Parliamentary Speeches
473 speeches by Christine Normandin — Page 2 of 10
Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, Ottawa's brief to the Supreme Court challenging Bill 21 is the stuff of conspiracy theories. In their challenge against state secularism, the Liberals are claiming it would create a slippery slope that could lead to nightmare scenarios, such as the banning of places of worship. They even suggest that Quebec could reinstate slavery or executions. It says a lot about how Canadians see Q…
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Mr. Speaker, the federal government is attacking much more than secularism at the Supreme Court, it is attacking Quebec's parliamentary sovereignty by amending the Constitution without debate through the courts. This is a blow to the basic function of the notwithstanding clause, which is to protect democracy from a government of judges. If the federal government wants to amend the Constitution, th…
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Mr. Speaker, there is no such thing as pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause. It is a myth invented to keep Quebec from deciding for itself. The federal government is openly asking the courts to nullify part of the Constitution with no political debate and no say from politicians, in a bid to take fundamental powers away from Quebec. This is not a legal debate. It is a constitutional power…
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Mr. Speaker, it is not only Bill 21 and state secularism that Ottawa is attacking at the Supreme Court, it is worse than that. By attacking the notwithstanding clause itself, Ottawa is attacking the ability of our National Assembly to vote democratically on any law that is supported by Quebeckers without having to beg Canada for permission first. This is an attack against secularism, but it is als…
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With regard to the organization of the Unity Rally (love-in) in 1995: (a) what funding was provided by the federal government for its organization, broken down by department; and (b) what resources were allocated by the federal government and Crown corporations, especially Via Rail, broken down by department and Crown corporation?
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With regard to the promotion of Canada, including contributions to third parties, between April 1, 1995, and March 31, 1996: (a) what was the total cost incurred by the Government of Canada, broken down (i) by agency and department, (ii) by month; (b) what are the details of all internal and external communications and briefing materials between Option Canada, the Canadian Unity Council, Conseil Q…
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is taking advantage of the distraction caused by the G7 summit to force his Bill C-5 through under a gag order. It is an attack on Quebec and indigenous peoples. Fortunately, some people are paying attention. Yesterday, the Assembly of First Nations threatened to take legal action if Bill C-5 is passed without adequate consultation with indigenous peoples. Also yest…
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Beaches—East York is certainly not the only Liberal who is uncomfortable with Bill C-5. There are other Liberals who did not go into politics to force pipelines on Quebec without its consent and without a credible environmental assessment. There are other Liberals who did not go into politics to undermine reconciliation efforts by forcing energy projects on indigenous p…
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has given notice of a gag order on Bill C‑5. The House has been sitting for just three weeks, and he already wants to ram through a bill, and not just any bill. Bill C‑5 gives him the power to rule by decree on fossil fuel projects. Bill C-5 completely guts environmental assessments. Bill C‑5 threatens Quebec's jurisdiction and the rights of indigenous peoples. It m…
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is going to have to leave the banker behind and start acting like a democrat. Bill C-5 raises major concerns about the environment and Quebec's sovereignty over its own territory. If there is one bill that needs to be studied thoroughly, it is this one. The Prime Minister has no right to move closure on Bill C‑5 when the bill gives him unprecedented, exceptional pow…
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Mr. Speaker, the second part of Bill C‑5 is called the building Canada act, but it might as well be called the destroying the planet act. Ottawa is giving itself the right to green-light fossil fuel projects by making orders, with no environmental assessment or consultation. It will decide unilaterally. Only once the decision has been made will it conduct bogus assessments and consult Quebec, the …
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Mr. Speaker, Bill C-5's measures to do away with trade barriers could move forward without any issue had the Liberals not decided the bill should also include provisions imposing dirty oil and gas pipelines on Quebec. The Bloc Québécois is willing to work with the government on interprovincial trade, but it is a two-way street. If the Liberals want to work on trade, then we will be a partner, but …
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Mr. Speaker, as of yesterday, U.S. tariffs on aluminum and steel have doubled to 50%. After three months of this dispute, time is running out for our industries. However, after three months, they have yet to receive any support. The Prime Minister says he is in intensive discussions with the Americans, which is good. However, after three months, the government should no longer be at the intensive …
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Mr. Speaker, the promised Liberal magic is not working on Donald Trump, and Quebec is suffering the consequences. Tariffs of 50% are being imposed on our aluminum and our steel. Some 2,000 layoffs were announced in our forestry industry, and that is not all. Yesterday, we learned that our aerospace industry is in the line of fire, and that Washington is thinking of imposing tariffs by the end of t…
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Madam Speaker, if faith moves mountains, then solidarity and brotherly love makes us climb them. On November 8 and 9, Jérémie “Jay” Fortin, an infantry sergeant in the armed forces, from the municipality of Saint-Valentin, walked 100 kilometres carrying 100 pounds on his shoulders in less than 24 hours. The goal was to raise money for the Cancer Research Society in honour of his brother Jason, who…
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Madam Speaker, the Government of Quebec has just written to the federal government asking it to remove the religious exemption set out in the Criminal Code that allows hate speech masquerading as faith-based speech. Quebec is fed up with Ottawa's inaction, which is partly to blame for the current tensions in Montreal and which encourages speech that leads to violence. As it happens, the Bloc Québé…
