Pierre Paquette

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, February 16th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise after the hon. member for Matapédia—Matane, who put the debate in its proper context.

We are dealing with a government and a party whose vision of the regions is not compatible with the one that Quebeckers want to develop. The trademark of this throne speech is that it does not recognize that Quebeckers form a nation that is neither worse nor better than the Canadian nation, but that is different and that needs its own aspirations and challenges.

If this is not recognized, it follows that, by denying this reality, all the policies and proposals found in the throne speech become obstacles to Quebec's development.

As I just mentioned, the idea is not to say that Quebeckers form a nation that is more or less interesting than the Canadian nation. Ours is exactly the same situation as that of the Canadian nation in relation to the American or, rather, the US nation. Canadians truly value their differences; they feel that they have their own challenges and they do not think they are superior or inferior to Americans.

It is exactly the same thing for Quebeckers. However, since we are in the Canadian federation, we unfortunately have neither the political and fiscal tools, nor the authority to be part of the decision making process at the international level to express our concerns and propose our solutions.

The major thrust of the whole throne speech presented to us by the new Prime Minister is a negation of Quebec's distinctiveness. This speech perpetuates the Trudeau and Chrétien approach. It is a departure from the federalism as conceived, for example, by Robert Bourassa or by Claude Ryan, who left us a few days ago.

As we know, the hon. member for Papineau—Saint-Denis, who is the Minister of Health and the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, was once Mr. Ryan's chief of staff. When he was interviewed, he said that under the new Prime Minister Ottawa would adopt the middle ground position that Mr. Ryan epitomized. We keep searching and looking in the throne speech, but we cannot find anything that remotely looks like Claude Ryan's vision of Canadian federalism, that is a federalism respectful of the Quebec nation and of its distinctiveness. In this sense, we should not be duped.

Whether in Quebec or in Ottawa, the debate among federalists is over. Trudeau has won. Canadians have the legitimate right to build their nation as they want to. However, if in doing so they not only ignore the distinct character of Quebec but also hamper its development, the Bloc Quebecois, as a political party but also as the champion of Quebec's interest, will have no other choice but to rise and say it is unacceptable.

According to the hegemonic vision of federalists, Canada is made up of one nation, the Canadian nation, governed by one central government in Ottawa. Provinces are large regional boards that make a number of decisions based on the resources they are given, very little at a time. For instance, they get to choose the wall colours, but it is not up to them to decide if the building itself will be built or not. Such is the vision of the government, of the Liberal Party of Canada, which, as I mentioned earlier, seems to be shared by a lot of Canadians.

I have no trouble with Canada doing some nation building and promoting one central state run out of Ottawa. However, if, by doing so, they ignore the distinct character of Quebec and impede its development, as I said before, sovereignty will be the only option left to the Quebec people, the Quebec nation.

It is interesting to see how things have changed throughout the years. For example, in 1995, and even in 1980, in the last referendums in Quebec, there were three schools of thoughts. There was the sovereign movement of which the Bloc Quebec was part. There was a more nationalist movement, whose members thought federalism was a more interesting option that the sovereignty of Quebec. As I said earlier, Mr. Bourassa seemed to support that option, just like Mr. Allaire and Mario Dumont, who is now the leader of the ADQ.

There was also this third trend that was represented here, in Ottawa, by Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Chrétien. We must recognize that this trend has now prevailed among federalists. We see this when reading the Speech from the Throne presented by the new Prime Minister.

Consequently, the option open to Quebeckers is to agree to conform to the Canadian model, that is to refuse to meet our challenges in Quebec, or to choose the road to Quebec's sovereignty.

I believe it has been demonstrated once again through the Speech from the Throne that the only option open to the Quebec people and the Quebec nation is Quebec's sovereignty.

I will give a number of examples. One of the very important challenges for Quebec is its population challenge, that is the demographic challenge.

In Quebec, as in many Western countries, the population is aging and there is a demographic decline. In some regions, we can talk about this decline, even though, generally speaking, the population is growing in Quebec. This would lead us to have a population policy that would be integrated with mainly three aspects, that is a family policy that would encourage young families, an integration and immigration policy and also a policy for the elderly.

What is the government offering to in place of this integrated policy? It is offering a new choice of compassionate benefits. I find the principle quite interesting. Indeed, when natural caregivers have to help a family member who is experiencing health problems, it is a definite advantage for them to be able to withdraw from the labour market. However, the way the program has been devised by the Liberals is extremely bureaucratic and even inhumane. This person is required to present a medical certificate to confirm that the person he or she wants to take care of is likely to die in the next 26 weeks.

