Pierre Paquette

[Afghanistan, December 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I get the feeling that the Minister of National Defence will soon be joining the former ministers' club.

The Conservative government has hidden behind everyone, especially the military.

Will the Prime Minister and the Conservative government have the decency to apologize to the soldiers and their families, particularly the families who have lost loved ones in Afghanistan, for using them for cheap political purposes?

[Afghanistan, December 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, despite the Conservatives' many attempts at a cover-up, we now know that there was at least one proven case of torture of a detainee transferred by Canada to the Afghan authorities.

How many other cases are there? Ten? Twenty? We on this side of the House want the truth. Will the Prime Minister stop hiding behind everyone? Will he shoulder his responsibilities by setting up an independent commission of inquiry and providing all the information needed to shed light on this sordid business?

[Afghanistan, December 8th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, in 2006, the International Red Cross repeatedly called on Canada to shoulder its responsibilities with regard to detainees transferred to the Afghan authorities. Canadian officers have admitted under oath that they were informed of at least one case of torture in June 2006. Richard Colvin also informed the government of these allegations at the time.

Does the government realize that by refusing to act, despite everything it knew, it violated the Geneva convention in 2006 and continued to do so until May 2007?

[Afghanistan, December 8th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, not only is the government trying to muzzle the people who are sounding the alarm about the allegations of torture in Afghanistan, but documents show that in 2006, the Conservatives put much more energy into developing their propaganda on this issue than protecting Afghan detainees' human rights.

Will the government finally admit that it prepared propaganda messages because it knew there were allegations of torture as early as 2006?

[Afghanistan, December 4th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the memo is a summary of all of the warnings he had given over the course of the 18 months he was in Afghanistan. It shows his outrage at the government's inaction. In that same memo, Richard Colvin attacks the Conservative government's line of defence, which was to ignore the allegations of torture and to discredit anyone who was ringing alarm bells, for instance, the Red Cross.

Instead of shooting the messenger, the government should listen to the message and understand that it violated conventions like the Geneva convention.

[Afghanistan, December 4th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, on October 24, 2007, as he was about to leave Afghanistan, Richard Colvin drafted a memo to David Mulroney in which he criticized Canada's chronic inability to ensure the safety of prisoners that had been transferred to Afghan authorities since May 2006, if not earlier. The Minister of National Defence was unable to explain to the committee why Canada waited a year and a half to change the transfer protocol.

Will the minister admit that Canada failed to meet its responsibilities under international conventions?

[Fairness for the Self-Employed Act, December 4th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, we tried to amend the bill. The Conservatives, together with the Liberals, refused to hear our amendment, which was a formula that would have provided equity for all workers in Canada and Quebec, if such a program were made part of employment insurance. We are talking about parental leave. We tried to improve it, but they refused. That is why we are voting against this bill.

Secondly, Michel Bédard, the former chief actuary of the employment insurance fund, was prepared to testify. He was even in the committee room. We suggested listening to what he had to say. Again, the Conservatives, together with the Liberals, refused to listen to Michel Bédard and hear the truth.

In closing, as I was saying, the reduction for Quebec, which the Minister of National Revenue is boasting about, is 37¢ from $1.73. That represents 21.4% of the estimated cost of maternity leave benefits and parental leave, which, in fact, amount to 75%. Therefore, a 75% rebate should have been given instead of 21.4%

[Fairness for the Self-Employed Act, December 4th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am always stunned to see how naive the NDP can be. It regularly buys into the Conservative rhetoric for populist reasons. That may be the one thing that the NDP and the Conservative Party have in common: they base their arguments or their strategies on populism.

Our research department had nothing to do with it. The figures were validated. It was the former chief actuary for EI, Mr. Bédard, who did the calculations. Self-employed workers in Quebec will have to pay $1.36, as opposed to $1.73 for their Canadian counterparts. That is a difference of just 43¢, but self employed workers in Quebec already pay 88¢ for every $100 of insurable earnings for parental leave. Therefore, self-employed workers in Quebec will pay $2.22.

