Thomas Mulcair

[Infrastructure, October 30th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives have the ability to secretly record another party's caucus meeting. They can get HD copies of the Prime Minister's audition tape on every government website. They have even found a way to turn Mike Duffy into spam.

However, when it comes to providing the Parliamentary Budget Officer with details of stimulus funding they are still in the Diefenbaker era.

Does the minister realize that providing boxes containing thousands of pages of untreated information without so much as a synopsis, much less a spreadsheet, is less than useless?

[Employment Insurance Act, October 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I too am pleased to speak to Bill C-308, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (improvement of the employment insurance system).

I listened carefully to my hon. colleague from Madawaska—Restigouche who just spoke. I think that he has superbly summarized the very real difference for a seasonal worker who, because of where he lives or his line of work, has to make use of this employment insurance system.

I also listened carefully to what the member for Nepean—Carleton said, despite the fact that he had a very hard time with the word “exacerbate”. In fact, I would suggest that he listen to the recording; he will understand why some members in the back were chuckling. He was trying to entertain us with notes prepared by the Prime Minister's Office. This is quite natural, given that he is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister.

In real life, people who are deprived of employment insurance visit our constituency offices. I find particularly contemptuous the way the member for Nepean—Carleton attacked the unemployed and the idea of providing them with more assistance. As the member for Madawaska—Restigouche just pointed out so aptly, this is money that is going straight back into the economy. Instead of playing favourites, the best way to jump-start the economy is to put money into people's pockets so that they can spend it in their local communities. The issue having been covered from other angles, I will give a concrete example, then provide an analysis of how this disastrous situation with the EI account came about.

This is the type of real life situation we encounter in our riding offices. A young teacher came to see us last summer. He was to teach a summer course but it was cancelled because not enough students enrolled where he was teaching. He had been a supply teacher during the year and accumulated 896 hours of employment. I remember the figure. The number of hours would normally have been enough; however, he actually needed 910 hours. That is the reality. It is difficult to accumulate 910 hours as a supply teacher. That is real life. During the summer he had to support himself and was struggling.

Let us now examine what the Conservatives have done with the employment insurance fund since coming to power and what the Liberals had started doing before them. This fund had accumulated $57 billion in premiums paid by each and every employee of all companies. It did not matter whether the company made money, broke even or lost money because every company and every employee had to contribute to the employment insurance fund. This money was set aside to help workers cope with the predictable cyclical nature of employment in Canada.

To create tax room and give the richest companies a gift, they plundered $57 billion from the employment insurance fund. Then they created $57 billion in tax room. In fact they gave $60 billion in gifts to companies. How did they do that? They transferred the moneys from the employment insurance fund to the government's general revenues. Some may say that it is not a big deal because it was always the government's money. However, it is a big deal because these moneys, as I just explained, were paid by all companies, even those not turning a profit or losing money.

Who got the $60 billion? By definition, if a company does not make a profit, it cannot benefit from tax breaks because it does not pay taxes.

So who got the money? Oil companies like EnCana in Alberta in the Prime Minister's backyard. EnCana received hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayers' money. That money was paid directly to EnCana. The Conservatives raided the employment insurance fund and put the money into the government's general revenue fund. Then that cash was given to the richest companies, oil companies and banks. That is the Conservatives' fiscal policy. Never mind other issues, their jokes about a 45-day work year and so on, that is the sad truth about what the Conservatives did.

Then, because all that cash was given only to the companies that had made the most money, economic sectors that were already struggling, such as the forestry sector in Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia and New Brunswick and the manufacturing sector, got nothing.

Since the second world war, Canada has managed to build a balanced, stable economy. We are the second-largest country in the world, and we have barely 30 million people. It took a lot of doing to occupy all that land and make it productive. But it also took some planning and an understanding of resource sectors, such as forestry and mining. The same goes for the processing sector, as well as the service sector, which is providing more and more value to our economy.

Their policies have completely destabilized the balanced economy that Canada has enjoyed since the second world war because they have given all of the money to western Canada, specifically to the oil and banking industries. Well before the current crisis that hit Canada 13 or 14 months ago, during the first two and a half years of their minority government, the Conservatives caused the loss of over 350,000 jobs. Those job losses occurred mainly in Quebec and Ontario in the forestry and manufacturing sectors.

That is the Conservatives' sorry track record. Their economic approach is so ideological that it is practically dogmatic. Everything is fine as long as it is in their interest. The rest of the time, they say that people who want the government to play a role in the economy are out of line because they are trying to decide who wins and who loses.

