Roger Pomerleau

[Publishing Industry, April 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Canadian Heritage.

In order to justify the controversial sale of Ginn Publishing to Paramount, the governement has pointed out the specific commitments made by Paramount to ensure that Canada obtains a net advantage from that deal. But Paramount does not abide by its commitments. The 140 members of the Canadian Publishers Association ask the government to investigate the behaviour of Paramount.

Does the minister aknowledge that, by depriving the Canadian distributor Distican from a market of approximately $2 million and by entrusting it to a firm controlled by American rather than Canadian interests, Paramount blatlantly violates the deal which was agreed regarding the sale of Ginn?

[Provincial Elections, April 28th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, at a fund raising cocktail where guests had to pay $250 each, the Minister of Foreign Affairs accused the Quebec director general of elections of not being impartial in asking the federal government to comply with the spending limits provided in Quebec's Elections Act.

By attacking the professional integrity of Mr. Pierre-F. Côté, and by showing his contempt for Quebec's election rules, the Minister of Foreign Affairs shows an arrogance typical of the Trudeau years.

It is ironic that the minister would make such comments at a fund raising cocktail. He would be better advised to implement the commitments made by the Liberal Party regarding ethics and to table legislation on the financing of political parties, based on the principles of transparency and fairness contained in the Quebec act.

[Hibernia Project, April 26th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, are we to understand that, after investing $4 billion in the development of Hibernia, the government is now telling us that its hands are tied, that it cannot go back and that it must go ahead at any cost, by continuing to sink millions of dollars of taxpayers' money?

[Hibernia Project, April 26th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the Hibernia project is already far from proving that it can be profitable. Because of the announced cost overruns, the production cost of a barrel of Hibernia oil would be considerably higher than international market prices. The extra money invested in this project by the government is totally unjustifiable. Defending Hibernia's profitability seems to be an act of faith we can no longer afford.

My question is for the Minister of Natural Resources, of course. How can the minister invoke the profitability of the Hibernia money pit, when it seems certain that the cost of extracting oil from the Hibernia deposit will be higher than oil prices on the international markets?

[Hibernia Project, April 22nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question. In that case, will the Deputy Prime Minister undertake to ensure that Parliament will conduct a detailed analysis of the financing, profitability and industrial benefits of Hibernia before extending any more financial assistance?

[Hibernia Project, April 22nd, 1994]

Yesterday, we learned that the Hibernia megaproject was swallowing up even more money.

The developers are now projecting cost overruns of almost $1 billion on top of the original $5.2 billion price tag. This represents an increase in costs of close to 20 per cent. An additional $85 million in federal input and $175 millions more in loans may be required. A lot of pressure is being put on the government to pump more money into this white elephant of the nineties.

Given the sad state of our public finances, is the Deputy Prime Minister prepared to make a commitment that the government will not invest a penny more in Hibernia and that this massive drain on public funds will stop, since the potential profitability of this megaproject, which the Globe and Mail has called a real tragedy, is being challenged?

[Canada Oil And Gas Operations Act, April 21st, 1994]

Madam Speaker, the Bloc Quebecois will support Bill C-6. However, since this legislation will now give the National Energy Board the official power to hear appeals and to give advice to ministers, we truly hope that the National Energy Board will hear our own appeal today and make sure that it does indeed give advice to government ministers, because they badly need it.

In recent years, the federal government has agreed to provide financial support to major energy projects, or energy megaprojects, as they are called. Together, these agreements represent an initial commitment of over $3 billion. I must point out here, for the benefit of those who are listening to us, that one billion is a thousand millions. In the case of Hibernia, we are talking of 2,700 million dollars.

These projects require considerable public funds which the government, of course, gets from already overtaxed Canadians. As we know, the middle class is already on its knees because it is overtaxed. In fact, the Auditor General of Canada himself said that taxpayers have the right to expect public expenditures to be managed with caution.

Yet, what do we see? Again, the Auditor General had this to say: "We examined the energy megaprojects assisted and funded by the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. Our observations on the Hibernia, Lloydminster Bi-Provincial Upgrader and Regina NewGrade Upgrader projects point to some fundamental weaknesses."

Let me mention five weaknesses noted by the Auditor General. First, the lack of a comprehensive set of clear and measurable objectives. Second, an inadequate co-ordination of benefit monitoring. Third, deficiencies in monitoring environmental

assessment recommendations and commitments. Fourth, continuing gaps in effectiveness measurement. That brings me to the fifth and final point, although we could have listed many others, but we will stop at five. The fifth point is limited and poor reporting to Parliament and the public in Part III of the Main Estimates.

