Yvon Godin

[Social Union, October 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, on the eve of the meeting in Calgary to discuss the social union framework, Ottawa's unilateral decisions were providing fodder for sovereignists' claims that Canada was inflexible.

In order to avoid duplication, the NDP is proposing a model of open federalism based on shared decision-making.

Shared decision-making would allow the federal government and the provinces to establish pan-Canadian standards jointly, while giving the provinces the authority to develop and administer shared cost social programs.

Because of the unique challenges it faces, however, Quebec must be free to decide whether or not it will participate in shared cost programs. To that end, Quebec must have the right to opt out with full compensation.

Instead of the confrontation of the Liberals, and the separation of the sovereignists, the New Democratic Party is proposing a constructive solution for a united Canada, a solution based on openmindedness.

[Employment Insurance, October 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the Labour Congress study confirms what we have known for a long time: woman have been penalized by the employment insurance reform.

The government said it wanted to address the new realities of the labour market. But women, young people, seasonal workers and independent and part time workers have all been abandoned by the employment insurance reform. The Liberal government has really missed the boat.

When will the Minister of Human Resources Development change employment insurance to really address the realities of the labour market for everyone?

[Speech From The Throne, October 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I too listened to our colleague's speech. The problem with the government is that it talks a lot but does nothing.

First, there was the appointment of the minister for the homeless, an appointment without portfolio. Then employment insurance. This I will repeat until the next election: How will people manage, especially the women, many of whom work part time and cannot obtain employment insurance because of the number of hours required?

I would like our colleague to tell us what this government, which she so strongly believes in, intends to do or should do if it really wants to help the homeless in the country, not only in words but in deeds.

[Speech From The Throne, October 18th, 1999]

Yes, three times.

[Speech From The Throne, October 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief, but I would like to ask my colleague a few questions.

She says that the Liberal government has done a good job in the past six years. I do not know where she was, because in the Atlantic provinces, the Liberals have lost nearly all their seats.

As for students, by the time they get their degree, they have a debt load of $30,000. If two graduates form a couple, they are saddled with $60,000 in debt before they even get a home.

There are 800,000 workers who do not qualify for employment insurance. Women need to have worked 700 hours to qualify. So what about all these young workers and women workers? If there are 800,000 workers who do not qualify for employment insurance, how many hungry children does that create?

The number of food banks has gone up 10% more in recent years. Where do the children fit in here? Where has the Liberal government been these past six years? It has merely been following in the footsteps of the Conservatives, who started the employment insurance cuts in 1986, and the Liberals are just continuing them.

If the minister does not believe this, let her leave Ontario and Quebec and come to New Brunswick and the rest of the Atlantic provinces to see what is going on, to see how people are having trouble making ends meet.

When I went across Canada on my employment insurance fact-finding tour, that is what I found. People are hungry. It is not the tiny change mentioned in the throne speech that is going to make any significant change for women. Women do not quality for employment insurance if they have worked less than 700 hours in a year. The change the minister is proposing is a minimal one. I would like her comments on this.

[Speech From The Throne, October 18th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for my colleague who explained a few seconds ago that we have a surplus of $24 billion in the EI program which was transferred in 1986 from the EI program to the general fund.

When the throne speech came down it talked about wanting to give it only to maternity leave. Would the hon. member agree with me that the government is not taking responsibility for the new jobs and for women returning to work? To go on maternity leave now they need 700 hours. Many women do not qualify for EI. We saw again this morning on the first page of the Globe and Mail that many women do not qualify.

The government forgot in its throne speech all the women who do not qualify for maternity leave because of the 700 hours and the 910 hours needed to qualify for first entry. Most women work part time and do not qualify for EI. Our youth who come out of university have a hard time finding jobs and end up in part time work. They do not qualify for EI. Eight hundred thousand people who have paid into the employment insurance fund do not qualify for EI.

I would like some comments from our labour critic about how he feels about that. This money belongs to the workers. As I have said many times, the Liberal government has stolen from working people and another $30 billion from the public sector pension plan. Some $54 billion have been stolen from the working people. The government is not taking responsibility for working people.

[Special Debate, October 13th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is very sad that after 250 years these members still cannot recognize that we have a problem and at the Supreme Court of Canada has made a decision. That is why I am recommending that we be at the negotiating table tomorrow morning to negotiate something with the two groups who are the non-natives and the native people.

The member talked about the NDP not doing or saying anything. I was on a radio station the other day when my colleague from Beauséjour—Petitcodiac said that it was not the government's responsibility to resolve the problem but the responsibility of the community and that the community was destroying itself right now. It is the responsibility of the government to come down and resolve the problem with the people down home and get to the table. We have spoken to more fishermen than you ever have as a Conservative.

[Special Debate, October 13th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question.

He spoke about the harmonized GST and said that the matter was settled quickly. It does not mean, however, that we, the people of the Atlantic, welcomed it. But they did it anyway and it did not take long.

I wish to thank the government for having allowed us, tonight, to discuss part of the problem. After all, I hope the minister, who is here tonight, who is listening to what we have to say, can react.

I agree with my colleague who said that it will cost money and that the government must be ready to invest, but, then again, I would like to reiterate that the only place where it can be solved is at the negotiating table, and immediately—tomorrow morning, if necessary. We must act now and force the government to act and tell it that if it does not, it should not ask us to work with it.

It wants us to work with it. Therefore, we will make suggestions tonight and then we tell it to act. If it does not act, it should not tell us that we are unwilling to co-operate because, tonight, we are working with it and offering solutions.

