Parliamentary Speeches
473 speeches by Christine Normandin — Page 3 of 10
Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke at length about the whole issue of systemic discrimination. Before the commission was created, complaints were handled on a more individual basis, making it impossible to see the big picture. We can only hope that the new commission will be able to identify trends and make reports and recommendations to prevent systemic inappropriate behaviour from happening in the …
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order regarding relevance. My colleague has been speaking for about eight minutes. I would be curious to know his position on Bill C-20 because, unless I am mistaken, he has not yet spoken about the bill itself. I believe he has two minutes left to do so.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that we were unable to identify the member for York South—Weston.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I like the member very much, and I would like to hear his comments on the following point. During his speech, he talked about the importance of transparency and independence. My understanding of the bill is that the chairperson of the commission is to report to the minister rather than reporting directly to the House. This is a problem we have prev…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her speech. She spoke exclusively in French, and I thank her for that. I should mention in passing that her French was excellent. It was very kind of her. My question is actually about language skills. I would like to know if there were any discussions in committee about the need to ensure that there are bilingual commissioners so that complaints…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals seem to have a newfound appreciation for the cause of the francophonie. The Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie, or APF, had 18 Liberals in 2021, 11 in 2022, and 22 in 2023. Since last week, there has been a sudden awakening: No less than 112 members of the Liberal caucus are now members of the APF. I say bravo. Francophiles thank them. It is an extraordinary commi…
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Mr. Speaker, no one is pulling the wool over our eyes. They have not decided to overtake the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie because they had an epiphany about the fact that French is under threat in Quebec, Canada and around the world. No, they signed up because there is nothing more important to a Liberal than another Liberal. A friend is a friend. They signed up because they have to …
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Madam Speaker, historically speaking, most of the armed forces' civilian employees in Quebec have been women. They are rightfully asking why the federal government discriminates against them. For example, they are rightfully asking why a financial assistant in Bagotville gets paid $10 less an hour than an assistant doing the same job in Ottawa. The striking workers are rightfully demanding equal t…
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Madam Speaker, for 117 days, the federal government has been ignoring its civilian employees at Quebec's military bases, who are on strike. The government cannot ignore them anymore, because their representatives from Saint‑Jean, Bagotville and Valcartier are here today. They are here to ask why Quebeckers have the lowest salaries in Canada, why Quebeckers are treated like second-class workers and…
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Mr. Speaker, a bit earlier the leader of the Conservative Party refused to explain the difference between legalization and decriminalization. The latter does not allow people to consume drugs wherever they want. Rather, it ensures that people with a drug problem are not systematically dealt with by the prison system and can get the care they need. This all stems from the fact that drug dependency …
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservative Party leader refused to answer the question by one of my colleagues, who asked him to give us the definition for legalization as opposed to decriminalization. This is important in the debate we are currently having. Decriminalization does not allow people to systematically consume drugs everywhere. It allows us to ensure, in cases substance abuse, that the person will…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Montcalm for his speech, which was enlightening as always, because he himself is enlightened and well versed in his files. It is a pleasure to hear him speak. This morning, several of us tried to get the Conservatives to explain the difference between decriminalization, legalization and diversion. They were unwilling to answer the question. Ho…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his passionate and informative speech. With their motion, we are hearing the Conservatives trying to convince us that their proposal will solve everything, that fentanyl will disappear overnight from the illicit drugs sold in the street, that drug addiction problems will be solved overnight and that the handful of treatment procedures they are suggesting wil…
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Mr. Speaker, during the committee's study, the Bloc Québécois proposed a number of amendments, including the idea of conducting seabed impact studies before developing wind turbines, which was rejected by the Liberals, among others. I have a simple question. Was it simply to avoid setting a precedent for oil and gas development on the seabed, so that there can never really be an environmental asse…
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Madam Speaker, until recently, the only questions the Conservatives asked in French during question period were about the carbon tax. For months, that was all they talked about. Finally, they had an epiphany and realized that it does not apply to Quebec, which goes to show they could understand the concept easily enough once it was explained to them over and over again. They figured they had to fi…
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Madam Speaker, I really love that question. I am a member of the Standing Committee on National Defence, which today heard from the minister about the defence policy update. I asked questions specifically about the rapid reaction forces that are there to keep the peace around the world. I asked when this rapid reaction force would be set up. It was promised in 2017, when Canada wanted a seat on th…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan raises a perfectly legitimate question, but why not debate it in the appropriate forum instead of raising it in the House at the last minute? We are debating it today without knowing all the ins and outs of it and without having had the opportunity to hear testimony from experts, for example, before speaking on the issue. It is the m…
