Parliamentary Speeches
473 speeches by Christine Normandin — Page 4 of 10
Government Orders
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 …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the CMHC report confirms that the housing crisis is worse than ever. The vacancy rate is the lowest it has been in 20 years. Rents are up 8%, and finding a new home in Quebec is 17% more expensive. Why is this happening? It is because the population is growing too quickly. To be clear, immigrants are not responsible for the housing crisis. The Liberals are to blame, thanks to their ou…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
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…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I usually enjoy the speeches by my colleague from Kingston and the Islands, but this time I must admit to being particularly disappointed, because what I just heard was mud-slinging. I do not even need to get to the substance of the matter, namely whether the actions of the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle were or were not legitimate. I do not need to go there, because what is happening r…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, the federal government is trying to pick a fight on dental care for no reason. Quebec agrees with expanding coverage, and Ottawa knows that. The difference is that Quebec wanted to expand coverage through the RAMQ public plan. Instead, the Liberals and the NDP decided to favour a private company, Sun Life Insurance, over the public plan. We no longer have the left-leaning parties we…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, we are not trying to pick a fight. We are trying to protect our jurisdictions. Protecting our jurisdictions means protecting our ability, as a nation, to make different choices. Quebec wanted better dental coverage through the public plan, but thanks to the Liberals and the NDP, what we are going to end up with is more private coverage through an insurance company, and not just any …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I cannot say I welcome the opportunity to take part in this discussion today. In light of what we have just heard, it is clear that this debate is unfortunately extremely important. We suspected that we might end up debating the issue of confidence in the Speaker of the House on a question of impartiality. I will bring everyone back to when he was elected and quote our House leader, t…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I would like to pick up on the question asked by my colleague from Calgary Rocky Ridge. This bill has been debated several times at the Senate. It was supposed to be debated here in the House since Parliament opened, but it has been deferred several times. This bill has garnered fairly broad consensus. It was passed quickly in the Senate because it is relatively simple. We are talki…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Madam Speaker, 50 years or a whole lifetime of volunteering is an incredible accomplishment. That is why I am rising today to pay tribute to an equally incredible woman, Hélène Ladouceur. Hélène is a Royal Military College Saint-Jean icon, especially since she was recently inducted into the institution's hall of fame. She first became involved with the college shortly after she moved to the area i…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, after taking into account the Speaker's ruling, I still hope that the government will want to quickly bring the matter to a vote or that, at least, in the meantime, the Speaker of the House might decide to step down himself, so that the work of the House can continue without this frankly unnecessary distraction. I see that I do not have much time left, so I just want to quickly say …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois supports what the House leader of the official opposition, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle , said about making this motion a priority, a parliamentary privilege motion. I would also like to add that new incidents have come to light in the media since we debated the question of parliamentary privilege to refer the matter to the Standing Committee on Procedure and …
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I am speaking on behalf of the member for Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix, who would like to change her vote in order to vote against the motion. She experienced technical problems with the voting application.
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, members of Parliament and all of the staff of the House are preparing to finally leave Parliament Hill for the holidays. However, for many Quebeckers, this will not be a time to rest and celebrate. Instead, they will be working hard, far from their families, just because their employer cannot do without them. In addition to these nurses, truckers and service workers, there are also es…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a simple question. She made a long speech about the Senate respecting the decisions of the House of Commons. Would she be willing to repeat her speech in its entirety and present exactly the same message, but simply replace Bill C-234 with Bill C-282, which deals with supply management?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford for his speech. I appreciated almost all of it, except the part where he said the NDP was the only party that has supported the abolition of the Senate. I would like to remind him that this is also the position of the Bloc Québécois. On this matter, our decisions are predictable. This allows the people who vote for us t…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, before I begin my remarks on the report of the Standing Committee on National Defence concerning the Arctic, I would like to briefly touch on the other debate that was supposed to take place today, on Bill C-57, which implements a free trade agreement between Canada and Ukraine. In the questions I asked earlier today, particularly to the hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill, I mentione…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Winnipeg North because he always finds a way to wake up the House, even on a Friday afternoon. We appreciate that very much. I heard him ask the Conservatives where they would get the money if they wanted to increase defence spending. The consensus in committee is that defence spending cannot be cut. We have a lot of questions about how the $900 million in cuts …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, yesterday, Pierre Karl Péladeau made it clear that the traditional television business model is broken. We have to go back to the drawing board. Television, radio and newspapers all face the same dilemma. Unless we make a fresh start and acknowledge the scope of the crisis facing our media industry, our access to information, to our creators and to our culture will