I am sure that we have all seen one of those cartoons depicting a doctor visiting a patient and saying “I have good news and bad news. The good news is your wife is entitled to compassionate benefits, and the bad news—” We get the drift.

This is not at all the way this program should have been introduced. This might not have been the first priority for Quebeckers, who would have preferred to see parental leave, currently financed through the EI fund. This is a bad parental leave program.

Quebec has long been asking, whether it is under the Parti Quebecois or the Quebec Liberal Party, to be given back the part of the employment insurance fund that is used for parental leave, so that we can have a true parental leave that is integrated to a family policy. But the federal government says no. Instead, it comes up with something called “compassionate benefit” that does not meet the needs of caregivers. In my opinion, this is a good example of the denial of Quebec's right to make its own choices.

Here is another example. We set up a daycare program at a cost of $5 per day for users, but that cost has now increased to $7, because of the fiscal imbalance, because the federal government is not transferring enough of our tax money to Quebec, thus penalizing Quebec families.

We devised a system that is recognized not only in the rest of Canada, but in the whole western world. Here is an example. Quebec families are losing between $200 million and $300 million in tax deductions because the federal government does not recognize them.

So, the federal government saved money on the backs of Quebec families. This example has to do with the family policy. I could provide others that relate to immigration.

There is the fact that 50% of the immigration flow is controlled by the federal government, which uses its own standards. Unfortunately, this morning again, we saw that immigration is used by the federal government and the Liberal Party as if it were an election issue. There is a headline in today's edition of the daily La Presse which reads “Access to citizenship: Expedited process a few months before a general election”.

And the government makes no bones about it. The Liberals want to deliver Canadian citizenship certificates to get potential voters. Why not do it on a year round basis and allow these people to participate in our social and political life at all times, and not just a few weeks or months before an election?

I could go on and also talk about the status of regions, but I will end on this note. The only thing that the government is proposing is to create conflicts in the regions by trying to fund municipalities, particularly large ones, directly, at the expense of the needs of all the regions.

Because of all this, the Bloc Quebecois will have no choice but to condemn this throne speech and continue to work even harder to promote Quebec's sovereignty.

[Budget Surplus, February 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the premiers of the Atlantic provinces and Quebec's finance minister have noted that the old tactics instituted by the Prime Minister when he was Minister of Finance are still in use. The size of the surplus is being underestimated in order to keep it all for the debt, or, probably, for election promises.

Will the federal finance minister make a commitment—as the provincial premiers and the Quebec finance minister have asked—to make the $2 billion for health a recurring amount, now that we know the surplus will be twice as large as predicted?

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, February 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to this bill. I find it very symbolic and very representative of the kind of stunts this government, the Liberals and this Prime Minister seem to enjoy playing. Of course, this is to be expected just before an election. Bill C-18 is basically a partisan piece of legislation that goes against the interest of Quebec and the rest of the provinces.

First, in Bill C-18, two distinct components have been combined. The first one deals with extending the current equalization program that the provinces, and Quebec in particular, do not like and have been criticizing. The second one is to approve the $2 billion that was first promised to the provinces by Jean Chrétien and then by the former finance minister and that will probably be paid by the current Prime Minister.

On the one hand, we are against the extension of the current equalization program, because it penalizes Quebec and Atlantic Canada, in particular. On the other hand, we agree with the $2 billion for health promised by Jean Chrétien. The government thinks it can fool of us by coercing us to vote in favour of a bill that would penalize Quebec and Atlantic Canada over the next fiscal year. It is not fooling anyone, not the people of Quebec and not the Bloc Quebecois.

We demand that this bill be split. While we are in favour of Bill C-18 being referred to a committee, we will be bringing forward in committee an amendment to split the bill into two very distinct parts, as I mentioned earlier. So much for the first stunt.

Second, by introducing a bill that would extend the equalization program and provide an additional $2 billion for health, as promised over and over again, the federal government would have us believe that it is being very generous and that the provinces will be the big winners here. That is not true.

In this fiscal year alone, federal transfer payments to Quebec have been cut by about 5%. That means $423 million less in Quebec's coffers, even with the $2 billion, of which Quebec will receive $472 million.

We are not stupid. The federal government is financially starving the provinces, especially Quebec. Next year, if the equalization formula is maintained and if there is no agreement to increase health care funding, transfer payments to Quebec will drop by $1.55 billion. This is unacceptable. We will not allow Ottawa to financially starve the Quebec government at the expense of Quebeckers. We will not endorse this.

Third, the federal government is making a big deal about the $2 billion it is transferring for health care but has failed to mention that this year it will save $2 billion in equalization payments. That is the federal government's strategy: to take with one hand and give with the other. The problem is that the rules are not the same when it comes to equalization or the CHST.

