Parliamentary Speeches
563 speeches by Christine Normandin — Page 1 of 12
Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said he was very disappointed with Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau for expressing his condolences in English only. However, he has no business being disappointed. Three years ago, his government voted against requiring leaders of companies like Air Canada to be bilingual. His government is being sued by the organization Droits collectifs Québec because it is not com…
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Mr. Speaker, instead of expressing disappointment with Michael Rousseau, the Prime Minister should lead by example. Instead, he is likely the only prime minister in half a century not to have a francophone speech writer. His government has made unilingual English appointments, starting with Governor General Mary Simon. It was under the Liberals that the federal public service became the worst econ…
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Mr. Speaker, at the risk of repeating myself, you have nonetheless prevented a member from asking a question simply because it was related to a party's mandate. I want to reiterate that, in this instance, MPs cannot be dissociated from their role as party members because, as such, they are voting at the convention and giving themselves a mandate. When viewed in that context, the question was entir…
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Earlier, you rejected a question from my colleague from Rivière-du-Nord. The underlying intent of that question was to determine whether the government plans to veto the notwithstanding clause. I would argue that the answer to that question pertains specifically to the administration of the government, regardless of who asks the question. By your logic, I w…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to quickly discuss a supplementary opinion to the report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, first, I want to thank the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for the collaborative approach it has taken to ensure that elections run smoothly, which unfortunately has not always been the case. The Bloc Québécois supports all of the recommendations in the report except one, and that is the recommendation that seeks to limit the number of nomination papers a voter can s…
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Mr. Speaker, what is happening at the Supreme Court goes beyond political allegiances. Yes, secularism is being debated today in relation to Bill 21, but there is also the notwithstanding clause, and that is far more significant. That clause enabled us to require that signage be in French in Quebec. The notwithstanding clause has enabled us to pass no fewer than 41 Quebec laws throughout history, …
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Mr. Speaker, what is happening today at the Supreme Court is the ultimate constitutional power grab. The Government of Canada is not content to simply attack state secularism by challenging Bill 21. It wants to prevent Quebec from passing any law that Ottawa does not like by limiting the use of the notwithstanding clause. The Liberals are using the highest court to undermine Quebec and diminish th…
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Mr. Speaker, the Ali Al Salem Air Base was the target of an Iranian missile strike on March 1. This military complex is home to Camp Canada, a Canadian Armed Forces operational base. In other words, on March 1, Iran targeted Canadian military personnel. The government, the Minister of National Defence, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and, of course, the Prime Minister, were aware of this attack on…
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Mr. Speaker, on Monday, March 9, the government proposed a take-note debate on the conflict in the Middle East in response to requests from the Bloc Québécois and the Conservative Party. It has been eight days since the Ali Al-Salem military base was attacked by Iranian missiles. It has been eight days, and the Liberals have not seen fit to mention it to parliamentarians. The information was made …
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Mr. Speaker, 85,000 seniors have been having problems receiving their OAS payments since the new Cúram computer system was implemented. One federal public service union is even describing Cúram as the new Phoenix. Cost overruns for implementing Cúram are already approaching $5 billion, 10 times more than SAAQclic, which caused a real scandal. When we raise these issues, the minister accuses us of …
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Mr. Speaker, Cúram is a financial disaster, but for thousands of seniors, it is also a human tragedy. Some people are having to go into debt to pay their rent, buy groceries and pay their bills. The government keeps defending its decision to replace an outdated system with a malfunctioning system. Cúram has left thousands of seniors worried and anxious since it was first introduced. Will the gover…
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Mr. Speaker, let us come back to the Cúram software. It is causing problems with the old age pensions of 85,000 seniors and has racked up $5 billion in cost overruns. All of this could have been avoided had the Liberals done their homework because Cúram has caused these sorts of problems all over the world. Australia experienced problems with Cúram in 2006, North Carolina in 2012, Minnesota in 201…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals could have avoided the Cúram fiasco by looking at the problems it has caused all over the world, because this has been going on for 20 years. They also could have listened to the Auditor General who noticed that the costs were skyrocketing in 2023. Perhaps they could have also listened to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, which looked into this in 2023, and espec…
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Mr. Speaker, we would like to revisit Cúram, the Liberal Party's success story that is causing problems for 85,000 retirees. Yesterday, the Minister of Jobs and Families said that this is not a big deal for those who are not receiving their old age pension. She said it does not matter because these are not payments that people depend on every month since they are new applicants. All retirees inclu…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals say that it works, and that it does not cost a lot. That is exactly why the National Assembly unanimously called for an independent public inquiry. If we relied on the Liberals we would never get a clear picture of Cúram's problems because they do not see a problem. For them, it is not a problem if 85,000 pensioners receive OAS cheques containing errors. For them, $5 bill…