In reality, they were the ones who determined the winners and losers in advance. They were the ones who decided that the big oil companies and the banks would be the winners. They took money from workers and businesses and transferred it to the winners they had already chosen. That is how their dogma. The hypocrisy here is that they lecture us about the free market, as though a true, clean, free market were the decider of all things. That is absolutely not the case.

They also intervene as much as anyone who came before them, except that they systematically intervene in favour of the rich. That is the difference between this side of the House and the Conservatives. When they have a choice to make, instead of deciding to help the least fortunate, to help those who need it most, their first instinct is to talk down to them, as the Prime Minister's parliamentary assistant just did, to make fun of the unemployed, not to help them, and to say everything is just fine. Everything is fine because they stole money that should have gone to the unemployed, and they gave it to their buddies, the oil companies and the banks.

That is the Conservative approach. By not taking into account the real environmental impact and environmental costs of the oil sands, they are making things worse. The Canadian dollar is on the rise, making it increasingly difficult to export our manufactured goods. The main reason for our high dollar—obviously we have become an oil powerhouse—is the arrival of petrodollars from the United States.

We export crude oil from the oil sands, and we also export jobs: 18,000 jobs were directly exported to the United States. We do not even do the pre-processing here. What is even worse is that with this year's $60 billion deficit, we are racking up debt for future generations instead of leaving them clean, renewable energies.

The Conservatives are passing down the opposite of sustainable development to future generations, and they will be very harshly judged. They love to get their pictures taken with future generations. It is time for them to start taking action for these future generations.

[Business of Supply, October 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to know if the member for Westmount—Ville-Marie remembers saying what was reported in the Globe and Mail on December 16, 2006:

First of all, I had been out of the country from 1992 to 2000 training as an astronaut and had not had the opportunity to appreciate the profound changes taking place in Quebec, including Canada's near-death experience in the 1995 referendum.

Secondly, my perspective of Canada and of Quebec was shaped by English national newspapers and from watching English television, which I believed, gave me an encompassing sense of my country. In reality, I was living inside a bubble.

Has he also had a chance to read his leader's book, in which he said he might have to have a motion declaring June 24, Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day? Does he know that his brilliant and talented leader, who loves to write books giving everybody else lessons, has written a book in which he gets the date of Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day wrong?

[Business of Supply, October 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the minister just talked about the importance of democratic political symbols, and I will give him an opportunity to apply this principle. The motion before the House reads as follows:

That, in the opinion of the House, recognition that the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada means, in particular, that Quebec has the right to ensure that immigrants to Quebec must learn French first and foremost.

My question is quite simple: are Conservatives for or against this motion?

The minister surely noticed that the part about the “recognition that the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada” is taken word for word from the Conservative motion about the recognition of the Québécois nation that the House adopted.

The Supreme Court of Canada is an invitation to a teleological interpretation, to an examination of objectives and context. In this place, our goal is to make sure that we express ourselves unanimously, despite the Supreme Court ruling. When we talk about recognizing the Québécois nation, we say that the Government of Quebec has the right to require that immigrants and newcomers to Quebec send their children to French schools first and foremost. However, in last week's nonsensical ruling, the Supreme Court of Canada tore a big hole in the protection of the French language.

Can the minister tell us if his government will support the recognition and protection of the French language, yes or no? Will he, just like the Supreme Court, pay lip service to it and simply disappear when the time for real action comes?

[Business of Supply, October 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I must first say that the fact that my colleague and friend, the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst, supports the motion so fully and sincerely is reassuring to me because he is a francophone who lives outside Quebec. He realizes, like many francophones outside Quebec, that it is only with a Quebec where French is a living, real, common language that there is any hope of keeping French alive and real in other provinces.

He is right: New Brunswick is the only province recognized as bilingual in the Constitution. I agree with him. This legislation will help us to have more immigrants—I hope not just in Quebec, but in other provinces as well—from francophone countries. Manitoba has also done good work on this.

[Business of Supply, October 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Jeanne-Le Ber raised a very important issue indeed. There is now a multicultural vision of Canada whereas, in the 60s, we were talking about bilingualism and biculturalism.

If he is interested, I think that the member should first help us with the moneys voted by the Canadian Parliament to help integrate immigrants. Quebec is the only Canadian province with responsibility for its own immigration policy. The Cullen-Couture agreement adopted by the first Conservative government includes specific clauses that allow Quebec to play a specific role in immigration.

There are moneys voted by this Parliament that are transferred to Quebec. If the hon. member wants to help us, he should look at whether all these moneys are effectively used to integrate immigrants. But he would have to agree that the federal government has the prerogative to monitor spending, and I am not sure he would.