The CHST is based on population percentage. Equalization, however, is based on the relative wealth of the provinces. Consequently, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces lose under Bill C-18. The proof is that, this year, under the equalization program, our share of the 2002-03 amount will drop 38%. These figures bear repeating because they are evidence of this third stunt pulled by the Liberals and the federal government.

The figures I am providing are from the study by Quebec's finance minister, Mr. Séguin, who is far from being a separatist, as the Liberals say, and who should have a certain credibility in their eyes. In 2002-03, under the equalization program, Quebec received $5.315 billion. In 2003-04, the current fiscal year, it received $3.29 billion. That is a 38.1% decrease. Projections for next year are approximately $3.5 billion. Compared to 2002-03, this is a 34.1% decrease.

And now they are trying to sell us on the idea of extending the current equalization formula at the expense of Quebec's finances. This is unthinkable.

Looking at the Canada health and social transfer, we see that in 2002-03 we received $2.648 billion. In 2003-04 we received $2.58 billion, a drop of 2.6%.

This year there is of course the increase provided for in the February 2002 agreement plus the $2 billion, which means for Quebec a total of $1.647 billion. And there is $1.367 billion in other transfers. So this year Quebec will receive in federal transfer payments $8.884 billion compared to the $9.3 received in 2002-03. That is a net loss of 4.5%.

They want the Bloc Quebecois, the sole defender of the interests of Quebec in this House, to accept such a unilateral reduction in transfer payments by the government. Next year, again compared to 2002-03, according to our very conservative estimate, the losses will be in the order of 16.7%.

We therefore cannot accept the sort of stunt they are trying to pull with Bill C-18, which will, when all is said and done, penalize Quebec and the Atlantic provinces in particular, as I have said, by strangling them financially.

We can see, since the numbers are there, that the basic intent of Bill C-18 is to allow the federal government to save money. The $2 billion—which, I will remind hon. members, is $2 billion with no guarantee of repetition next year, far from it—is merely an attempt to conceal what they are doing. This is why they have put the two elements into Bill C-18. But, once again, we are not taken in, nor are the people of Quebec.

Fourth, since there has been a new prime minister, since there has been a new finance minister, they have copied the tactics of the former finance minister, now Prime Minister.

They claim the financial situation is very difficult, pointing to examples of current issues that are indeed of great concern: the mad cow crisis, which the federal government should come up with more money for, the SARS crisis, and a number of other things such as the power outage in Ontario.

The government says finances will be very tight now. It expects to have a lot of difficulty raising $2.3 billion in surpluses. What did we learn this week? From April to December, the federal government already raised $5.2 billion. The surplus will be closer to $6 billion or $7 billion, as the Bloc Quebecois predicted earlier.

Consequently, the federal government put up a show to try to relieve the pressure on the negotiations concerning equalization and health. When he met with provincial premiers, the Prime Minister said, “I will not solve the problem now. I will wait until July”.

Why will he wait until July? Because he hopes to hold his election before then. Of course, I am not convinced that, with the current events, it will be easy. However, at the time, his idea was to call an election as soon as possible and postpone the problems.

It is the same with Bill C-18. The government does not want a debate, it does not want to negotiate the equalization formula with the provinces. It is downloading, hoping that the election will be held before then.

In an attempt to cover all this, it is pretending that it is having financial problems, which is false. Not only there are surpluses, but there is $6 billion sitting in the foundations that were created by the current Prime Minister.

We know that Jacques Léonard, the former president of the Treasury Board in Quebec, did a wonderful job for the Bloc Quebecois. He showed that the federal government had increased its spending at a pace that was double that of Quebec and Ontario, and that there was a lot of waste. It is not just the sponsorship scandal; there is also a culture of waste within the federal government. If things were tightened up, we would have ample means to settle the issue and negotiate quickly.

Fifth, all this is done with one goal in mind, which is to put all the problems off until after the election. Afterwards, the government will give the bad news to Quebec and to the other provinces.

We will not be fooled. We will not play this game. We will not condone what the Liberals want to do to the provinces and to Quebec in particular, which is to put a financial stranglehold on them and not deal with the fiscal imbalance.

Nor will we condone the laxness of this government, which could easily have negotiated the new equalization rules before March 31. We will not play this game and we will not support Bill C-18.

We hope that this bill will be split and that the issue of the $2 billion for health will be addressed separately.

As I said, we will ask that the $2 billion be a recurrent amount and that the equalization program be extended before March 31 if possible, but in any case before the election.

In conclusion, we will support the referral of this bill to the Standing Committee on Finance.

[Diocesan Church of Joliette, February 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the centenary celebrations of the diocesan church of Joliette have just been launched. The theme: Fire up your heart...Dare to hope.