First, this is extremely expensive considering what the real coverage is. We are not comparing this to the private sector. That has absolutely nothing to do with it. We are comparing this to how much it is costing the government to offer this new coverage and how much self-employed workers should be paying. Actually, they should be paying 43¢ for that coverage.

Second, Mr. Bédard told us that by 2014 the EI fund will have a $100 million deficit on the Canadian side and a $70 million surplus on the Quebec side. This means that self-employed workers in Quebec will pay for their counterparts in English Canada at a rate that I think is totally disproportionate.

We support the principle of solidarity within a society, but not at the expense of fairness and justice. This bill is unfair to the self-employed workers of Quebec.

[Fairness for the Self-Employed Act, December 4th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I will start by saying that I will share my time regarding Bill C-56 with the member for Terrebonne—Blainville.

When the government introduced Bill C-56 to make it possible for self-employed workers to receive special benefits, we were generally in favour of it. It is an idea that the Bloc Québécois has defended for a long time, that self-employed workers should have access to the employment insurance system, with some restrictions, of course. We imagined it would be much more inclusive, but this seems to be a step in the right direction. That is why we voted in favour of the bill at second reading, to refer it to a committee to be examined further.

Right from the start, however, we felt that the amount of $1.36 for every $100, which is not explicitly stated in the bill, was excessive. The Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, through the Minister of National Revenue, announced that self-employed workers in Quebec would be asked to contribute $1.36 for every $100 of insurable earnings. Self-employed workers, especially women in Quebec, already have access to parental leave, which was implemented by the Parti Québécois some years ago. This program is very successful, and is partly responsible for the rather impressive and reassuring increase in the fertility rate in Quebec.

We therefore had some apprehensions, but once again, as I said, we wanted to give the government a chance, so we sent the bill to committee. Our fears quickly proved to be well founded. This premium of $1.36 per $100 would be used for two types of benefits: sickness benefits and compassionate care benefits. I would remind the House that we are talking about 15 weeks in the case of sickness benefits and six weeks in the case of compassionate care, if I remember correctly, so these are fairly minimal benefits. In my opinion, very few male and especially female workers in Quebec are going to enrol in this system at a cost of $1.36, even though enrolment is voluntary. As responsible legislators, we cannot accept this approach.

Consequently, in committee, we tried to amend the bill to ensure that the contribution rate for self-employed workers in Quebec would be fair, given the new coverage they were being offered. Moreover, the amendment was designed so that if another jurisdiction in Canada were to offer benefits such as parental or maternity leave or sickness or compassionate care benefits, there would be a formula to reflect that reality and prevent these self-employed workers from having to pay twice for the same type of coverage, either now or in the future.

We tried to debate this in committee, but the Liberals unfortunately did not see things our way, so we will be forced to vote against Bill C-56 at third reading.

In addition, the former EI chief actuary, Michel Bédard, took it upon himself to provide us with his assessment of what the contribution rate should be for self-employed workers in Quebec. He sent an email to my colleague from Chambly—Borduas, basing his calculations on the cost of these special benefits. We are talking about roughly $1 billion for parental or maternity leave. The rest was for compassionate care and sickness benefits. I would like to quote his conclusion:

Quebeckers should pay a contribution rate of $0.41 per $100 under Bill C-56 for sickness benefits. A rate of $1.36 per $100 would clearly be excessive.

The former actuary said that. If I recall correctly, he served in that position from 1991 to 2003, so he has the expertise to make the necessary calculations.

That amount also takes into account system administration costs. The amount the government announced is over three times too high given the new coverage it will be offering to self-employed Quebec workers. We do not want to have anything to do with a Conservative government plan that verges on usurious.

That is why we will vote against this bill. If the bill passes, the Bloc Québécois will take it upon itself to make sure self-employed workers in Quebec know that this plan is a rip-off.

We have to look at things from a broader perspective. We have to say no to this bill because it is just a way to get money from workers whose income is already, for the most part, relatively low. But we think that this scheme is just cover for a Conservative government agenda to bring down the deficit, which is growing on a monthly basis because of the ongoing economic crisis and the recession, which have resulted in lower revenue and higher spending.