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Mr. Speaker, the Cúram software and its $5 billion in cost overruns is the last straw for Quebec. The Quebec National Assembly just unanimously adopted a motion that points out that significant cost overruns in federal government IT projects are a waste of the tax dollars paid by Quebec taxpayers. Every elected official in Quebec is calling on the federal government to launch an independent public…
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Mr. Speaker, the Quebec National Assembly unanimously adopted a motion pointing out that the cost of the Phoenix software skyrocketed from an initial budget of $309 million to a total cost of $5.5 billion. It also noted that the cost of ArriveCAN went from $80,000 to $60 million and that now, Cúram has already exceeded its initial budget of $1.75 billion to reach $6.6 billion. Meanwhile, the Liber…
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Mr. Speaker, the Cúram fiasco has been costly. We were wondering where Quebeckers' money was going, and then we got our answer when we learned that the cost of the software had risen from $1.75 billion to $6.6 billion, a cost overrun of nearly $5 billion. Quebeckers' money is going into the pockets of private companies. Of the total bill of $6.6 billion, $3.4 billion, or more than half, is going t…
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Mr. Speaker, there are so few cost overruns that when asked about Cúram, the government's response is that cost overruns are “common practice”. That is the problem. There were problems with ArriveCan and there were problems with Phoenix, but that is okay. It happens all the time. In fact, as early as 2023, the Auditor General warned the government about the risks of “[taking] shortcuts...as happen…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois agrees to apply the vote and will be voting against the motion.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I agree in principle. As I was saying, we are voting in favour of the bill. However, if we are going to have confidence in the administration of justice, then we also need to have confidence in the bill and we would have benefited from more time to review it properly. It may be a bit pretentious of the government to say that the bills it introduces are perfect from the get-go. This ma…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague's question raises many issues, but I would like to circle back to what I said earlier. The objectives of this bill, as my colleague from La Prairie—Atateken clearly described, were to improve public confidence in the justice system and to strike a balance between various existing rights, including the public's right to feel safe and the accused's right, despite everything…
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Mr. Speaker, the government is not talking about the 85,000 people affected or the $5 billion in cost overruns. I would like to give the Liberals a short briefing so that they understand the extent of the problem. In Quebec, with SAAQclic, ministers resigned over cost overruns of $500 million. The Liberals have now basically reached $5 billion in cost overruns, but they are simply shrugging their …
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Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague on how we got to the clause-by-clause consideration of this bill. As a result of a mutual agreement between the Liberals and the Conservatives, only two sittings were held where we could hear from witnesses, followed by one sitting for a clause-by-clause study. Due to the Conservatives' filibuster, in part, of Bill C-9, it was a way forward to get to…
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Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, it is true that both the government side and the official opposition side sometimes tend to equate the time spent studying a bill with wasted time. In some cases, they seem to see them as one and the same. If we spend a lot of time studying a bill, that is seen as filibustering. However, the reason we spend a lot of time studying matters like Bill C-15, which is about 6…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin my remarks by referring back to the response I received from the member for Terra Nova—The Peninsulas when I asked him how we came to be debating Bill C-14 at the report stage today. As mentioned, there has been a lot of talk about Bill C-9 in committee but, unfortunately, nothing has come of it because the Bloc Québécois proposed an amendment that sought to remo…
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Mr. Speaker, according to the government, 85,000 pensioners are experiencing problems with their OAS because of the Cúram software, the same software that has incurred almost $5 billion in cost overruns. It has produced 85,000 victims and cost $5 billion more in public funds than anticipated, yet the Liberals are acting like there is nothing wrong. They are treating 85,000 people as though they ar…
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Mr. Speaker, by the government's own estimates, 85,000 pensioners are affected by problems with the Cúram software, and yet the ministers keep telling us just to give them the names if we know of people who are having problems. According to the government's own data, there are 85,000 people having problems. As if that were not enough, the cost of the software jumped from $1.75 billion to $6.6 bill…
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Mr. Speaker, by the government's own estimates, the Cúram software is causing 85,000 retirees problems with their old age pensions. The government has been aware of the problem since June, but it is still refusing to do anything about it. At the same time, the cost of Cúram has skyrocketed from the initial budget of $1.75 billion to $6.6 billion as of last June. These 85,000 seniors are victims of…
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Mr. Speaker, the minister revealed that 85,000 pensioners have been having issues with their OAS benefits because of the Cúram software, in some cases for nine months. The government was warned by its own public servants as early as this summer. However, the government today seems content to say that, if people have indeed been affected, we should give them their names. When there are 85,000 names…
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Mr. Speaker, there was a time when the Liberals told Quebeckers to stay in Canada or lose their pension. Now, they are telling Quebeckers to stay in Canada even if they are no longer receiving their pension. What is more, they will pay a fortune for this fiasco, because the Cúram software has already incurred nearly $5 billion in cost overruns. Denying pensioners their OAS is expensive. How come e…
