Since the Prime Minister claims he has delivered the goods, are we to understand that, with the phoney resolution on distinct society, a regional right of veto and still unresolved negotiations on job training, the Prime Minister feels that the promises he made in Verdun to Quebecers have been kept?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, as promised, we passed a resolution in the House of Commons in December of 1995 in favour of distinct society status for Quebec, and everyone noted that the Bloc Quebecois does not want Quebec recognized as a distinct society in Canada.
We passed a bill in the Parliament of Canada establishing regional veto rights that gives the Province of Quebec a right of veto. Once again, Bloc members do not want Parliament to give Quebec a right of veto. All this could be entrenched in the Canadian Constitution, as I have said, when the provinces give their agreement.
We voted here in Parliament, but once again the leader of the Quebec government, when he was leader of the Bloc Quebecois, voted against both these measures. Still, we pursued it. In the speech from the throne last year, we said that we were withdrawing from a number of areas of activity in Canada.
We are no longer involved in mining or forestry. We have found common ground with the provinces on tourism. We have negotiated very useful clarifications on environmental matters and, at this time, we have offered the provinces new arrangements with respect to manpower training, a very important issue for Quebec.
We have signed an agreement with the Government of Alberta, another one with the Government of New Brunswick, and the minister is now working on an agreement with the Government of Quebec.
Mr. Michel Gauthier (Leader of the Opposition, BQ): Mr. Speaker, it is not a question of what the present, past or future leader of the Bloc Quebecois would like. We are talking about promises made by the Prime Minister. We are talking about promises made by the Prime Minister himself, on his own initiative, before the referendum, in front of all Quebecers. Let us not shift the blame.
I am going to put the following question to him: If his distinct society resolution is so important, when has the government taken it into account? What has it meant for Quebec since it was passed, this resolution that is not worth the paper it is written on, this meaningless resolution that has produced nothing, and that does not absolve the Prime Minister from his promises?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the Liberal party and the government undertook to pass a distinct society resolution and we have done so. We have taken it into consideration, for, in the speech from the throne, we vowed to work on improving the federation, one problem at a time, and I have just given a fairly long list of what we have done.
What is fascinating in all this is that, while we are working daily to improve the situation, the people across the way do not want Quebec to be recognized as a distinct society. They do not want Quebec to have a veto, because if they truly did, all they would have to do is pass similar resolutions in the Quebec National Assembly.
Mr. Michel Gauthier (Leader of the Opposition, BQ):Mr. Speaker, it is too bad. We told Quebecers not to trust what the Prime Minister said. We told all Quebecers. Unfortunately, there are still some who trust the Prime Minister.
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When all is said and done, when the Prime Minister tells us today there is nothing more he can do for Quebec, is he not just confirming what we have always told Quebecers concerning him and his promises: that there is nothing he can do for Quebec and that Quebecers should certainly not expect anything from him?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I will have to repeat myself. We in this House, over which this government does have some authority, passed a resolution recognizing Quebec as a distinct society and another one giving that province a right of veto.
We have withdrawn from the mining and forestry sectors. We have concluded agreements on tourism and the environment. We are now in the process of working out the most important issue, manpower training. We said we were going to find a solution to this problem and we have done so with two provinces thus far. The minister is working very hard to reach an agreement with Quebec. We were hoping that they would sign an agreement in January, but apparently the Government of Quebec is in no hurry to settle this matter, as it was for-
Some hon. members: Oh, oh.
Mr. Chrétien (Saint-Maurice): Agreements were reached very quickly with Alberta and New Brunswick. I do not see why the same conditions could not be met in Quebec.
Mrs. Pierrette Venne (Saint-Hubert, BQ): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
In an interview with the Toronto Star, the Prime Minister states that he has ``kept all his promises to Quebec''. Let us not forget that this is the same Prime Minister who claims he has kept his promise on the GST.
Is the Prime Minister getting ready for his next election campaign by telling Canadians and Quebecers that everything he says during his campaign will be worth no more than what he said during his 1993 election campaign and in his Verdun speech in 1995?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, we have discussed this. We would have liked to have done more on the GST, but we have succeeded in doing as promised in the red book, harmonizing it with three provinces, and the process is almost complete in Quebec as well.
As for the resolutions on the distinct society, we voted in this House, and the Bloc members, including the hon. member who has just spoken, voted against Quebec being a distinct society. Her constituents will remember that.