come under threat…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill for her speech. I heard her make various comments about the content of the agreement. More generally speaking, we know that MPs have almost no power to change the content of international treaties. They can only agree or disagree with the agreement. We are not able to propose amendments. The role of parliamentarians is very limited. Member…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to serve with my colleague on the Standing Committee on National Defence, where something rather remarkable happens often, that is, members reach a consensus. One thing that came up a lot during our study on the Arctic and other studies we have done, particularly during discussions of the spy balloons intercepted over Canada, is the fact that Canada's Arctic radar cov…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, yesterday, TVA announced the elimination of 547 jobs. This is a dark day for both the company and Quebec television. The Bloc Québécois stands in solidarity with the men and women who are being laid off today after giving of their time and talent to TVA for years. Traditional television has been threatened for a long time. Everyone knows it, but nothing has been done. What more will…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, in a response to a question from the Bloc Québécois yesterday, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship said that questioning Quebec's capacity to integrate immigrants showed bad faith and was essentially a refusal to listen to what is going on. Let me tell members what shows bad faith: setting record immigration thresholds without even trying to determine our integration…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois motion that the minister will be supporting later today is about successful immigration. Immigration cannot be successful when thresholds do not take integration capacity into consideration. Indeed, the Conference Board of Canada indicated yesterday that the number of disappointed immigrants who end up leaving Canada has skyrocketed. In 2017 alone, 60,000 immigrants…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, Quebec has confirmed that it was not consulted. This means that the immigration thresholds that the minister will unveil shortly do not take into account the availability of health care. They do not take into account space in our schools. They do not take into account child care spaces. They do not take into account capacity for French-language training. They do not take into account …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, in my speech, I talked about how Quebec conducted real consultations with many stakeholders before announcing its immigration thresholds. It seems as though the federal government did exactly the opposite. It started with the Century Initiative, where some people announced a goal of increasing immigration admissions to 500,000, and the government ran with it. When we asked whether tho…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I want to make one thing very clear. I never said in my speech that immigration was responsible for the housing shortage. However, there actually is a housing shortage, and because of that housing shortage, we cannot properly integrate newcomers. That was my point. We could spend all day debating the housing issue. It could even be the subject of an opposition day motion someday, who …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke at length about the housing issue. One aspect he mentioned was people with construction skills who could help build housing. However, I would like to hear him talk about an underlying factor in housing construction, namely infrastructure. If municipal infrastructure is inadequate, we cannot increase the number of available housing units. In our view, this is also pa…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the debate we are having today is not about setting thresholds. The aim is to ensure that talks with the provinces at least get started, which has not happened, despite Canada's legal obligation to do so. When Manitoba decided to have programs, there was more latitude on immigration, which was great. I am pleased that Quebec has programs, although more are needed. There is a language …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, consultation is a two-way street, and it means listening, not making nonsensical accusations against the other party. The government is going to table its new immigration thresholds tomorrow. As it promised in the press, it will take into account integration capacity with respect to health care, housing and infrastructure, and it will engage in planning with the provinces. The governm…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Toronto Star reported that, from now on, Ottawa will set its immigration thresholds according to provincial integration capacity in terms of housing, health care and infrastructure. This means that the federal government will have to consult Quebec about its integration capacity before announcing its new immigration thresholds. However, on October 4, Quebec's immigration minister,…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, we do get the impression that the government is building the airplane in mid-flight. It is particularly deplorable when it concerns human beings. Ultimately, this is all about human beings. These are not numbers or files. I will even say that these are not clients or cases, either. These issues are far more human and the government is losing sight of that. It is setting thresholds wit…
Read full speech →Government Orders
moved: That the House call on the government to review its immigration targets starting in 2024, after consultation with Quebec, the provinces and territories, based on their integration capacity, particularly in terms of housing, health care, education, French language training and transportation infrastructure, all with a view to successful immigration. Mr. Speaker, I will begin by informing you…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, just like my colleague from Joliette, who eloquently covered many points just before I rose, and my colleague from Rivière-du-Nord, who also spoke during the study of this bill, I too reiterate the Bloc Québécois's support for Bill S-205. The goal of this bill, offering better protection to victims of domestic violence, is definitely commendable. As we know, statistics show the sad …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I gather that my colleague said the Conservatives are going to vote against Bill C‑52, partly because a number of entities were left out of it. He specifically mentioned the Canada Border Services Agency. I do not think we should necessarily vote against a bill because something is missing from it. We should pass it at second reading instead to send it back to committee, where const…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, it