The Auditor General adds:

Another key problem we noted in the Hibernia and Bi-Provincial Upgrader agreements was the lack of a connection between performance and payment. Federal payments are based on project expenditures, and not on construction milestones or achievement of certain intended economic benefits that have been specifically identified with these projects. Even if the Department determined through its monitoring efforts that certain intended benefits were not being achieved, it would have no legal basis to stop payments to the projects.

Then, the Auditor General stresses that:

Without a direct connection between performance and payment, the payment is in the nature of a grant.

We are talking about billions of dollars that were given to companies involved in the Hibernia project and which are in fact grants. In other words, the Auditor General is telling us that the thousands of millions of dollars, all taxpayers' money, which were invested in these projects, supposedly to create jobs and create all kinds of industrial benefits, are meaningless since the government has no legal basis to guarantee the intended benefits.

Of course, following this statement by the Auditor General, the department took the following commitment:

The Department is devoting additional resources to the monitoring function, particularly with respect to industrial and employment benefits.

Jobs, jobs, jobs. This government was elected on the promise to create jobs. Therefore the least we should expect is that the taxpayers' hard-earned money which is invested in big projects helps create jobs at home. But such is not the case. In spite of all the promises made by the department I just mentioned, an Act to repeal the requirements concerning Canadian participation was enacted only a few months ago.

According to a document coming directly from the Minister of Natural Resources, this is what this bill does essentially:

The highlights of this bill are the elimination of the minimum 50 per cent Canadian participation as a condition to grant a licence for oil and gas production in frontier areas; the elimination of the need to obtain the minister's approval to transfer, in whole or in part, ownership rights under a licence contract to produce oil and gas in frontier areas; and the repeal of the present regulation under which certain individuals may hold production licences and of related requirements regarding the place of residence.

In short, not only is the federal government unable to legally guarantee definite spin-offs for the billions of dollars of taxpayers' money it invests in such ventures, it deliberately lifts the minimum requirements imposed on companies to which it gives money so that they can create jobs in Canada.

We recognize that, in the last few months, some improvements have been made regarding the management of this project, but they have not been as far-reaching as we would have liked. An in-depth assessment of the project should have taken place before work began, not after.

Where is all this leading us? The government goes and takes billions of dollars from already overtaxed Canadians and Quebecers. It gives money to big companies over which, as the Auditor General said, it has hardly any control. It allows them to create jobs elsewhere. Jobs, jobs, jobs for Korea, not for us. In the meantime, we can be sure that, no matter what we do, our horrendous $500 billion debt will grow to $600 billion in three years, if everything goes well, because otherwise it could be a lot worse. The truth is, as things stand today, we are on the verge on bankruptcy.

We can also be sure that unemployment rates will remain exactly the same and that young people will have no jobs. The only solution this government could find was to cut unemployment benefits and old age pensions; such was its choice.

Of course, the unemployed, the people of modest means, those without voice or clout, would not accept this situation if they were not, first of all, made to feel guilty, to feel that they are the real problem in Canada.

The statements by the Prime Minister, last night on television and this morning in the newspapers, show that this policy is actively pursued.

I would like to quote today's Le Droit which carries a headline that reads: Loafers cost $500 billion: their attitude must be broken'', which I hasten to say were perhaps not the words used by the Prime Minister. He said, according to the article:Canadians have to break that mentality, because the country is $500 billion in the hole. We cannot keep people sitting at home drinking beer''.

I object to what the Prime Minister said today. I consider that a frightful statement. I remind the Prime Minister that the former Hyundai employees who lost their jobs are not beer-drinking loafers. They are out looking for work.

The fishers of Gaspé who can no longer go out and fish are not beer-drinking loafers, they are looking for work. The former employees of the CNR, the CPR or MIL Davie in Lauzon, that

cannot get government contracts to build ferries, are not sitting at home drinking beer and watching TV. They are looking for work.

Young people, among whom unemployment is sky high, who come out of school with two university degrees and go bankrupt even before they start their productive life are not beer drinkers and television addicts, they are looking for work.

I urge the prime minister to come and visit my riding of Anjou-Rivière-des-Prairies on Monday morning and meet the people who come to me, hoping I can find them some work. I do not know what he would tell them, but if he were to tell them that they are beer-drinking loafers, I am sure they would have something to say to him.

It is known that Quebec provides almost 25 per cent of federal tax revenues in Canada and that, in most Canadian job creating reinvestments, benefits that Quebec is getting are not equal to the revenues that it provides, whether it is in research and development, in federal acquisitions, in army spending or in funds for agriculture and megaprojects.

In the case of Hibernia, although Quebecers will pay approximately $800 million in federal taxes for that project, over and above the grants that will have to be given for each barrel of oil coming out of Hibernia if the international price is not high enough, the future of the MIL shipyards in Lauzon remains bleak and lay-offs are predicted for 1994.