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Madam Speaker, if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent to adopt the following motion: That the House express its support for La Presse journalist Daniel Renaud, who had a bounty put on his head by members of organized crime, and reaffirm that the work of journalists is one of the pillars of our democracy and that it must be carried out without fear of reprisal or threats to the p…
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Madam Speaker, politicians are speaking out against hate speech, but this outcry is pointless unless somebody in Ottawa has the courage to demand that the religious exemption be repealed, as the Bloc Québécois is calling for. Hate speech is supposed to be criminal, period. Tolerating hate speech in the name of religion actively undermines our ability to co-exist in harmony. The Liberals have a cho…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary referred to the content of the motion that we are debating today, but this motion was motivated by the government's refusal to comply with an order of the House to hand over certain documents. The real issue here is our right to know what is happening so that, if need be, we can hold the government to account for any questionable or illegal acts that may ha…
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Madam Speaker, the federal government may still be asleep at the switch, but there are some people at the border who are getting ready. I am not talking about the government, but about illegal human trafficking networks. These networks are calling the shots at the border as they take advantage of the RCMP's lack of resources. They exploited asylum seekers back in the days of Roxham Road, and they …
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Madam Speaker, we must not expect Donald Trump to temper his deportation promises. On the contrary, he confirmed in an interview yesterday that he would take action, regardless of the cost to the American economy. The risk of a wave of migration hitting our border is both real and high. Meanwhile, in committee yesterday, as Trump was reiterating his threats, the Minister of Public Safety referred …
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Madam Speaker, I would like my colleague to tell us about one of the proposed amendments, the one aimed at systematically appointing port authorities that represent workers to boards of directors. I would like to know where he stands on this specific amendment.
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Madam Speaker, we need to talk about the precarious financial situation retirees are facing. I would like to begin by reminding the Liberals that seniors are listening to us and they expect their elected representatives to stop playing politics when it comes to their living conditions. The fact that seniors aged 65 to 74 receive 10% less in old age security benefits than older seniors simply canno…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I would like to return the report under study. We have been going all over the map. The report mentions two of the Auditor General's key findings about how the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation had virtually no idea who would benefit from these initiatives. The initiatives were there, yet it was unclear who would benefit from them. There was practically zero federal accountabili…
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Madam Speaker, the Liberals are masters of their own destiny. They can stop creating two classes of retirees by increasing old age security for seniors 65 to 74, or they can keep answering with platitudes or not answering at all. They are going to suffer the consequences. Let us be clear, the Bloc Québécois has no intention of giving up on this. The government, who has $34 billion to spend on a pi…
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Mr. Speaker, I too will put an end to the suspense by announcing that the Bloc Québécois intends to vote in favour of the principle of the bill at second reading so that it can be sent to committee. However, I will reiterate some of the comments I made about the timeline that led to the passage of the bill and the relevance of debating it now. As has been mentioned, the issue of sexual misconduct …
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and co-chair of the Standing Committee on National Defence for his speech. At the beginning of his speech, he mentioned the importance of hearing from victims and getting their views on Bill C‑66. However, it takes a lot of courage for victims to come forward and testify publicly about this type of case. I cannot help but recall what happened this summer at a meet…
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Madam Speaker, the minister may not have asked me a question, but he did raise a point that I failed to mention when I was listing other files that the committee could examine. With respect to recruitment and retention, yes, 70,000 people applied. The problem is that so many applications remain in the queue for so long because the processing time for new recruits is so problematic that there is no…
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Mr. Speaker, my question is going to be somewhat similar to the question from my colleague, the co-chair of the Standing Committee on National Defence. Since 2015, the issue of sexual misconduct has become common knowledge, so much so that Justice Deschamps, who reported on it at the time, served a guide for Justice Arbour, who also had to report on it. She wondered why she was being approached to…
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Madam Speaker, I think there is no need to describe the former minister's actions as political interference to know, to understand and to conclude that it was absolutely not the thing to do. Unfortunately, what happened ended up slowing down the process, because it was not until 2021, if memory serves, that journalists shed light on the issue and the Standing Committee on National Defence looked i…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for London—Fanshawe for the question she asked in perfect French. Unfortunately, that comes back to what I was saying earlier. There are so many important issues to examine. Unless I am mistaken, the issue that she raised is addressed in a motion, but there are so many motions that the Standing Committee on National Defence has to examine. Generally …
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Madam Speaker, when I put the question to my colleague the co-chair, he may have mentioned that the issue of sexual misconduct is so non-partisan that we should ensure the safety of the witnesses who testify about it. However, the issue of domestic violence should not have been partisan either. That did not stop us from witnessing an unfortunate circus this summer at the Standing Committee on the …
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With regard to defence procurement contracts since 2015: what have been the industrial and technological benefits, broken down by province and territory?