[Special Debate, October 13th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is getting late. It is 11.25 p.m. here and it is 12.25 a.m. in my riding. However, knowing that there are quite a few night owls among Acadians, I am sure some of them are listening to me right now.

It is a pleasure for me to say a few words tonight about the decision handed down by the supreme court in the Marshall case. This decision has been taken seriously by all Canadians, and we have been hearing about it for several weeks.

The peace treaty was signed in 1760 and, 250 years later, we have to interpret what happened. We must not forget that, in those 250 years, the Conservatives were often in office, including for a period of nine years mostly in the 1980s. They cannot stand up and blame the Liberals, because problems occurred when both parties formed the government.

But, tonight, we can blame everybody. One thing we know is that there was a treaty. We can say that governments did not respond to the requests made by aboriginal people after the treaty. Today, we have to deal with a decision which was brought about by the inaction of governments.

Burnt Church is very close to my riding of Acadie—Bathurst, which means that people in my riding are also deeply affected by this decision.

Fishers from my riding have contacted me to tell me that they are willing to recognize the rights of native fishers, but that we must negotiate.

The more we wait, the harder these negotiations will be and the more it will hurt. An aboriginal woman from Burnt Church was quoted last week as saying that native-white relations had been developing in the right direction over the past hundred years. Today it seems to her that everything has to be started all over again.

We have some responsibility in all that. When the decision was released, I recall that my colleague, the fisheries critic, sent a letter to the minister asking him to summon the all-party standing committee to a meeting in Ottawa in order to discuss the situation.

Last week, I myself sent a letter to the minister, with no reply. He is asking us all to work together. Even today, as we speak, the all-party committee has not yet been called together to discuss the situation.

The only thing, then, is that violence is a possibility. All sorts of things can happen, but in the end it is negotiation that will solve these problems.

Therefore, I am calling upon the people in my riding, as well as those in the neighbouring riding of Miramichi, to take things calmly, and to enter into negotiations in order to solve the problem. That is the only means to settlement.

Judging from my labour union experience, regardless of what conflicts have taken place, regardless of whether it took three months to settle them, or six, the only place there was a settlement was at the negotiating table.

This invitation must therefore be responded to. The two groups, native and non-native, must be invited to the negotiating table, and it must be done as soon as possible. Not a week from today. Let the invitation go out tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning the two groups need to sit down at the table: the aboriginal people and the unions representing the coastal fishers.

I will go even farther. I will tell you that I have concerns. You know why? The people at home tell us, for example, that crab fishers are now beginning to be concerned.

Are we going to wait yet again to have a crisis in the lobster industry and after that another crisis in the crab industry? And after that we will respond to that crisis and then we will have another one in the herring industry and after that we will respond to the crisis in the herring industry.

I say no. I say the industry must be brought to the bargaining table. This applies to all of the fishing industries, be it herring, groundfish or crab.

We must find a solution together. We must find a solution for everyone. Otherwise, we will end up with the violence that has been going on in recent weeks, and this is unacceptable in 1999.

The government is capable of choosing an approach the fishers would agree to. Some fishers might be ready to sell their license. Some people who have reached the age of 55 or 60 would be prepared to retire. So the government could become involved in buying back their licenses and make these licenses available to the native bands in order to resolve this problem that has gone on unresolved for 250 years. We have a 250 year old treaty, with all the lawyers we have in Canada. They are intelligent enough to be in the House of Commons?

I am happy today not to be a lawyer. I am also happy that the minister is not a lawyer. So, perhaps we can solve the problem today.

It took 250 years to interpret a peace treaty signed with the aboriginals. Today, we are all panicking and we are not prepared to react after 250 years. We should be ashamed of our governments.

This is why I urge you not to wait for a week. We cannot wait until people fight with one another. We cannot wait until violence erupts. People are concerned. They want to sit down, negotiate and find a solution.

It takes leadership to achieve that. When a party steps forward and says it wants to form the government, that means that it has leadership and that it is capable of leading the country. It should be able to manage the crises that we are facing today. There are crises everywhere these days. There is a problem with the airlines. There are two airlines in Canada, Canadian Airlines and Air Canada, and the government does not even know how to deal with this issue. There is a problem with the immigrants arriving in the Vancouver area. Again, the government does not know how to deal with this issue.

There are problems everywhere. It is time to act before we lose control of our country. The federal government and the Liberals have that responsibility that Canadians have given them.

The government waits for weeks on end, but the aboriginal people have been saying for years that they want a solution to their problems.

When the Conservatives signed the free trade agreement, it did not take them long to adjust the whole Canadian program to free trade. It did not take them years to do that.

It seems as if the issue between aboriginal and white peoples could take a year or two to solve. This is not true. We cannot have such an attitude. We must settle the issue now. We must not wait a year to do that. We must sit with these people and solve the problem. There are solutions.

I am convinced that when fishers, aboriginals and a government that shows leadership sit together at the table, solutions will be found.

I urge the government, I urge the minister, who just got the job, to make a name for himself by being a good Minister of Fisheries and solving the problems we are facing in Canada. This is what I ask him to do.

[Special Debate, October 13th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of my colleague from the riding of Miramichi, which is adjacent to the riding of Acadie—Bathurst.

I sympathize with the problems in his riding, but they are the same as in my riding.

My colleague told us that fishers went to see him in his office on Wednesday, and all the problems occurred on Sunday. Then we learned that the minister went there two weeks later. I would like my colleague to comment on this situation. Is he disappointed with his minister's attitude or does he approve of the minister's slowness in handling this whole issue? There is a crisis in our region, and we must take action. I think the minister should not even be here tonight. He should be in Atlantic Canada trying to solve the problems of native and non-native fishers.