Parliamentary Speeches
284 speeches by Francis Scarpaleggia — Page 1 of 6
Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I recently had a chance to substitute onto the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs for the study of Bill C-61 and I appreciated sitting with the hon. member, whose interventions were quite thoughtful. In his speech, he mentioned the need to improve the competitive environment, to improve competition. That is exactly what the government did through Bill C-59. Those ch…
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Mr. Speaker, we know that water is a provincial resource, but one of the main levers that the federal government has for protecting Canadian water bodies, for ensuring that they are not polluted, is the Fisheries Act. The Fisheries Act prohibits the deposit of deleterious substances into fish-bearing waters, and we know that all waters are essentially fish-bearing. We know that the Conservatives p…
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Mr. Speaker, I always listen intently to the member's speeches, which I appreciate because he is one of the more erudite members of the House. I also appreciate that he actually has lines of argument in his speeches. Lately, we have been hearing steady streams of nothing but vitriol. However, related to this question of giving documents to the RCMP, to an outside third party, is the question of wh…
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Mr. Speaker, education is the key to an individual's success and to the progress of society, whether economic, social, scientific or cultural. The quality of a student's educational experience is dependent upon the passion and creativity of their teachers. I would like to draw the attention of the House to Rosemary Hill, who teaches grade 7 English at Beaconsfield High School and who is a recipien…
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Madam Speaker, the member's speech did not deal specifically with this, but the previous member's speech did. The bill by the Leader of the Opposition on housing was discussed in an article in The Globe and Mail not long ago by Campbell Clark. The headline was about a town in my riding. It was, “Pointe-Claire demonstrates the nonsense in [the Leader of the Opposition]'s housing formula”. Under the…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I have a question for the hon. member. The Conservatives appear to want to leave everything up to developers in a private sector context to build homes, yet the affordability crisis means that we need to build more social housing. Why are the hon. member and his party seemingly against the use of public funds for social housing the way the national housing strategy requires or promo…
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to listen to my colleague, who often shows up at the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development and makes a great contribution to the committee. I would like to address the Conservatives' discourse on climate change. Everything appears to revolve around a single solution, namely, spending government money to develop green technologies. That…
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Madam Speaker, Mark Jaccard, Canada's leading resource economist, evaluated the 2021 election platforms. According to a CBC article, he found, “The Liberals have the most effective, least costly climate change policy of the...federal parties”. The NDP was not even second. The Conservatives were second because they promised a price on carbon. In 2019, Professor Jaccard said, “In climate policy, exp…
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Madam Speaker, the member is a very erudite colleague and I turn to him for answers. Members on the other side are saying that this policy is inflationary, yet in 2008, the Harper government reduced the GST by 1% on everything, in other words, everything in the basket of goods used to calculate the CPI. We are just taking the GST off a very narrowly focused basket of goods for a temporary period o…
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Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot about the cost of food being higher in Canada than in the United States. That is true, but there are many reasons for that. One is economies of scale. The United States has a much larger population. It is the same reason the price of food is lower in cities in Canada than in the regions. Another reason is that wages are much lower in the United States. For example,…
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Madam Speaker, we see with this issue that we are setting a precedent in some way. Yes, we know Parliament is supreme. Of course, Parliament makes errors and it is called to order by the Supreme Court, for example. Parliament is supreme, but in this particular case, we are setting the precedent that Parliament is using its power to obtain documents to give to a third party. Let us forget that it i…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, we know for a fact that the Conservatives do not have an environmental policy. They do not like the price on carbon. They do not like ZEV mandates. They do not like the clean-fuel standard. They do not like an emissions cap on oil and gas. They do not like the clean electricity standard. The only thing they believe in is giving subsidies to businesses to invest in green technology. Th…
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Madam Speaker, this week is Veterans' Week. It is an important time for Canadians to reflect on the work done by members of the Canadian Armed Forces and to commemorate the service of veterans. We know that the well-being of our forces members during and after their service is key to their success. Could the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence tell the House what our govern…
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Madam Speaker, we know that the RCMP does not want the documents. I assume that it does not want to end up with information that should have required a warrant to obtain, which would undermine the investigation. We have seen that in court cases where, if the proper procedures are not followed, the whole case falls apart. My question for the hon. member is this: Why are she and other members of the…