Mrs. Pierrette Venne (Saint-Hubert, BQ): Mr. Speaker, in that same interview, the Prime Minister stated that, if he did not want to speak of national unity during the next election campaign, this was because the premiers of the other provinces were not prepared to recognize Quebec's demands.
Will the Prime Minister admit that the promises he made in Verdun were nothing but smoke and mirrors, and that we are still at the point of no return from Charlottetown: that what is not enough for Quebec is already too much for the rest of Canada?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, as the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs has said on a number of occasions, several provinces would be prepared to vote for distinct society, but it is very difficult to force recognition on the Government of Quebec, when it does not want such recognition.
If the hon. member wants the federal government to impose distinct society against the will of the Government of Quebec, let her say so. She should have done this when she had the chance to vote in favour of distinct society. It is not very edifying to see her rising to speak today, when she has voted against distinct society. She should think about that.
Why should Canadians trust a Prime Minister who says he is proud of the worst string of unemployment numbers since the great depression?
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Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I said and I will repeat that I will never be satisfied with the level of unemployment that we have in Canada. We are working very hard to make sure it goes down.
The leader of the third party should recognize that 771,000 new jobs have been created in the last three years in Canada. He should be able to recognize that more jobs have been created in Canada than have been created in Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy combined. He should be able to recognize that in January 1994 we were at 11.5 per cent and that at this moment we are at 9.7 per cent. I will never be satisfied with the level as long as people want to work.
He should be obliged to recognize that we have put the finances of the nation in order. We have the lowest interest rate in 40 years in Canada. That is why in the last few months all the indicators have shown a new confidence among Canadians. They are buying more cars and building and buying new houses because they know this government is on the right track.
Mr. Preston Manning (Calgary Southwest, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister repeats the numbers that his spin doctors give to him and he conveniently ignores the other statistics.
He ignores the fact that our unemployment rate is higher than the average of the G-7 countries; it is higher than all three of our major trading partners: Japan, Great Britain and the United States. Our unemployment rate is higher than that of New Zealand, higher than that of Switzerland, higher than Sweden's, higher than Australia's, higher than Austria's; it is even higher than the unemployment rate in Mongolia.
Instead of trying to make an atrocious 9.7 per cent unemployment rate sound good, why does the Prime Minister not do something different? Why does he not unleash the job creating power of consumers and businesses by balancing the federal budget, making the government smaller and giving Canadians much needed tax relief?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, everybody recognizes this government has done better than expected on the balancing of the budget.
Journalists came to Canada from Japan to interview me and some ministers. They were wondering how we have managed to reduce the deficit from 6.2 per cent of GDP to less than 3 per cent in three years. They do not know how to do that and they are coming to Canada to find the recipe.
We have to stay the course. The leader of the third party does not want to reduce the deficit because he is trying to buy votes by promising tax cuts before the books are balanced.
Mr. Preston Manning (Calgary Southwest, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, if the Prime Minister would read our fresh start platform, he would find that it balances the budget first and delivers tax relief second.
Canada's unemployment situation is a human tragedy. Yet the Prime Minister always responds to these questions in this House with questionable statistics or political rhetoric. We never get a response from the heart. It is the same attitude that was shown at the town hall meeting on TV when he told that jobless woman ``some are lucky, some are unlucky, that is life''.
How can Canadians believe that the Prime Minister even cares about the tragedy of unemployment when he has the nerve to tell a jobless person that is life under a Liberal government?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, since we formed the government three years and a few months ago, our main preoccupation has been jobs. We knew when we formed the government that we had a deficit of $42 billion. We knew that the entire international financial community had lost faith in Canada. Some were comparing Canada to a third world situation. Today everybody says that we will do better than any other G-7 nation in 1997-98.
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We were also the government that was not afraid to tackle the problem of the deficit and really do something about it. When a government does that, it has to stay the course. We are not about to try and buy the votes of the Canadian people the way the leader of the Reform Party is trying to do with tax cuts before we have reduced the deficit to zero. This is the only responsible way.
The minister's statement is nonsense. The Minister of Human Resources Development forgot to mention the billions of dollars that a succession of Quebec governments have spent on developing and preserving French language and culture.
Will the Minister of Human Resources Development rise in the House today and apologize to Quebecers for the incredible nonsense he told the young Liberals in Drummondville?