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Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, there are several examples we could give. It seems we have devoted a few Bloc Québécois opposition days to calling for an apology, including for the October crisis. We were not exactly told that it was inexcusable. Apologizing for the Acadians also seems challenging. In this case, I find it completely mind-boggling. We are told that what happened 50 years ago is inexcus…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that it is a pleasure to rise today to speak during our opposition day debate, except that I am doing so because the people of Mirabel, and potentially other places in Canada, are experiencing a situation that is distressing, to say the least. Our motion today stems from the idea expressed in a simple quote: those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, there is a problem with the speed at which it is being done. It was only recently announced that the consultations would be taking place from January 15 to the end of March. We are told that there will eventually be a second, more definitive route and that the next consultations, in the fall, will be on that second route. Things are moving extremely quickly for something that affects …
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Mr. Speaker, if I had done so, I probably would have been disbarred.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, that simply supports the theory that the government wants to move much too quickly, likely for the sake of interests that are completely at odds with those of the people, but that is not all. Aside from dealing with environmental studies, the Impact Assessment Act seeks to better understand the health, social and economic impacts of a project. However, the government is prepared to sc…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, some pensioners have not received their OAS payments for nine months because of the Cúram software, and the government is ignoring them. However, today we learned that the pensioners are not the only ones being ignored. The government is also ignoring the opinions of its own officials. In an internal survey, more than half of them gave that software a score of one out of 10. Some 89% …
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Mr. Speaker, we have been sounding the alarm for months. In a document provided to La Presse, the union said that Cúram is causing problems similar to the ones people experienced during the Phoenix fiasco, but on a broader scale. That is not all. According to the union report, a procedure clearly indicates that agents must not tell clients that payment delays or errors are related to Cúram. Did th…
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Mr. Speaker, there are pensioners who applied for their old age security benefits nine months ago and have yet to receive a penny. That is because the government refuses to deal with the glitches in its new Cúram software. It has been aware of the problems since June, and yet as recently as Thursday, the government House leader told us that mistakes would be fixed “if there are any”. There are ind…
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Mr. Speaker, the infamous Cúram software, which is depriving retirees of their OAS benefits, is costing a lot more than its market value. The cost overrun has reached almost $5 billion. To give members some idea, that is roughly 10 times the cost of the SAAQclic scandal, for poorly performing software. At that price, when problems prevent seniors from receiving their pension benefits and enjoying …
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Mr. Speaker, for days now, we have been warning the government that problems with the new Cúram software are preventing retirees from receiving their old age security benefits. At first, the Liberals told us that we were fearmongering. However, yesterday, they admitted that the problem does exist, but that it is affecting only 30 people or so. Well, according to journalist Marie-Ève Fournier, ther…
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Mr. Speaker, we can confirm that, in addition to the cost, there are indeed mistakes. Once again, Ottawa is driving people crazy. On the one hand, there are people aged 65 and over who deferred their pensions and have been deprived of cheques for nine months once they finally asked for them. On the other hand, there are people who are receiving too many cheques, returning them and still being sent…
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Mr. Speaker, this year we will be presenting a shareholders' report instead of our usual session review, because Canada has essentially become a business. Under this Prime Minister, the Liberals are not even pretending anymore. The fight against climate change is over. The environment is a roadblock to trade. Bill C-5, Bill C-15 and Bill S-4 throw compliance with the law out the window because it …
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals do not have a prime minister, they have a CEO. He does not listen to social priorities like health care or seniors. He does not listen to the ministers who are resigning just to be heard. He does not listen to voters, given his Conservative budget. He does not listen to Quebeckers who voted for him because they were afraid of Donald Trump, given that all he has to say abo…
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Mr. Speaker, that still speaks to his policy. Wise men say only fools rush in. The Prime Minister already made an appointment last week that turned all of Quebec against him. We are just trying to give him a chance not to make the same mistake twice. When Mark Wiseman talks about imposing immigration policies on Quebec, even if it makes them howl, he is showing his contempt not only for Quebec, bu…
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is considering appointing Mark Wiseman as ambassador to Washington. Mark Wiseman is one of the co-founders of the Century Initiative, a policy that aims to increase Canada's population to 100 million people and is at the root of Quebec exceeding its intake capacity. He said that 100 million Canadians by 2100 should become federal policy “even if it makes Quebec howl…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to someone with a remarkable professional career. She has been a colleague for six years, but she is now also a friend: Diane Godin, has been a pillar of my office and has played a key role in political life since 1994. Over the years, she has served five members with remarkable professionalism: Louise Beaudoin, Yves Lessard, Bertrand Saint‑Arnaud, Dave Tur…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government has been promising a bill to combat hate speech for six years. That is six years of making promises to groups that feel threatened and six years of saying that it is important to take action against hate. Their bill actually had a chance of passing for once, provided that the religious exemption was abolished, as unanimously called for by the Quebec National Ass…
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