In 1904, the church of St-Charles was made the cathedral of the new diocese of Joliette, which at the time comprised 40 parishes and one mission. Mgr. Joseph-Alfred Archambault was its first bishop. The diocese has had its great moments since then, but its tragic ones as well. These include the fire in 1935 that levelled the convent of the Congrégation Notre-Dame.

Celebrations and activities will fill the coming months as the diocese celebrates this historic event, which will remain engraved in our memories. These will include a youth rally, outdoor activities, a procession through the city, the Lanaudière painting and sculpture exposition, a travelling exhibit, another large rally and a centenary pilgrimage. I invite everyone to come and help mark this joyous yet solemn occasion, as the Diocese of Joliette celebrates its founding on January 27, 1904 by His Holiness Pope Pius X.

My sincere best wishes for a highly successful celebration to Mgr. Gilles Lussier, the president of the centenary celebration committee Réjean Parent, and his whole team of volunteers.

[Softwood Lumber, February 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to read the motion put forward by the hon. member, because it is made up of two parts which deserve to be considered as such. Motion M-397 reads as follows:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government, in thecontext of the softwood lumber dispute with the United States,should: (a) negotiate an end to the United States' countervailingduty process by replacing this United States trade remedy withone which either focuses on net subsidies—taking intoaccount tax-free bonds, sales tax abatements, property taxreductions, investment tax credits and energy co-generationagreements—which are available in the United States at thestate and local government levels, or that focuses exclusively onwhether or not policies in Canada and elsewhere are anti-competitive in nature; and (b) that, in addition to the foregoing,the government should launch negotiations with the UnitedStates government with a view to eliminating tax competition,in particular manufacturing subsidies, which is ongoingbetween Canada and the United States.

As the House can see, the motion is made up of two distinct parts. Part a , in which the government is asked to convince the United States to put an end to their countervailing duties by pointing out that the Americans themselves are funding the softwood lumber industry, deserves our attention. Everybody in this House would agree that the U.S. industry enjoys benefits that the Quebec and Canadian industry is denied.

For instance, forestry roads are built by private companies in Canada, but by the state and sometimes even the army in the United States. I could list other tax measures. For example, the U.S. softwood lumber industry enjoys tax holidays, jobs grant programs, shared capital cost programs.

We could also mention the clear cutting programs brought forward by the Bush administration to promote strip felling in an attempt to avoid forest fires, while our industry has to meet costly reforestation requirements.

By the way, I think it is important to mention that the sawmill industry benefits from several funding programs covering new investments in a number of New England states, particularly in Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire.

For example, there are programs that offer feasibility studies, tax holidays, employment tax credits and all sorts of other measures that are forms of subsidies. For that matter, the development agencies of these states frequently come to Canada and Quebec soliciting investments in their country.

It is clear that if we take into account all these factors, we can conclude that the countervailing duties imposed by Washington are unjustified and that we are totally right to challenge them. And, as you know, the challenge is based on WTO and NAFTA rules.

Confirming, as it were, the arguments raised by the member in the first part of this motion, the WTO as well the NAFTA secretariat concluded that not only was the American industry not suffering from Canadian imports, but that there was not even any threat that it would in the foreseeable future.

In fact, if both bodies—NAFTA particularly since, as you know, its decisions are enforceable in American law—maintain their position, the United States will have to withdraw its countervailing duties as well as its antidumping rights.

Until that happens, it would have been important to add to the motion the aid package that we have been demanding for close to two years, so that the industry can survive until the end of the legal proceedings.

It should be noted that neither of the two organizations I mentioned, the WTO and the NAFTA secretariat, recognizes the net subsidies mechanism, which consists in subtracting the subsidies of the exporting country from those of the importing country to determine countervailing duties. Let me remind this House that the United States opposed this mechanism. Nothing suggests that they are ready to support it at this time, especially since negotiations are at a standstill at the WTO and in the FTAA process.

We should keep in mind that the concept of net subsidies was examined during the Uruguay round but to no avail, because the United States and several other countries opposed it. Even if, at first glance, it seems attractive and logical, this approach is fraught with technical difficulties that would make its implementation problematic.

The subsidies granted upstream and the transfer of benefits to products downstream are a good example. Some examples are pork meat, live hog and corn. I could also have talked about international shipping, but that would have taken us away from our main focus.

From a political standpoint, I doubt that Canada can convince the United States that it should negotiate such an approach bilaterally because all the other countries together did not succeed in this respect during the last multilateral negotiations.

Although I agree with the previous speaker and the member that the motion stems from a good intention, I would be very surprised if such a motion were enough of a catalyst to influence the Americans or provoke any sort of reaction on the part of the American industry or the American administration.