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Madam Speaker, I feel like taking my colleague's intervention, putting it in the present tense, removing the question mark and making it the answer. Every aspect of the answer was in the question as well as in my speech. Indeed, this is not the right forum. This is an important issue and it deserves to be addressed properly in committee. With a bit of luck, we will stop having 72 motions moved by …
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Madam Speaker, the debate that we are having right now is a follow-up to a debate that took place at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in December, where a motion calling for various things was adopted. I would like to read that list of things. The motion called for the government to create “an Anti-Hate Crime Task Force to coordinate the protection of faith communities”, to remov…
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Mr. Speaker, first I would like to inform you that I may not use all of my time to speak to this bill because it has been a while since it was introduced. The bill is landing here about three years later and, as I like to say in speeches where I am not the first to speak, I feel that everything has already been said, although I would not repeat what the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan s…
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Mr. Speaker, their discussions are going so well that the Government of Quebec is thinking of holding a referendum on immigration. The truth is that Quebec is so fed up with having the government laugh in its face that it is thinking of reaching out to the people. Considering the federal government's incompetence when it comes to managing its responsibilities, we all know that things would work a …
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Madam Speaker, in its initial version, the bill would have been a huge encroachment on Quebec’s jurisdictions. The Bloc Québécois gave them the benefit of the doubt and thought it might have been a mistake. We therefore proposed amendments to make adjustments and achieve a certain level of asymmetry in the bill. However, we soon realized that it was not a mistake, because the Liberals blocked our …
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her remarks and the tone of her speech. As I mentioned to one of her colleagues earlier today, we appreciate the tone—although we do reserve the right to disagree with the content. We appreciate the tone, especially since it strikes such a sharp contrast with what happened at the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. It was a hapless circus until …
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech and, especially, for the tone of his speech. We may not agree on the content, but I appreciated the thoughtful way he presented his arguments, which is in stark contrast to what happened at the Standing Committee on Natural Resources in December, when the heckling actually prevented informed voting by some members and was a health hazard for the int…
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Mr. Speaker, yesterday, immigration minister Christine Fréchette reiterated the Quebec government's modest demands. There is nothing spectacular or over-the-top about them. The minister is not asking for full powers over immigration; she is asking for the bare minimum. What she is asking for is a fair distribution of asylum seekers among the provinces, reimbursement of the costs associated with ta…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech, even though I only had the pleasure of hearing the second part of it, since we were called back to the House at the last minute. The minister just tabled an update of Canada's defence policy, which will invest $8 billion over the next five years. Most of that money will be invested in the final part of those five years, however. In the first part, …
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Mr. Speaker, last Thursday, the Journal de Montréal reported that police had responded to incidents involving people lining up at food banks. Food insecurity is causing chaos. Community organizations are blaming the dramatic surge in the number of hungry people on the fact that asylum seekers have to wait 21 months for a work permit. One coordinator said, “These people can't work for two years, bu…
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Madam Speaker, the Liberals are boasting about doing something about climate change, but only a few days or weeks ago, their former minister, Catherine McKenna, said that the oil and gas lobbyists had pushed to get tax credits for carbon capture, which should never have happened. That is scandalous. That is $12.5 billion being sent to the oil companies so they can take care of the energy transitio…
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Madam Speaker, all day, and indeed every day for months now, the Conservatives have been blaming the carbon tax for everything. If the culture sector is in trouble, it is because of the carbon tax. If people ask for MAID, it is because of the carbon tax. If people are lining up at food banks, it is because of the carbon tax. It reminds me of Plume Latraverse, who sang “it's El Niño's fault again”.…
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Mr. Speaker, the federal government's decision to unilaterally increase Quebec's immigration targets represents a historic loss of sovereignty for the Quebec state. When Quebec sets its threshold at 50,000, it means 50,000, not 60,000 or 70,000. If the minister wanted to increase family reunification after the thresholds were set, he should have worked with Quebec. For example, he could have sugge…
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Mr. Speaker, just to clarify, no one is against family reunification. We are simply against Ottawa imposing its irresponsible federal policies on Quebec. If the minister had wanted to, he could have negotiated compromises. Let us look at his record. He is forcibly increasing Quebec's immigration targets. He is largely responsible for the record increase in temporary immigration. He is also respons…
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Mr. Speaker, Quebec sets its own immigration targets, as even the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship has repeatedly said. That is why it is all the more unacceptable that the minister ordered his officials, two weeks ago, to exceed the threshold set by Quebec. This is a serious precedent. Going forward, the federal government will no longer interpret Quebec's immigration target as a…
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to let him know that I have read it. The federal government has no lessons to give Quebec on successful immigration. The federal government is the one responsible for plunging immigrants into the worst housing crisis in recent history. The federal government is the one responsible for the lack of services that asylum seekers too often face. It is the federal government's …