Basically, a review of the Minister of Finance's latest documents clearly reveals that the Conservative government will once again use the employment insurance fund as a cash cow to fight the deficit. That is the agenda behind Bill C-56, and we will not stand for it. We did not stand for it when Paul Martin's Liberals used the employment insurance fund—premiums collected from workers and employers, including small and medium businesses—for purposes other than those for which the money was collected.

The Minister of Finance's documents are very clear: over the next few years, more than $15 billion will be taken out of the fund to pad the government's coffers. We find that deeply unfair and unproductive. Everyone knows that employment insurance premiums are an employment tax.

Proportionally speaking, what kind of businesses hire the most workers? Small and medium businesses. That is why this bill will perpetrate an injustice not only on workers, but also on the entrepreneurs who create the most jobs in our economy. That is especially true for Quebec.

We refuse to be complicit in another misappropriation of the employment insurance fund for other purposes. I would also remind the House that the Liberal government diverted somewhere between $55 million and $57 million for other purposes. Furthermore, two-thirds of the money used to pay down the deficit and create a surplus came from the employment insurance fund, and the rest came from unilateral cutbacks in federal transfers to the provinces. If memory serves, there was a surplus of approximately $67 billion from 1998 until the end of the Liberal reign.

We are now witnessing the same scenario. It is a case of déjà vu. We simply cannot support this completely unfair practice. It is unwarranted, because there are other ways to balance the budget. Bill C-56 demonstrates the Conservative government's willingness to use the employment insurance fund to tackle the deficit. It has other means at its disposal. Perhaps those means may require public debates. Perhaps it is easier for them to use, in an underhanded way, the EI fund and the premiums that workers and employers have to pay. Maybe this prevents them from having to hold public debates.

That said, it would be in line with the Conservative way, which involves concealing information and imposing its vision for socio-economic development. And I am not even talking about environmental and cultural decay.

By stating here today that we will vote against Bill C-56, we are sending a clear message that we do not agree with this method of tackling the deficit.

As I said, there are other ways, including taxation measures, for example, particularly in the highest tax brackets. We have seen some bureaucratic spending and spending on federal government propaganda, which have been of no use whatsoever, either economically and socially. Our finance critic presented a plan a few weeks ago.

Accordingly, it will come as no surprise that we cannot accept this bill and that the Bloc Québécois will be voting against Bill C-56.

[Disposition of an Act to amend the Excise Tax Act, December 3rd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, we do not know what will be in the bill that has yet to be introduced. There are two levels here. There is the part within the jurisdiction of Ontario and British Columbia. I agree with the hon. member that the first nations in Ontario and British Columbia seem very critical of the harmonization of their provincial sales taxes with the GST. So far as we are concerned, though, that debate should be held in Ontario and British Columbia.

The first nations in Quebec do not have any problem with this. We have not heard any first nations at all in Quebec talking about it because the taxes were harmonized in 1992 and people in Quebec accept this reality.

We will not engage in debates on the federal level that should be held by the provincial authorities. By the same token, we do not want the federal government or federal Parliament to involve themselves in debates within Quebec society on the pretext that they are more magnanimous than the provinces or Quebec. I have always been very concerned about the paternalistic attitude that this conveys.

That being said, I was in full agreement with the hon. member when she said there would be serious consequences if the Standing Committee on Finance has only four hours to study the bill.

We already had a very stormy debate in Quebec. One of the reasons why the Liberal government lost power to the Parti Québécois in 1994 may well have been the grudging acceptance given to harmonization. In any case, there was a debate. Now, though, the debate in Quebec is all about whether the federal government will compensate Quebec, as it is compensating the other provinces, or whether Quebec will be left out in the cold, as it has been for 18 years.

I completely agree with the hon. member that the Standing Committee on Finance cannot do a serious job in four hours. That is a fact. On the other hand, we have no intention of interfering in Ontario’s and British Columbia’s debates.