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With regard to the government’s military spending since 2015: what are the annual amounts of investments and purchases of goods and services, broken down by province and territory?
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Mr. Speaker, the Premier of British Columbia, David Eby, wrote to the Prime Minister to ask him to do a better job of sharing information on foreign interference with his province. We know that the Prime Minister is not very proactive when it comes to foreign interference. In a very partisan way, he would rather shut his eyes and hope that the problem goes away. However, as we saw in Quebec with H…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. I have the pleasure of serving with her on the Standing Committee on National Defence. She began her speech by talking about the fact that we are having to debate an omnibus bill. By definition, an omnibus bill contains anything and everything. This one includes 23 tax measures and 44 non-tax measures. We are going to vote against it because some…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague began his speech—
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Madam Speaker, Bill C‑65 moves the election date from October 20 to October 27. They say that the reason is Diwali, a religious holiday held on October 20. Considering existing provisions of the Canada Elections Act and amendments introduced through Bill C‑65, however, voters have ample opportunities to vote. People can vote for seven days at a returning officer's office, on election day and six o…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague began his speech by talking about the importance of balancing the budget and cutting the government's unnecessary spending. Bill C‑69 includes a nice oil subsidy for so-called green hydrogen. It is a tax credit of 15% to 40%. Last year, the federal deficit was about $40 billion. The subsidies and tax credits for oil companies totalled about $30 billion. We could reduce …
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's scatterbrained, laissez-faire approach to domestic security has consequences. There are consequences to his refusal to provide information about the Winnipeg lab, to the point of suing the Speaker of the House, to his stubborn refusal to launch a commission of inquiry for months on end, to his refusal to co-operate with the Quebec and provincial governments on sha…
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Madam Speaker, the motion we have been presented with today calls for an economic analysis of the carbon tax. I would submit, however, that what is needed is a far more macroeconomic analysis of the climate change question. This should include, for example, the costs of climate inaction, particularly the increase in insurance premiums and the health costs associated with pollution-related risks. T…
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Madam Speaker, the Liberals keep harping on the fact that they abolished subsidies to the oil companies. However, former minister Catherine McKenna said that the carbon capture tax credit “should never have happened, but clearly the oil and gas lobbyists pushed for that.... We are giving special access to companies that are making historic profits”. I will spare my colleagues the rest of the quote…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to highlight the successes of an outstanding homegrown athlete. An athletics enthusiast from a very young age, Yannick Le Mouël has racked up a whole host of titles, including world champion in the 60-metre hurdles, which he won at the 2023 masters championship in Torun. Just as important as his individual achievements, if not more so, are his involvement in the community…
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Mr. Speaker, there are some people who never cease to amaze, and Maéli Grignon is one of them. Her future career in science is sure to be a resounding success. At just 15 years old, she has already won a Technoscience award as well as a bursary from the Université de Montréal when she last took part in the Quebec final of the Expo-sciences competition. Her favourite subject is none other than the …
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Mr. Speaker, this year we commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings. We have a duty to remember the soldiers who took part, those who are still among us and those who have left us or who fell in combat, many of whose names have been lost to history. It took a lot of courage for those young men to land on the beaches of Normandy under Nazi fire and to press ahead tirelessly, even wh…
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Madam Speaker, among the reports by the Auditor General that came out yesterday, there was one that talked about McKinsey. We know that when subcontracts are awarded to private companies, that contributes to a loss of expertise in the public service. It is the same thing with the closure of Sustainable Development Technology Canada. We do not know where the workers with expertise in sustainable de…
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Madam Speaker, I think that the question clearly shows where the government's priorities are in terms of climate. If we had applied the same criteria to Trans Mountain as those used for the SDTC in abandoning the whole project, we would have pulled out of Trans Mountain a long time ago. Finally, funding was secured, which went far beyond what was originally estimated, to end the damned project bec…
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Madam Speaker, the problem is that we never should have reached this point. It was said earlier. Minister Navdeep Bains was informed, and he did nothing. He did not request an audit. Shutting down SDTC is the nuclear option. It might have been better to do things differently. We know this type of program is the product of the government's obvious desire to create a fiscal imbalance, stop funding t…
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Madam Speaker, it is always difficult to follow my colleague from Terrebonne, but I will do my best to address the day's topic, the production of documents following the three rather explosive reports just made public by the Auditor General of Canada. I will quickly address the Conservatives' motion because I may have a few proposals to make at the end of my speech. The Conservatives' motion essen…
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Madam Speaker, as I said already, when we create parallel entities and delegate, including to firms or boards, the important principle of government accountability tends to get lost. This is the crux of the issue, of which Sustainable Development Technology Canada, SDTC, is just one example. The way the government manages its affairs and its propensity to constantly delegate need to be examined. I…
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