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, someone I hold in high regard, for his speech. Like my colleague from Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, I would like him to discuss the issue of opting out with full compensation, but from another angle. Based on what he said at the start of his speech, the key to Quebec's success is that no other government told the province how to set up its early ch…
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his speech. I would like to come back to what my colleague from Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou said about Quebec's specificity and respect for jurisdictions. She said that, although the bill does not recognize Quebec's specificity, respect its knowledge or require the government to give Quebec the right to opt out with full compensation, there is a five-year…
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Mr. Speaker, the Quebec Court of Appeal has just handed down its ruling on the state secularism law, Bill 21. There is a fair bit of consensus in Quebec on this legislation. Quebeckers want a clear separation of church and state, which is what the law guarantees. Now that the Quebec Court of Appeal has rendered its decision, it is clear that the next step will be the Supreme Court. We saw it with …
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I will say it again, Mr. Speaker: Quebec knows what is good for Quebec. We know that French is not only our official language, but it is also our common language and we need to protect it. We know that gender equality is non-negotiable, just like we know that the best way to protect religion is for the state not to have any. That is what Bill 21 is all about. There is a general consensus on that i…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, I am also pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-320, which was introduced by the member for Oshawa. This bill is very much in line with other private members' bills that have been introduced by various members from various parties. These bills demonstrate that there is complete unanimity on this issue, unlike in many other areas. All parties agree when it comes to the issue of protecti…
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Madam Speaker, a few weeks ago, I attended the funeral of a friend's mother who had decided to avail herself of MAID. In her farewell speech to her mother, my friend said the following: Mom, when you told us about your decision, I did not agree because it was going to deprive me of a mother, but I had no choice but to respect your decision, because it was yours to make. I thought it was a testamen…
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Madam Speaker, in response to the ruling you just made, I would invite the Chair to possibly consider the fact that using unparliamentary language about members in general is no less harmful than using it about one member in particular, in my opinion. I would like to hear the Chair on that because even if the comments were not directed at one specified member, they are no less harmful. I think tha…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the minister for his speech. When the Bloc Québécois raised the issue of Quebec's intake and integration capacity, we were accused of being armchair quarterbacks. Even if we let that slide, there is still a recent survey that found that most Canadians and Quebeckers believe that Canada is unable to integrate newcomers properly and that its intake capacity is in…
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Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the member for Beloeil—Chambly, who is the sponsor of this motion, we welcome this request for an amendment.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean for his speech. He spoke about the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship's very scathing tone towards the Bloc Québécois. He called us armchair quarterbacks. Politicians have a thick skin and are capable of handling such insults, but the problem is that if the minister is busy insulting us, it means he is not dealing with the situat…
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a bit intimidating to speak after my leader. I will try not to disappoint him so that I can still come to his office when I want to filch some of his almonds. I was the first to speak last fall during a similar debate on the issue of immigration thresholds and the capacity of Quebec and the provinces to accept immigrants. As the first speaker, I began by expressing the ho…
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Mr. Speaker, in her speech, my colleague talked about the importance of being able to integrate newcomers. That is precisely the crux of our motion. It is to have consultations that will allow for a bit of predictability. What happens is that Canada sets targets, but then we have to try to meet those targets and we realize that we do not have that capacity. We are not the only ones saying so. CMHC…
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Mr. Speaker, I can confirm to my colleague that he is not the only one getting calls about immigration. All of our offices are being contacted, sometimes even by people who live in government members' ridings, if I may take a little shot at them, because they cannot get services from their own member and they know that the Bloc Québécois is good at its job. They are calling us and asking us for he…
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Mr. Speaker, the provinces certainly do have a role to play in immigration, especially Quebec, because of the language issue. The problem is that despite the role Quebec already has, the system is clearly not working, since Quebec's minister of immigration, francization and integration is so fed up that she is threatening to hold a referendum to repatriate all immigration powers. This comes from a…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to come back to what I was saying, which is that the discussion on levels must be comprehensive and must also take place outside the provinces, because there is something called interprovincial migration. All of that has to be taken into account. The housing problem is critical, regardless of immigration categories. People who have always lived here are also struggling to…
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Mr. Speaker, there is a shortfall of 3.5 million housing units according to the CMHC. Meanwhile, the Liberals are increasing immigration levels again in 2024 and 2025. They refuse to spread out asylum seekers among the provinces to alleviate the burden on Quebec. As a result, a heartbroken asylum seeker anonymously told the Journal de Montréal, “I'm scared because I am with my daughter. She is onl…
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Madam Speaker, at the beginning of her speech, the member read the motion. I would like to do the same. The motion reads as follows: That, given that the carbon tax has proven to be a tax plan, not an environmental plan, the House call on the Liberal government to cancel the...carbon tax increase. I would suggest to the member that the tax credits being offered to oil companies for carbon capture …
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