Parliamentary Speeches
2,337 speeches by Francis Scarpaleggia — Page 41 of 47
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…
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Madam Speaker, the government did not promise the Bloc Québécois anything. I have no other answer for my colleague.
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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…
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Mr. Speaker, not only is tourism a driving force of economic development, but it is also a matter of pride, pride in sharing our beautiful and magnificent country with the entire world. Tourism exists in every community in the country. It is therefore not surprising that it contributes $43 billion per year to our GDP, while creating two million jobs. Can the Minister of Tourism tell us how our gov…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I have a certificate for an e-petition that has gathered 1,263 signatures. The petition asks that the Government of Canada consider making a full public commitment in 2024 to assuming oversight, management and funding of the Last Post Fund's National Field of Honour, in view of the cemetery's unique national significance, as called for by the Last Post Fund itself.
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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, 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…
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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, 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 →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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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…
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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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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 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.
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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, 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 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, 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.
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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 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 →Private Members' Business
moved that the bill be read the third time and passed. Madam Speaker, before I begin my speech, I would like to extend some thanks. I would like to thank all the members of the House, particularly those who serve on the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. As we know, the bill was endorsed by all the parties. It received unanimous support, and I am very pleased about that…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, thousands of seniors, including seniors in my riding of Lac-Saint-Louis, have already been to the dentist for care paid for by the Canadian dental care plan. However, the opposition continues to strongly oppose this program. The Leader of the Opposition has even gone so far as to stick his head in the sand and say that the program does not exist. Can the Minister of Public Services …
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moved that the bill be concurred in at report stage.
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, I do not agree that the current government has not taken seriously the environment in general, and climate change more specifically. Of all the governments in the history of Canada, ours is the one that has put forth the most ambitious and most multi-faceted environmental policies, including in the area of climate change. We fought all the way to the Supreme Court to protect an Envi…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, that is a very good point. I agree that the people who join the Armed Forces probably have their eye more on serving in conflict zones and so forth. However, yes, from time to time in all countries, the military is called upon to lend a helping hand in situations of emergency. I do believe that the government has stood up a humanitarian force to deal more specifically with domestic …
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Madam Speaker, as I said in other speeches, weather management is really a federal responsibility. The Canadian Meteorological Centre manages weather forecasts. I am talking about weather forecasting and how to make better predictions. That is already being done. Forecasters are already talking about it, but we need something a little more structured.
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, I think I really said all I had to say about this bill. I hope it passes today. I would like to see it pass on division and get through all the stages in the Senate fairly quickly. We are running out of time. As just about everyone has said today, climate change is creating disastrous conditions. We need to do a better job of forecasting them if we want to minimize costs. I know the…
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Madam Speaker, there are many who say that because our emissions are so small compared to global emissions, we should not do anything. How does the member respond to that logic?
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Madam Speaker, I have three questions for the member. First, the Supreme Court has said the price on carbon is not a tax; does the member agree or disagree with the Supreme Court? Second, I would like to know why the Leader of the Opposition will not state his view on the output-based pricing system. Why is he hiding? Third, I would like a comment from the member about the PBO's retracting the rep…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Nedia El Khouri, a gifted artist, dedicated arts activist and dynamic entrepreneur, who is a 2024 recipient of the Montreal Council of Women's Woman of the Year Award. Past recipients of this prestigious award include Sheila Goldbloom, Chantal Hébert and Margaret Trudeau, among others. In 2009, drawing on her passion for art and art education and on a stro…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I note that the member is admitting that it was an error on the part of the Liberal Party. Political party business is of no concern to the House of Commons. In fact, when a member rises during question period to ask a question dealing exclusively with party business, the Speaker rises to say that this is out of order in the House. I would ask, therefore, why the member and her part…
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, 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 …
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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, 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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Madam Speaker, I agree. They are not just doing that with the blue seal program. They are doing it with climate change by suggesting there is some kind of magic bullet that does not cost anybody anything and we can magically get rid of greenhouse gas emissions. Yes, they need to be more forthcoming—
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Madam Speaker, the opposition needs to be more forthcoming and be a little more direct and frank with Canadians.
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Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to stand today and speak in support of this bill to bring in the first stages of national pharmacare to this country. Pharmacare has figured as a commitment in the Liberal platform. I would go further and say that it is an extension, really, of an arc of social justice that began many decades ago with hospital insurance. Before we had medicare, we had hospital insu…
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Madam Speaker, the whole issue around pharmacoeconomics is very complex because governments look at the potential benefits of drug use versus the costs, and it becomes a budgetary and political decision. What we are doing with pharmacare is providing more funding so we can surmount these political and budgetary obstacles to providing Canadians with the drugs they need for free.
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Madam Speaker, the first thing I would say is that I hope those individuals will not end up working in the health minister's office. That would be a tragedy, of course. However, what is important is that we have a lobbyist registration system and that lobbyist registration system ensures we have the kind of information the hon. member has taken good care to collate and to share with the House and …
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