As I said before, the important thing is that, meanwhile, the increasing value of the Canadian dollar as compared to the US dollar, and the continued imposition of punitive taxes on our exports—some 27.22 % on average—have become much more intolerable for our Canadian industry. Several of our producers are quickly approaching the breaking point because their financial burden is increasingly unbearable.

As I said, in the short term, what we need is a government program to help the producers, as we have been requesting since April 2001. This would take some of the load off the industry and help it survive until the conclusion of legal proceedings.

It is also important to point out that this aid package, whose first phase was announced, and whose second phase we are still waiting for, may be a very important element in the power struggle between Canada and the United States to get the American industry and administration to negotiate a full return to free trade. It is important for industry and government to collaborate closely, not only in order to have a program that meets the needs of the industry, but also to be more able to use it as a lever in the current dispute.

As for the first part of the motion, it does show good intentions, but we think it is impractical and has no impact on the current conflict. In contrast, part (b) of the motion is completely unacceptable to us. It reads as follows:

--eliminating tax competition, in particular manufacturing subsidies, which is ongoingbetween Canada and the United States.

The intent is certainly interesting, but it is clear that in this case it would lead us to tax harmonization between Canada and the United States, especially in the context where the Bush administration has entered a tax reduction phase, to the point of endangering American public financing, and even the stability of international finance. It seems to me that Canada cannot embark upon this course of action.

Second, the Bloc Quebecois is, naturally, extremely wary when it comes to mandating the federal government to harmonize taxation, which would also include provincial taxation. This seems to us to be extremely dangerous.

The third element I would like to discuss in relation to part ( b ) is that the motion presents even greater difficulties than net subsidies. We only need think of the overlap of taxes and the tax incentives of all kinds coming from all levels of government, especially in countries with a federal structure like Canada's—and this, by the way, is one of the reasons we want to get out—to imagine the obstacles to the feasibility of implementing the second part of the hon. member's motion.

Of course, this means giving up a great deal of sovereignty. I would like to remind members that the European Union just started its tax harmonization process. Imagine how different Canada and the United States are, and the various tax systems in the Canadian provinces and the American States.

In Quebec, the government is playing an important role that has allowed us to catch up remarkably well, even if we have not been able to close the gap between us and Ontario and the United States in particular. Still, we have made a lot of progress in the last 30 or 40 years. It has not been easy. We had to use tax incentives, particularly in the area of research and development. We also had help from major economic institutions of the government, like the Société générale de financement, the Caisse de dépôt and Investissements Québec. There were also tax incentives to the start businesses in designated areas to promote regional development. The Quebec government also supported the establishment of substantial venture capital reserves.

I have personally worked toward the establishment of one of those mediums, the Fondaction venture capital, which is sponsored by the Confédération des syndicats nationaux and which operates like the FTQ solidarity fund. I would like to take this opportunity to remind all Quebeckers in this RRSP contribution period that it is very important to invest in these venture capital funds to promote employment maintenance and development.

Such involvement of the state in the economy, during the quiet revolution, helped Quebec get out of its underdeveloped position and start catching up. Much remains to be done. We do not want to risk it all for the sake of tax harmonization.

For these reasons, I will vote against Motion M-397 and call upon my colleagues from the Bloc Quebecois to vote against this motion while acknowledging once again that it was well intended, as far as part (a) is concerned. However, I believe that it is completely useless.

[Reinstatement of Government Bills, February 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, the opposition cannot be a party to this process that began with the election of the new Prime Minister at the Liberal Party convention.

In this context, we have no choice but to oppose this reinstatement motion not only because the bills being presented are bad, but because the procedure is partisan. In November 2003, we could have very well continued the session and passed or rejected not only the bills before us, but the other equally important ones that were on the Order Paper.

Instead, everything was stopped, allegedly, as I mentioned, to allow the current Prime Minister to prepare a Speech from the Throne, in which, as I also mentioned, there is no solution to the true problems of Quebeckers and Canadians. However, there is a multitude of proposals aimed at interfering in provincial jurisdictions.

As I mentioned before, the federal government considers provinces as huge regional boards to whom money is given, very little at a time, when the pressure gets too much. The provinces are told how to spend the money, despite the fact that it was the federal government who created the problem by cutting transfers to the provinces. The cuts were made by the current Prime Minister when he was finance minister.

However, when we examine the specific issues raised in the throne speech, we realize that they all infringe upon the jurisdictions of Quebec and the other provinces. The issue of education is mentioned, probably for partisan purposes. The government is trying to get the support of young voters. Given all the student loans and scholarship programs it has promised, it will be interfering in an area under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces, even if Quebec already has a student loans and scholarships system that has been working very well for the last several decades.

