please financiers.

Quebec needs all of the tools available if it wants to build a fairer society based on something other than purely pecuniary values. Globalization of markets, international competition, profits, economic development at any price are all well and good. But, what use are they if the population is abused and neglected? Quebecers will make their own choices.

[The Environment, March 30th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, Quebec has done its homework in this area, but the minister made it clear in an interview given to Le Devoir yesterday that she had not done hers.

Is the minister's proposal, which will almost certainly be rejected by the European Union, not in fact part of a plan to create a diversion to mask her incapacity to fulfil Canadian commitments?

[The Environment, March 30th, 1995]

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

Yesterday, just days before travelling to Berlin to attend the World Climate Conference, the Minister of the Environment finally admitted that her government will not be able to meet the commitments made in its red book with respect to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

In the light of Canada's incapacity to control its greenhouse gas emissions, how can the Minister of the Environment content herself with presenting in Berlin a mere strategic plan, when what the 1992 Rio accord called for was a true action plan?

[The Environment, March 24th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that Canada has not met its objectives for the reduction of greenhouse gases, how can the Minister of the Environment go to Berlin with a view to taking credit for

reductions in gases achieved by Canadian companies in developing countries?