Roger Pomerleau

[Budgetary Policy, November 30th, 1994]

Let me simply read this specific suggestion back to her, a suggestion coming from the Liberals themselves, from the hon. member for Gander-Grand Falls: go and get the $9 billion you need in the pockets of those who do not pay their taxes. Start there and see what will happen after that.

[Budgetary Policy, November 30th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have just given a ten minute speech on the subject. I do not know if my hon. colleague paid close attention to what was said.

[Budgetary Policy, November 30th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, for someone who did not feel like speaking to Motion No. 17, my hon. colleague from Chicoutimi has delivered quite a passionate speech.

I, for one, am pleased to speak to this motion, which I would like to read for the benefit of the Canadians who are listening to us. It reads as follows:

That this House take note of the opinions expressed by Canadians on the budgetary policy of the government and, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order 83.1, authorize the Standing Committee on Finance to make a report or reports thereon no later than December 7, 1994.

The committee was supposed to table this report on December 2. The motion under consideration asks us to authorize the committee to postpone this report until a later date. This will reduce the time allocated for consideration of this report. It is an old magic trick involving reducing the attention span of those who should be looking at this report, that is, the people of this country. This is one of the numerous magic tricks being used by the government to hide from citizens what they should see. Let me give you a specific example, a simple magic trick now being performed by the government.

We know how magic tricks are done in general. We know how they are performed but we still get fooled, so I will explain again for the benefit of the people. Magic tricks are always simple: the magician hides with the right hand what he wants to hide while moving his left hand to draw the public's attention. That is why people do not see what is really happening. What is the government holding in its right hand? Things that are totally amazing.

First of all, every year, the Auditor General of Canada tells us about the shameful waste of billions of taxpayers' dollars. Every year, it is the same story: we talk about it for two or three days before shelving these reports, then the cycle repeats itself.

There is also the issue of overlap, which my hon. colleague tackled just before me. The inefficiency cost of this overlap of federal and provincial programs was estimated at $3 billion per year in Quebec alone.

What lies under the right hand? Family trusts, where we find enormous amounts of tax-exempt money that the federal government refuses to disclose. There is no way to find out how much money is involved.

We also have tax havens. On this subject, in 1992, the Auditor General pointed out that many big companies had invested some $16 billion worth of profits in tax havens around the world, thus avoiding payment of their fair share of taxes. We are not talking about peanuts but about $16,000 million.

The right hand also hides smuggling rings whose traffic in cigarettes, alcohol, guns and drugs amounts to several billions of dollars every year. They are apparently unable to solve this problem.

Furthermore, the Auditor General has just told us about $6.6 billion in uncollected taxes.

Then there is the issue raised by the Liberal member for Gander-Grand Falls, who just wrote to the minister, to the effect that Canadian companies use a forward averaging provision to defer the payment of $40 billion in taxes.

In his letter, the hon. member also mentions that 1,200 companies with profits of over one million dollars do not pay taxes.

Then there is the Hibernia project. Huge amounts of money are poured into this project which will never be a profitable venture, and the government tries to keep that a secret.

There are also more mundane current issues such as the situation of CN's president, Mr. Paul Tellier.

Mr. Tellier, whose annual salary is $345,000 and who made cuts in CN services to streamline that corporation, received, on top of a $52,000 yearly allowance for petty expenses, an interest-free loan of $432,000 to buy a house, all this at taxpayers' expense. It goes without saying that Mr. Tellier's case is another issue which this government does not want to publicize too much. This is what the right hand is doing.

Then there is the case of Gary Anstey, which was discussed today and yesterday, during question period. After four months on the job, Mr. Anstey, who was executive assistant to the Minister of Fisheries, received a severance pay of $31,000. Mr. Anstey was rehired last month at a salary of $93,000 per year. He kept the severance pay, even though he voluntarily quit his job.

As you know, people who have a job and who voluntarily leave that job do not get any UI benefits. Yet, the executive assistant of the Minister of Fisheries got $31,000 from taxpayers. Fishermen in the Gaspe Peninsula certainly have the right to wonder who the real suckers are.

Then there is Operation William Tell, during which the Canadian Armed Forces had a good time in Florida, from October 10 to 23, 1994, with artillery pieces worth $395,000 each. Always in Florida; all this sun is good for the army. There is also a statement made by Mr. Yves Séguin, a prominent tax expert and a former minister in the Bourassa government, who said, not long ago: "In 48 hours, I would get $3 billion for the federal government by imposing a two per cent tax on shares".