is odd. Yesterday, when the Bloc Québécois said that we needed to review immigration levels, the Liberals accused the Bloc of being against immigration, but when the Liberals are the ones reviewing those levels, like they are currently doing, then that absolutely does not mean they are against immigration. When they do it, then it is okay, but when someone else does it, it is bad. …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, Radio-Canada has revealed that the Liberals are considering reviewing immigration thresholds for 2026 because of the housing crisis. The Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship has even confirmed that he plans to say more on November 1. However, Ottawa is still reviewing its thresholds without talking to Quebec and the provinces, despite the fact that Quebec and the province…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about a young athlete from my riding who recently took part in the World Rowing Sprint Finals, which were held in Barletta, Italy, earlier this month. Ella-Rose Duval developed an interest in rowing in 2020 while watching the Tokyo Olympic Games. Just two years later, she competed in the Canada Games and then qualified for the World Games, but this time in coastal…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, there is every indication that humanitarian aid could finally reach Gaza today, but let us not kid ourselves. We already know that that aid will be insufficient. We already know that only 20 trucks will be allowed to pass when the UN is saying that a minimum of 100 trucks is required every day. As we speak, tons of humanitarian aid is sitting on the tarmac of an Egyptian airport becau…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, we all hope that there is a light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to this terrible war, but we can see that dark times lie ahead. Many countries, including Canada, are calling on their citizens to flee Lebanon, and that speaks volumes. Everyone expects the conflict in Gaza to grow. By all indications, the humanitarian crisis will get worse while the humanitarian aid is already …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Edmonton Strathcona for her question and for her always rousing pleas on behalf of civilians and all those who are in difficult situations, who are experiencing war. I know she cares a lot about that, and I thank her for her work in that regard. I do not claim to have an answer for her, unfortunately, and I think that it would be wrong for anyone, particularl…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the short answer is yes. From the outside, the two-state solution is the one I see as the best, but, once again, this is with all the nuance and reserve one must have when perceiving the conflict from the outside. As has been said several times this evening, the two-state solution is not possible as long as Hamas still exists, hence the importance of eliminating Hamas. To build on a p…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned a little bit in my speech, I think that two of the actions that can be taken have already been taken by parliamentarians. The purpose of the question was to determine what parliamentarians can do. On the one hand, we must condemn the situation, which we have done unanimously. We must condemn the hateful demonstrations that occurred in various places and the individual h…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I think that any measures that will spare civilian lives must be considered and, ideally, implemented by Israel, because Hamas cannot be expected to do so. I nevertheless remain realistic. If we want to prevent this from happening again in the future, if we want to entertain the prospect of peace, Hamas also must be eliminated. If there were some way to do this without any loss of hum…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, there is only one way for me to start my intervention tonight, and that is by taking a moment to reflect on the victims of the violence over the last few days. I am talking about both Israeli and Palestinian victims, on Israeli soil and Palestinian soil and elsewhere in the world. I will come back to that second aspect. Alongside my colleagues in the House who have spoken with one voi…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the news piece talked about a specific case, but it is hard to believe it is the only one. It is even harder to believe that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has control over the situation after it lost track of one million temporary immigrants. Obviously we need to prevent this illegal exploitation in our country from happening and crack down on criminal enterprises, but …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, here is my take on Bill C-49. Climate change is like watching a bathtub that is about to overflow. Relying on offshore wind power would be like using a spoon to try to empty the bathtub. Meanwhile, this bill keeps the tap running full blast. That is what this government is doing, because it is going to double oil production off the coast of Newfoundland. I would like to hear my collea…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, this week Radio-Canada did a piece on foreign workers who are being exploited by the multinational Newrest. They were told that if they came to Canada on a tourist visa and they worked for the company, they would be given a work permit later. Obviously that is not true, and the workers are subjected to illegal working conditions under the threat of expulsion. According to the Immigran…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, this week, the Chair made several interventions on two subjects: the tone of exchanges in the House and the importance of ensuring that opposition questions are addressed to the government. I would argue that I met those two criteria today. I calmly asked the Minister of Immigration, who represents the government, important questions on a serious topic. I would like clarification from…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, there is indeed a cost associated with inaction. I get the impression that certain things have been included in this bill simply to make us believe that they really want to tackle climate change. For example, the bill provides for the withdrawal of petroleum exploration licences. However, seeing that the government is allowing petroleum production to double in northern Newfoundland, d…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, the oil and gas sector caused a 2.1% increase in greenhouse gas emissions, and yet the government is not cracking down on oil companies. Instead, it is rewarding them. Last week, the government announced that it wanted to double oil production off the coast of Newfoundland. Oil companies are polluting so much that they are increasing the entire country's emissions. However, instead …
Read full speech →