Why is the government trying to infringe upon that jurisdiction? It is not to help students or to support education, because that could be done by restoring transfers to provinces. No, its goal is to reach out and get young votes in the upcoming election.

Where municipalities are concerned, we all agree on one thing: municipalities are creatures of the provinces. However, it is important to know that one of the few specific measures mentioned by the government and the current Prime Minister in the throne speech has to do with transferring funds to municipalities.

I do not have anything against transferring funds to municipalities, but what I find strange is that the government has money for municipalities but not for the provinces. What the government is trying to do here is to create division between the provinces and the municipalities. Again, they are trying to strike an alliance with the municipalities in time for the upcoming election.

Faced with that kind of masquerade, the Bloc Quebecois and all of the opposition parties are left with one choice only. Not only do we need to vote against this reinstatement motion, but we must also expose the partisanship behind this whole tactic.

[Reinstatement of Government Bills, February 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the reinstatement motion before us is a motion which, of course, does not at all satisfy the Bloc Quebecois, particularly in light of the events that have occurred over the past few months within the government and the Liberal Party of Canada.

This motion would have been totally pointless if, after the election of the new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, the former Prime Minister, Mr. Chrétien, had decided to leave and had allowed the new Prime Minister, assuming he wanted to do so, to keep the session open. Instead, for reasons of politics, they preferred to prorogue, supposedly to allow the new Prime Minister to prepare the Speech from the Throne. However, when we look at the speech that was delivered, we immediately realize that this was an operation simply designed to prepare for the upcoming election.

Similarly, no one is fooled by the reinstatement motion. If we look at the bills that were selected, such as C-17, C-13 and C-49, it is obvious that the motion is only necessary for Bill C-49, because the Prime Minister's stated objective is to call an election as soon as possible once the new electoral map comes into effect.

So, we have this reinstatement motion which, as I mentioned, includes the following bills: C-17, on public safety; C-13, on assisted human reproduction, and C-49, on the effective date of the representation order. However, no mention is made of Bill C-34, on the ethics commissioner. According to this bill, the ethics commissioner should now be accountable to the House and not to the Prime Minister, as was previously the case. In my opinion, the review of this legislation is much more urgent than that of the bills included in the reinstatement motion.

This is particularly true today, considering that the Auditor General's report will be tabled in a few hours, if not a few minutes. I think we really do need an independent ethics commissioner who is accountable to all the members of this House.

Therefore, the Bloc Quebecois will oppose this reinstatement motion. First, as I mentioned, the motion would have been pointless if things had been conducted in a normal fashion, if the new Prime Minister had taken over Mr. Chrétien's duties within a normal timeframe, and not the way it was done, by using that time to avoid having to answer questions in the House.

We will vote against this motion on reinstatement, particularly since we had previously voiced our opposition to Bill C-17 on public safety. We have absolutely no interest in seeing this bill come before the House again. The public safety bill extends the responsibilities of the RCMP and CSIS. In November 2002, the privacy commissioner himself wrote, and I quote:

But my concern is that the RCMP would also be expressly empowered to use this information to seek out persons wanted on warrants for Criminal Code offences that have nothing to do with terrorism, transportation security or national security.

What is the point in reinstating this bill when the privacy commissioner himself considers it problematic.

The same goes for the bill on assisted human reproduction. This bill has been long awaited. Perhaps there is a serious need to adopt various rules on, for instance, cloning, but Bill C-13—true to Liberal government form—encroaches on the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces in terms of health.

On October 7, 2003, Quebec's health minister, Philippe Couillard, expressed concern that Bill C-13 encroached on Quebec's jurisdiction. He said,

We have sent a clear signal to the federal government that we are very concerned about certain aspects of the bill, which we see as a clear encroachment on provincial jurisdictions.

So, why would the Bloc Quebecois support reinstating a bill that, in the opinion of Quebec's own health minister, infringed on Quebec jurisdiction?

Finally, there is Bill C-49. Although our criticisms are known, they deserve repeating. If any area deserves the utmost objectivity and the most transparent neutrality—the need to set aside all partisanship with regard to the Canada Elections Act—if any legislation should be non-partisan, this is it.

These reasons, which are exactly the same as those leading to the fall prorogation, so a new Prime Minister could prepare a throne speech that was ultimately a failure, account for the introduction of Bill C-49. In other words, so that the effective date of the new electoral map could be moved forward, thereby allowing the new Prime Minister to go before voters in short order.

Consequently, as in the case of the last session, which was adjourned, and the reinstatement motion, it is for partisan reasons only that Motion No. 2 is being put forward. This is unacceptable.