Meanwhile, the left hand is getting a lot of exercise. They have to explain to the public what they are going to do to deal with the problem of our public finances which are, as you know, in a parlous state. It seems that the real problem in Canada, and the Prime Minister said so himself, is those beer drinkers slumped in front of their television sets, people who are totally unproductive. This includes all those unproductive people who lost their jobs at Hyundai, at CN, at CP, at MIL Davie in Lauzon, the refineries in Montreal, fishermen in the Gaspé who cannot go fishing any more because there are no fish, and miners who cannot go down into the mines because the money is being used to operate mines in Chile or somewhere else. So all these people are drinking beer in front of their TVs and that is where the cuts are going to be made.

They are going to traipse all over Canada, the MPs, the press, the media and they are going to ask people: "What do you think is the best way to cut these people's benefits?" They will cut unemployment insurance, cut welfare benefits, raise students' tuition fees, cut transfer payments to the provinces. They keep waving their left hand but never say what the right hand is doing.

Meanwhile, our social fabric is starting to unravel. People feel somewhat frustrated. So, as we saw yesterday in Toronto and as we saw not so long ago in western Canada, people are starting to fill the halls every time they organize meetings of committees on social programs. People are invading the halls and taking over the meetings from their members. They are saying: "Now you are going to listen to us". There is a basic feeling of frustration.

We also had students who demonstrated here on the Hill, at least 10,000 of them, and they told us they were not prepared to pay for the sins of others and pay the full shot, on top of that. These may not be huge demonstrations, but I may remind you, and you were probably there, that huge demonstrations are not necessarily the most effective ones. I remember an extraordinary demonstration held on Parliament Hill a few years ago, a demonstration by one person. This person went to the Prime Minister at the time, the Hon. Brian Mulroney, and told him: "If you touch our pensions, Brian, goodbye Charlie Brown!" That sent a shiver through the government. So I hope we will not be hearing that on the Hill.

Of course, some people are prepared to explain how this trick works, and they actually do that. There are at least two Liberal members, the hon. member for York South-Weston, for instance, who told us that for ten years they were in the opposition and they condemned what the Conservatives wanted to do, which was to cut the deficit at the expense of the most vulnerable. That is exactly what they are doing. I may remind you that the hon. member for York South-Weston is not a member of the Bloc Quebecois. He is a Liberal member. There was also the hon. member for Gander-Grand Falls, to whom I referred earlier, who at the end of his letter to the minister gave an excellent summary of our proposal, and he put it in these words: As you can see, you can get the billions you need simply by collecting taxes owing by the corporations that are making the biggest profits and do not pay taxes. That is also the position of the Bloc, and we will vote against the motion.

[Quebec Sovereignty, November 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, at their annual meeting, held in Jonquière, the 300 delegates from the Quebec steelworkers union decided to support sovereignty during the next referendum on Quebec's future. This central labour body feels that sovereignty is the only way to ensure that Quebec has the necessary tools to look after its economic, political and sociocultural development.

Occupational training will be the top priority for steelworkers in the years to come. They believe that this whole sector should fall under Quebec's jurisdiction. In fact, Quebecers have been requesting this for years, but Ottawa has always categorically refused to consider that option.

The decision made by the steelworkers illustrates once again the importance and the diversity of the various groups supporting sovereignty in Quebec, and we are very pleased to see that.

[Social Security Program, November 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has just told us that the system is abused-I fully agree. There is abuse at all levels, that is what we mean. We must not consider only how people at the bottom of the scale abuse the system. The system is also abused by people all the way to the top.

Our position is extremely clear and is illustrated by a colourful image: when you want to clean a staircase, you clean it completely, not just the bottom step or the two lowest steps. You start at the top and work your way down. The Bloc Quebecois fully agrees with the government on that point; we are prepared to open all the books and review them in public. That is all I had to say on the question.

[Social Security Program, November 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, we have examined closely the famous green paper and we have made comments up to now. We believe essentially that the minister focuses mainly on social program reform. In doing so, he forces people to consider this reform. He starts by saying that the problem in Canada comes from small and medium-income people and that this is where savings can be made because the problems come from that group.

Besides, the Prime Minister himself did not hesitate to refer to these people as beer-drinking couch potatoes. What we say is

that there is indeed a problem in Canada and whether Quebec stays or not, Canada will have to go through a complete overhaul of its taxation system but the reform must start at the top. We must start with those who use these expenditures for their own benefit, those who pay no income tax. Billions of dollars are involved here.

