Parliamentary Speeches
534 speeches by Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe — Page 7 of 11
Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her excellent question. We have to face facts. Right now, greater regional immigration to remote areas would be welcome. My riding has wonderful immigration stories to tell. I was in Saint‑Thomas‑Didyme two weeks ago and took part in a Moroccan night. Saint‑Thomas‑Didyme is a long way from Ottawa. It is a small village with a population of about 600. Tempora…
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Madam Speaker, I would have a lot to say about that. I thank the member for his good question. We first have to understand one thing. When we talk to certain African ambassadors to Canada, they say we must ensure that we do not drain their countries of all their talented people, because they need nurses, doctors and teachers. I have had discussions with certain groups. We need to be careful that w…
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Mr. Speaker, the government can go ahead and say that it is not following the Century Initiative, but it is using the same targets. I said, “the same”, but that is not accurate. The Century Initiative is recommending that Canada welcome 475,000 newcomers in 2025, but the government chose to go with 500,000. It is moving even faster, despite the unanimous opposition of the Quebec National Assembly,…
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Mr. Speaker, they reached their francophone immigration target once in 20 years and they are boasting about it. That is ridiculous. Immigration thresholds are not an abstract concept or just a number in a notebook. They are not statistics that are just thrown around. Behind the numbers there are people with needs. These people need housing, they need health care, day care and schools for their chi…
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Mr. Speaker, I think we were at questions and comments. The member for Winnipeg North has made several interventions in the House in today's debate. One of the things he said was how proud he is of certain francophone communities in Manitoba and the vitality of French in Manitoba. I would like to remind him that in 1870, when Manitoba joined the Canadian Confederation, the population was 50% franc…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my esteemed colleague for his question. I work with him on a lot of files. I know that he does meaningful work on those files. He is very organized and easy to work with. He makes an excellent suggestion. Unfortunately, I have to tell my colleague that we have already seen how the government reacts when we ask it to stand up and act courageously on human rights issues. I agr…
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Madam Speaker, that is another excellent question. We are fortunate this evening. I think that the Bloc Québécois shares the same position as the NDP. We like working hand in hand with our NDP friends. There needs to be an independent public inquiry. This would completely depoliticize the debate since this inquiry would be independent. Appointing someone who was a director of the PM's father's fou…
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Madam Speaker. I love my colleague. I understand his question. He just demonstrated why we need an independent public inquiry. Yes, he might be a good guy, but Kenny Chiu was also a good guy, and we do not know what happened because we are unable to shed light on the situation. My hon. colleague's question comes back to what we have been saying from the outset along with the Conservatives and the …
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Madam Speaker, indeed, it is late, but it is never too late to talk about issues as serious as this. What I have wanted to know since the start of this whole thing is how seriously is the Liberal government in power taking this issue. If we look at the measures this government has taken from the start, they coincided with the release of new information in the media every time. The Liberals have kn…
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Mr. Speaker, let us talk about the Century Initiative. Many Quebeckers and French Canadians are concerned about the federal government potentially tripling the population to 100 million by 2100 without any public debate. The Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship says his plan has nothing to do with the Century Initiative and he makes his own choices. Coincidence or not, his 2023-25 imm…
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Mr. Speaker, the minister brags about 4% of immigrants outside Quebec being francophone, but according to francophone and Acadian communities, they need 12% next year and 20% in the future just to slow the decline of French. Quebec's Minister of the French Language calls it the most hare-brained idea of the century. He says it is not good for Quebec or for the Canadian francophonie. Will the minis…
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Madam Speaker, as I look around, I have to wonder how seriously the government is taking Chinese interference here in Parliament. I think it is a serious issue. I wonder how seriously the government is taking it. I have a question for my hon. colleague. How seriously does he think the Liberal caucus is taking what is going on with Chinese interference in our Parliament?