[Business of Supply, October 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, believe it or not, I still had about six minutes.

Let us look at what the Supreme Court actually wants. It speaks for itself. What I was just reading was a global assessment of the child’s educational pathway depending on the specific facts of each case. It is in paragraph 29 of the Supreme Court decision. Just imagine.

In my introductory remarks, I mentioned that I had been a commissioner on the Commission d'appel sur l'accès à l'enseignement in Quebec. Just imagine what this will mean. They say in the decision that the specific facts of each child and the specific facts of each school will have to be assessed in order to determine whether it was a bridging school. Different terms are used to describe these schools.

If people want to know what this is really all about, we should remember that the Supreme Court grudgingly admitted that the French language was a good idea in Quebec because it is part of Canada. However, the framers—the Supreme Court’s code word for Jean Chrétien and Pierre Trudeau—decided in 1982 that sub-section 23(2) of the Canadian Charter would take precedence over the Charter of the French Language. This is reflected throughout the decision.

Let us look at the decision, word by word. Look at this in paragraph 30: “Section 73 CFL—”. If the members want a telling detail that shows just how the Supreme Court really thinks, look at “CFL”. That is how they write it. It means the Charter of the French Language. The courts in Quebec have already said that this is a quasi-constitutional statute. But here it just has initials, as if it were the Canadian Football League. They say: “The [...] CFL is to implement the constitutional guarantees [...]”. So the CFL, the Charter of the French Language, is supposed to implement. It is as if the Charter were some kind of gofer, doing someone else's bidding. This is about language. Quebec is the only province in Canada with a francophone majority that needs to protect French. Look at the rest. This is from the same sentence. It says, “[...] implement the constitutional guarantees provided for [...]”. So there are guarantees. Where? In the Canadian Charter, written out in full. What a fine demonstration of basic prejudice.

The CFL implements while the Charter confers rights. Lets us look a little further. Paragraph 31 says: “As I mentioned above, paras. 2 and 3 of s. 73 CFL provide that instruction received [in a UPS or pursuant to a special authorization under s. 82, 85 or 85.1 CFL] must be disregarded”. It can therefore not be given any consideration whatsoever in either qualitative or quantitative terms. The specific facts of each case have to be considered. Every school has to be studied, one by one, on a case by case basis, to determine whether it was a bridge school or not. They even go so far as to analyze the schools’ advertising. What a mess.

According to paragraph 32, “In the protection afforded by the Canadian Charter, no distinction is drawn as regards the type of instruction received by the child, as to whether the educational institution is public or private.” What matters instead is “the child’s overall situation and [...] an analysis of the child’s educational pathway that is both subjective and objective”. Just imagine. It is each specific child, on a case by case basis, qualitatively and quantitatively, and finally considered both subjectively and objectively. That is what has to be done in each case thanks to the Supreme Court of Canada. In the court’s view, “this interpretation is compatible with the primary objective of s. 23(2) [...]” of the Canadian Charter.

There is more. Moving along to paragraph 36: “The ‘bridging’ schools appear in some instances to be institutions created for the sole purpose of artificially qualifying children for admission to the publicly funded English language school system”. A bit further in the same paragraph, it says: “However, it is necessary to review the situation of each institution, as well as the nature of its clientele and the conduct of individual clients. As delicate as this task may be, this is the only approach that will make it possible to comply with the [Charter] [...] That is what Quebec is expected to do.

Look in paragraph 38 at the order of importance: “Bill 104 [the bill that is attacked in this decision] had two principal objectives. The first was to resolve the problem of bridging schools [...]. The second, more general, objective was to protect and promote the French language [...]”. It seems to me that protecting the French language was the first objective. For them, it was secondary and more general. That really shows their state of mind.

Finally, look at what happens in paragraph 44. It is really something. The judge says that six months or a year in a bridging school may not be enough to purchase this right. What they are saying is that if people have the $15,000 to $20,000 a year it costs to send their child to an unsubsidized private school, it is not enough for them to buy just one year.

The court is providing a roadmap here. People have to buy two years and then all their children can go to an English school.

Far from giving real meaning to the recognition of Quebec as a nation, this decision would create a breach that is impossible to fill in the efforts that have been going on for decades to reach a linguistic settlement.

For those of us who have always worked to assure Quebec’s place in Canada, this judgment is an unfortunate relic from a bygone era and a potent weapon in the hands of those who think it is time to leave.