I quoted earlier the Liberal member for Gander-Grand Falls who has studied the matter, as did many others. I believe we are open to discussion. As we have been saying since we came here, we should open the books to Canadians, not only the third chapter, not the first, all the books. We agree with that.

[Social Security Program, November 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I think that we will indeed have to pay increasing attention to the Constitution in the months to come. Sadly, this problem could have been resolved a while back, if only the Charlottetown agreements had been passed. We know what happened to these agreements that put at end to the negotiations between Quebec and Canada.

Quebec said no to the agreements, and so did Canada. This means that very soon the people of Quebec will have to choose between taking Canada such as it is and building a new country in Quebec. We have been expressing this need of ours for greater self-reliance to the rest of Canada for 125 years, and no effort was spared during these 125 years. But apparently, no one can find a solution to this problem.

The only solution that seems fair to us consists in building a country in Quebec and letting Canada develop as it pleases, according to its own interests. Basically, Canadians would decide what they want to do and how they want to do it, while we would do the exact same thing in Quebec.

As for employment development, let me tell my hon. colleague that it is not by making massive cuts on the backs of welfare recipients that you boost job creation. I think that, with or without Quebec, a comprehensive tax reform is required-and I firmly believe this-in Canada. Unfortunately, if this is not done, Canada, with or without Quebec, will face huge difficulties in the years to come, because the low and middle-income class will get poorer and poorer. The Prime Minister himself once said that $1 million knows no language barriers and moves quickly. Some people will move their assets out of Canada and we will go through very hard times.

[Social Security Program, November 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I am pleased to rise today and speak on the social reform issue, which I believe will be of great significance during the coming months for a number of reasons.

I would like to take a moment to demonstrate that the Liberal government is facing an unsurmountable problem, trying desperately as it has been for the past year to defend the Constitution. I am referring of course to the federal system as we know it, this system that the Prime Minister described as profitable federalism over a decade ago.

In fact, this profitable federalism that we keep hearing about without ever seeing any results, this much-vaunted profitable federalism has no room left to move because it is throwing everything in reverse as we will see later. And there are only two ways out the deadlock for the federal system: to tax the middle-class to excess or cut social services.

This is the context in which I think the social reform proposals before us must be seen. While the previous government, a Conservative government, became famous mainly for increasing the tax load of middle-income earners, the present Liberal government seems to want to make a name for itself with social service cuts affecting first and foremost the less affluent.

All of this boils down to what was described as the vicious circle in which the Canadian economy is trapped. You start by overtaxing middle-income earners, thereby reducing their buying power which in turn forces them to change their consumer habits and definitely buy less. This results in fewer jobs and higher unemployment. The low-income population is growing at the expense of the middle-income one. The decline in employment causes the government's tax revenues to drop as well.

Similarly, since unemployment and social assistance costs are going up, the government must spend more. The deficit is growing every day, while the government's manoeuvring room is getting narrower.

Faced with this situation, the well-off often transfer their assets to other countries before it melts away here. Again, this eliminates jobs, raises the unemployment rate, cuts government revenue and increases public spending, which in turn narrows the government's room to manoeuvre.

To address the problem, the government has decided to reduce its services. In this regard, this government is not so different from the former Conservative government, since its proposed social reform reflects the philosophy behind the various UI reform initiatives put forward by the Tories when they were in power. To be convinced of this, one only has to look at the main elements of this reform. First of all, the government has created two classes of unemployed: the occasional UI claimants and the frequent claimants. We may well ask ourselves if the workers now benefiting from the infrastructure program put in place by the government last year will become frequent or occasional claimants when they lose their short-term jobs.

Since it creates these two classes of unemployed people, the government also creates two classes of benefits: basic insurance and adjustment insurance, as it is called. Basic insurance is for occasional claimants. It is pretty much the same as the present system which the government finds inadequate. In the second case, adjustment insurance, the government perpetuates the vicious circle of the Canadian economy which I mentioned earlier.

In fact, the reform of social programs which the government has presented to us provides no real policy to stimulate employment. So one may well ask what claimants of adjustment insurance can adjust to.

To deal with this situation, the government intends to require frequent claimants to do community work or take training courses in order to qualify for benefits. We see how ridiculous the situation is, because these are bandaid solutions. Once these unemployed people have completed their community work to which the Department of Human Resources Development will assign them, they will all return to unemployment as even more frequently unemployed, since in the mean time the government will have provided nothing to stimulate employment.