It is all the more unacceptable that the strategy of the new Prime Minister and the Liberal government is to put off all the problems that are priorities for Quebeckers and Canadians.

For instance, the Prime Minister does not want to take a stand in the same-sex marriage issue so he asked the Supreme Court a fourth question. The answer will come after the election, of course.

In the Arar affair, the Prime Minister began by saying that the Americans must have had a good reason to deport Mr. Arar to Syria. Afterward, he realized that Canadians and Quebeckers thought this a rather weak response. He then spoke of a possible independent inquiry. Then he said that the Government of Canada had nothing to be ashamed of. Again he realized that public opinion was not with him. His next move was to call a public inquiry, the results of which will be made known after the election.

What came out of the meeting with the provincial premiers is that things are grim with respect to transfer payments to the provinces. Here again, the approach is to put things off. We are told a serious discussion will be held on this issue—which is urgent now, not six months from now, I would even say it was urgent the day before yesterday—but not until next summer, or after the election.

No one is being fooled by this strategy of postponing matters. The Prime Minister wants to keep all his options open and have carte blanche from this House, Canadians and Quebeckers to do what he thinks is best. This will not work because the opposition, the Bloc Quebecois in particular, will require him to provide answers now and during the election campaign.

I bet that with the tabling of the Auditor General's report on the sponsorship scandal, the Prime Minister will try to come up with some trick to postpone the findings and his positions until after the election. An independent inquiry will probably be recommended without any set date, again to ensure that the findings are not made public until after the election.

They said to us, “We have to shut down the House, because we have serious work to do; we have to prepare a Speech from the Throne to set a new direction for this government”, which, it seems, was worn out after its 10 long years in power.

What do we find in the throne speech? Nothing: nothing concerning the priorities of Canadians and Quebeckers. There is absolutely nothing to settle the fiscal imbalance. I remind the House that this is a very serious problem.

We do know that the agreement on health which was signed in February 2003 by the provincial premiers and former Prime Minister Chrétien will expire next year, and that the amounts have gone down considerably.

This year, even with the injection of $475 million for Quebec, which has been announced three times, or the $2 billion ad hoc injection for the health sector by the federal government, even with that, according to the study by Quebec's finance minister, Mr. Séguin, the Government of Quebec will receive 4.5% less in federal transfer payments. Equalization payments will decline by 38%.

We might have expected that the Prime Minister would at least tell us the schedule and what his guidelines would be concerning negotiations on the equalization agreement, which expires very soon, on March 31, in fact. That is not after the election, and so now is the time for answers.

Meanwhile, the provincial finance ministers and premiers have to juggle with speculation about the future of health financing. We know that health financing also determines all kinds of other choices to be made in government policy for the provinces, particularly for Quebec.

I will give the House an example. The Quebec finance minister, Mr. Séguin, told us several months ago that there was a shortfall of $3 billion, and that he did not want to touch either health or education. The Quebec budget, setting aside health and education, amounts to $9 billion. Can the Government of Quebec reasonably be expected to cover this $3 billion shortfall out of this $9 billion?

Because of the unwillingness of the federal Liberal government and the current Prime Minister to provide answers, the Government of Quebec will have no other choice but to reduce its health and education costs. Health and education are priorities for Quebeckers and I am sure for all Canadians.

We would have expected the federal government to tell us, in the throne speech, how it intends to deal with fiscal imbalance, whether it is through equalization, the social transfer for health or other sectors, or even through tax point transfers, which is, as you know, the option preferred by the Bloc Quebecois.

However, the throne speech is silent on this issue. It is not mentioned at all. As I said earlier, the announcement was like a lead balloon. We were told that $2 million would be forthcoming. The former finance minister could have made the announcement in his economic statement, last October 31. It could even have been announced as soon as the agreement with the first ministers was struck in February 2002, if my memory serves me well.

So, there is nothing for health. The throne speech does not even mention the fiscal imbalance as an issue that the government will have to deal with. There is nothing on employment insurance. This is rather odd, particularly considering that, back in June, the Prime Minister himself promised a coalition of community groups and unions called the Sans-chemise in the Charlevoix region that he would settle this issue. Not only is the issue not settled, it was not even mentioned in the throne speech as an issue for which the federal government needs to find a solution quickly.

As we know, seasonal workers will soon be entering the so-called spring gap. These workers will no longer qualify for employment insurance, but they will not have gone back to work yet. There is nothing for these people, who cannot get social benefits, because one must use up a significant amount of his assets before qualifying. So, these people will have to use up their savings, because the federal government cannot find a solution to a problem that it recognizes, since the current Prime Minister had pledged to the Sans-chemise coalition that he would find such a solution.