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Madam Speaker, I enjoyed the play-by-play by the hon. member. His eloquence sets the bar very high in this place. I enjoyed, in particular, listening to him speak about his friend Reg, an extraordinary Canadian. In fact, it was by far the most edifying thing I have heard in the House in the last four weeks. Reg and others fought for democratic principles, and one of those principles is the separat…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, Canada has lost a pioneer in global water management. William Cosgrove was a visionary who recognized long ago the crucial importance of water, not only for developing countries struggling with water scarcity for drinking and sanitation but also for a world increasingly in the grips of climate change. Bill's passion for water, the environment and humanitarian development guided a 50-y…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, no, that is not why. The government did its homework. It did an analysis of the demographic situation facing seniors. There were some hard facts about how life changes quite drastically in some ways after the age of 75. For some people, it would not be at age 75, but at age 74. For others, it would be at age 80. We are looking at a general rule here that things become a little tough…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, today we are discussing a very interesting and very important topic. We are touching on two important issues. The first is the situation of our seniors. The second is the state of our public finances, especially when the government is dealing with certain constraints that might limit what it can do with the programs it wants to develop. In all honestly, I do not think we can accuse …
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Madam Speaker, the government did not promise the Bloc Québécois anything. I have no other answer for my colleague.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, what I was saying is that there are budget constraints. Members often talk about Canada's deficit. In my opinion, it is a reasonable deficit because it pays for various programs to provide support to many people. However, according to the Bank of Canada, if the deficit were to increase any further, it could throw fuel on the inflationary fire. Members should ask themselves whether i…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, in Quebec and across Canada, we are dealing with a housing crisis that is having an impact on people's lives. We need to build more housing more quickly to help Quebeckers and Canadians access affordable housing that meets their needs. Can the Minister of Public Services and Procurement explain to the people of my riding, Lac-Saint-Louis, what our government is doing to create more af…
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Madam Speaker, it gives me pleasure to rise to speak to this motion. What I see from this motion is the kind of attention-seeking hyperbole that is becoming the trademark of politics south of the border and the trademark of a certain presidential candidate south of the border. It is the kind of discourse that inserts phrases like, “best ever”, “worst economy”, “best market performance”, “nuclear w…
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Madam Speaker, it will have a tremendous impact. I think it was the Minister of Health who mentioned it the other day during question period. Thanks to the program, people can now get a dental checkup. Some dentists have already found cancers. We can expect many lives to be saved under this program.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I am extremely concerned about the health care system. Many of my constituents are afraid to get sick. They would not know where to turn. They do not want to go to the emergency department. They might have to wait 48 hours and get sick while they are at emergency. The federal government is a funder of health care, and a recent study showed that we have increased our transfers to the…
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Madam Speaker, there is a lot of work left to do in the best interests of Canadians. We know that dental care is in the process of being rolled out. We know that the opposition does not believe dental care exists, even though people are signing up and even though dentists are signing up. The third phase of the program needs to be rolled out, and an election now would interrupt that. We cannot take…
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Madam Speaker, unfortunately, I am not part of the government. I am a duly elected member of Parliament, but I do not hold a cabinet position. As far as old age security is concerned, obviously there is a financial framework. There are many programs that could be improved. There is the Canada child benefit, the Canada disability benefit. We could improve the child care system. Choices have to be m…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, at heart Dennis Smith was a storyteller. He applied this gift as a teacher to impart knowledge and insights to his students about the world around them. Following a career in education, Dennis made the leap to politics. He was a campaign volunteer and then a constituency assistant to both my predecessor Clifford Lincoln and me. Dennis worked for the “no” side in the 1995 Quebec refere…
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Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the debate. Perhaps it is the late hour, but I find that the Conservatives, as well as the Bloc Québécois, are resorting to slogans and easy solutions. They are overlooking certain realities to convey a simplistic message. It is true that the federal debt is much higher than it was before the pandemic. Relative to GDP, the federal debt is still at a decent lev…
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Mr. Speaker, does my colleague oppose the fact that the federal government made these expenditures during the pandemic? Does he oppose the money transferred to Quebec for child care?