Although Lauzon's shipyards are in fact the only one to have built drilling platforms in Canada, including 13 for Texas in the early 1980's, the federal government has stuffed the province of Newfoundland with contracts awarded without any bidding: the building of concrete bases, the building of the five super-modules. The other contracts were awarded to foreign firms, after the federal government had abolished the 25 per cent tariff on the importation of oil platforms that had been in place since 1983. And that is one of the fundamental reasons why things are going badly in this country, because billion of dollars are invested in the creation of jobs somewhere else, and the unemployed of this country, that have been created by the government, are being called beer drinkers and lazy bums who just watch television.

There was also the building of a large-capacity shipyard in Bull's Arm, which was paid for with a regional development fund of $300 million. They agreed to go ahead with the modernization of the Marystown shipyard and a vast manpower training program for Newfoundland.

Therefore, if the Bloc Quebecois approves the passage of Bill C-6 at third reading, it becomes the duty of all members of this House to make sure that megaprojects like Hibernia really generate the spin-off benefits promised both by this government and its predecessor, because taxpayers of Quebec and Canada are entitled to expect such benefits.

As for the outrageous statements of Canada's Prime Minister, he may be sure that Quebecers will remember them during the next provincial election and the referendum which will surely be held in the months to come.

[Foreign Aid, April 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, a few days ago, we learned about violent fires raging on Isabella Island in the Galapagos archipelago. Fire is threatening rare species of plants and flowers as well as the breeding sites of the giant tortoises. Ecuador does not have the equipment required to control these fires, which could ravage one of the most important parts of the world's natural heritage.

The government authorities in Ecuador are calling for help and hope that international aid will come quickly. In particular, they ask Canada to mobilize its Canadair water bombers, which all experts say is the only way to end the disaster.

We ask the government to accede to the appeal from the Ecuadoran government and to send water bombers immediately in order to save this wonderful fauna and flora from the ravages of fire.

[Energy Efficiency, April 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the report which the Minister of Natural Resources has just tabled is another example of the form of centralizing federalism which Quebec chose to move away from on October 25 last. Whereas the Government of Quebec already has jurisdiction in this area, now the minister is announcing clearly today her plans to move further into this field.

Responsible energy management is a provincial matter. It is precisely this kind of jurisdictional overlap between levels of government that we must eliminate if we are to avoid these endless squabbles over jurisdiction which ultimately cost the taxpayers a pretty penny indeed.

Must we remind the minister once again that Quebec has already adopted a broad energy efficiency strategy, that it administers sizeable budgets for energy efficiency research and development and demonstration projects, and that it already has in place an important energy productivity program? Through its Department of Natural Resources, the Government of Quebec is already involved in this area, acting in co-operation with Hydro Quebec, the private sector and regional chambers of commerce.

If, as she claims, the minister really wants to reduce overlap between the provinces, then she should be setting an example and abolishing her department's own programs which only add to the confusion and distort the efforts undertaken by Quebec. If the minister cannot bring herself to do this, then she should at least have the decency to allow Quebec to oversee its own energy efficiency policy independently and turn over to the Quebec government the money she was planning to spend in the province under these nice Canada-wide programs.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1994, April 15th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, during the two-week Easter break, I am sure many members, particularly those representing eastern regions, have had the opportunity to find out what their constituents and Canadians in general think about the conclusions and consequences of the last budget.

In my riding, right in the middle of income tax time, people called by the dozen to complain and say how mad they were about the government digging again into their pockets to take more than what was planned. With the implementation of the new regulations on unemployment insurance, ordinary workers will again be the ones to foot the bill for the cuts imposed by the budget.

Before the election, the Prime Minister said to people in his riding that he was still the "little guy from Shawinigan" and promised, in clear enough words as we all heard on TV, a shower of contracts that would create jobs in his region where the rate of unemployment is quite disastrous. A few weeks only after his election, he strikes; he goes after all the unemployed in his riding. We should not be surprised that the Prime Minister of Canada has to be surrounded by bodyguards when he visits his riding.

Madam Speaker, I represent a riding in east-end Montreal, Anjou-Rivière-des-Prairies. This district has been suffering the ill effects of the recession for longer than the rest of Canada. As for back as 1987, the government recognized the very serious case of chronic unemployment in that riding. That is why I want to talk about Bill C-17 today.

According to the document tabled by the Minister of Human Resources Development at the time of the budget, and I quote: "The proposed changes to the UI program are designed to promote job creation, adequacy and fairness". The minister is therefore telling us that the fundamental reasons for changing the unemployment insurance program are adequacy and fairness. We will see that it is not so. When you look at the bill before us, you realize that the Liberals have simply dug up a bill that was being prepared by the Conservatives, as others have already pointed out.