The House should support our motion to get the facts straight and enable Quebec to do what it has always wanted, that is, ensure that newcomers who choose to go to Quebec, even though they could go elsewhere, learn first and foremost the common language of Quebeckers, which is French.

[Business of Supply, October 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I would respectfully indicate to you that I was sharing a total speaking time of 20 minutes. Your signal came after five minutes, which means that I had a quarter of the total time, not half.

In response to my colleague, I will tell him this. For those who are interested, paragraph 29 of the Supreme Court's decision contains the most relevant elements with regard to his question. Believe it or not, this is an actual quote from the decision:

The global assessment of the child`s educational pathway, which focuses on quality, is then based on a set of factors that are of varying importance depending on the specific facts of each case.

In other words, people are shown how to circumvent the law that the Supreme Court is reluctantly saying is necessary to protect French in Quebec. We all remember the Supreme Court under Brian Dickson or Antonio Lamer. The Supreme Court today is not of the same calibre as it was then. On the contrary, it is just as we see on television, that is the chief justice asking francophone lawyers to speak more slowly so that unilingual anglophone justices can understand better. That is the new reality of the Supreme Court and it is a tragedy for our country.

[Business of Supply, October 28th, 2009]

moved:

That, in the opinion of the House, recognition that the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada means, in particular, that Quebec has the right to ensure that immigrants to Quebec must learn French first and foremost.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by noting that I will share my time with my friend and colleague, the member for St. John's East.

Last week’s Supreme Court of Canada ruling on language of instruction in Quebec reopened the debate on how to protect the French language and help it thrive in Canada.

Since the 1960s, there have been several attempts to require immigrants to go to French schools in order to protect the status of French as the common language in Quebec.

Following the resounding failure of freedom of choice under the Union nationale exactly 40 years ago, in 1969, Robert Bourassa's Liberals attempted to resolve the situation with Bill 22 in 1974. Images of children in tears being subjected to language tests to satisfy the law's requirement that children have sufficient knowledge of the English language to go to English school resulted in the law being repealed.

There was a shift from freedom of choice to sufficient knowledge of English, which was eventually dropped by three successive governments. It is worth noting that linguistic and language of instruction in Quebec issues contributed to the downfall of the Union nationale in 1970 and the defeat of Bourassa's government in 1976. Changes were made in 1977, under the Lévesque government, when Dr. Camille Laurin introduced Bill 101, the Charter of the French Language, and that is the legislation in force today.

Instead of the highly subjective language tests mandated under Bill 22—which we should make a note of because it will come up again—objective criteria were instituted. Bill 101's Quebec clause restricted access to English-language schools to children with at least one parent who had received English-language instruction in Quebec.

Following the unilateral patriation of Canada's Constitution without Quebec's consent, the Quebec clause was replaced by a Canada clause that allowed access to English-language schools for children with one parent who had received elementary schooling in English in Canada and children with a sibling who had received or was receiving English-language instruction.

The change to the Canada clause might be understandable because of the need for mobility within a country, but it is the last bit about brothers and sisters that throws everything off because of a completely unrealistic judgment from the Supreme Court of Canada.

Now, an immigrant family need only have enough money to pay for private, unsubsidized English school for one of their children, in order to be able to send all of their children to English public school in Quebec.

Not only is this ruling a monumental social error, allowing well-off immigrants to buy a right, but it is ill-advised constitutionally.

The seven judges can pay lip service to the importance of protecting French in Quebec, but in reality, they are killing any possibility of that. The judgment passes the buck to the Quebec parliament to find a solution. I sat on Quebec's Commission d'appel sur la langue d'enseignement, and I worked as a lawyer for the Conseil supérieur de la langue française and Alliance Quebec, and I know that it will be practically impossible to evaluate the good faith of every immigrant family and to conduct, as the Supreme Court suggested, a global qualitative assessment to determine whether the educational pathways in English—those are the terms they used—are genuine. It is completely absurd.

Unless we can protect Quebec's ability to direct the children of immigrants to French school, all of this will be a waste of time. That is why I encourage all the members in this House to support our motion today.

[Infrastructure, October 19th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the minister should know that I am one person who has never been afraid to say the same thing outside the House as inside.

The Conservatives were elected on the promise that they would do better than the Liberal Party on the sponsorship scandal. What do they do? They create their own, except that this time they are using taxpayer money to promote the Conservative Party directly: big taxpayers' cheques with big Conservative logos.

What is next? Putting the Conservative logo on Canada's Olympic uniforms? No, they have already done that. When will the government clean up its act and stop using taxpayer money for partisan political purposes?