Hon. Don Boudria (Minister for International Cooperation and Minister responsible for Francophonie, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House today on behalf of the Minister of Canadian Heritage and inform the hon. member opposite who just asked this question that yes, during the sixties and seventies and historically, the federal government invested and has always invested in the cultural sphere and in promoting the French fact and Quebec culture through instruments such as the CBC, the National Film Board, the Canada Council, the Science Council, and so forth, at a time when there were no similar instruments at the provincial level.
Mr. Jean-Paul Marchand (Québec-Est, BQ): Mr. Speaker, if the answer is so straightforward, perhaps the minister would bother to rise and answer this question: how can the minister honestly give his own government credit for saving the French language in Quebec, when its policy has speeded up the assimilation of francophone and Acadian communities in Canada?
What explanation does he have for the fact that the same policy by the same government can have the exact opposite effect?
Hon. Don Boudria (Minister for International Cooperation and Minister responsible for Francophonie, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member opposite who is a Franco-Ontarian like me would certainly not say today in this House that he and I are assimilated. We survived as a society in Canada thanks to the instruments of the federal government.
And I would also like to say to the hon. member opposite who, today, is criticizing cuts by the federal government that the Quebec government itself did some downsizing at Radio-Quebec by getting rid of nearly half the employees, so that now there are 329 instead of 629. That is the government of the Parti Quebecois, his big brother in Quebec City.
Canadians are really starting to wonder just how in touch the Prime Minister is with what is going on in the real world. This weekend he told the Toronto Star that from his privileged perspective everything looks just fine. There is a 9.7 per cent unemployment rate, record bankruptcies, record high levels of personal debt and record levels of taxation.
When will the Prime Minister come out of his bubble and come to the realization that his record is nothing to be proud of, nothing to run an election on but instead is something he should be ashamed of?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I said I would be very comfortable to run the next campaign in Alberta because in the last budget we gave big incentives to ensure a huge tarsands development in the north of the province. We were applauded by all the people in Calgary for our energy policy. It has been a long time since we have had a minister of energy in Alberta with as much acclaim as the present minister of energy.
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Mr. Monte Solberg (Medicine Hat, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, that is not going to buy any votes in Alberta. Just because someone is running around and handing out money does not mean he can buy votes. We remind the Prime Minister what happened to the last energy minister from Alberta.
The Prime Minister really does not get it. This fall he said to the media regarding across the board tax cuts: ``I do not think it is the right thing to do in a society like Canada''.
Can the Prime Minister explain to Canadians why he thinks it is okay to have 17 per cent unemployment for youth in this country, to have unemployment rates of over 9 per cent for 76 months in a
row, but somehow it is wrong or immoral to have low taxes that create real jobs?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I know of one former minister of energy who travelled a lot in Alberta and is now the Prime Minister of Canada. That means some former Liberal ministers of energy have done pretty well.
We are very proud of what we have done in the hon. member's province for the oil industry and the development of the tarsands. There is not only one province in Canada. There are other provinces in Canada that need some help. We are doing that across Canada because we believe the federal government is there to create opportunities everywhere in the country. That is why we are happy to do things for Alberta, B.C., Quebec and Ontario. They are all Canadians and they all want to have the good government we are trying to provide to them.
How can the Minister of Human Resources Development treat the various Quebec ministers of culture, including his own colleague, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, with such disdain and ignorance, when the Quebec government is one of the major investors in culture, contributing more than even Ontario and the Government of Canada?
Hon. Pierre S. Pettigrew (Minister of Human Resources Development, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I spoke these words in Drummondville this week, where I addressed 150 young Liberals as they get ready for the next elections. They were very enthusiastic, and their enthusiasm was catching.
I was explaining to our young Liberals, who do not always have the opportunity to hear all of the arguments in support of Liberal Party policy, that everyone felt in Quebec that the Canadian economic union was grand in all respects and served the interests of Quebecers well. The vast majority recognized that Quebecers benefit enormously from the Canadian social union.
I also showed that, in terms of political association, Quebecers were proud of Canada's foreign policy and could identify therefore with it. What I said was, that in cultural and linguistic terms, the Liberal Party of Canada had set up institutions that have made an exceptional contribution to the growth of the French language in Canada and of culture in Quebec, and I gave as examples Radio-Canada, the National Film Board and the Canada Council.
Mr. Gaston Leroux (Richmond-Wolfe, BQ): Mr. Speaker, this government is suffering from the same malady as its Prime Minister. On television, it is one thing and, in the House, it is another.