As three researchers at the Université du Québéc à Montréal said in a study on the federal budget and the unemployed: "The federal budget of February 22 forecasts a net reduction in the deficit of $8 billion for 1995-96" but they say that only half of that, about $4.1 billion, will come from new measures announced by Finance Minister Martin. The other half comes from a continuation of the measures announced in the Mazankowski budget. Since Canadians and Quebecers have chosen to get rid of all but two of the members of the former government, one can safely assume that they were not exactly pleased with these ineffective measures to create jobs.

As a matter of fact, in the study we just mentioned, the UQAM researchers dealt at some length with the inefficiency of these measures. They had this to say: "We fear that reducing the length of the benefit period will be quite ineffective and will not bring about the desired results, namely, as to Mr. Axworthy himself said, to oblige recipients to work for a longer period of time in order to qualify for benefits for the same number of weeks. Current research does not allow us to draw conclusions on how the length of the benefit period affects job tenure and the length of unemployment in Canada". They conclude on this note: "It certainly does not support the minister's position".

And yet, the Minister of Human Resources Development had at his disposal the tools necessary to evaluate the inefficiency of the measures he was about to propose since, as early as the fall of 1993, the National Council of Welfare-a body created in 1969 by the Liberal government of the time-said the following in its report: "Changes to unemployment insurance which would exclude certain workers could lead to an increase in welfare rolls."

Ironically, this would add to the financial burden of the federal and provincial governments, which are already worried about their huge deficits. That is what we see happening in fact, although unemployment is supposed to have gone down a few points, in Quebec or the Maritimes or elsewhere.

What is actually happening is that people are leaving unemployment insurance to go on welfare. There is no employment recovery, then; that is nonsense. The authors of this report continue: "Before thinking of reducing unemployment insurance further, governments should do more research on the connections between unemployment insurance and social assistance." We can reasonably believe that, if the measures concerning unemployment insurance contained in this bill are adopted, any resulting decrease in the number of unemployed people will just add to the number on welfare.

The government, for its part, estimates that the impact on provincial welfare programs will total $65 to $135 million. The study that we are quoting today speaks of $1 billion, of which $280 million would be borne by Quebec. As we clearly see, this government is just passing its deficit on to the provinces again. Meanwhile, our pseudo-premier of Quebec says nothing about it, but the voters are not fools. They well know that when the federal government transfers its deficit to the provinces, wheth-

er it is in Quebec City or in Ottawa, they always end up paying the bill.

So what other issues or reasons could have motivated the minister to present this bill or have it passed? It is simply to lower the deficit. Once again, the poorest people in society are being made to bear the burden of the blunders committed previously by all levels of government.

We all know that the government could have tried to save money quite differently. The three economists of the Université du Québec à Montréal mention one way, which I will quote here: "There was no shortage of ways to reduce federal spending besides the budget for unemployment insurance." The government could simply have opened the last few annual reports of the Auditor General of Canada-I should have brought them with me, they are very thick-in fact, any report at any page. It would have found enough cuts to make without once again going after the unemployed.

Under the circumstances, we have no choice but to say that the government did not do its job properly. In fact, I should rephrase that comment because it is not strong enough. Once again, the Liberals merely pursued the previous government's policy, a policy which they vehemently criticized when they sat on this side and which allows the rich to get richer, while penalizing the poor.

The report released by the National Council of Welfare clearly showed the way to go. Our priority should be to develop tax and economic policies which will lead to a reduction in the number of unemployed people. The best way to reduce dependency on welfare or unemployment insurance is to ensure full employment. But this is clearly not being done.

People in my riding are fed up, and so are ordinary citizens in Quebec and in Canada. They are fed up with seeing their purchasing power being eroded day after day. They are fed up with seeing the deficit still growing after being told for years that it will diminish. Our only perspective is a disastrous deficit of $500 billion. And we are told that, for sure, it will climb to $600 billion in the next three years. People are fed up with seeing successive governments resort to the same old solutions which have already proven to be costly, ineffective and illogical.

Last October, voters in Quebec realized of course that they should not support those who resort to these old solutions which have the direct effect of ruining the country. Soon, when the next provincial election is held, Quebecers will again display the same wisdom. It may be that, in the not too distant future, we will achieve the ultimate goal of this process and find the true solutions for us Quebecers by becoming a sovereign state which will eliminate the useless spending, wasting of public money and overlapping of systems which our governments have been tolerating for too long and which they ironically refer to as profitable federalism.