Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères)

On my first formal speech in this House, I am pleased to extend to you, Mr. Speaker, my most sincere congratulations on your election to this distinguished position.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate those who have been appointed to be your substitute in the Chair. I can assure you all of my full support and co-operation as well as that of the other members from my party.

Allow me to also take this opportunity to pay my respects to the constituents of the federal riding of Verchères who, by putting their trust in me on October 25, have given me the privilege of representing them in this House.

I have been a fervent sovereigntist since I was 15-and as we saw earlier, sovereigntist is used by the hon. member for Beaver River as a synonym for "enemy within". In those days, I never imagined that some day I would be representing my fellow citizens in the House of Commons, the symbol par excellence of the Canadian federal system. But I have the pleasure of belonging to a political party, namely the Bloc Quebecois, whose raison d'être happens to be to advance the cause of Quebec sovereignty in this House.

Of course, Quebec has not achieved the status of sovereign state yet. It is still part of this vast country we call Canada. And if I start my speech on cruise missile testing by emphasizing this concept of sovereignty so dear to my heart, it is simply because in certain spheres the testing issue is viewed as an attack on the sovereignty of Canada.

There are people who claim that renewing the Canada-U.S.A. umbrella agreement and periodic authorization regarding cruise missile testing within Canadian territorial boundaries is akin to an unacceptable surrender to the imperatives of the foreign and defence policy of our neighbours to the south, an infringement upon the political sovereignty of Canada.

Mr. Bergeron

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comments. I simply want to say that I understand the enthusiasm of my colleague regarding the fact that the Prime Minister has allowed this House to speak on an issue before the government policy is announced. I understand that the member has been here for a few years and this is the first time he has an opportunity to speak freely on a government policy before such a policy is made public. Consequently, I can certainly understand his enthusiasm.

However, what I object to is not this opportunity to express our views in the House on this issue, but rather the chronological process involved. To use a common expression, I feel that the government has "put the cart before the horse" to the extent that we start this debate without even knowing where the government is headed with its defence policy.

You will agree with me that if the government decides that the collective security system which has been in place since the late forties is no longer adequate and that we must withdraw from it, such a decision will have a major impact on the continuation of the cruise missile tests conducted over the Canadian territory. Consequently, we cannot discuss this issue without first undertaking a comprehensive review of the Canadian defence policy.

Therefore, the chronology of events is not perfectly logical. I agree that a debate had to be held, that it should be held, and I have no objection to that. However, this debate should take place once we know the general outline of the national defence policy.

Moreover, we are asked to participate in this debate with only a few days notice, and without any opportunity to have access to documents from the Department of National Defence. Consequently, we parliamentarians are not well prepared for this exercise. I hope that it was not the deliberate intention of the government to announce a debate at the last minute and to give instructions to the Department of National Defence to not provide us with documents which might be necessary for the purpose of the debate.

This is what I object to. I certainly have nothing against a debate as such. It is a good thing to allow members to express their views on a government policy, but we have to know what the general outline of that policy is, so as to see if what we are debating will still be part of the policy in a few weeks or a few months.

Mr. Bergeron

I want to thank the hon. member for his hypothetical question, and I will try to be as specific as I can in my answer.

The question is hypothetical to the extent that these tests are not scheduled to take place over Quebec territory. If that were the case, however, we would have to ensure, as has been done in the case of cruise missile testing since 1983, that the tests are carried out under the best possible conditions, which means, as I

pointed out earlier, within a corridor away from populated areas, where there would be very little impact on the environment.

If these conditions were met, I think that our answer would be the same as the one we give today for tests in western Canada.

Mr. Bergeron

Again I want to thank the hon. member for Burnaby-Kingsway for his question which seems to be about the conservative position of the Bloc Quebecois on the issue of cruise missile testing.

First of all, I get the impression that he did not listen properly to what I said, because we do not want to go back to the context of the cold war and use that as the basis for our policy. I made it quite clear in my speech that the Bloc's response to this particular question was based on a new global context, and I referred to the presence of Zhirinovsky in Russia and to the existence of new nuclear powers to justify continuing the tests.

I also pointed out that the purpose of the tests was basically to improve and refine the missile's remote control system and that consequently the tests had no direct impact on the nuclear arms race.

I would also like to say to the hon. member that if the hon. member for Papineau-Saint-Michel makes contradictory remarks, that is his problem, not mine.

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Verchères)

Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Monday we heard that construction on Canada's new embassy in China will have cost taxpayers more than $78 million, twice the amount initially budgeted 15 years ago.

Small luxuries for embassy staff include a swimming pool and gymnasium at a cost of one million dollars, and a garden with imported maples which cost five million dollars. The interior decorating bill alone for this sumptuous embassy will total nearly one million dollars.

In the light of current budgetary restrictions, at a time when the government is about to make cuts in programs designed for the neediest in our society, how can the Minister of Foreign Affairs justify this kind of spending?