In connection with the three institutions mentioned, I remember the government's commitment to provide stable funding, whereas they cut $414 million and 4,000 jobs from the CBC and $20 million from the National Film Board and they moved the board of directors of Telefilm Canada from Montreal to Toronto. That is what this government is all about.
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Culture and the French language are the product of the efforts of generations of artists and craftspeople. They were funded, regardless of what the minister may think, by the taxpayers of Canada.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh.
Mr. Leroux (Richmond-Wolfe): We can feel the tension in this government on the eve of an election.
The Speaker: Kindly put your question now.
Mr. Leroux (Richmond-Wolfe): By giving Ottawa full credit for culture in Quebec, is the minister not insulting the artists and craftspeople who have produced it and have created the cultural institutions that ensure its dissemination?
Hon. Pierre S. Pettigrew (Minister of Human Resources Development, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I must congratulate Quebecers on the extraordinary effort they have put into promoting culture. I never said that they had not contributed to it.
What I did say is that the Government of Canada provided Quebec creators, artists and actors with means they had never had at their disposal. I was looking back to the years when the nationalists, the forebears of the members opposite, saw culture as useless piano players. That is what I was talking about.
No one is more exquisitely aware of the huge contribution Quebecers have made to their own culture than I am. The means given them was first and foremost Radio-Canada and the National Film Board, and now Telefilm, and I am extremely proud of them. Long live Quebecers and long live what Canada has done for them.
The Speaker: Dear colleagues, kindly shorten your questions and answers a little.
[English]
At least 250 suspected war criminals from Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, Somalia and various Latin American countries have been allowed to remain in Canada despite being denied refugee status and having their appeals rejected.
Can the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration please explain why the Liberal government is protecting war criminals?
Ms. Maria Minna (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, Canada does not protect war criminals. In fact, Canada is not a safe haven for war criminals or persons who have committed heinous crimes.
As a matter of fact the CIC set up a specialized unit in April 1996 which is in the process of finalizing a report that contains the inventory of modern war criminals now in Canada to assist officials who are taking enforcement actions against them. Action is being taken. These people will be removed. They will not be allowed to stay in this country.
Ms. Val Meredith (Surrey-White Rock-South Langley, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, we have heard this promise before from the government and it has not done the job.
It has been reported that the backlog for refugee claims has increased 75 per cent since the government took power, that thousands of genuine refugees have to wait years to have their cases heard because of bogus refugee claims made by war criminals, convicted criminals and terrorists.
When is the government going to develop the fortitude to rid the country of all undesirables starting with the 250 war criminals?
Ms. Maria Minna (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, first of all, it is not true that the war criminals have not been identified. They have. That is why they are being removed from the country. As soon as they are identified and under which class they fall, they will be deported.
Second, with the backlog in refugees some measures have already been taken by the IRB which has total responsibility for administering the refugee system and addressing the issues.
Furthermore, Bill C-49 which is in front of the House and with which Parliament is dealing, contains provisions that will reduce the refugee division panels from two to one member. This legislation change will improve the efficiency of the IRB while realizing efficiencies in that kind of a system.
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If the hon. member would assist us in passing this bill, it would go a long way in dealing with the issue.
The new foreign reporting requirements have generated considerable concern in British Columbia. In response to these concerns, the Minister of Finance recently announced that these rules would not take effect until 1998.
Can the minister tell the House why the T-1 income tax form sent to Canadians for the upcoming tax season contains three questions relating to foreign property reporting?
Hon. Jane Stewart (Minister of National Revenue, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity to clarify this important point for the House and to say that for the 1996 tax filing year, Canadians will not have to complete the section of the income tax form dealing with the reporting of foreign assets.
As the House knows, Revenue Canada prints its forms in advance, often in anticipation of legislation. In this case, legislation was changed late in the year and Canadians will not have to report on their foreign assets until April 30, 1998.
Employment is the number one concern of Quebecers and Canadians. Despite the Prime Minister's fine promises, his government's record on job creation is pitiful. We still have 1.5 million people out of work, almost as many as in 1993. The unemployment rate has remained above 9 per cent for more than 76 consecutive months, the longest stretch since the Great Depression.
By telling us that he wants to run once again on a platform of job creation, is the Prime Minister not in fact recognizing, admitting that he failed to fulfil his 1993 promise of jobs, jobs, jobs?