So, there is nothing on employment insurance and on the fiscal imbalance. As regards our seniors, the hon. member for Champlain conducted an extraordinary campaign on the guaranteed income supplement, and this resulted in thousands of Quebeckers and Canadians getting this supplement, because for years the federal government had been as discreet as possible about the existence of this program. Now, things are easier thanks to the Bloc Quebecois, although this supplement was not made fully retroactive.

Indeed, those who were deprived of the guaranteed income supplement for years and who just found out that they are entitled to it are getting 11 months of retroactive payments, when they should at least get the same retroactive period that the current Prime Minister gave himself with Bill C-28. As we know, Bill C-28 was passed in 1998, but was retroactive to 1995, the year when Canada Steamship Lines International transferred its headquarters from Liberia to Barbados.

Consequently, the Prime Minister gave himself a retroactive measure. However, in the case of the elderly, this retroactive measure would represent too much money for the federal government. Once again, we must say that, even if the surplus is perhaps lower this year, due to economic circumstances, the government will still have quite a major surplus.

Thus, this reinstatement motion is presented to us in this context. I believe that, in this context, the opposition has no choice but to oppose this reinstatement motion, because we would be playing the partisan game of this government and this new Prime Minister, who is absolutely not a champion of change. Indeed, he wants, perhaps through a veneer, to pursue the same type of operations that were taking place when the former prime minister, Mr. Chrétien, was here.

Indeed, let not us delude ourselves. The Liberal Party of Canada is a structure, a machine that has, unfortunately, governed Canada too often and for too long and that has a vision of Canada that in no way reflects Quebecers' interests. The only specific aspects in the throne speech that was presented to us reflect just that.

The Liberal Party of Canada has a centralizing vision of the Canadian federation. It is Ottawa that must make the decisions. For the federal government, the provinces—I said this once in front of mayors, and I will say it one last time to tell you this anecdote—are big municipalities at best. Of course, mayors in my region were shocked. So I then used another expression. Now I say that, for the federal government, the provinces are big regional boards at best. I can say this now that the Liberal government in Quebec City has abolished them. This no longer shocks anyone.

A number of means will be decentralized, but the federal government will still have control over the way the money is spent.

[Canada Steamship Lines, February 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, at the insistence of the current Prime Minister, Barbados was not withdrawn from the OECD list of tax havens until 2001.

Will the Prime Minister admit that during his first attempt in 1996, and then when Bill C-28 was passed in 1998, and later during the entire period between 1995 and 2001, CSL International truly benefited from the tax haven in Barbados, a tax haven that was denounced on the original OECD list?

[Canada Steamship Lines, February 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the difference for the Prime Minister is that under Bill C-28, his holding company, CSL International, was then considered a shipping company, even though the ships under its responsibility belonged to subsidiaries.

How can the Prime Minister say that Bill C-28 does not give an advantage to CSL International when this amendment allows him to repatriate money he keeps in Barbados without having to pay taxes to Canada?

[Radiocommunication Act, February 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am extremely pleased to speak to Bill C-2, an act to amend the Radiocommunication Act.

I would like to begin by saying that the Bloc Quebecois agrees with the principle behind this legislation. I think everyone would agree that we must find more ways to fight satellite piracy. Satellite signal piracy takes millions of dollars away from companies and is a threat to jobs that are extremely important both to the economy and to technology.

For many weeks, if not months, particularly through our member for Québec, the Bloc Quebecois has been working to have the Canadian Television Fund increased to $100 million, the amount it initially was intended to be, to ensure quality programming production in Canada and Quebec.

The Bloc Quebecois certainly does not condone piracy, a practice that is often misinterpreted by some people and that takes money away from extremely important broadcasting production.

As I said, we agree in principle. However, it is clear that we find some of the provisions in this bill, in particular the housekeeping measures, somewhat dangerous. We believe the amendments put forward in Bill C-2 go way too far, would invade privacy and could lead to abuses that go against the charter.

We agree in principle but we realize that a lot of work needs to be done on some of the provisions in Bill C-2. That work will have to be done in committee. Only then will we take a final stand on this issue. Obviously, if the amendments we expect to see are not made in committee, the Bloc Quebecois will not be supporting the bill at third reading.

However, as I said earlier, at this point, we wholeheartedly agree with the principle of the bill. We support the idea of implementing import control measures and providing for an import certificate to ban the importation of devices used for decoding satellite programming signals, unless the importer has previously acquired an import certificate issued by the industry minister.

As set out in the bill, we will have to ensure that, in accordance with the import certificate, the imported devices will not be used for purposes that would violate the Radiocommunication Act. This is extremely important.

Once again, although we support the bill in principle, the Bloc Quebecois will wait to see what amendments are made in committee. At that point--