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Elgin—Middlesex—London for her speech. I truly appreciate this member. I think she is a sincere person who comes to work here for the right reasons, to represent the people in her riding. She mentioned a gentleman whom I greatly respect, Kenny Chiu. I worked with him in the last Parliament. I have the impression that what happened to my friend Kenny is not …
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Madam Speaker, I want to point out that the speeches in the House today are excellent. I want to congratulate my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue for the overview he just provided. What happened is serious. I will try to summarize what happened recently, but also what happened in the years that we have been talking about interference here in the House. Yesterday, in the late afternoon, diploma…
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Mr. Speaker, they are congratulating themselves on reaching their target once in 20 years. That speaks volumes. It is unthinkable to triple the population to 100 million without public debate. Doing so would mean fundamentally changing Canada and Quebec behind closed doors with input only from economic circles. Immigration policies are not a virtue contest, they are public choices with real conseq…
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What a coincidence, Mr. Speaker. The federal government's targets are the same as those of the Century Initiative. The Century Initiative's top priority is economic interests. Dominic Barton confirmed that they did not think about anything else. They did not think about the impact that tripling the population would have on the future of French. They also did not think about indigenous languages or…
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Mr. Speaker, no country in recent history has planned to triple its population in 75 years. The Century Initiative deserves a responsible, intelligent debate. Quebeckers have some questions, and rightly so. There has been no debate, and the federal government appears to be going ahead with it anyway. Ottawa's immigration targets for 2025 already match those of the Century Initiative. Would the Lib…
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Mr. Speaker, this is only my second term and I have not even been here four years yet, so I would like to ask you a question. Throughout question period, the Conservative Party rightly asked members who had just spoken to apologize. Question period is now over and those members, who did not stand up once during question period, are suddenly apologizing now that everyone else has left. I want to kn…
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Mr. Speaker, I think everyone needs to calm down and, above all, trust the Speaker that the House elected. We need to keep things civil. While you were speaking, Mr. Speaker, I heard the House leader of the New Democratic Party yelling at a female member in an improper tone, telling her to sit down. I encourage everyone to calm down. We have a Speaker who is capable of making decisions. We must be…
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Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Bloc Québécois, I pledge our wholehearted support for our colleague and his family, who are currently going through a very difficult situation. I believe that all members of the House must support our colleague. The Bloc Québécois will be doing so. I believe that is what each and every one of us would want to see if we were in his position. He can count on our support…
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Mr. Speaker, CBSA just clued in about the violence in Sudan. Ottawa finally decided yesterday to stop the deportation of asylum seekers to that country, to avoid putting their lives in danger. Some may say that it is better late than never, but when we are talking about people's lives, what we should be saying is, “the sooner the better”. Ottawa should have done that automatically on compassionate…
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With regard to the request from the promoters of Democratic Spaces and Cuba Decide to impose targeted sanctions on 12 Cuban officials and entities responsible for gross violations of human rights in the aftermath of the protests of July 11, 2021: (a) has Global Affairs Canada (GAC) reviewed this request; (b) what information does GAC have on the human rights situation in Cuba, and how is GAC curre…
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Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague's speech. If the government was as quick to introduce this bill as my colleague was in reading his speech, Bill C‑41 would have been passed a long time ago. I want to congratulate him because I have never heard someone say so many words so quickly. There are a lot of things in this bill. Members know that I care a lot about this bill. With the su…
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Madam Speaker, I have been waiting for this day for more than a year. We are finally debating a bill that should have been introduced a long time ago. Last year, I had the honour of sitting on the Special Committee on Afghanistan with my colleagues from different parties, some of whom are with me today. I was one of the vice-chairs. It was at the meeting on February 7, 2022, already more than a ye…
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Madam Speaker, I congratulate the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen on his French. I have a great deal of appreciation for him. I know that he has a direct connection to Afghanistan, because he served over there. We thank him for his service. I thank him for the opportunity to say how frustrating this is and has been. He and I are part of a group of parliamentarians that also includes our friend from Edm…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her excellent question. I think this bill was supposed to strike a balance, which is no easy task when it comes to any discussion on terrorist financing. I understand how difficult it can be for legislators to draft a document that strikes this balance, and I think it has been achieved to some extent. Where we do see problems now has more to do with how this…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague and I are in the same position and we feel the same way. This is a bill that we need to pass, but it is truly imperfect and is not acceptable to the very organizations that asked us to create this bill. We need to find solutions. Earlier in my speech I talked about that a bit. I do not know whether my colleague had the opportunity to hear it. I think that the members fr…
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Mr. Speaker, after six years of repeatedly asking for Roxham Road to be closed, after repeating hundreds of times that asylum seekers should not be greeted by RCMP officers, after saying over and over again that the influx far exceeds Quebec's capacity, we see that Roxham Road is finally closed. That is good news. It should have been done a long time ago. Now, as we know, before we celebrate, we n…
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Indeed, Mr. Speaker, I was here for the President's speech. We understand that the Liberals are proud of their accomplishment and that they are happy. We are happy, too. However, there are still many unanswered questions, and many people are wondering, starting, I imagine, with Mr. Pierre Guay, who owns land near Roxham Road and is a generous Liberal Party donor. Mr. Guay signed leases estimated a…
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Madam Speaker, it is precisely because we are in contact with people who have been on the ground there for many years that we need to pass such legislation. Every day and every week, we meet people who tell us what they need, and we speak on their behalf. That is more or less what my colleague wanted to say as well. We need to go and get the information from those who are really experiencing the s…
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Madam Speaker, I was going to ask a question about my Conservative colleague's speech, but there was a question a moment ago from a Liberal member about my Conservative colleague's speech. I must admit that, as a good Quebecker, I was “flabbergasté”. I know Kenny Chiu. I worked with him. He is a respectable, upstanding man who deserves respect. In the last question from the Liberals about my frien…