Hon. Pierre S. Pettigrew (Minister of Human Resources Development, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, what the Prime Minister said and what we, on the government side, are saying is that we are extremely concerned about the prolonged employment crisis. The situation is the same almost everywhere in the western world, and
it is extremely difficult to fight unemployment successfully right now, with the new economy and technological changes.
We made a commitment to create jobs. We are not afraid to admit that not enough jobs were created. But we are also saying that we have done much better than most other western economies and that, everywhere we go, we are praised for managing to create more than 700,000 jobs in the Canadian economy while putting our fiscal house in order. That is not enough, but we are saying it is a very good start.
Mrs. Francine Lalonde (Mercier, BQ): Mr. Speaker, instead of playing with statistics and comparing Canada with those nations with the worst record in terms of job creation, the minister should recognize that 15 of the 26 leading industrialized nations have a lower unemployment rate than Canada.
Why does he claim that Canada is the best country in the world by comparing it with countries that have achieved less?
Hon. Pierre S. Pettigrew (Minister of Human Resources Development, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, that is precisely why our government is putting so much energy into doing even more for job creation. I will be discussing this matter with several of my colleagues in the near future, because we are indeed very concerned about the unemployment situation, particularly among young people. In the next few days, I hope to be able to outline our government's concrete strategy for helping young people who are unemployed.
My own department, Human Resources Development Canada, has set up and spent millions of dollars on programs designed to help the unemployed return to the labour force. These programs are extremely effective and will hopefully produce even greater results in the years to come.
[English]
The defence minister has reversed previous Liberal commitments not to interfere with the Somalia inquiry, yet Justice Letourneau has called the defence minister's interference in the inquiry: ``a serious challenge to democratic institutions and to democracy itself''.
The minister claims that he wants to see justice done. By shutting down the inquiry he is making the junior ranks pay a price while senior bureaucrats and Liberal insiders seem to go untouched.
Does the Prime Minister agree with the analysis of Justice Letourneau? Is this interference really a travesty of justice and an interference with democratic institutions?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, as was requested by the leader of the third party, we are making sure the inquiry is completed in time so it will not be going on at the time of an election. I think the Minister of National Defence explained his position extremely well and we are supporting him.
Mr. Chuck Strahl (Fraser Valley East, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister knows that he has another year and a half before he has to call an election. There is plenty of time for a full investigation.
The defence minister has been attacking the inquiry by suggesting that Justice Letourneau can call any witness he wants. Yet Justice Letourneau said last week: ``It is not true the inquiry has plenty of time to call all the witnesses such as Mr. Fowler and Mr. Anderson. Evidence on important matters presented without the possibility of real or substantial testing risks producing a whitewash of the alleged cover-up, rather than investigation of it''.
Why would the Prime Minister allow a whitewash of this inquiry? Why would he allow that to happen when it is only the low ranking officials now who have been under charge?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am happy to realize that the hon. member is not keen to go to the polls and would rather have an election in 18 months. However, that is not a subject for discussion at this time.
When the Minister of National Defence announced that the inquiry was to be terminated in June, it gave the commission three more months because its mandate was that the inquiry be completed in March. After he made the announcement the commission had two and half months to call the witnesses it wanted. Of course, it is up to the commission to choose which witnesses it wants to hear. We have nothing to do with that.
We will see by the end of the inquiry to which witnesses the commission decided to listen and to which it decided not to listen. But there were two and a half months after the minister's decision for the commission to call any witness to testify.
On September 16, the Prime Minister formally pledged, in the House, to discuss France's decision to ban asbestos with President
Jacques Chirac. As you know, that industry accounts for thousands of jobs in the asbestos region.
Following his official two day visit to Paris, on January 22 and 23, can the Prime Minister tell us the outcome of his efforts to defend Quebec's asbestos industry?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is aware that the issue was raised with France's President and Prime Minister. In fact, during our joint press conference, Prime Minister Juppé clearly indicated that France had no intention of reconsidering its decision in that regard.
Moreover, during a reception with Prime Minister Juppé, I introduced to him two residents of the asbestos region, Raymond Setlakwe and his wife. Mr. Setlakwe had asbestos in his jacket to prove that it is not a very dangerous product. The Prime Minister found the whole episode quite funny.
Mr. Jean-Guy Chrétien (Frontenac, BQ): Mr. Speaker, considering the Prime Minister's reply, I am inclined to think that he did not get any concrete assurances for the asbestos region, which includes the towns of Thetford and Asbestos.