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Madam Speaker, I think it is very important to clarify something for the people at home. When we talk about requesting data from the government, we are not talking about hypersensitive data or national state secrets. We are talking about bits and bytes. We are basically talking about computer code. It is not even an Excel spreadsheet, as the member for Kingston and the Islands has said. The headli…
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Madam Speaker, I take umbrage at my colleagues' characterization of what I said about calculating emissions from the price on carbon. The Conservatives clipped what I said in committee and put it on Twitter, and I got some attention in my riding for that, which I appreciate because people pay attention when something is on Twitter. However, what I was saying is that the reductions in emissions fro…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, to build more homes and build them faster, Liberals know that municipalities need funding to accelerate the construction of critical housing infrastructure. Through our new Canada housing infrastructure fund, we are going to help municipalities do just that. Can the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities share the Liberals' plan to support t…
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Madam Speaker, I will go back to the issue of source water and what I was saying before in my speech about the community of Fort Chipewyan. The community is concerned in terms of the quality of its water and the impact that water might be having on the health of members of the community. Alberta Health Services has the data to be able to do a longitudinal study of cancer rates in Fort Chipewyan. I…
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Madam Speaker, the answer is yes, from my point of view. I think this is a major problem. We have oil sands operations on Treaty 8 land, yet somehow we cannot control the damage that is being done to those treaty lands. There is a problem somewhere. The member knows much more about this than I do. If the problem is in the definitions, and if there is a way to expand those definitions, then I would…
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Edmonton Griesbach. I really welcome the legislation and the debate. I have been interested in the issue for some time. As a matter of fact, the House environment committee is currently completing a rather broad and lengthy study of water policy in Canada, specifically federal water policy. We did have a unit, a module if I can call it t…
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Madam Speaker, I do not remember, to be honest, but I will retract anything that could be heard as offensive.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I understand and I apologize. I am aware of that. I slipped a bit. It is an emblematic issue because if we cannot solve this problem in conjunction with first nations, how can we have confidence that we can manage our water resources more generally in this country? It is an important issue because it involves the health of first nations, and it is an emblematic issue because it says…
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Madam Speaker, we have invested more over a long period of time. The other point I would like to make is that the government actually created a department to deal specifically with indigenous services. It reorganized government so that it could better attack this problem, and I think that is important.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I do not believe that I was being overly optimistic. I was very clear and I said that the challenges were enormous. The fact remains that there are far fewer boil water advisories than there were in 2015. The situation is far from perfect. Additional funding is required to solve all these issues. There are systems that are on the verge of being operational. In 1% of cases, a feasibi…
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Madam Speaker, the CEOs of five big oil companies are coming to the environment committee on Thursday. We know these companies are keeping the prices high, earning excess profits and not reinvesting those profits. Does the member think those companies should be broken up into lots of little companies? Would he vote for something like that, or does he take his marching orders from the gas tax-hikin…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, the National Field of Honour in my riding of Lac-Saint-Louis provides a resting place for over 17,000 military service members and their immediate families. It is also a valued space for the community to regularly gather to honour those who have served and fought for Canada. On Sunday, veterans, veterans' families and many other people will gather at the National Field of Honour along…
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Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with the member for Nepean. I will begin my remarks by saying that it pains me to see the Bloc and the Conservatives arguing, when they are often on the same wavelength. Getting to the substance of my speech, I would like to examine the assumptions underlying this motion. The first is that the federal government is som…
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Madam Speaker, I am familiar with that idea. I heard those arguments when we were debating Bill C‑11, but I truly believe that there are advantages to having the provinces, the Quebec nation, first nations and every other group of Canadians work together to act as a counterbalance to this power south of the border that I am just as wary of as the member. It takes a counterbalance. If we are divide…
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Madam Speaker, the member has touched on something I care deeply about. With a few others, I met the president of McGill, Deep Saini, yesterday. I thought I knew how badly McGill is being treated by the Quebec government. I did not know the half of it until I really saw the facts. It is the 28th-best university in the world. Its graduates have gone on to create companies such as Intel. What is goo…
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Madam Speaker, I was very pleased to hear my colleague talk about the national dental care program. They say that the federal government is interfering in an area under Quebec's jurisdiction, but many Quebeckers are benefiting or will benefit from this program. What does the member think those Quebeckers would say if they were told they had to do without the program in order to protect provincial …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, the Minister of Sport and Physical Activity has said all along that Canadians deserve a safe, inclusive and welcoming sport system. Our sport system needs to be grounded in human rights. Accountability, integrity and safety need to be at the centre of sport governance and operations. Can the minister update the House on her progress to create a safer sports system in Canada, one tha…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 11th report of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development in relation to Bill C‑317, An Act to establish a national strategy respecting flood and drought forecasting. The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.
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Madam Speaker, climate change means more flooding events of increasing intensity and severity. Homeowners in areas prone to flooding, like those in parts of Pierrefonds, in my riding, who were hit by flooding in 2017 and in 2019, worry about the rising cost of flood insurance, and that is if they are lucky enough to remain eligible for flood insurance coverage. Can the Minister of Emergency Prepar…
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Madam Speaker, the facts seem to contradict what the hon. member is saying. Canada is one of the top countries for attracting direct foreign investment. In fact, it is the top country per capita in attracting direct foreign investment. However, I will admit that there are pressures on capital in Canada to go to the United States specifically in green industries, and that pressure was caused by a $…
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member claims that no investments have been made in infrastructure. We know that the Canada Infrastructure Bank invested in the REM project in Montreal, a fantastic project. The Champlain Bridge was rebuilt using federal funds. That is why I am struggling to understand what he means. In other words, is that money down the drain? The member seems to be saying that all of thi…
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