So we go from one vicious circle to another, making the unemployed pay for this government's lack of initiative when it comes to job creation. However, this little game is just fine in the context of the vicious circle prevailing in Canada. First, the government no longer has any margin. Consequently, it forces the unemployed to participate in new employment expansion and development programs. So as to lower their production costs, companies use these programs to hire workers whose salaries are lower, and therefore competitive with those already being paid.

Consequently, in the medium term, well-paying jobs become more and more rare, thus reducing even more the purchasing power of the middle class. Since employment income tends to diminish, it results in lower tax revenue for the government, which then has even less of a margin. The result is that the government must make new cuts in services to meet its budget goals. And the vicious circle starts all over again for the Canadian economy.

The introduction of this social program reform by the Liberals only confirms what the majority of Quebec voters figured out last year: To vote for the Liberals or the Conservatives was just the same. The Conservatives overtaxed the middle class, while the Liberals will cut aid to the poor. At least one Liberal MP, the hon. member for York South-Weston, recognized this when he said that, during the ten years that the Liberals formed the Official Opposition, they accused the Conservatives of reducing the deficit on the back of the poor, but that they were now doing the same thing.

It is useless to vote for a party that supports a constitutional framework that is dragging us down into bankruptcy. The problem is that all this is being done at the expense of the vulnerable in our society. The rich are never affected by these reforms. To illustrate my point, I may refer to a letter sent recently by a Liberal member, the hon. member for Gander-Grand Falls, to the Minister of Finance. In this letter, which was published in the media either yesterday or today, the hon. member said, and this was to the Minister of Finance, that he was particularly upset about the shocking and immoral deductions allowed as entertainment expenses, for instance, the purchase of $200 bottles of wine, cruises, escort services, and so forth. What is the hon. member for Gander-Grand Falls actually saying?

Every year, one of my neighbours in my riding, Mr. Tremblay, has one or two corn roasts for his friends. He buys corn, of course, some wine and some cake, and he entertains his guests. Of course, Mr. Tremblay does this at his own expense. Meanwhile, large corporations entertain their guests, serving cocktails, petits fours and champagne, and that is tax deductible. Who is paying? Mr. Tremblay, through his taxes. So Mr. Tremblay is paying for everyone. That is why corn is expensive, and that is why it is so expensive to be poor.

In his letter, the hon. member for Gander-Grand Falls estimated that amounts spent on wine, petits fours and champagne were costing the government $200 million.

The hon. member, who did some research at Revenue Canada, also pointed out that forward averaging of taxes by companies now amounted to nearly $40 billion. Forward averaging refers to amounts that are payable but may be spread over subsequent returns. Nearly 1,200 companies recorded profits of at least $1 million without paying a cent of income tax, according to the hon. member. In concluding, he said more or less the following: As the minister can see, the $9 billion he is looking for could be found by collecting the taxes that should have been paid by companies on their profits.

I agree with the hon. member of the Reform Party. I think that before cutting social services, we should first get the money that is out there so that we have some degree of social justice. Where are we heading, politically speaking? I am sorry to put it this way, but I really think we are starting to look like a banana republic. A banana republic is not a republic where people pick bananas. It is a republic where the people who pick the bananas do not grow them. This means a republic with only two classes: the poor and the rich. The rich always get richer and the poor get poorer. If this proposal is passed, as it will be within the next few months, we will witness the undeniable signs of "bananization". Obviously, we cannot support this reform package.

[National Defence, November 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, now that we know that the minister has not yet replaced his team of auditors, how can he explain that his department kept on making payments to Unisys GSG, even though he knew that this company was unable to deliver the products ordered by his department?

[National Defence, November 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, recent information regarding the Canadian frigate program reveals that Unisys GSG, a company responsible for integrating the defence department's electronic systems, proved unable to meet the requirements of the department. It was learned that the Canadian Navy will not have the necessary systems to train its technicians, and yet taxpayers will still have to pay a $90 million bill. Instead of getting tough, the Department of National Defence chose to sack its own team of auditors who had brought the problem with Unisys to light.

How can the minister explain that he chose to disband his team of auditors, who were responsible for monitoring Unisys's work, instead of taking the appropriate action against a company which, obviously, is not even able to meet its contractual obligations to the Canadian government?