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Given France's refusal to reconsider its decision to ban asbestos, will the Prime Minister tell us why his government stubbornly refuses to lodge a complaint to the World Trade Organization, so as to stop the domino effect of France's decision in Europe?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, during my visit to France, we had an opportunity to discuss the issue with the French Prime Minister. We informed him that the Royal Society of Canada had produced a very detailed report showing that it is possible to use asbestos safely. I asked the Prime Minister to have that document examined by his experts, and he agreed to do that.
As for going before the international courts, the Minister for International Trade is currently looking into the possibility and when he has a public announcement to make he will do so, hopefully in the near future.
When is she going to wake up and smell the Colombian coffee? We live in a global economy. The heritage minister has said that Canadian culture is a valuable export. Who speaks for the government, the heritage minister or the Minister for International Trade?
Hon. Arthur C. Eggleton (Minister for International Trade, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, if the member is trying to show some division between myself and the Minister of Canadian Heritage he is barking up the wrong tree.
Both the Minister of Canadian Heritage and myself are strong supporters of the Canadian cultural sector. We want to see it grow. We want to see it prosper. That is what the government is solidly behind.
We all recognize that these are changing times. There are changing technologies and we need to keep our policies and our programs on the leading edge. We have faced those kinds of challenges before. The government is solidly behind the Canadian cultural sector.
Mr. Jim Abbott (Kootenay East, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, I was very pleased to see the international trade minister answer that question. At least he is not an embarrassment to the government, as the heritage minister was this morning when she said: ``Celine Dion would not be where she is today if government policy did not require that we play a certain number of Canadian songs on the radio''. That is not only shameful, it is frightening. As far as she is concerned the only way that our Canadian artists can get ahead is if they are protected by the government.
My question is for the Prime Minister. Is it not about time that he turn over the culture portfolio from the heritage minister to the trade minister because at least he is not an embarrassment?
Hon. Don Boudria (Minister for International Cooperation and Minister responsible for Francophonie, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada has done much to assist the cultural sector in this country and we are very proud of our accomplishments in that regard.
Canadian artists, Canadian musicians, are good. The fact that the government has been able to contribute to their success is something of which we should all be proud. I wish the hon. member would join us in that pride.
Child poverty is a major problem in this country because parents of poor children remain chronically unemployed. The NDP governments of British Columbia and Saskatchewan are addressing child poverty by investing in programs to help these children and their families. Meanwhile, the only investment the Liberal government
made was to pass Bill S-9 which gave millions of tax dollars to wealthy Canadians through generous tax breaks.
When is the government going to make a committed investment in the future of children living in poverty with a national child benefit instead of giving huge tax breaks to the very wealthy of this country?
Hon. Pierre S. Pettigrew (Minister of Human Resources Development, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the government is very concerned with child poverty in the country. We have already done a great deal. Over $5 billion has been invested in the child tax credit and we have invested a lot of money in the working income supplement to help low income families.
The member certainly knows that over the last four months, with the provinces, we have negotiated and brought about a consensus and both the provinces and the Government of Canada have agreed to move toward an integrated national child benefit.
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This is going to greatly help the situation of kids living in low income families. I hope very shortly the government will be able to announce the way it will proceed. However, it will be designed with the provinces over the next few months.
The credit card interest rate situation has not improved despite three parliamentary inquiries.
Mr. Minister, what has Industry Canada done to protect consumers against high credit card interest rates?
The Speaker: Before I let my colleague answer the question, I remind hon. members to please address the Chair.
Hon. John Manley (Minister of Industry, Minister for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Minister of Western Economic Diversification and Minister responsible for the Federal Office of Regional Development-Quebec, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I would be happy if that question went to the Chair.
I am sure my colleague shares the concern that I have expressed about the fact that the rate of interest charged on consumer credit cards has tended to drift higher in relation to the Bank of Canada prime rate than it was historically. The concern the government has is that those rates should be tracking one another.
On the positive side of the ledger, may I point out to him that what we have undertaken to do in Industry Canada is ensure that consumers are well informed about the variety of choices available to them in credit cards and of the interest rates available. I point out to him that the availability of a low interest card has become much better known by Canadians in recent months. According to an Angus Reid survey, as recently as last April only 30 per cent of Canadians were aware of these cards. More recently that number is up to 57 per cent.
I am sure the member will agree with me that an informed consumer who is interested in ensuring that they get the best value for their money is the best way to make sure that a market system works.
Some hon. members: Hear, hear.