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What a surprise, Mr. Speaker. We are not asking the minister what the results were in Washington. We already know. There were none at all. We saw it from the first second that he showed up alone to the scrum yesterday without an American representative by his side. That must have been embarrassing. Obviously, we will not talk about results, but can we at least know, as a famous politician said, wh…
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Mr. Speaker, at last, there was light. At last, after six years of inaction on Roxham Road, the federal government sent the Minister of Immigration to the United States to renegotiate the safe third country agreement. I have a very simple question for him, but it is a question to which nobody has ever received an answer. What does renegotiating the safe third country agreement mean? What concrete …
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister also said that simplistic solutions will not be how it is done. We agree on that. Speaking of simplistic solutions, there are just 17 days left before the Conservative leader's ultimatum expires, but we will come back to that. We have a simple solution, not a simplistic one. It involves suspending the safe third country agreement. That way, there will no longer be a…
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister made a rather unexpected comment as the House was rising for a two-week recess. He said that we all want Roxham Road to close. That was news to us. For years we have been asking the government to close Roxham Road, explaining that Quebec has exceeded its capacity, that it is not safe and that it is creating an illegal human smuggling industry. Now he tells us that h…
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Mr. Speaker, for six years now the federal government has repeatedly said that it is negotiating with the Americans on Roxham Road, but no one has heard anything about it. Who is negotiating on behalf of Canada and with whom? What are the objectives of the negotiation? How often are discussions held? When did the negotiations begin? What is the target date for seeing some results? Who does the neg…
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Mr. Speaker, it is nice to hear the Bloc Québécois's work on the refugee file being recognized, for once. This government just admitted how hard we are working and how much we care about the future of migrants and of Quebec. I thank my colleague. Now, that does not change the facts. We still do not have an answer about the negotiations. People advocating for asylum seekers have the right to know. …
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Mr. Speaker, let us hear what the people who advocate on behalf of asylum seekers have to say. Frantz André of the Non-Status Action Committee said that the government must begin by suspending the safe third country agreement if it wants to demonstrate that Canada is not the 51st state of the United States when it comes to accepting refugees. He is right. The United States is part of the problem a…
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Mr. Speaker, right now at Roxham Road, there are smugglers who are peddling illusions to migrants to exploit them. There are unaccompanied children in the woods in the middle of winter, and there are people being detained indefinitely. That is what is happening at Roxham Road. That is what the federal government is condoning. Refugee rights groups themselves are calling for the suspension of the s…
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Mr. Speaker, the government is making up scandals when it comes to Roxham Road, but the real scandal is that Roxham Road has become a network for the exploitation of asylum seekers, in cahoots with the American authorities. The real scandal is that U.S. customs officers have become smugglers, right under the government's nose. The real scandal is that Ottawa knows about this and accepts it. The sa…
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Madam Speaker, I understand you were speaking with someone else, but there are members of the Conservative Party talking to my colleague while he is making his speech.
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Mr. Speaker, as we speak, rescue workers are still searching for survivors of yesterday's powerful earthquake in Turkey and Syria. The death toll is now over 7,000 and climbing. We are witnessing a race against time. It is a chilling story, a true catastrophe. The earthquake comes on top of a very serious humanitarian situation. Syria has been ravaged by a civil war since 2011, and the Bloc Québéc…
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Mr. Speaker, are you tired of the hustle and bustle of the Big Apple? Pollution, crime and city noise getting you down? You need the all-inclusive Roxham tour. Hop on a free bus to Plattsburgh, where a taxi will take you to fabulous Roxham Road. Once you are on the other side, take advantage of free housing, welfare, health care and education for your kids. The all-inclusive Roxham tour is just wa…
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Mr. Speaker, let us be serious, then. It is our moral duty to take in asylum seekers. It is a matter of human decency. If the life of a man or a woman is in danger in their country of origin, we need to answer their call for help. However, the situation at Roxham Road verges on the absurd. Now the Americans are using this irregular point of entry to wash their hands of their own responsibilities a…
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Mr. Speaker, unlike the immigration minister, I do not see talking about migrants as a problem. While New York is sending buses of people to Roxham Road, there are tragedies unfolding as well. La Presse reported this morning that dozens of children are crossing at Roxham Road alone. These are children as young as 10 years old who are unaccompanied. This is no joke. The government has known this fo…
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Mr. Speaker, that is proof that we should vote for this motion. It would allow us to get to the bottom of some of the questions that we have. Is it a contract or is it an arrangement? That is a good reason to vote for this motion. The parliamentary secretary to the government House leader just illustrated the relevance of such a motion and investigation. Getting back to his question, if I tell my …
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Mr. Speaker, the colour of the clothing would not bother me, because I am colour-blind. I have heard it said that I have trouble dressing sometimes. Once again, I completely agree with my colleague. The government's refusal to debate is starting to get really worrisome. The last time it refused to debate, it called an unnecessary election and look at the result. That is how the Liberals debate. If…
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Mr. Speaker, it was not me who said that. It was one of our colleagues. I could not agree more. I think it is disrespectful toward public servants, who want to work to the best of their abilities. By hiring external firms, the government is essentially sending public servants the message that they are incapable of doing their jobs. It is very disrespectful. The Liberals may have used certain firms…
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Mr. Speaker, I was not planning to start my speech like this, but the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons leaves me no choice. I listened to his speech. He spent most of his time saying that we should not be debating the Conservative motion, that this was not the right place. He even said that this could have been done on an opposition day. I would like …
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Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleague from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan for his speech, which was just as spirited as ever. I really like the motion before us. I think that we need to shed some light on the relationship the government has maintained with McKinsey since 2011. I think that the Conservatives did a good job on this motion because it also covers the period when they were in po…
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